I will never forget having to edit Jamal’s final, posthumous piece for the Washington Post, after he was murdered.
He was calling for free expression in the Arab world. You can read it here :
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/glo...
It's hard to express what it meant to watch Maurice, Natalia, Celeste, and Rhea tell their stories—in their own voices—this morning.
The segment revealed a brutal reality: homelessness at this scale isn't about personal failure. It's the result of policy choices and systems built to exploit people.
From The Maris Review newsletter: There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone Speaking of dystopias, what a fitting read for the week when SNAP benefits have halted for 40 million Americans. I wrote a whole book about how being hardworking and industrious does not guarantee success in life for the middle class but despite my disappointments I am safe and secure and I have dozens of safety nets. Brian Goldstone's devastating and impeccably reported book, which follows the plight of five housing insecure families in Atlanta, shows how the real tragedy of our time is that hard work doesn't even guarantee a place to live in today's America. Goldstone shows how the US government (both sides of the aisle) likes to believe that only people who live on the streets count as homeless, and so much of their struggle has to do with mental illness. Residents of extended stay motels are not counted, even though they We like to imagine that all people who are getting paid by employers can meet their basic needs, and that is simply not the case. Is this a failing of the individual worker? Fuck, no. Obviously not. Rents have skyrocketed while the minimum wage has stagnated. The rich get richer, etc. One mother whom Goldstone followed was asked by a shelter to take a financial literacy course, and her rejoinder sums up the problem. "What kind of 'financial literacy' would make it easier to afford $380 a week rent on a $12-an-hour wage?" It doesn't have to be like this.
I wasn't expecting to come across these generous words about There Is No Place for Us in @maris.bsky.social's Maris Review today. So moved by her description of it as "an impeccably reported book" that "shows how the real tragedy of our time is that hard work doesn't even guarantee a place to live."
The government of Jamaica has set up a portal for contributing to official relief efforts. I will update this thread if anything analogous opens up for Haiti, Cuba, or the DR
supportjamaica.gov.jm
SNAP, the country's largest anti-hunger program, dates back to the Great Depression and has never been disrupted this way. Most recipients are seniors, families with kids, and those with disabilities.
A stat we don't talk about enough: Newspapers have lost 77% of their jobs over the last 20 year, more than any of the 532 other industries tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Tell your children who the cowards were.”
Truly moved and thankful for this remarkably generous, in-depth review in @nybooks.com.
"The great virtue of There Is No Place for Us is its refusal to look away from the disheartening reality it depicts, or from the depth and pervasiveness of the problem and the pain it causes people."
We’re thrilled to share that Mya Frazier's article, “Power failure,” a collaboration between FERN and Switchyard Magazine, was the winner of a 2025 CCNow Journalism Award!
More than a century and a half ago, this country ignored the explicit words of men who sought to raise an empire of slavery. It subsequently transformed those men into gallant knights who sought only to preserve their beloved Camelot. There was a fatigue, in certain quarters, with Reconstruction—which is to say, multiracial democracy—and a desire for reunion, to make America great again. Thus, in the late 19th century and much of the 20th, this country’s most storied intellectuals transfigured hate-mongers into heroes and ignored their words—just as, right now, some are ignoring Kirk’s.
Ta-Nehisi Coates's piece on the thing is the best one I've seen. www.vanityfair.com/news/story/c...
Headline from The Intercept: "Trump’s Chicago Occupation Could Cost Four Times More Than Housing City Homeless -- Sending troops to Chicago could cost $1.6 million per day, four times as much as housing the city’s homeless — plus it’s illegal, experts say." September 3 2025. By Nick Turse
This truth bears repeating, again and again.
theintercept.com/2025/09/03/t...
"Among those detained were South Korean employees on business travel....
"The raid could raise concerns for South Korean companies that are sending personnel to the US and hiring locally."
It comes weeks after Hyundai pledged $26 billion in US investments.
Gift link ⬇️
www.wsj.com/us-news/u-s-...
Gradient blue background with the Internet Archive logo modified so that two of its four pillars make the characters 1 T, for one trillion web pages. Testimonial text reads: "The Wayback Machine is like digital memory for the collective consciousness." Signed Md. Zahid H., Dhaka, Bangladesh
The web changes quickly. The Wayback Machine remembers—preserving voices, stories & culture for future generations.
📝 Tell us why the #WaybackMachine is important to you ⤵️
forms.gle/c3XqotHUToKe...
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#Wayback1T
Seizure medication, wheelchairs, Social Security cards, dentures, urns of ashes, work uniforms — just some of what's been thrown away during cruel, degrading, utterly counterproductive homeless sweeps.
A good time to revisit this gutting @propublica.org story:
Profoundly grateful that my book continues to resonate with those in the trenches of this fight. @cafreema.bsky.social's reflections are powerful:
"Our society and government must make housing available to ALL. We must destroy housing as a commodity and recognize it as the human right it is."
If you didn’t hear this story from Anas Baba on NPR today, you should take a listen.
He walked 3 hours to find a working internet connection to file the story
www.npr.org/2025/07/25/n...
“The expression ‘skin and bones’ doesn’t do it justice. I saw the severity of malnutrition that I would not have thought possible in a civilized world. This is man-made starvation being used as a weapon of war..."
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/w...
The images of children starved to death in Gaza should be the lead of every news program.
Soldiers opening fire on starving people who are trying to get food. This is genocide.
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/20/w...
Roughly 12 million Americans are expected to lose their health insurance over the next decade—and now they'll get to watch their credit scores collapse too.
This country is a machine for manufacturing needless suffering.
A lovely essay by @alecmac.bsky.social
"At a time when the rush of events seems particularly frenzied and overwhelming, the magazines have come to seem the ideal medium—a medium, quite literally, in that they are mediating the crush."
mailchi.mp/sundaylongre...
An estimated 47.4 million Americans suffered from hunger last year.
13.8 million were children.
Now this country is set to strip SNAP benefits from *two million* more people—while allocating over $100 billion to "help squads of men in masks" terrorize immigrants.
A searing essay by Tracy Kidder:
I don't subscribe to many newsletters. Andrea Pitzer's is among the best. Well worth your time.
BREAKING: The City of Detroit is suing a cryptocurrency-based real estate company RealT for failing to maintain hundreds of rental properties across the city, following investigations by @outliermedia.org.
outliermedia.org/realt-lawsui...
Incredible reporting from @outliermedia.org on how property speculators have undermined stable and safe housing for Detroit renters.
