Politics

This comes a few weeks after the news that Google will be updating its political ad policy to forbid ad targeting based on any factors aside from age, gender, and location, which would prevent political campaigns from filtering their audience by voting records and party membership. When Google announced that policy last month, Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale accused “Political elites & Big Tech” of trying to “rig elections” and “targeting Trump.” Democrats weren’t too thrilled about the change, either. Tara McGowan, founder of the new Democratic super PAC Acronym, texted the New York Times that the change is “outrageous” and “will hinder campaigns and (others) who are already working against the tide against bad actors to reach voters with facts.” … [Read more...] about Donald Trump to Freak Out About Political Ads on Google in 3, 2, 1

It’s long been taboo to discuss politics in the workplace, and as the national atmosphere becomes more politically charged, arguments have grown both for and against bringing political discussions to professional settings. The Onion looks at the pros and cons of talking politics at work. … [Read more...] about Pros And Cons Of Talking Politics At Work

Let’s start with gerrymandering—that is, when a political party shapes the boundaries of an electorate so it favors them—which the Supremes already ruled could not be done on the basis of race. The question before them was whether political gerrymandering, that is, gaming political maps so they disproportionately benefited their parties—was just as unconstitutional. … [Read more...] about SCOTUS Blocks Census Citizenship Question, but Rules Political Gerrymandering Constitutional

Gina Apostol’s novel Insurrecto is a tale of dual visions and dueling scripts, one written by an American filmmaker, Chiara Brasi, and the other by a Filipino writer and translator, Magsalin. Magsalin isn’t given a last name, and this reader suspects that her first is a fake one: magsalin, we are told, means to translate in Tagalog. She is what she does in the eyes of the white foreigner, what she does for her. Translation is a precarious occupation, a profession historically populated by people in slavery or servitude who, defeated by enemy armies, were forced to interpret their native language for the benefit of their captors. These translators’ relationships—to language, to nation, to family—were uneasy ones, and conquerors tended to view these natives-made-other, these double-tongued strangers, with suspicion. This mistrust lingers, still, in the Italian idiom: traduttore, traditore. Translator, traitor. … [Read more...] about The Fractured Politics of Naming

But in summation, to catch us up on this month’s someone-asked-to-leave-a-Starbucks headlines, all parties involved are calmly discussing an incident in which no one was slapped, spit on, or injured. Feelings have been heard. Olive branches have been offered. It’s unclear whether there was a group hug. … [Read more...] about Everyone acting exceedingly polite in this Starbucks-cops kerfuffle