Links for Monday, May 8th

Look, I’m not going to pretend with you; we all know things are bad out there. Really, really bad. I assume by now you are only too well-acquainted with the various horrors of the American Health Care Act, passed by the House last Thursday. If you need to laugh a little in spite of it all, Jaya Saxena is very funny:

Here are the things Republicans are trying to add to the pre-existing conditions list . . . :
- Used WebMD too many times
- Horniness
- Breathing too much
- Asked a Congressman a question during a Town Hall
- Got stressed while watching The Handmaid’s Tale
- Saw a cigarette

Now let’s make them pay.

2017: When you celebrate because France did not elect a fascist.

Former police officer Roy Oliver has been charged for the murder of fifteen-year-old Jordan Edwards.

This is one of the worst stories I have ever read. And so is this.

Dressing for dystopia

Writers of Color Discussing Craft - An Invisible Archive

We may not know one another well but I just assume that “ready to get lost in an in-depth medium-longread about thieves who steal entire sunken warships, right down to the bolts” is your default state, as it is mine.

Yes I realize I include a Jia Tolentino piece in basically every one of these roundups, but can you blame me:

“Women Who Work” is written for an audience whose greatest obstacles are internal, and Ivanka’s advice is, once again, Ivanka-specific. Where, as a twentysomething, she advised women to go into the office on Sundays, she now counsels women to ask for flextime and commit to sending e-mails at night. By the end of the book, she’s basically speaking to no one . . . In one chapter, she writes, with a sense of courage that is jaw-droppingly misplaced, “If I can help celebrate the fact that I’m a superengaged mom and unabashedly ambitious entrepreneur, that yes, I’m on a construction site in the morning and at the dinner table with my kids in the evening, I’m going to do that.” And why wouldn’t she? Who wouldn’t celebrate that level of ability and accomplishment—except, maybe, the type of man who would say that putting your wife to work is a dangerous thing? The fundamental dishonesty of Ivanka Trump’s book is clearest in the fact that she never acknowledges the difficulty of knowing, or being governed by, anyone like that.

Pilot Viruet on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, a show I love, which finally took on the subject of racist cops:

Most of “Moo Moo” actually proves why Brooklyn Nine-Nine is an ideal show to tackle this story line, and it’s not just because the jokes help to keep things light and move it along. This particular workplace comedy setting means the show can talk about the “brotherhood” of being a police officer: Holt explains how blowing the whistle on a fellow cop—on one of their own—can backfire and end up derailing Terry’s career. This setting also means it can show the inner conflict between Terry as a black man and as a police officer—a very real conflict that few shows are willing to address (even in the rare instances where they can) . . . [It’s] a bit of a departure from Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s general tone, but it's a necessary one, showing that even light-hearted sitcoms can get a little real.

INSECURITY QUESTIONS (I love Liana so much.)

PSA

I am stoked to be teaching Kundiman’s Creative Nonfiction Intensive workshop this June in NYC! Interested Asian American-identifying writers working on essays, memoir, cultural criticism, etc. can find more info here. Cover letter + writing sample due May 15th. Let us do this thing.

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