As the coronavirus pandemic has forced cities across America to shut down, essential workers—ranging from nurses to subway conductors and grocery-store clerks—have continued to do their jobs. Their work has exposed not only how deep our lines of dependence are but how the inequities of class, race, and industry dictate who may stay inside and who might have no choice but to venture outdoors. Such work can also be exhausting—an aspect captured in the magazine’s latest cover, by Owen Smith. Smith drew on the art of the Great Depression, a genre that, in his view, sought to “remind us that there is value and dignity in every person.” We recently talked to the artist about the image.

As you mentioned, your style evokes the art of the Great Depression. What parallels do you find between that era and the present?

Well, I’m currently working on an illustrated edition of “The Grapes of Wrath,” which I find particularly timely because it follows a family of farm laborers displaced by an environmental catastrophe. They travel hundreds of miles only to be vilified as invaders and exploited by the corporate-owned farms in California. It is a story of class discrimination and a story of survival. Sound familiar?

You’ve captured the feeling of exhaustion in the medical worker’s pose. Can you talk about what goes into depicting this kind of body language? Do you use reference images?

My paintings tend to emphasize form, movement, and gesture. I’m also a sculptor and a fan of the expressive figures of artists like Rodin and Constantin Meunier. Their figures had weight. Humans are hyper-attuned to body language—we can “read” the mood of other people in an instant. So body language can do a lot of the storytelling without using words.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cover-story/cover-story-2020-04-20?mbid=social_twitter&utm_brand=tny&utm_social-type=owned&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

🗣EVERYONE

My 16yo niece is bored in captivity and to mess with her trump supporter father she has invented a new game. She printed off a bunch of pictures of @SpeakerPelosi and is hiding them around the house to scare her dad.

HILARIOUS!!! This kid is SAVAGE

Julian Assange secretly fathered two sons while holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Gabriel, aged two, and his one-year-old brother Max were conceived while their father was hiding out to avoid extradition to America, where he faces espionage charges over the leaking of thousands of classified US intelligence documents.

At the time, Assange, 48, was also wanted in Sweden where he was accused of rape. He has always denied the sex allegations, which have now been dropped.

The boys' mother is 37-year-old South African-born lawyer Stella Morris, who fell in love with the controversial WikiLeaks founder five years ago while visiting him to work on a legal bid to halt the extraditions.

The couple have been engaged since 2017.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8210957/WikiLeaks-boss-Julian-Assange-fathered-two-children-inside-Ecuadorian-embassy-lawyer.html?ito=amp_twitter_share-top

Trump campaign currently selling a t-shirt that says: "If you don't like Trump then you probably won't like me."

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https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1248959090287505415

Emergency relief for hospitals is being divvied up based on their Medicare billings and not how many coronavirus cases they have to handle.

It's likely few hospital systems need the emergency federal grants announced this week to handle the coronavirus crisis as badly as Florida’s Jackson Health does.

Miami, its base of operations, is the worst COVID-19 hot spots in one of the most severely hit states. Even in normal years, the system sometimes barely makes money. At least two of its staff members have died of the virus.

But in a scathing letter to policymakers, system CEO Carlos Migoya said the way Washington has handled the bailout “could jeopardize the very existence” of Jackson, one of the nation’s largest public health systems, and similar hospital groups.

“We are here for you right now,” Migoya, who has tested positive for COVID-19 himself, said in a Thursday letter to Alex Azar, secretary of Health and Human Services. “Please, be here for us right now.”

Migoya and executives at other beleaguered systems are blasting the government’s decision to take a one-size-fits-all approach to distributing the first $30 billion in emergency grants. HHS confirmed Friday it would give hospitals and doctors money according to their historical share of revenue from the Medicare program for seniors—not according to their coronavirus burden.

That method is “woefully insufficient to address the financial challenges facing hospitals at this time, especially those located in ‘hot spot’ areas such as the New York City region,” Kenneth Raske, CEO of the Greater New York Hospital Association, said in a memo to association members.

States such as Minnesota, Nebraska and Montana, which the pandemic has touched relatively lightly, are getting more than $300,000 per reported COVID-19 case in the $30 billion, according to a Kaiser Health News analysis.

On the other hand, New York, the worst-hit state, would receive only $12,000 per case. Florida is getting $132,000 per case. KHN relied on an analysis by staff on the House Ways and Means Committee along with COVID-19 cases tabulated by The New York Times.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/nebraska-getting-dollar300000-in-federal-money-for-each-coronavirus-case-while-ny-gets-dollar12g

Cats are natural-born climbers and most of them enjoy being in high places. Whether it’s a high shelf or the top of the refrigerator, kitties feel really comfortable in the upper half of the room, keeping an eye on the surroundings below them with greater confidence.

Recently, Rob Countu from Windsor, Connecticut, decided to embrace these instincts of his cats and built them two epic towers. The well-crafted structures provide them with both comfort and entertainment, and his little furballs are absolutely loving them.









https://www.boredpanda.com/kitty-towers-racoutu/?cexp_id=27447&cexp_var=1&_f=featured