Hey folks. Last ep of #TheOtherLatif due out early next week. (@Radiolab team is working remotely bc of Covid19, so needed extra time.) It's a solid ep, tho. Worth the wait. (Here's a snapshot to look forward to.) And meantime, to keep you sated in quarantine, some Gitmo recs:
Have to start with @carolrosenberg, “the dean of Gitmo reporters.” She hasn’t written a book about Guantanamo (yet!) but check out the last big story she did here: nytimes.com/2020/02/26/us/…
Read Ben Taub’s @NewYorker profile of Mohamedou Salahi. Despite having interviewed Salahi myself before reading, and knowing most of the details, I wept so hard. For some reason the detail that hit me hardest was about the baby crib. newyorker.com/magazine/2019/…
While you're at it, read Salahi’s memoir, Guantanamo Diary. (Soon to be a movie starring @taharrahim1, Jodie Foster, and Benedict Cumberbatch.) Also, follow @MohamedouOuld. Because seeing tweets like this one helps balance out that detail about the crib.
A bunch of Gitmo graphic novels. Sid Jacobson and @erniecolon's Torture Report, @jerometubiana's Guantanamo Kid, @sarahmirk's Guantanamo Voices. @wendymac's coverage of 9/11 trial for the NYT.
Wanna give a hat tip here to @GuantanamoAndy who as far as I can tell was the first person to write about Abdul Latif Nasser specifically as part of his giant group biography of all 770+ Gitmo detainees.
.@CliveSSmith is as powerful a writer as he is an interview subject. He should be a lawyer, that guy. Read his book Bad Men.
When I started this project, I never thought I'd hear directly from one of the counterintel officers at Gitmo who actually questioned detainees, but then I found @glynco and his book Unjustifiable Means.
If you want to hear more about the story we touched on in the first half of ep5, the first 100 days of Gitmo, see @KarenGreenberg3's Least Worst Place.
I'm sure I'll think of more (tried to leave out wonkier stuff), but also massive props to @MargotWilliams and the rest of the team who built the Guantanamo Docket at the NYT. We were v lucky Margot collaborated with us on this project. nytimes.com/interactive/pr…
Takes a village to make a podcast, omitted to mention @sarahegeis as producer of that gorgeous #LoveMe episode.
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The US election is nigh. If you RAGE that it’s down to a few votes in a few swing states, I've got a story for you.
A political drama about just how close we came to abolishing the Electoral College. And BONUS, it’ll explain why we still use this old relic to pick Presidents.🧵
Story starts with a US Senator named Birch Bayh (rhymes with Guy).
When he started his term in 1963, he was young, dashing, ambitious, “the Kennedy of the Midwest.” His only problem was …
No one took him seriously. At a time when everything was based on seniority, Bayh had no power at all.
Until one day, longtime Senator Estes Kefauver had a fatal heart attack on the floor of the Senate. Now Kefauver happened to be …
Last January, I noticed something peculiar in my 2yo’s bedroom that - after a year of obsessive reporting - led me to a profound cosmic revelation about what’s even possible in our universe. A 🧵.
So about a year ago, I was putting my little guy to bed in his crib and I noticed a strange detail on the solar system poster up on his wall …
Venus had a moon called Zoozve. Huh, I thought. Never heard of that.
Last year, a coworker randomly asked me to hand-deliver an antique violin across the country. I said yes, because why not. I had no idea what I was getting into, and now I need your help. A 🧵
Last May, I went to a work retreat in upstate NY and a sound designer on our show @Jeremy_s_Bloom pulled me aside and asked me to do him a favor.
@Jeremy_s_Bloom He had heard through a friend (@DerekBeckvold) about an Afghan violinist who had just escaped from Kabul and settled in LA (where I live). Problem was the guy had to leave his violin behind.
Jeremy had a beautiful 110-year-old violin in his closet he used to play.
2022 is off to a rocky start. Will it be worse than 2021? And was that one worse than 2020? If you, like me, are sick of comparing and complaining about the last few years, here’s a fun exercise: name the worst year ever. As in, THE worst year to be a human on earth. A 🧵.
Some obvious contenders: 1347 (Black Death). 1918 (Spanish Flu). 1929 (Great Depression). But the one that convinced me was a year I had NEVER EVEN HEARD OF BEFORE.
The year? 536 AD. The catastrophe that took place then goes by many names: The Mystery Cloud. The Dust Veil. Or my personal favorite: The Fimbulwinter. (I’ll explain that last one, I promise.)
Today is 20 years since the first prisoners landed at Guantanamo Bay. The US government chose the site bc they thought neither American nor international law applied. They built it quickly and in a rudimentary way because it was meant to be temporary. /1
On the flight to Guantanamo from Kandahar Airport, the prisoners wore shackles, blindfolds, ear muffs, many were even tranquilized, because military folks were afraid they would get loose and "chew through a hydraulics cable" and take the plane down. /2
Turns out the vast majority of the 780 people who were ultimately held there were "innocent of any substantial wrongdoing," and that the "US leadership became aware of this ... very early on." (That's not me saying that, that's the former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell.) /3
A tiny story about how tragedy ripples thru culture and history. /1
#OTD: May 4, 1970. Ohio National Guard fires on unarmed Kent State student protestors, killing four. Among the crowd: art student Jerry Casale. He knew two of the students who got killed. /2
Over the next few months, the campus is locked down. Casale and fellow student protester Bob Lewis channel their anguish into a weird new style of art. The central idea: everything is going to hell. People and society seem to be getting worse, to be devolving. /3