Reviews and News:
Was King Arthur really a Roman centurion called Artorius?
Tuesday afternoon, the New York Times announced they had hired tech writer Quinn Norton to cover power, culture, and technology. Then they fired her Tuesday night. Was it the right decision? Adam Rogers considers.
Want to read Salon ad free? No problem. Just let the company use your computer to mine crypto currency.
No, your dog doesn’t feel guilt or shame.
Bruce Handy shares some of the most interesting things he learned about the making of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey while researching the film at the Kubrick Archive in London.
What color was a Tyrannosaurus rex? Francis Gooding reviews a collection of palaeoart.
How to talk like Donald Trump.
Essay of the Day:
In The Spectator, Harriet Sergeant asks if aid organizations do more harm than good:
“What a scandal for our times. Oxfam, that upholder of modern-day virtue, unassailable in its righteousness, buried for seven years that its aid workers exploited young girls. The men abused their power to have sex with desperate victims of the Haiti earthquake — the very people they were supposed to protect.
“Michelle Russell of the Charity Commission is clear about the deception. ‘We were categorically told by Oxfam; there were no allegations of abuse of beneficiaries. We are very angry and cross about this.’
“Nor was this a one-off. Helen Evans, the charity’s global head of safeguarding, begged senior staff, ministers and the Department for International Development to act. She had uncovered sexual abuse allegations both abroad — three in one day — and in Oxfam’s charity shops. Nothing was done.
“This is the same Oxfam that recently blamed capitalism for world poverty and set up deck chairs in Trafalgar square to protest against corruption and tax havens. Now the virtue signallers are hoisted on the shard of their own fallibility. Compared with the emerging sins of our aid agencies, tax havens look almost benign.”
Images: Illustrating Mardi Gras
Poem: Susan Stewart, “Field in Spring”
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