September 2020 Issue | Harper's Magazine

By Barry C. Lynn,

[Memoir]

A Litany for Survival

Giving birth as a black woman in America

By Naomi Jackson,

[Letter from Washington]

Elder Abuse

Nursing homes, the coronavirus, and the bottom line

By Andrew Cockburn,

[Harper’s Index]

Minimum amount the U.S. government spent funding anti–Hugo Chávez rock songs while he led Venezuela : $22,970

[Harper’s Index]

Rank of 2019 among years with the highest worldwide spending on nuclear weapons : 1

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage by which the United States spent more than the second-highest spender : 70

[Harper’s Index]

Number of National Guard members on active duty in the United States on June 1, 2020 : 66,700

[Harper’s Index]

On active duty abroad on the same day : 28,300

[Harper’s Index]

Minimum number of cities in which the Department of Homeland Security has used aerial surveillance at protests this year : 15

[Harper’s Index]

Minimum hours of surveillance footage that it has logged : 270

[Harper’s Index]

Number of police departments in the twenty largest U.S. cities whose use-of-force policies meet UN human-rights standards

[Harper’s Index]

Total value of surplus military equipment distributed to U.S. police departments under the Trump Administration : $964,962,803

[Harper’s Index]

Of bayonets : $19,761

[Harper’s Index]

Of “extreme cold-weather parkas” distributed to the LAPD : $27,161

[Harper’s Index]

Minimum number of police killings since 2010 in which restrained victims told officers they couldn’t breathe : 32

[Harper’s Index]

Number of those incidents that resulted in criminal charges against the officers : 5

[Harper’s Index]

Number of those cases in which charges were not eventually dropped : 2

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of time on duty that U.S. police officers devote to violent crime : 4

[Harper’s Index]

To noncriminal complaints : 35

[Harper’s Index]

Number of leading U.S. state health officials who have resigned, retired, or been fired during the COVID-19 pandemic : 34

[Harper’s Index]

Number of coronavirus-related academic studies that have been retracted since the outbreak : 22

[Harper’s Index]

Estimated months of education progress, on average, expected to be lost by K-12 students who began remote learning this year : 7

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of U.S. rural school districts that did not require any instruction after schools closed : 53

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of city-dwelling Americans who have considered moving somewhere less dense since the pandemic began : 39

[Harper’s Index]

Portion of Americans aged 18 to 29 who have moved because of the coronavirus : 1/10

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage increase since February in the number of American Jews who have applied to emigrate to Israel : 64

[Harper’s Index]

Chance that a Canadian sees the United States as “unfriendly” or “an enemy” : 1 in 5

[Harper’s Index]

Estimated amount that the United States will lose this year in tourism revenue : $550,000,000,000

[Harper’s Index]

That the United States will lose even if all Americans’ tourist dollars are spent domestically : $52,000,000,000

[Harper’s Index]

That China will gain if its tourist dollars are spent domestically : $238,000,000,000

[Harper’s Index]

Amount per traveler by which Japan plans on subsidizing domestic vacations as part of economic recovery efforts : $187

[Harper’s Index]

Amount that a tourist to Iceland can pay to skip a government-mandated COVID-19 quarantine protocol : $65

[Harper’s Index]

Minimum number of U.S. climate-change infrastructure projects that have been delayed or canceled because of COVID-19 : 13

[Harper’s Index]

Portion of Europeans aged 16 to 29 who think authoritarian states are better equipped to handle climate change than democracies : 1/2

[Harper’s Index]

Portion of people living in democracies who believe their governments are not democratic : 2/5

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of transgender Americans who don’t have the identification required to vote : 42

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of registered Democrats who believe that voting by mail increases the risk of voter fraud : 21

[Harper’s Index]

Rank of May 29–June 4 among weeks that researchers determined to be the “saddest” on Twitter : 1

[Harper’s Index]

Minimum number of seafarers who have been stranded offshore since pandemic lockdown measures began : 200,000

Readings

[Essay]

After Midnight

By Wolf Wondratschek, Translated by Marshall Yarbrough,

[Poem]

Walking Tour of an Imaginary Homeland

By Chris Martin,

[Accusations]

All This Life in Us

All This Life in Us, a painting by Dominic Chambers, whose work is on view this month at Anna Zorina Gallery, in New York City.

“Clair de Lune”

“Clair de Lune,” a photograph by Paul Cupido, whose work is on view this month at Photo Basel, in Berlin.

“Antonín Kalina, Czechoslovakia, 1988” and “Zofia Baniecka, Poland, 1986”

“Antonín Kalina, Czechoslovakia, 1988” and “Zofia Baniecka, Poland, 1986,” photographs by Gay Block, from Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust, which was reissued last month by Radius Books.

[untitled]

A photograph from the series Land/s by Gohar Dashti, whose work was on view in July at Intersect Aspen, in Aspen, Colorado.

Appendix 137_120

Appendix 137_120 (detail), an archival inkjet print from the series Scratching on Things I Could Disavow by Walid Raad, whose work was on view last month at Paula Cooper Gallery, in New York City.

[Letters]

September 2020

The Big Tech Extortion Racket

How Google, Amazon, and Facebook control our lives

A Litany for Survival

Giving birth as a black woman in America

Elder Abuse

Nursing homes, the coronavirus, and the bottom line

Minimum amount the U.S. government spent funding anti–Hugo Chávez rock songs while he led Venezuela : $22,970

Rank of 2019 among years with the highest worldwide spending on nuclear weapons : 1

Percentage by which the United States spent more than the second-highest spender : 70

Number of National Guard members on active duty in the United States on June 1, 2020 : 66,700

On active duty abroad on the same day : 28,300

Minimum number of cities in which the Department of Homeland Security has used aerial surveillance at protests this year : 15

Minimum hours of surveillance footage that it has logged : 270

Number of police departments in the twenty largest U.S. cities whose use-of-force policies meet UN human-rights standards

Total value of surplus military equipment distributed to U.S. police departments under the Trump Administration : $964,962,803

Of bayonets : $19,761

Of “extreme cold-weather parkas” distributed to the LAPD : $27,161

Minimum number of police killings since 2010 in which restrained victims told officers they couldn’t breathe : 32

Number of those incidents that resulted in criminal charges against the officers : 5

Number of those cases in which charges were not eventually dropped : 2

Percentage of time on duty that U.S. police officers devote to violent crime : 4

To noncriminal complaints : 35

Number of leading U.S. state health officials who have resigned, retired, or been fired during the COVID-19 pandemic : 34

Number of coronavirus-related academic studies that have been retracted since the outbreak : 22

Estimated months of education progress, on average, expected to be lost by K-12 students who began remote learning this year : 7

Percentage of U.S. rural school districts that did not require any instruction after schools closed : 53

Percentage of city-dwelling Americans who have considered moving somewhere less dense since the pandemic began : 39

Portion of Americans aged 18 to 29 who have moved because of the coronavirus : 1/10

Percentage increase since February in the number of American Jews who have applied to emigrate to Israel : 64

Chance that a Canadian sees the United States as “unfriendly” or “an enemy” : 1 in 5

Estimated amount that the United States will lose this year in tourism revenue : $550,000,000,000

That the United States will lose even if all Americans’ tourist dollars are spent domestically : $52,000,000,000

That China will gain if its tourist dollars are spent domestically : $238,000,000,000

Amount per traveler by which Japan plans on subsidizing domestic vacations as part of economic recovery efforts : $187

Amount that a tourist to Iceland can pay to skip a government-mandated COVID-19 quarantine protocol : $65

Minimum number of U.S. climate-change infrastructure projects that have been delayed or canceled because of COVID-19 : 13

Portion of Europeans aged 16 to 29 who think authoritarian states are better equipped to handle climate change than democracies : 1/2

Portion of people living in democracies who believe their governments are not democratic : 2/5

Percentage of transgender Americans who don’t have the identification required to vote : 42

Percentage of registered Democrats who believe that voting by mail increases the risk of voter fraud : 21

Of registered Republicans : 69

Average number of times per day that Donald Trump tweeted in 2017 : 7

In 2020 : 32

Percentage of Americans who want Trump to tweet more frequently : 3

Rank of May 29–June 4 among weeks that researchers determined to be the “saddest” on Twitter : 1

Minimum number of seafarers who have been stranded offshore since pandemic lockdown measures began : 200,000

Readings

Disappearing Ink

The Long Goodbye

Reborn to Run

Apple Watch

Call Me by Your Pain

Vanishing Cream

Empathy, My Dear Watson

Intellectual Property

Extra Extra

System of a Clown

After Midnight

Walking Tour of an Imaginary Homeland

When Life Gives You Lemon

All This Life in Us

“Clair de Lune”

“Antonín Kalina, Czechoslovakia, 1988” and “Zofia Baniecka, Poland, 1986”

[untitled]

Appendix 137_120

Letters

Fighting Words

Which Side Are You On?

Harper’s Index

The Big Tech Extortion Racket

How Google, Amazon, and Facebook control our lives

Who Is the Tyrant?

The Haunted House

What privacy looks like on Google Street View

A Litany for Survival

Giving birth as a black woman in America

Elder Abuse

Nursing homes, the coronavirus, and the bottom line

Three Poems

Recent toilet-paper hoarding was more prevalent among Americans than Europeans and more prevalent among the old than the young.

Ostrich-shell beads indicating the onset of the Initial Upper Paleolithic were found to have reached Shuidonggou by 39000 bc, and strontium isotope levels revealed the social exchange of ostrich-shell beads during the Late Quaternary in the Karoo Supergroup.

Hemotoxic snakebite may be treatable with a heavy-metal chelator.

The mating calls of male Panama cross-banded tree frogs are synchronized to confuse bats and midges.

Peatlands, which now store roughly as much carbon as Earth’s forests or its atmosphere, can hold more carbon if exposed to low-intensity fires.

Terrestrial bacteria can grow on extraterrestrial nutrients; the black hole nearest Earth was discovered in the constellation Telescopium; and X-ray experiments conducted at the European Synchrotron indicated that moisture is destroying The Scream.

Falling levels of tourist trash during pandemic lockdowns was found to have caused rat infighting, and macaques were reported to have attacked a lab assistant in Delhi and stolen vials of COVID-19-infected blood, which at least one monkey then tried to eat.