Welcome to Issue #33! Race, crosswords, plagiarism, AIDS, and ugly fruit—it’s all here in this week’s Iserotope Extras. Plus there’s a brilliant quotation from James Baldwin that I’d never seen, so that’s a bonus. Please read as many articles as you like, and let me know what you think!
Everyone should know about the history of Black Lives Matter—as well as its goals, organization, strategy, and next steps. This New Yorker piece, as usual, takes its time to introduce us to the major players of the movement. Unless you’re already an expert on BLM, you’ll learn a lot.
A Plagiarism Scandal Is Unfolding In The Crossword World
I like trying to do crosswords, though I mostly fail at completing them, and I’m fascinated by plagiarists, especially when they deny, deny, deny. This piece brings crosswords and plagiarists together, and so therefore I am happy.
James Baldwin, who died in 1987, is still sharing with us the truth.
The forgotten survivors of AIDS
This special report by health reporter Erin Allday is probably the best thing I’ve read in the San Francisco Chronicle for the last, well, forever. Ms. Allday tells the story of eight men who survived the AIDS epidemic and who find themselves forgotten as their city has moved on. Great writing, charts and graphs, photographs—this article has it all.
How ‘Ugly’ Fruits and Vegetables Can Help Solve World Hunger
Every year some 2.9 trillion pounds of food—about a third of all that the world produces—never get consumed, mostly because it’s not attractive enough. And 46 percent of fruit never gets from “farm to fork.” (That’s enough to feed two billion people.)
That’s it for this week! Remember to spring forward this weekend, and feel free to share Iserotope Extras with your friends (and invite them to subscribe)! j.mp/iserotopeextras