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Silicon Valley Meets America's Salad Bowl

ARIEL SCHWARTZ fastcoexisit.com
Though just down the road from each other, the country's tech capital and one of the country's largest farming regions are only now starting to work together—with only a little culture clash. If farmers and tech entrepreneurs can find common ground, our food supply will benefit.

‘Deutschland 83′: Cold War Tensions Heat Up In Season Finale

Cynthia Littleton Variety
The German-language drama revolves around an East German soldier who is recruited in 1983 by the Stasi secret police to go undercover in the West German army. The series, the first entirely German-language drama to air in the U.S., has garnered “best-show-you’re-not-watching” attention from influential pop culture observers.

RED MENACE

Pamela Uschuk Blood Flower
Colorado poet Pamela Uschuk, longtime activist, lovingly depicts how McCarthyist teachers and neighbors confused her Russian background with subversive activities, firmly defending her cultural roots.

Love Control: The Hidden History of Wonder Woman

Kent Worcester New Politics
The study of comic books has emerged in the last decade or so as a serious academic discipline. And it's about time. It's not news to many people that the stories and art found in these little magazines are not only entertaining; they also contain interesting, and sometimes profound, social content. Kent Worcester looks at three new books on Wonder Woman, the comic that emerged during World War II and was an early harbinger of feminist ideas.

These Scholars Have Been Pointing Out Atticus Finch's Racism for Years

Laura Marsh The New Republic
One of the biggest literary stories of the summer has been the controversy over To Kill a Mockingbird author Harper Lee's new novel, Go Set a Watchman. It turns out To Kill a Mockingbird hero Atticus Finch, as portrayed in this new book, was far more racist than fans of Lee's earlier novel remember. Should they have been surprised? Laura Marsh talks to several scholars who say Finch's racism was here all along, if readers had only taken the care to look.

Review: ‘Listen to Me Marlon’ Explores Brando’s Life of Contention

Manohla Dargis New York Times
As his admirer James Dean probably knew all too well, Brando was a true rebel, partly because he thought being a star was absurd and partly because, as clip after clip in 'Listen to Me Marlon' shows, he always had a cause, whether it was civil rights, black power, Native American sovereignty or his own independence.

THE TORTURER DESCRIBES HIS JOB

Charlotte Muse Winning Writers.com
California poet Charlotte Muse tries to enter the mind of a person capable of committing torture, justifying torture, an issue from the George W. Bush era that refuses to fade away.

Nightmare Gaza Conditions meet Resistance in Max Blumenthal’s ‘The 51 Day War’

BEN LORBER In These Times Web Only
Max Blumenthal, whose book The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza allows the young men and women of Gaza to speak, offers a gripping and unembellished look at the misery on the ground in the Gaza Strip during the Israeli government’s homicidal Operation Protective Edge in summer 2014, the third war in this tiny stretch of land in the last six-and-a-half years.