[A monthly link list of recommended articles, videos, podcasts, photos, tweets … you name it]
[Videos]
Rezo – Wenn Idioten deine Freiheit und Gesundheit gefährden…
Russian Cyperpunk Farm
[Music]
CURRENTMOODGIRL – Love Like Lasers
AnnenMayKantereit – Gegenwart
Visions of Bodies Being Burned | clipping. [.bandcamp.] – “In the horror genre, sequels are perfunctory. As the insufferable film bro Randy explains in Scream 2, “There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to create a successful sequel. Number one: the body count is always bigger. Number two: the death scenes are always much more elaborate—more blood, more gore. Carnage candy. And number three: never, ever, under any circumstances, assume the killer is dead.” Last Halloween, Los Angeles experimental rap mainstays Clipping ended their three-year silence with the horrorcore-inspired album There Existed an Addiction to Blood.”
[Podcasts]
From the archive: Political correctness and how the right invented a phantom enemy [the guardian] – “We are raiding the Audio Long Reads archives and bringing you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week: For 25 years, invoking this vague and ever-shifting nemesis has been a favourite tactic of the right – and Donald Trump’s victory is its greatest triumph. By Moira Weigel” It’s a re-issue, but it’s fab.
[Articles English]
It’s only fake-believe: how to deal with a conspiracy theorist [the guardian] – “As the pandemic has taken a grip, so have the misinformation spreaders. Here are five ways to spot the holes in their logic”
Atlas des Régions Naturelles – “The Atlas des Régions Naturelles available on www.archive-arn.fr is an independent initiative we are largely financing.” Amazing body of work by Eric Tabuchi and Nelly Monnier
Cheesemaking YouTuber threatened with legal action by Grana Padano after showing people how to make similar cheese (UPDATE: they backed off) [boing boing] – “Thing is, though, the video is now on Google Drive, re-uploaded by an unknown party. It’s elsewhere, too. Soon, it might be everywhere.” We watched this guys video in totally mesmerized.
The Game | POST GROWTH TOOLKIT – “A toolkit to facilitate orientation in the context of the current environmental crises”
Every Movie Cough – “The world’s most complete collection of cinematic coughs (and sneezes)”
The Timelines of Our Lives | Laurie Penny [wired] – “History is never just about what happened. It is about whose stories we strike from the record and whose we choose to cast in bronze. The word monument comes from the Latin monere, meaning “to warn.” Statues of Great Men are not just mementos, they are warnings from the past—including to those who might be tempted to question their greatness.”
Now We Have to Fight Trump’s Tin-Pot Coup — and Biden’s Worst Instincts | Naomi Klein [intercept] – “Republicans keep finding new ways to tell us that they don’t believe in democracy, and we should believe them.”
Coronavirus: The Swiss Cheese Strategy | Tomas Pueyo [.medium.] – “How Any Country Can Learn to Dance and Stop the
You Are Here – “A reminder of where you are.”
Donald Trump’s refusal to concede is no joke – it’s a dangerous precedent | Nesrine Malik [the guardian] – “Mostly because Trump is, objectively, a mess. We expect autocrats to come in a different, more convincing form. We expect them at least to be able to finish a sentence. The sloppy incoherence and chaos of Trump and his administration makes it hard for some to believe that they are capable of pulling off anything as organised as a coup.”
Global Climate Report – October 2020 [ncdc.noaa.gov] – “The October 2020 global land and ocean surface temperature was the fourth highest for October since global records began in 1880 at 0.85°C (1.53°F) above the 20th century average of 14.0°C (57.1°F). Only Octobers of 2015 (+1.03°C / +1.85°F), 2019 (+0.95°C / +1.71°F), and 2018 (+0.93°C / +1.67°F) were warmer. The ten warmest Octobers have occurred since 2005, while the seven highest October temperature departures from average have occurred in the last seven years (2014–2020).”
Grandiose narcissists and decision making: Impulsive, overconfident, and skeptical of experts–but seldom in doubt [sciencedirect] – “Grandiose narcissists are overconfident and often rely on their own intuition to make decisions.
This can lead them to make less accurate decisions.
They remain confident in their decisions and externalize blame.
They also often assume leadership positions in organizations.
These tendencies can put the organizations they lead at risk.”
Long COVID: the symptoms are vague, but the suffering is real [onmanorama] – “A significant number of people who recovered from SARS-CoV2 infection are reporting symptoms such as tiredness, headache, shortness of breath, cough and chest pain. This is collectively referred to as long COVID, but the topic requires further study and classification.”
Max Weber on the Professor and the Politician [the new yorker] – “For Max Weber, only the most heroic figures could generate meaning in the world. Does his theory hold up today?”
One in five COVID-19 patients develop mental illness within 90 days [reuters] – “Many COVID-19 survivors are likely to be at greater risk of developing mental illness, psychiatrists said on Monday, after a large study found 20% of those infected with the coronavirus are diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder within 90 days.”
Punk Versus Reagan [jacobin] – “Maybe then the ultimate lesson of American punk is that there is no refuge in American capitalism. Culture is not politics, but neither is politics culture. Both must be transformed.”
The end of the abuser-in-chief | Laurie Penny [newstatesman] – “Donald Trump and the political movement he built were nothing more than petty despots. The noise in the streets is the kind people make when tyrants fall.”
Four Seasons Total Landscaping Is a Perfect Trump Backdrop [curbed] – “None of these explanations makes sense, because the site was simultaneously too perfect to be accidental and too elaborate to be intentional. An administration marked by episodes of sordid sex, wishful thinking, and mass death took place next door to a dildo-and-porn store named Fantasy Island and across the street from a crematorium. If you were hunting for such a symbolically rich stage, how would you even Google it?”
Is the show finally over for Donald Trump? | Judith Butler [the guardian] – “We know that Trump will try to do anything to stay in power, to avoid that ultimate catastrophe in life – becoming a ‘loser […] The excited fantasy of his supporters was that, with Trump, shame could be overcome, and there would be a “freedom” from the left and its punitive restrictions on speech and conduct, a permission finally to destroy environmental regulations, international accords, spew racist bile and openly affirm persistent forms of misogyny.”
What Has Been Done To Jeremy Corbyn [current affairs] – “Corbyn’s suspension from the Labour Party is the culmination of an absurd series of attacks. It’s a lesson in how ruthlessly the left’s opponents will try to destroy it.”
[Articles German/French]
52′ – Failite Club
Der Basel-Report, Teil 1: Der Tag im November 2018, der Basel nicht mehr loslässt [republik] – “Eine Frau soll acht Monate ins Gefängnis, weil sie an einer Demonstration war, die eskalierte. Wie eine Prozessreihe in Basel den Rechtsstaat Schweiz auf den Prüfstand stellt. Der Basel-Report, Teil 1.” Die sind so krass drauf in Bisel sorry Basel, ey.
Extinction, Rebellion, Happiness [schwarzerpfeil] – “Wir haben an Franco „Bifo“ Berardi geschrieben und ihn gefragt, welche Lehren die Autonomia-Bewegung der 1970er Jahre für unsere aktuellen Kämpfe habe. Seine Antwort? Sehr wenig. In diesem Aufsatz schlägt Bifo vor, die Autonomie in einem neuen Kontext zu überdenken: dem unserer Auslöschung.”
Königreich der Angst [republik] – “Er ist eine der einflussreichsten und umstrittensten politischen Figuren der letzten zwanzig Jahre. Dabei ist er ein Werber, kein Politiker. Alexander Segert lehrte die Schweiz mit seinen Plakaten für die SVP einst das Fürchten, heute gilt er als verschwiegener Hintermann der AfD-Parteispendenaffäre.”
Der Kampf um die Kosten [woz] – “Economiesuisse lobbyiert seit Monaten dafür, dass der Bund im Kampf gegen Corona möglichst wenig Geld in die Hand nimmt und Läden wie Gastrobetriebe stattdessen offen bleiben. Mit gravierenden Folgen.”
Terrorismus als Code [philosophie magazin] – “Denn auch wenn staatliche Behörden selbstverständlich effektiv gegen Attentäter und deren Netzwerke vorgehen müssen, ist damit auch stets die Gefahr liberaler Selbstverletzungen verbunden. Wer sich im Zuge der Terrorismusabwehr nämlich in einem „Kampf der Kulturen“ wähnt oder Islam nicht von Islamismus unterscheidet, folgt letztlich der gleichen fatalen Logik, wie beim Verbreiten der Bilder der Attentäter – man kopiert den Code des Terrors ins eigene System.”
Eva Horn über Verschwörungstheorien: „Die Wirklichkeit zerbröselt“ [berliner-zeitung] – “Corona gibt es nicht, Testen ist Blödsinn und die Pandemie erfunden – Verschwörungstheorien stehen hoch im Kurs. Das Problem: Sie kommen von scheinbar seriösen Wissenschaftlern.”
[Older articles, still great]
Tea, Biscuits, and Empire: The Long Con of Britishness | Laurie Penny [longreads] – “The soft-focus Britain of Downton Abbey bears little resemblance to the real Britain collapsing under the weight of racism, austerity, and COVID-19. As Brexit plods on, it’s time for an honest reckoning of the history and future of this outsize little island.”
IGORRR – VERY NOISE
Björk aged 11
R.I.P.
Papa Bouba Diop
Maradona
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Header Photo: From my Instagram