[A monthly link list of recommended articles, videos, podcasts, photos, tweets … you name it]
[Videos]
“Suisse?” – Pourquoi est-ce que l’hymne suisse n’est pas très bien? This dude is hilarious.
Go behind-the-scenes with Patricia Piccinini in her Melbourne studio Still loving her art, albeit creepy.
La psychiatrie et ses folies – Matthieu Bellahsen This is from february, but hey, relevant.
[Music]
The Kiffness x Alugalug Cat 3.0 🐱✨ (Spell Cat) The Kiffness is much better when he sticks to cats, imho.
KAFVKA – Querdenker klatschen Love it.
[Podcasts]
Jordan Peterson Part 2: The Moscow Diaries [buzzsprout] – “In 2019, Jordan Peterson disappeared from public life. One year later, he re-emerged with a diagnosis, a story and no self-reflection whatsoever.” When Michael Hobbes researches Jordan Peterson hilarity ensues.
Jordan Peterson Part 1: The Carnivore Diet [buzzsprout] – “Oops all meat: How a ’50s bodybuilder, a Grateful Dead roadie and an unreadable professor accidentally launched one of America’s wildest fad diets.” Part 2 ^^ reverse chronology always
[Twitter Threads]
David Graeber was one of the most hopeful people I knew, someone who could dream of other ways of being together, whose dreams were informed by his deep scholarship. Most of all, he was able to convey that vision to others. 37/
— Cory Doctorow (@doctorow) March 8, 2022
Many people have pointed out that European countries are treating Ukrainians better than other refugees. So why do countries welcome some refugees and shut others out? I've done a lot of research on this exact question.
— Lamis Abdelaaty (@LAbdelaaty) March 7, 2022
Eva has just published EFF's guide to "Telegram Harm Reduction for
Users in Russia and Ukraine." https://t.co/SyqiXKoRqA 6/— Cory Doctorow (@doctorow) March 5, 2022
[The Must Reads This Month]
Hmm. You tell me. Check out [Older articles, still great] bellow.
[Pandemic Roundup by Violet Blue]
Pandemic Roundup: March 24, 2022
Pandemic Roundup: March 17, 2022
Pandemic Roundup: March 10, 2022
Pandemic Roundup: March 3, 2022
[Articles English]
Ukraine war’s surprising links to the 2008 financial crisis – and the parallels with 1939 [theconversation] – “Unless and until the west truly reimagines capitalism – perhaps with a 2020s version of the new deal – the proxy war of 2022 is likely to keep finding new fronts.”
The Incredible Satisfying Birth of a Marble [waxy.org] – “A couple weeks ago, I saw a TikTok video that blew my mind, leading me down multiple rabbit holes, starting with the epiphany that marbles are made on a marble run?! What an exciting way to be born.
Recording studio for bees and other sound oddities [wmmna] – “Félix Blume is a sound artist and sound engineer. His sound pieces, videos, actions and installations make you see the fantastic in the mundane and the poetical in the every day. Over the course of his practice he has collaborated with children from Chile to record the singing of crickets at night, installed wooden doors in the middle of a Belgian forest so that residents of a Refugee Shelter could share their stories with the local population, he has used a tree to play music and collect the memories of a Mexican village, cooperated with the inhabitants of a little village in the Amazon to document their everyday sounds, he has built soundscapes together with blind people, created a bamboo-flutes orchestra played by the waves in Thailand, documented the tradition of funeral processions in Haiti, etc. Even stray dogs in Brazil have joined his sound explorations.”
Pirating the Oscars 2022: The Rise and Fall of the Screener Over 20 Years [waxy.org] – “It’s Oscar night! And for the second year in a row, every single Oscar-nominated film has leaked in HD quality before the ceremony, but only three of the 32 nominated films leaked as Oscar screeners, a radical change from years past. What the hell is going on?” Hmm, suspicious. Nah. He he.
What Long Covid Shows Us About the Limits of Medicine [nyt] – “Contested illnesses pull back the curtain on medicine itself: how it understands the human body, what counts as evidence and how medicine draws on that evidence to produce medical truths.” It feels like the rest of the world is finally catching up and starting to knock medicine off its pedestal.
Jordan Peterson’s “Postmodern Neomarxism” Is Pure Hokum [jacobin] – “In this case, the result is a choose-your-own-adventure in which every right-wing grievance and perceived adversary can be projected onto a monolithic ideological bogeyman, no history or intellectual heavy-lifting required. What can you even say? We deserve a higher caliber of reactionary.” This dude, dog whistling to fascists, has just recently called “Antifa” worse than animals and that they are “taking revenge against God for the crime of Being” whatever the fuck that even means. The internet is broken, and Peterson is living proof for it. If a mumbling erratic fool like this guy can find fame on this medium, this medium is a reliability.
Global Climate Report – February 2022 [ncdc.noaa.gov] – “The February 2022 global surface temperature was the seventh highest on record at 0.81°C (1.46°F) above the 20th century average. This value was 0.17°C (0.31°F) warmer than last year’s February value (2021), but 0.45°C (0.81°F) cooler than the record-warm February set in 2016. February 2022 also marked the 46th consecutive February and the 446th consecutive month with temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th century average.” It’s still happening.
‘We’re having way better sex than our kids!’ The seventysomethings hitting their kinky, blissed-out peak [the guardian] – “What do you get when you combine decades of experience and endless time to experiment? The best sex of your life” I would be looking forward to it, if my penis was not broken.
America’s culture war is spilling into actual war-war | Thomas Zimmer [the guardian] – “To US conservatives, the real enemy is the ‘militant left wing’ in the United States. How did it come to this?” This article is okay, albeit a bit to militaristic for my taste.
She’s at the center of the covid lab leak controversy. Now she’s telling her story. [mit technology review] – “Shi Zhengli has spent years at the Wuhan Institute of Virology researching coronaviruses that live in bats. Her work has come under fire as the world tries to understand where covid-19 came from.” Good background for those still peddling the lab theory.
In Texas, Trans Kids Are Casualties of a Much Bigger War [jacobin] – “In situations like the abhorrent Texas anti-trans crusade, liberals like to say that the cruelty is the point. But in reality, winning elections and protecting elite interests is the point — and transgender kids and their families are caught in the crosshairs.” First they come for your trans children, then etc.
Mining Secrets: Data Leak Reveals Aggressive Tactics of Mining Giant in Guatemala [forbidden stories] – “The decision followed a consultation between the Guatemalan government, community leaders in El Estor, and representatives of Solway Group, a conglomerate headquartered in Switzerland whose management staff is mostly made up of Russian and Estonian businesspeople. Press statements from Solway Group, which bought the mine in 2011 and runs it through local Guatemalan subsidiaries CGN and Pronico, and the government depict a harmonious and inclusive process.” Fuck you Switzerland, you sneaky, opportunistic “Wendehals” (wryneck?) of a country.
After the battle, no landscape will remain. (On the Russian army’s invasion of Ukraine) [enlace zapatista] – “First: There is an aggressor: the Russian army. Big capital’s interests are at play on both sides. It is the peoples of Russia and Ukraine (and soon, perhaps, the peoples of other geographies near or far) who are suffering because of the crazed delusions of some and the cunning economic calculations of others. As Zapatistas, we do not support either state but rather those who are struggling for life against the system.” Support the people, not the state. Obv.
Citation impact and social media visibility of Great Barrington and John Snow signatories for COVID-19 strategy | BMJ Open – “In short, the problems with the GBD were that minimal thought and analysis were needed to indicate that it was a slogan rather than a strategy, that the suggestions made were either routine or implausible (well covered by Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz here: https://gidmk.medium.com/focused-protection-from-the-great-barrington-de… ), that the numbers needed to protect were far beyond what was implied, that the healthcare system would have collapsed, that it would have needed to be applied for years rather than months, and at the end of it, there would be no herd immunity, anyway. That was the key reason it wasn’t pursued; not Twitter publicity.” And that’s the GBD destroyed in one short paragraph.
Covid pandemic sparks steep rise in number of people in UK with long-term illness [the guardian] – “More than a third of working-age people in the UK now suffer from a long-term illness, with new figures showing a dramatic rise since the pandemic began. Post-Covid conditions, including long Covid, breathing difficulties and mental-health problems, are among the causes, according to disability charities and health campaigners.” You think. OMG. What have we been saying for two years?!
Toxic Nostalgia, From Putin to Trump to the Trucker Convoys [intercept] – “We will not defeat the forces of toxic nostalgia with these weak doses of marginally less toxic nostalgia. It’s not enough to be “back”; we are in desperate need of new.” Yeah, duh.
Bandcamp is Joining Epic Games [bandcamp: shortcode must include 'track', 'album', or 'video' param] – “Bandcamp will keep operating as a standalone marketplace and music community, and I will continue to lead our team. The products and services you depend on aren’t going anywhere, we’ll continue to build Bandcamp around our artists-first revenue model (where artists net an average of 82% of every sale), you’ll still have the same control over how you offer your music, Bandcamp Fridays will continue as planned, and the Daily will keep highlighting the diverse, amazing music on the site.” Not happy about this. Loved bandcamp.
[Articles German/French]
Martullo verbietet das Wort «Krieg» [woz] – “SVP-Nationalrätin und Ems-Chefin Magdalena Martullo-Blocher untersagt ihren Angestellten, den Krieg in der Ukraine als solchen zu bezeichnen.” Our future federal council.
Wider die militarisierte Demokratie [philosophie magazin] – “Einer der ideologischen, affektiven, politischen und ökonomischen Grundpfeiler des Autoritarismus ist gerade der Militarismus. Insofern ist eine militarisierte Demokratie nicht das Gegenteil einer Autokratie – sondern ihre Keimzelle.” Democracy, or what they call democracy in these parts, is a protofascist form of state. What we need is grassroots, communalist, bottom up democracy.
Coronavirus: Freedom Day oder nicht, Long Covid ist ein ernstes Problem [der spiegel] – “Deutschland habe die höchste Inzidenz in Europa und »Geimpfte sind jetzt oft unvorsichtig«, warnte Karl Lauterbach vor ein paar Tagen auf Twitter. Ja, weil Ihre Politik dafür sorgt, dass Leute denken, Corona ist vorbei. »Endlich! Am 20. März kehren wir zur Normalität zurück«, twitterte neulich der FDP-Politiker Olaf in der Beek. Ein sehr mysteriöses »wir«! Wir, die wir Long Covid haben, gehören schon mal nicht dazu.” I no longer belong to this ominous “we”, that has been my lesson as well in this pandemic.
Ermittlungen wegen Satire-Plakat: Kleinkarierte Demonstration der Macht [netzpolitik] – “Was muss man eigentlich für ein verletzliches erdoğansches Ego haben, wenn man auf dem politischen Olymp solche Kritik nicht annimmt, hinnimmt oder einfach ignoriert? Stattdessen wird hier der juristische Vorschlaghammer ausgepackt, um Plakat-Künstler einzuschüchtern und diese mit Freiheitsstrafe zu bedrohen. Es ist eine kleinkarierte und kleingeistige Demonstration der Macht. Der Geruch von Majestätsbeleidigung liegt in der Luft. Unwürdig und unpassend in einer Demokratie.” Krasse Scheisse.
[Older articles, still great]
Comandante Brus Li isst Sushi [transversal.at] – “Gegen die Re-Essentialisierung von Ausdrucks- und Protestformen” With all the discussions regarding dreadlocks and cultural appropriation it is a good time to re-read this article to put some nuance into the debate.
Vergessen, erinnern, verzweifeln, Krone richten, weitergehen [saiten] – “Psychische Krankheiten können nicht immer isoliert als solche betrachtet werden, denn oft sind sie die direkte Folge gesellschaftlicher Missstände und also eine politische Angelegenheit.” De-stigmatizing mental issues is always great.
R.I.P.
Mira Calix – so young.
mira calix – a mark of resistance
William Hurt
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Header Photo: Similar Photo here