Teaser Image April 2022 - It snowed

This! April 202211 min read

[A monthly link list of recommended articles, videos, podcasts, photos, tweets … you name it]

an image or two from my Tumblr
an image or two from my Tumblr
an image or two from my Tumblr


[Videos]

Anarchism & Democracy | Zoe Baker – This is simply fantastic. Thanks Zoe.

Anatomy of a Moral Panic: The “Free Speech Crisis | Michael Hobbes – Less exciting than his last video, but still great.

San Francisco 1906 (New Version) in Color [60fps, Remastered] w/added sound – So mesmerizing.


[Music]

Thom Yorke – 5.17 – As featured in the Peaky Fookin Blinders.


[Podcasts]

Coffee with comrades – Episode 164: Thriving in the Ruins [libsyn] – “Peter Gelderloos, author of the new book The Solutions Are Already Here, available now through Pluto Press. Peter and I talk about why “climate change” doesn’t quite capture the urgency of ecological catastrophe, why a fixation on “fossil fuels” is a strategic error, the kinship relations that inform our intricate and intimate connections to all living critters and the planet itself, indigenous wisdom and situated knowledges, and a whole helluva lot more.” Love the book, the podcast does not have too many spoilers.


[Twitter Threads]


[The Must Reads This Month]

Noam Chomsky on How To Prevent World War III [current affairs] – “The eminent scholar on the worsening threat of nuclear warfare, how to end the war in Ukraine, the self-justifying myths propagated by imperial powers, why the Global South finds American moralizing laughable, and more.” Noam seems exasperated, I love his voice more than ever now.

Laurie Penny on The Sexual Revolution [current affairs] – “While gendered power dynamics have changed over the last several decades, Penny argues that gender relations have been framed by the logic of the market, which conflates nominal choice with liberation.” Pitching her new book, but of course an anti-capitalist framing of feminism is crucial.


[Articles English]

The government wants us to learn to live with covid-19, but where is the learning? [bmj] – “Rather than burying its head in the sand and claiming victory over a pandemic that’s far from over, our government must take steps to protect the public from a rapidly adapting virus that causes severe long term multi-system disease. If the plan is to learn to live with covid-19, then we need to properly learn how to live with and manage it, not merely accept that a lot of people will suffer in our attempts to return to “normal”.” The new “normal” threw so many people under the bus. The new “normal” ist eugenic fatalism.

In India, hate-filled songs are a weapon to target Muslims [ap news] – “They are part of what is known as “saffron pop,” a reference to the color associated with the Hindu religion and favored by Hindu nationalists. Many such songs openly call for the killing of Muslims and those who do not endorse “Hindutva,” a Hindu nationalist movement that seeks to turn officially secular India into an avowedly Hindu nation.” This scares me.

Elon Musk Is a Problem Masquerading as a Solution [nyt] – ““Freedom for the wolves has often meant death to the sheep,” Mr. Berlin once said. This is a point often lost on Americans. Government — or large centralized authority — is one threat to liberty but not the only one. When it comes to speech, what has often kept a great many people from speaking isn’t censorship but the lack of a platform. Social media, including Twitter, came along and promised to change that. But when it became a cesspit of hate and harassment for women and people of color in particular, it began to offer a miserable bargain: You can be free to say what you wish, but your life can be made unrelentingly painful if you so dare.” The author Anand Giridharadas is getting attacked heavily for this article on- and offline.

Ukrainian Actor Questioned by Police After Venice Biennale Guerrilla Performance [hyperallergic] – “Aleksey Yudnikov placed a photo of President Putin’s face over his crotch and performed in front of the empty Russian pavilion.” Putin on the crotch? Arrest him!

Elon Musk wants to own Twitter to protect his ‘freedom’, not everyone else’s | Robert Reich [the guardian] – “When billionaires like Musk justify their motives by using “freedom,” beware. What they actually seek is freedom from accountability. They want to use their vast fortunes to do whatever they please – unconstrained by laws or regulations, shareholders, or even consumers.” Sadly, shortly after this oped it became a reality.

Noam Chomsky: “We’re approaching the most dangerous point in human history” [new statesman] – ““It’s certainly right to have moral outrage about Putin’s actions in Ukraine,” he said of Biden’s recent declaration that the Russian president “cannot remain in power”. “But it would be even more progress to have moral outrage about other horrible atrocities… In Afghanistan, literally millions of people are facing imminent starvation. Why? There’s food in the markets. But people who have little money have to watch their children starve because they can’t go to the market to buy food. Why? Because the United States, with the backing of Britain, has kept Afghanistan’s funds in New York banks and will not release them.”” I have no clue why people see Chomsky as a “putin-lover”. Come on, man. Did you read what he says?

Mainstreaming Resentment: YouTube Celebrities and the Rhetoric of White Supremacy [items] – “YouTube, in particular, has been identified in multiple reports as an important vector of radicalization. Despite the persistent trope that radicalization takes place in “dark corners of the Internet,” first-hand testimonies and cross-platform studies1 have shown that mainstream social media platforms—YouTube, Facebook, Twitter—have been some of the most effective at disseminating racist, Islamophobic, misogynistic, and transphobic ideas.” This is slightly underwhelming, not much new here.

The End of Alcohol [wired] – “Glamorous influencers are blending science and superstition to help people “change their relationship to drinking.” Did I miss out by getting sober the old-fashioned way?” Alcohol can die, in fire, I hate it so much, it dominates my life even though I have been clean and sober for almost 40 years, now by excluding me from so much social activity and making people dumb.

Can video games treat cognitive disorders? [npr] – “After a referral from her psychiatrist, the Stevenses finally made it to Sarah Shizuko Morimoto and her lab at the University of Utah. Morimoto’s work focuses on cognitive disorders, especially those related to aging brains such as geriatric depression and mental decline.” Sweet.

We Are of the Earth—A Manifesto [verso] – “A climate manifesto from the Frente Nacional Anti-Minero in Ecuador, a new national front of seventy-eight communities and organizations organizing against mining and for anti-capitalist resistance.” There is a free ebook with essays.

Carbon Capture Should Be Run by Governments, Not Companies [the new republic] – “To keep polluters from profiting from shady carbon capture schemes, we need public ownership.” Word!

Ethereum Programmer Jailed for North Korea Trip Wanted to Clone Dogs, Become ‘Crypto Hero’ [vice] – “Virgil Griffith went to the DPRK to talk about crypto. The DOJ said he helped the country learn a new way to bypass sanctions and launder money.” Popcorn.

Global Climate Report – March 2022 [ncei.noaa.org] – “The March 2022 global surface temperature departure was the fifth highest for March in the 143-year record at 0.95°C (1.71°F) above the 20th century average. This was also the highest monthly temperature departure since November 2020. The seven warmest Marches have occurred since 2015, while the 10 warmest Marches have occurred since 2002. March 2022 also marked the 46th consecutive March and the 447th consecutive month with temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th century average.” It’s still happening.

New York Public Library Is Making Banned Books Accessible Across the Country [hyperallergic] – “The New York Public Library (NYPL) will make four commonly banned books available to anyone in the country with its new “Books for All” program. Through the end of May, readers nationwide will be able to access the books on the library’s free e-reader app, SimplyE. Readers will not have to wait for the books, and as for all books checked out from NYPL, there will be no late fees.” Cool workaround.

The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is: A History, A Philosophy, A Warning [lareviewofbooks] – “Are you really debating? And I think the answer is, almost always, no. What’s happening on social media is rather a simulation of discussion and debate. Or, as I like to put it, Twitter is a debate-themed video game, in the same way that, say, Grand Theft Auto is a stolen-car-chase-themed video game.” The debating is mostly shouting over each other.

Climate scientists are desperate: we’re crying, begging and getting arrested | Peter Kalmus [the guardian] – “We chose JP Morgan Chase because out of all the investment banks in the world, JP Morgan Chase funds the most new fossil fuel projects. As the new IPCC report explains, emissions from current and planned fossil energy infrastructure are already more than twice the amount that would push the planet over 1.5°C of global heating, a level of heating that will bring much more intense heat, fire, storms, flooding, and drought than the present 1.2°C.” In 2022 Scientists super-glued themselves to banks.

Exploring the Politics of Masks Beyond COVID [hyperallergic] – “Though masks are popularly conceived of as limiting expression, they allow their wearers to access a range of emotionality, of which the human face alone is incapable.” Touches on some of the other aspects of masks.

Mushrooms communicate with each other using up to 50 ‘words’, scientist claims [the guardian] – “Professor theorises electrical impulses sent by mycological organisms could be similar to human language” Shroom lover here.

We need answers to these four long Covid questions [the guardian] – “This is a disaster. Nobody asked for this condition, nor were they warned about its possibility, and now sufferers are being hung out to dry with no support from one of the greatest fallouts of this pandemic. We know pandemics disable people, and policymakers should have been prepared for this. What is the plan here?” What. Is. The. Plan.

Éric Zemmour, ‘anti-Semitic Jew’? [verso] – “When Haim Korsia, chief rabbi of France, described Zemmour as an ‘anti-Semite’, he had a very clear reason for this. By attempting to rehabilitate Pétain and falsify the history of French Jews during the dark years, even going so far as to cast doubt on the innocence of Captain Dreyfus, Zemmour undermines what is most sensitive in contemporary Jewish ‘memory’. In fact, rather than an ‘anti-Semitic Jew’, Zemmour is an extreme right-wing politician who happens to be Jewish and who, by playing on this quality, gives the traditionally anti-Semitic and no less racist far right a veneer of respectability. He has given speech free rein and made the worst things honourable – if a Jew says this, then you can say anything.” Thankfully he kinda tanked. But just think, he reived around 7% in the end, if I remember it right? That is still way too much, while Le Pen received over 20%. One in four frenchies (of the ones who did vote) for the far right. Soon like Switzerland.


[Articles German/French]

Denkbar schlechte Verbündete [woz] – “Weder die westliche Staatengemeinschaft noch die Nato sind Garanten der politischen und sozialen Errungenschaften. Das Demokratische und seine Freiheiten wurden dem politischen System in gesellschaftlichen Kämpfen aufgezwungen und kann auch nur gesellschaftlich verteidigt werden. Armeen und Sicherheitsapparate hingegen waren und sind überall Bastionen des Autoritarismus – sie sind die denkbar schlechtesten Verbündeten bei der Verteidigung von Grundrechten.” Great essay by Raul Zelik.

Éric Zemmour: Frankreichs neue Bedrohung von rechts [jacobin] – “Er wurde wegen Volksverhetzung verurteilt und ist als rassistischer Provokateur berüchtigt: Der rechtsradikale Meinungsmacher Éric Zemmour wird dieses Jahr bei der französischen Präsidentschaftswahl antreten. Ohne die Förderung eines milliardenschweren Medienmoguls wäre sein Aufstieg kaum möglich gewesen.” See above.

Memes – Formen und Folgen eines Internetphänomens bei transcript Verlag [transcript] – “Memes dienen nicht nur der popkulturellen Unterhaltung oder der Kunst, sie werden auch in der Politik, in lokalen und internationalen Wahlkämpfen oder auf Demonstrationen verwendet. In ihrer typischsten Form sind sie Text-Bild-Gefüge, die sich digital mit viraler Geschwindigkeit verbreiten und transformieren.” A pretty interesting free ebook on memes


[Older articles, still great]

How to handle a troll … and neuter a sea lion [guardian] – “From asking innocent questions before mounting an attack to inciting online abuse by others, trolling is entering a new, subtler era. Here’s how to deal with it” This brief description of diverse troll tactics keeps on giving.


R.I.P.

Klaus Schulze

Mira Calix died in march but here’s another mix:

FACT mix 715: Mira Calix


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Header Photo: Descriptive

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