[A monthly link list of recommended articles, videos, podcasts, photos, toots … you name it]
I made this 100% Musk-free! (Except for the hilarious videos of course)
[Videos]
breakdancing medieval marginalia
Cyberfeminism Index Book Launch – Mindy Seu – An index of indexes.
Trolling the Anti-Abortion protestors blocking Planned Parenthood
!!!!! MUSK-WARNING !!!!!
The Talented Mr. Musk, Part 2: The Elon Files Okay, so these are hilarious.
The Talented Mr. Musk, Part 1: Free Speech
!!!!! YOU CAN BREATHE AGAIN !!!!!
«La terre va se réchauffer» : 45 ans d’alertes [ina] – “Les scientifiques ont alerté sur le réchauffement climatique dès la fin des années 70.” They knew.
[Music]
DICE 30th Anniversary_DJ FOOD Collaboration
[Podcasts]
S1E55 – Cindy Barukh Milstein on Trying Anarchism for Life [live-like-the-world-is-dying] – “Margaret and Casandra talk with Cindy Milstein about what anarchism actually is, why you should try it, possibly for life, the many horrors of fascism, and once again why community is all too important. They also talk about Milstein’s new book from Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, “Try Anarchism for Life.”” “Margaret 02:57 Wait, are you an anarchist? Milstein 03:01 Time will tell.” Time will tell. I am shaking currently.
ME, Long Covid, and the History of Medical Stigma (Podcast) [the science bit] – “Arising from my new book, we discussed the medical stigma in which an illness is falsely characterised as ‘psychological’ — post-viral conditions such as ME and Long Covid, for example, but also many others.”
[Toot Threads]
[Pandemic Roundup]
Pandemic Roundup: January 26, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: January 19, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: January 12, 2023
Pandemic Roundup: January 5, 2023
Thank you so much for these lists, you keep us sane, Violet!
[The Must Read[s] This Month]
War on Empathy [peste] – “This month begins the fourth year of the COVID pandemic in the United States—a crisis that has now claimed the lives of more than one million of our fellow Americans and disabled many more. Bearing witness to the painful truths of the pandemic—in media and in public culture—remains an urgent and mostly unrealized priority. Like the early years of AIDS, our current cultural moment demands COVID coverage that is grounded in the values that journalists ostensibly hold dear—sympathy for underdogs, skepticism of the party line, an instinct for muckraking, and a refusal to merely manufacture consent.” Pestemag is another source of sanity.
Shielding under endemic SARS-CoV-2 conditions is easier said than done: a model-based analysis [medrxiv.org] – “In the absence of concerted public health actions to provide options for individuals looking to reduce their risk of infection, shielding as a personal responsibility is challenging to achieve. Public health organizations have advocated for oxymoronic “individual public health measures”, but these represent an inadequate solution to the ongoing COVID-19 public health crisis. Permitting the unrestrained spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the population will inflict a heavy burden of infection and long COVID on society as a whole, which will be challenging if not impossible for individuals to opt out of in the long run.”
That’s Not What This Machine Is For | Peter Gelderloos [substack] – “In a world without capitalism, in which all the present institutions of power had been abolished and we were hard at work healing the planet and ourselves from generations of colonialism and patriarchy, the scientific method would be a limited but valid way of producing knowledge. Today it is also valid, and in an age of COVID and climate deniers it is truly important to be scientifically literate. But its actual practice is entirely tied up with the forces waging war against us.” Peter often goes to where it hurts, but his critique on science is very important. We can’t leave that shit to the right wing conspiracy nuts.
We’re Living through The End of Civilization, and We Should Be Acting Like It | Jessica Wildfire [substack] – “The sooner everyone accepts the end of this civilization, the better. Humans don’t have to go extinct, but the way we’re living has to change. There’s no hope for this way of life, full of reckless consumption and convenience well beyond the planet’s means. The harder we fight, the more denial and delusional thinking we engage in, the worse we’re going to make it. Downplaying the truth has only made things worse. It makes everyone complacent.” I could have posted here any number of her almost daily essays and rants, Jessica keeps me sane. Basically, read her substack!
[Articles English]
Mass Protests by Climate Activists Follow Eviction of Occupied German Village [unicornriot] – “Lützerath, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany – Thousands protested the planned expansion of an immense open-pit coal mine, one of the largest in Europe. The forceful eviction of climate activists who were occupying Lützerath for more than two years and the demolition of the village itself became a call to action, sparking the largest protest yet seen in the region. The sheer number of people, together with the presence of famed Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, attracted the attention of both local and international media, helping to broadcast climate activists’ searing criticism of the German government’s energy policy, which has used the war in Ukraine as an excuse to continue burning coal.” Nice summary.
Before We Die [project-evasions] – “The Swiss state locates us as if avoiding a plague epidemic, and it is impossible not to realize this. In their eyes, we do not belong to human species that they value. What we are exposed to is similar to what animals are exposed to in terms of value given and treatment shown. Sometimes like circus’s figurant that turns into a spectacle and being watched, sometimes like individual helplessly imprisoned in zoos and sometimes like those on animal farms, that are exploited from head to toe and then left to die.” The sad, dehumanizing situation of migratants in so-called Switzerland.
Inside a US Neo-Nazi Homeschool Network With Thousands of Members [vice] – “A Ohio couple has been unmasked as leaders of the neo-Nazi “Dissident Homeschool” Telegram channel that distributes lesson plans to 2,400 members.” Just why.
Antibiotic resistance induced by the widespread use of… antidepressants? [ars technica] – “Bacteria evolve drug resistance more readily when antidepressants are around.” Oh fuck.
Misophonia: how ‘sound rage’ destroys relationships and forces people to move home [the guardian] – “Sent into apoplexy by whistling noses? Can’t bear the sound of people eating? You could be one of the many people affected by this potentially debilitating condition.” I think i have the even more radical version, hyperakusis, where certain noises actually hurt.
We are all playing Covid roulette. Without clean air, the next infection could permanently disable you | George Monbiot [the guardian] – “instead of taking simple and effective actions – proper (N95) masks in public places, filtration in shared spaces – we have steadily normalised a mass disabling agent. It’s likely, eventually, to reduce the number of quality years for almost everyone. Those who suffer the extreme version of this disablement, long Covid, are treated as an embarrassment we would prefer to forget.” Good job, humanity. We have normalized a mass disabling agent.
Look at how the 1% are doing right now, and tell me the system isn’t rigged | Nesrine Malik [the guardian] – “It’s not an accident,” [Goodman] tells me, “that our economies have concentrated greater wealth in fewer hands. Quite simply, wealthy people have used their wealth to purchase democracy, to warp democracy in their own interests. They’ve done that through a global template that involves lowering taxes, privatising formerly public attempts to deal with common problems, liquidating the spending that went into things like social services, and then putting that money into their own pockets.”
Lost Media: Finding Bill Clinton’s “Boxers or Briefs” MTV Moment [waxy] – “As of right now, before I publish this post, it’s extremely hard to find online — but not impossible, because I found it, and here it is.” Gee, thanks for the reminder — to perpetuity, waxy.
how to completely own an airline in 3 easy steps – “and grab the TSA nofly list along the way” They were bored.
Revealed: more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest provider are worthless, analysis shows [the guardian] – “The forest carbon offsets approved by the world’s leading provider and used by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations are largely worthless and could make global heating worse, according to a new investigation.” What a scam. But we strongly suspected this for a while, right?
The Story of Palm Oil Is a Story About Capitalism [jacobin] – “Palm oil is in everything: what we eat, wear, read, drive. And like so much else that we consume and can’t disentangle ourselves from, palm oil is enmeshed in global supply chains that rely on brutal working conditions and the destruction of the planet.” Palm oil is in lots and lots of vegan foods.
Billionaires at Davos don’t think COVID is a cold | The Gauntlet [substack] – “President Biden has called the pandemic “over”. The New York Times recently claimed that “the risk of Covid is similar to that of the flu” in an article about “hold outs” that are annoyingly refusing to accept continual reinfection as their “new normal”. Yet, this week the richest people in the world are taking common sense, easy- but strict- precautions to ensure they don’t catch Covid-19 at Davos.” Fuck the WEF.
Unmasking the Power of Lucha Libre [hyperallergic] – “Lucha Libre: Beyond the Arenas shows that the performative wrestling genre is about more than the wrestlers or their costumes.” Love em.
Here’s 150+ Sources on Covid to Share with Everyone You Know | Jessica Wildfire [substack] – “Earlier this month, I started making lists with a social bookmarking app. There’s something reassuring about a wall of organized sources. In my experience, it does something to see everything all laid out in a way that’s visually accessible. It’s hard to ignore the overwhelming evidence.” A collection of links and resources.
We’re Never Getting Back to Normal. You Don’t Have to Pretend Anymore. | Jessica Wildfire [substack] – “We have to build our tolerance for bad news, and we have to find moments of peace and beauty whenever we can. We’ll be scavengers of happiness. We’re not hysterical. We’re not bitter, not anymore. We know what’s going on. We’re going to spend the rest of our lives fighting for our survival.” Okay one more… I had 7 bookmarked in total this month.
We’ll Go Where Flowers Grow [crimethinc] – “In response to the efforts of various fascists and billionaires to silence and isolate us, we present this poster in the romantic tradition of the first generation of CrimethInc. projects—a gesture of faith in the boundless possibilities that remain ahead of us and of determination to continue to build and rebuild the ties that connect us. Our collective predates the era of social media. We have lived through many waves of repression, many setbacks. Our enthusiasm remains undimmed.” Love this message.
we must know how it feels. | Raechel Anne Jolie [substack] – “It is enough to tell our stories, it is enough to write because we can’t not, and to share because we’ve developed a habit of it.” Has a bit of a Rilke “letters to a young poet” vibe, but she quotes new (at least to me) sources.
Covid-19 Vaccine Makers Pressured Twitter to Censor Activists [intercept] – “I’m actually 74 and still living,” said Brough with a chuckle. “I was a bricklayer all my life just like my dad. I’m no Che Guevara, but I’ve been an activist, a trade unionist, and a socialist. And all I did was sign a tweet. I wish I could’ve done more, really.” Part of the new normal.
Long COVID: major findings, mechanisms and recommendations [nature] – “Long COVID is an often debilitating illness that occurs in at least 10% of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections. More than 200 symptoms have been identified with impacts on multiple organ systems. At least 65 million individuals worldwide are estimated to have long COVID, with cases increasing daily.” A very decent summary.
kc green on his “this is fine” cartoon [tumblr] – “When a work gets as big as this has, is it still yours? Not talking about copyright and legal stuff. It says something larger that everyone can feel and relate to. ” This is fine has turned 10 years old.
S.F. gallery owner who sprayed a homeless woman is hardly an outlier [sfchronicle] – “In a city that has failed to make meaningful progress in combating its visible homelessness crisis, these sorts of conflicts between city residents, business owners and unhoused individuals are inevitable. We are not housing people fast enough, nor are we preventing people on the margins from becoming homeless.” Agree.
December 2022 Global Climate Report [ncei] – “December 2022 ranked as the eighth-warmest December in NOAA’s 143-year record. The December global surface temperature was 1.44°F (0.80°C) above the 20th-century average of 54.0°F (12.2°C). December 2022 marked the 46th consecutive December and the 456th consecutive month with temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th-century average.” Yup.
New Yorker Takes Aim at People Who Still Think Covid Is a Problem [fair] – “The most harmful thing about Green’s piece is not that she did not fairly/properly engage with the work People’s CDC is actually doing. It’s that her piece (and the many others like it that we often dissect on Death Panel) reinforces the individualization of public health, reducing it to a matter of individual behavior, political preference, or “personal choice,” which both obscures and undermines recognition that the pandemic and public health are collective phenomena shaped by policy choices (e.g., US lack of sick leave and Medicare-for-All, or changes in isolation guidelines from 10 to five days driven by economic priorities not virus, disease, changes in ways treat or stop spread of infections, etc.) and our political economy (ableism, racism, devaluation/dehumanization of poor people built into capitalism, etc.).” I hate these normaliser assholes so much.
“The New Yorker” Goes All In on Our Precious Bodily Fluids [the nation] – “The writers of these stories all situate themselves as speaking for the vast center. As writers, they are a people without politics, with an avowed and insistent neutrality seemingly conferred on them by their profession, and by the publications they write for, which seek fairness and objectivity—always an excuse for what Joan Didion called “a good deal of autopilot reporting and lazy thinking.” But this kind of worldview also tracks with what organizer Aaron Huertas has labeled “reactionary centrism,” an ideology of sorts held by “someone who says they’re politically neutral, but who usually punches left while sympathizing with the right.” Historian Thomas Zimmer has used this idea to explain what is happening in American politics right now as a “fever dream of reactionary centrism: A center-right re-alignment of American politics, all in the name of defending democracy against Trump—while also upholding the traditional order against the forces of multiracial pluralism.” The current moment in Covid-19 journalism and commentary and in the wider politics of the pandemic fit well within this frame.” Dito.
Andrew Tate isn’t feminism’s inadvertent bastard child. He’s sexism’s last gasp [the guardian] – “Why does Tate really appeal to young men? Well, like everyone else, young men are susceptible to the idea that they are special, deserving and that others are to blame for their problems. And like everyone else, they will behave as badly as society permits. The west is still replete with sexist narratives. Tate is not a symptom of too much equality, but too much patriarchy. The real work is getting rid of it.”
And let’s get rid of it. Time of the monsters.
Journalists (And Others) Should Leave Twitter. Here’s How They Can Get Started [techdirt] – “All of which is why I implore the journalists and journalism organizations, above all at this crucial point, to rethink what they’re doing — and move starting today to reclaim independence. I also ask well-resourced outsiders to help make this happen, especially when it comes to the many journalists and news organizations that lack the bandwidth or money to do this themselves” Sadly they ignore it.
Climate reparations: It’s the right thing to do — and will create a better world for everyone [salon] – “Real climate justice is bad news for ExxonMobil, says philosopher Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò — but good news for the rest of us” Big fan.
The Guy Who Just Loves Everyone [current affairs] – “Fridman’s “not right wing or left wing, but love” is hollow, because his love is not exercised in the service of reducing the amount of cruelty and violence in the world, and thus becomes meaningless branding that makes him look good without making moral demands on him. […] I am all for love, but love of the Williamsonian kind. A Politics of Love is sharply critical of the military-industrial complex and the Bush administration’s lies about Iraq, because Williamson understands that peace requires demilitarization of the world and love for Iraqis means calling out those who invaded and destroyed their country.” Just like “i am neither left nor right” usually means the people saying this are drifting to the right.
Project MUSE – Elegy for a Mask Mandate –
“We learned to speak a new
vocabulary, to understand
what it means to protect
each other so we all survive. In
my home now, in my lonely
bed, I’m still speaking those
words to the silent house: My mask
protects you.Your mask protects me.” Breaks my heart.
Noam Chomsky: Another World Is Possible. Let’s Bring It to Reality. [truthout] – “The status quo can certainly be challenged. A far better world is surely within reach. There is every reason to honor the slogan of the World Social Forum that “Another world is possible,” a far better one, and to devote our efforts to bring it to reality.”
I’m Immunocompromised. Here’s How I Feel About Masking in 2023. [truthout] – “When others around me don’t wear a mask, they are effectively telling me: Your life is not worth this small inconvenience. I do not care about you. I do not care about other vulnerable people. We can’t let the people who don’t believe in science or don’t care about marginalized people set the norms in society. If you care about disability justice, you need to wear a mask.” This is pretty much how i feel now as well.
Rainbows in the Rubble | Cindy Milstein [outside the circle] – “Some call that depression, set in motion by trauma and grief. And no doubt there’s much that’s accurate in that. Yet I call it trying to live with “the gap between ‘what is’ and ‘what could be’”—a gap that these pandemic years has pried so far apart, it’s now (in winter three) nearly unbridgeable. And without a bridge, any sense of being able to wander forward toward horizons of possibilities gets blocked.” Quote of the month: “trying to live with “the gap between ‘what is’ and ‘what could be”
[Articles German/French]
Zum Überkochen [daslamm] – “Es ist doch einfach herzerwärmend, dass ausgerechnet die alte 80er-Gang vom Kraftwerk 1, die Bolo-Bolo-Jünger, die nostalgischen Alt-Revoluzzer*innen willfährig Hand bieten, einen der letzten Freiräume der Stadt zu verbauen. Man wird halt erwachsen. Ausserdem ist ja jetzt alles gut, das kann man mit damals nicht vergleichen!” I am so angry at these old comrades of mine, this project makes the class enemy now.
Trauer als Widerstand. Über ein Symbol der revolutionären Bewegung „Frau Leben Freiheit“ [gdg] – “In einem solchen Regime ist es Widerstand, trotzdem Trauer zu zeigen und sich, wie die Frau in dem Video von dem Protest in Kerman, öffentlich die Haare zu schneiden. Und mehr noch: Es ist eine solidarische Protestpraxis, die als unideologische Geste der Hinwendung zum anderen das Leben selbst meint und daher Menschen verbindet. Als Protestform und revolutionäres Symbol macht die Trauergeste nicht nur gegen die Todespolitik der islamischen Republik mobil, sondern bringt Verbundenheit, Achtung von Vulnerabilität und Anerkennung des Lebens als politische Werte in Zirkulation.” Mourning as political protest.
Spaltung von oben. Zur anti-demokratischen und rassistischen Logik der Integration [gdg] – “Für eine solidarische Gesellschaft hingegen braucht es politische Verantwortung, kollektiven Einsatz und unablässigen Mut im Kampf für tatsächlich gleiche Rechte in allen Lebensbereichen und widerständigen Erfindungsreichtum. Und zwar im Dienst einer solidarischen, demokratischen und nachhaltigen Gestaltung sozialer Verhältnisse, die sich vom Diskurs der Integration und dem ihm zugrundeliegenden antidemokratischen Phantasma einer homogenen Gemeinschaft endgültig verabschieden muss.” Valid point on integration as a phony concept. But if people behave like assholes, we should still call them out. It’s always the same people and beings who suffer from violent noise.
20 Jahre nach Krawallnacht: Aufstieg und Fall der Berner Anti-WEF-Bewegung [der bund] – “Anfang der Nullerjahre hatte die Kritik an der Globalisierung und dem WEF Hochkonjunktur. Dann trieben interne Konflikte die Bewegung auseinander. Wo steht sie heute?” Paywalled article, readable here: https://antira.org/2023/01/14/medienspiegel-13-januar-2023/.
“Sexismus im Rap ist ein Kollateralschaden” [daslamm] – “Der Rap-Event Cypher vom SRF wurde 2022 erneut für die sexistischen Textbeiträge einiger Teilnehmer kritisiert. Auch Tommy Vercetti, linker Rapper aus Bern und Szenen-Papi, musste Gegenwind aushalten. Im Interview mit das Lamm spricht er über Feminismus, politische Perspektivlosigkeit und darüber, was der Neoliberalismus mit Rap macht.” Okay, Tommy did some thinking, now let’s see what tracks result from it.
[Older articles, still great]
The Hacienda – The Club that Shook Britain
Rechte Öko-Sekte: Die “Anastasia-Bewegung” | SPIEGEL TV
How Black Cats Went From Bad Luck to Symbols of Defiance [hyperallergic] – “Icons like the Black Panther Party logo, the “Sabo-Tabby,” and innumerable pieces of protest art go against the traditional Western taboo around the felines.” With some nice graphics as well.
Formulary for a New Urbanism [r/d] – “The latest technological developments would make possible the individual’s unbroken contact with cosmic reality while eliminating its disagreeable aspects. Stars and rain can be seen through glass ceilings. The mobile house turns with the sun. Its sliding walls enable vegetation to invade life. Mounted on tracks, it can go down to the sea in the morning and return to the forest in the evening.” And to think this was written in the 50s and the lack of such things still mostly holds true.
Cyberfeminism Index – “Cyberfeminism cannot be reduced to women and technology. Nor is it about the diffusion of feminism through technology. Combining cyber and feminism was meant as an oxymoron or provocation, a critique of the cyberbabes and fembots that stocked the sci-fi landscapes of the 1980s. The term is self-reflexive: technology is not only the subject of cyberfeminism, but its means of transmission. It’s all about feedback.” Maybe better than the book because it keeps getting updated.
The Best Way To Save People From Suicide [huffington post] – “One thing I realized in working with suicidal people was that the problem spanned so many disciplines,” Motto told the writer Peter Shore in 2006. “It wasn’t just a psychiatric problem. It was a psychological problem, a public health problem, a social problem, a philosophical problem, a theological problem. When I say theological, I mean when the patient says to you, ‘What’s the point in going on? It’s just painful. I’m going to die sooner or later anyway. What am I here for? What’s the meaning of my life?’ Well, I realized they hadn’t given an answer to that question to me in medical school.” Please don’t help me.
R.I.P.
Gianluca Vialli (yes, i am anti-soccer now, but Vialli was a great one)
Tom Verlain
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Header Photo: Wide shot of the alps in wintery early morning sun