“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.”
―Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

Welcome to the first links drop of August, my piglets! While I’m still somewhat in dread and awe as to how quickly this year is flying by, I’m never sad to have another weekend upon us wherein a lovingly box up the internet for you. There is an extra good drop this week, with less political outrage than usual…although our usual mix of feminism and Lizzo-stanning is very much in evidence.

Here’s your links, tell me your favorite finds in the comments, and let’s go into the weekend with the same energy as a mediocre white male politician, convinced that he’s [insert preferred in group here]’s salvation.

What a great podcast episode on modern gesture language!

Actively good news!

I legitimately think Lil Nas X should ride this train as long as he can with whatever remixes he wants. He is incredibly smart about picking options that keep him at the top of the charts, which seems to be the goal. The haters can stay mad and if this is the sum total of his career, fine. (Edited to add: I cackle with delight at everyone who’s mad about it!)

A piece in The New Yorker made the rounds this week, with new and devastating information about Mr. Dershowitz and his relationship with Mr. Epstein. It’s a hard, hard read, but it’s important.

REALLY enjoying the exchange rate this week…a non-stop string of good news…

I’m pretty well convinced that economist Mark Blyth is right and there are some really clear lines between austerity policy and nationalistic rises, including the Brexit vote. Meanwhile, the nationalists are in power and the problems are not getting better. Boris was just given £10m to run what amounts to a No Deal propaganda campaign and meanwhile, poverty in the UK is crippling whole communities.

What a gem of an insight into a person and a time.

Space is great!

Because God and the Devil both know how susceptible we are…

I am choosing to believe this op-ed piece contains wisdom. Because the President has clearly chosen the double down on batshit, shameful, racist, lying nonsense and thus far has paid no price for any of his speech or behavior at all. And I’m pretty pessimistic on my worst days.

This week I learned that the historic marker on the spot where Emmett Till’s broken body was pulled from a river is the subject of repeated vandalism. It’s being updated, thank god, but our original wounding sin as a nation is still festering.

Never a bad time for more Drunk History.

This is corruption, pure and simple.

Interesting idea for a nation state to try. I think we’re going to have to become much more experimental as a society overall so I’m curious to see what the long term outcome of this is. Someone please go for a universal basic income next!

No kidding! I’m very glad to see reporting that this is being treated seriously by the Pentagon, but there have been a lot of cultural issues unearthed in recent years and like so many institutions whose abuses are being exposed, system change is required and won’t be easy.

More women means organizations change, you say? Excellent.

Why yes, I am interested in fall fashion already. September will be upon us soon!

Oh, my youth.

A worthy long read to round out your understanding of human progress.

BLESS US, LIZZO, WE NEED YOUR MAGNIFICENT ENERGY.

“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” 
― Desmond Tutu

It’s PRIDE weekend in London, my kittens. Go out and party or protest accordingly.

Here’s your weekend reading when you need to take a break from either.

This is extremely my jam.

This first person essay of gender transition and the role pop culture can play in it is deeply poignant.

Cher is everything.

Another week, another brilliant Tiny Desk Concert that left me gasping.

This piece gripped me. Modern media is a strange thing, and so are the people who run it.

One of my brothers sometimes volunteers at an area clinic that services rural communities and he’s shared some really humbling stories. I happen to believe there is no excuse for the wealthiest country in the world to have the discrepancy in healthcare that we do.

Baby elephant!

The end of an era and some people are mad.

Hold people accountable for rape. How the hell is this so hard?!

I am deeply invested in the stories of teenage girls who fight back. They will save us all.

Disney announced the casting of a beautiful and talented woman of color in the role of Ariel in the upcoming live action remake of The Little Mermaid, and some white people on Twitter decided to be upset about it. A few thoughts. These live action remakes are unnecessary. The Little Mermaid is trash and I’m smug that from a young age (we’re talking five years old), I thought Ariel was an idiot for giving up her literal voice for some dude she had never met. Finally, racists can stay mad and I hope this makes half a billion dollars at the box office. Also, please cast Keanu.

Democracy is a wild trip, ya’ll.

In Mormon news, the LDS church’s rebrand one year on–after which both the terms “mormon” and “LDS” are no longer acceptable. How this change played out practically and logistically, and what it means for the community of the faithful. Though no longer a member or believer, I still claim the term “mormon” as the one that best encompasses the much wider history of the religious movements associated with the faith tradition…and therefore still has the space for a heretic and apostate like me.

Also in Mormon news, scholar Jana Reiss takes on a common misconception and trope around people who leave the LDS church and their subsequent feelings towards the institution.

Also ALSO in Mormon news: this.

Warning about some less than savory photos. “The Border Patrol Facebook group is the most recent example of some law enforcement personnel behaving badly in public and private digital spaces.” We BADLY need to reexamine law enforcement in this country.

Drag queens have always been with us. Thank god.

Hmm….

I have seen this movie and I’m positive it does not end well.

An update from last week. Outrage works, but it’s still fucked up this was even possible.

BRB, bathing in male tears.

I still struggle to explain America to non-Americans. Articles like this make me wonder if I’m even qualified to try!

Yikes, stay safe, Californian ducklings.

HAHAHAHAHAHA. We’re doomed.

Asking the good questions…

Let’s end on a positive note, shall we? Jeff and I celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary this week and while I’d never claim to be any kind of authority on love, I think this piece by the Great and Good Caitlin Moran sums up our take on it pretty nicely.

“At midnight, in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon.” 
― Edgar Allan Poe

Gruntlings, it’s been another long week, but happy solstice. We made it to the halfway point!

At time of writing I’m unsure if we’re head towards another war in the Middle East, Boris Johnson is probably going to be Prime Minister, and another assault allegation has been made against my president. You’ll find out more as soon as I do…

Enjoy the weekend, and if you’re feeling dispirited by the general state of things, don’t. Turn it into action. Fuel something you are passionate about this weekend, even if it’s hard. Especially if it’s hard.

I worked for a police department for five years, and I am not at all surprised to read this reporting at all. My memory of the attitudes towards my then coworkers is much more around gun culture, hyper social conservatism, and militia group interest than overt racism but if the last decade has taught me anything, it’s that racism and misogyny are inherent to these other forms of extreme views, as do certain attitudes towards how they should be able to do their jobs. And worth noting that my old department is embroiled in a scandal about unethical or unlawful dissemination of records. I don’t think all cops are bad, not by a long shot! But I do think we need to look at their systemic power when it leads inevitably to abuse, admit what’s broken, and fix it.

Some people have way too much money.

I’m pretty sure he cheated on her, but nice to hear things are back on track (or at least their PR teams are excellent at their jobs).

Another week, another report that would paralyze or end an administration in normal times. This week the New York Times reported that cyber warfare with Russia is ramping up…and that Pentagon officials aren’t necessarily briefing the President about it. Because they’re afraid he would countermand the work, or divulge it. Cool…. If they’re wrong, this is a horrific breach of the chain of command and if they are right, he probably should have that command in the first place.

I am excited for this exhibit coming to the British Museum!

On The Media has done a new series, about the issue of home eviction in America. Should be a good, and powerful listen.

We’re going to run out of planet.

Let us all be chastened for our snark. All hail Boaty.

“In recent years, there has been enormous concern about the time we spend on our web-connected devices and what that might be doing to our brains. But a related psychological shift has gone largely unremarked: the way that, for a certain segment of the population, the news has come to fill up more and more time – and, more subtly, to occupy centre stage in our subjective sense of reality, so that the world of national politics and international crises can feel more important, even more truly real, than the concrete immediacy of our families, neighbourhoods and workplaces. It’s not simply that we spend too many hours glued to screens. It’s that for some of us, at least, they have altered our way of being in the world such that the news is no longer one aspect of the backdrop to our lives, but the main drama.”

The short video on egg yolks you didn’t know you needed. I now want to make all of these recipes.

…have we all been doing this wrong for centuries? The New Yorker was immediately on the case.

Are straight men ok? (Trick question, we know the answer is “no.”)

Wait…is anybody okay?!

Let’s line up a little summer pleasure reading, shall we? This list of delightfully diverse romance novels is a good place to start and includes the line “Agatha Christie but make it gay!” So you know it’s good.

Speaking of book’s Hannah’s next novel FOUL IS FAIR is coming, and she’s currently hosting an ARC giveaway content on her social media.

Another week in America, another mass shooting. A local photographer managed to photograph the shooter before the attack started and honestly, as much as I don’t want to elevate this man’s profile, it’s such a simple example of what extremism actually looks like in American that I think it needs to be shared. It’s not an brown person of indeterminate origins, it’s typically a white guy in glasses with a horrifying arsenal that no civilian needs. (Continuous developing story at NPR.)

I’m with the swan.

All the bad faith handwringing about whether “detention centers” are “concentration camps” or not, when THIS is happening, “A 14-year-old girl from Guatemala said she had been holding two little girls in her lap. ‘I need comfort, too. I am bigger than they are, but I am a child, too,’ she said.”

We are not safer as a country without a confirmed Secretary of Defense–and a competent one at that. My family and its military members is less safe. The political is personal as well as vice versa.

“Two months into his detention, an immigration officer came to Mr. Mutu with an offer. As he understood it, if he gave up his claim for asylum, he would be deported back to Romania with Constantin. He agreed, and on June 3, 2018, he was released from his cell and loaded into a van. He looked everywhere for Constantin and asked the officers where his son was, but was not given a clear answer. At the airport, he refused to board without the baby. The immigration officers, he said, told him that Constantin would be handed to him once he had taken his seat. But the plane lifted off and the baby never came.” THIS. SHOULD. NOT. BE. POSSIBLE.

This is a parody. Cool cool cool…

I spend a lot of time thinking about how America seems to have squandered a half century of goodwill and leadership in what feels like record time (by historical standards).

Start that podcast.

The longform read that gripped me this week was about the loss of Malaysian Airlines flight 370. It’s riveting: “The disappearance of the airplane has provoked a host of theories. Many are preposterous. All are given life by the fact that, in this age, commercial airplanes don’t just vanish.”

The last link is a really hard hit, so here: have a cheerful dive into the wackiest hats of Ascot this week first.

Famed advice columnist E. Jean Carroll published a gut punch of a piece about her list of “hideous” men. Yes, it includes the president, but that’s not necessarily the most powerful part of the piece–I’m deeply angry to type–it’s that he was is just one of many men who continues to get away with it all. “And many women my age just “get on with it” too. It is how we handle things: Chin up! Stop griping! We do not cast ourselves as victims because we do not see ourselves as victims. While the strategy has worked for me, I wish I hadn’t waited so long to say something about two of my Hideous Men.”

“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.” 
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Ducklings, I write to you from the comfort of my own desk as I took today off for an extra long Bank Holiday weekend. I’ve been working late most days for several weeks and Jeff’s schedule has been even worse by order of magnitude. My delightful near-impromptu romp to Italy with X notwithstanding, we continue to feel a bit run down and overextended lately. Hence an extra long weekend, and possibly the last one until the heady days of August.

Happy Memorial Day to American kittens, and enjoy the long sunshine to Brits and Yanks alike. I’ve pulled together a nice batch of weekend reading to take you through until Tuesday. Let me know what you’re getting up to in the comments, and share your favorites reads and finds from around the interwebs in the comments!

What must it be like to have leaders forced from office for this sort of crap? Sounds nice…

If you need a chuckle and enjoy people who in turn genuinely enjoy and revel in the weird things that give them pleasure, this one’s for you.

Go, girl!

Vanilla is not nearly as boring as it has come to colloquially represent.

Maybe let’s at least…try?

From the bottom of my heart, **** this guy.

A short but interesting video journalism piece on K-beauty, resistance, autonomy, and the strength of both personal and international soft power.

This is weirdly sad to me. There are almost no pristine places left to us.

Julian Asange is a bad guy, in my opinion. Full stop. But the way we prosecute him for his actions is going to be important and I’m afraid that the current indictments could open new precedents which could backfire on actual journalists.

Cool. What are you going to do about it, Representative?

What’s in a name? Turns out an awful lot, include podcast readability!

….yeah….

GIRL GANG GOOD NEWS MINUTE: Hannah’s second book cover has dropped and I cannot wait for you guys to read this absolute banger of a book! Revenge has never been colder or more sweet!

“Very stable genius.” It really is extraordinary how almost uniquely good the Speaker is in getting under his skin. Why is that I wonder? Trick question, it’s because she’s a woman. (In related news, I’m already tired of 2020 bullshit. Here’s hoping we’re all a much better informed electorate this time around, because active misinformation and selective classification/declassification is getting weaponized in new ways.)

Well, it’s happened…and Britain is…the same, now? I’ve been on an emotional roller coaster of deeply disliking this leader’s policies and mandate, disagreeing intensely with her choices, and grudgingly feeling sorry for the absolute shitty hand she was dealt when a lot of people pushed buttons and scampered away from the subsequent explosions and messes. She was never going to get out of this job unscathed. If we get Boris Johnson as PM I will have to scream into a cushion for a while.

The pettiness is the point.

We will not go back.