Tag: Politics

Holidays, Humor, Links, News, Politics, Pop Culture, Travel

Weekend Links: Festivus Edition

“Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.” 
― Hamilton Wright Mabie

My ducklings! My darlings! My scrumptious Christmas puddings!

I’m officially on holiday, can you tell? By the time most of you read this I will likely be on a plane somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, winging my way westward to the nation of my birth. The past week has been a frenzy of work activity to close as many tasks as possible, whilst juggling the occasions and events of the festive season. The Christmas “do” is over, I’ve dropped off presents to my London peeps, and Now I’ve got eight hours on plane to catch up on podcasts, audiobooks, and reading. How I’m looking forward to it!

We are shamefully unprepared for this holiday. I mentioned previously that November seemed to skate by at warp speed and by the time I felt I had looked up, it was halfway through December and I had managed nothing on my seasonal To Do list. Even our holiday packing is a last minute affair…I pen these words to you in a fit of desperate procrastination between outfit wrangling for two weeks and toiletries. And the sheer amount of mismatched food we need to eat in the next twelve hours to clear out the fridge is positively bonkers.

You’ll get a scattering of missives from me over the next couple of weeks, but I’m taking a proper holiday this year and mostly checking out. You can keep up with our Stateside shenanigans here if you feel so inclined. See you a bit nearer to the new year!

Let’s start with the news. Once again the stories are still breaking fast and hot as I put this post together but what a week! The American president is officially an un-indicted co-conspirator in multiple investigations and his bagmen are being found guilty of crimes left and right. It’s been amazing to watch the propaganda machines whirl this week. In normal times a credible allegation of involvement of a foreign power in his election campaign OR a credible allegation of major breach of campaign finance law OR an allegation of significant and corrupt business practices in his private capacity with corresponding state level investigations OR multiple mistresses would derail a politician. To have all at once may genuinely overwhelm our democracy. It’s an incredible testament once more of how much of a curve this man is graded on and I’m truly baffled as to how many people decided this was the guy they were willing to overturn all the rules for.

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It speaks volumes that he can’t seem to find a competent, willing, able, and viable chief of staff, a whole week after (perhaps presumptively) announced his incumbent was leaving. Though I swear if Newt Gingrich gets it, I will set something alight…

From The New Yorker, summarizing so much of the news out of Trump world generally: “It may be only part of the full story, but what we now know is a powerful tale that combines elements that are familiar from other Trumpworld scandals. It is, at once, shockingly corrupt, blatantly unethical, probably illegal, yet, at the same time, shabby, small, and ineptly executed.”

How politics became one of the many things replacing more traditional religious practices in the west, and why.

Another hero of mine down. God damn it, Neil.

Glove and Boots is back!

Thank god.

Our bigotries cost us. Morally, without question, but also financially. I had a long and delightful conversation with a friend recently after we both saw an item online praising a woman for choosing to take a lower paying job at her husband’s request so that he wouldn’t feel intimidated or inadequate. Congratulations, was my take, you have literally put a price on that man’s pride and the whole family got to pay it. Other prejudices cost us too, and here is a much bigger and darker story about one such bill.

Why lip gloss is relevant again. Look, I’m open to being convinced on this, but lip gloss was the bane of my teenage years and I see no reason to go back down that dark road again.

Why that gene editing story in humans has so many people up in arms: the truth is we simply don’t really understand the complexity of how genes interact within us and the few times we’ve meddled with other creatures, the unintended consequences have ranged from strange to alarming.

Good. He should be anxious. I’m particularly struck by the line that states that that President wants to move away from legislation (actual outcomes) and towards politics (which I think we can safely file under showmanship). This is not a man who has ever actually been interested in governing.

Face facts, countrymen: we didn’t “miss” the rise of white supremacy and nationalism, we’ve been pointedly ignoring it or making excuses for the institutions or cultures that perpetuated it.

We must examine the notion of “adults in the room” who keep getting worn out by (in this metaphor) an adolescent-in-chief. As one writer at Vox has summarized it: “Consider the fact that Trump is now on his second secretary of state (Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo); his third national security adviser (Mike Flynn, H.R. McMaster, and John Bolton); his second secretary of health and human services (Tom Price and Alex Azar); and his second EPA administrator (Scott Pruitt and Andrew Wheeler). He’s just nominated his second UN representative (Nikki Haley and Heather Nauert), though Nauert won’t serve as a Cabinet-level official. By Trump’s methodology of counting interim officeholders, he’s on his third VA secretary (David Shulkin, Peter O’Rourke, and Robert Wilkie) and will be on his third attorney general (after Jeff Sessions and Matt Whitaker), should William Barr be confirmed by the Senate. And then there’s the intra-White House turnover that has given him two press secretaries (Sean Spicer and Sarah Sanders) and five White House communications directors (Spicer, Mike Dubke, Anthony Scaramucci, Hope Hicks, and Bill Shine). And the fact that Trump has removed both the chief of the FBI (James Comey) and the head of the Federal Reserve (Janet Yellen) for dubious reasons.”

Time Magazine named their Person(s) of the Year.

Final Vox piece this week, and it’s Ezra Klein’s take on Paul Ryan. It’s not kind (nor should it be): “To be clear, I am not particularly concerned about deficits right now, just as I wasn’t in 2010. But I took Ryan seriously when he said he was. I covered the arguments Ryan made, the policies he crafted, and I treated them as if they offered a guide to how Republicans would govern. I listened when Ryan said things like, “In Europe, generations of welfare-dependent citizens are hurling Molotov cocktails because their governments can no longer fund their entitlement programs. We can’t let that happen here.” Ryan’s office did not grant my request for an interview for this piece. But now, as Ryan prepares to leave Congress, it is clear that his critics were correct and a credulous Washington press corps — including me — that took him at his word was wrong. In the trillions of long-term debt he racked up as speaker, in the anti-poverty proposals he promised but never passed, and in the many lies he told to sell unpopular policies, Ryan proved as much a practitioner of post-truth politics as Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, in Britain… The Prime Minister survived a vote of no confidence but was subsequently humiliated with the EU and generally continues to have the political’s world’s most poisoned chalice of a job. British politics has been wild this week.

Brexit explained through a metaphor. Come for the thread, stay for the follow up puns.

This week in Mormon news, a weirdly deep piece on defecation. Yes, seriously. There is some downright lyrical, scatological writing this this piece. How the hell do I find this stuff…

Reminder…

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Hm. Giulianni seems like he’s looking for his next gig.

WHO DOESN’T?!

Not great for Ivanka. I mean, not surprising, but not great.

 

Humor, Links, News, Politics, Pop Culture, Weekend

Weekend Links

“When the New York Times scratches its head, get ready for total baldness as you tear out your hair.” 
― Christopher Hitchens

What a week. Mueller and Manafort are playing cat and mouse, his former lawyer has plead guilty to negotiating with Kremlin officials the president is arguing with his own government over the reality of…science? Russian aggression in Ukraine has escalated, the US is lobbing tear gas at migrants at its southern border, Deutche Bank has been raided in relation to longstanding shady money (persons in our government may have the slightest personal interest in this…) and the war in Yemen is reaching new lows of atrocity. I for one am ready for the season of good tidings and comfort, universe. We need ’em.

Here are your links, tell me what you’re getting up to this weekend in the comments. I had an unexpected sick day this week where something nasty knocked me down for a bit so I’m probably going to be taking it slow this weekend. The holiday party season has kicked off and we need to pace ourselves!

NPR does the good work of fact checking: asylum seekers are not illegal and migrants are not invading forces. My two cents: it is possible to want sensible and strong border enforcement and think that teargassing people is morally indefensible. You want better immigration? Spend some of the money you applied to sending troops to the border unnecessarily over Thanksgiving to pay for the judges and clerks to help process asylum applications in the system that already exists to process these requests.

The misogyny is just a fun side bonus…

Abortions in the U.S. are down, and for reasons we should all cheer: fewer unplanned pregnancies. Still work to be done in certain demographics and communities, however, and we should not allow policy makers to prevent that work from being done.

I love the Northern Renaissance masters and the intricacy of their work, so a piece on the hidden history and cover ups in Bruegel’s work was like catnip to me.

I cannot stop thinking about this piece in The Atlantic about how “young people” are having less sex and why. It snakes through the impacts of porn, the epidemic of loneliness, and the mess of modern life…but also touches on how rates of abuse may be shrinking leading in turn to less self-destructive behaviors, and how people of all genders may be feeling less pressure to have sex too soon, or in unsafe circumstances, or be overall less informed. As with all things interesting, the reality skates past a lot of preconceived notions of morality or normality and instead leaves you a lot to think about with no immediately obvious conclusions.

Touch down on Mars!

Girl Gang Good News Minute: my girl’s book just got a delight of a review!

The Guardian’s scoop about Mr. Manafort and the accusations of a broken plea deal is….big.

Also from The Atlantic, their cover story about the private corruptions and long term influence of Mr. Manafort’s work, regardless of the outcome of the Mueller investigation, is a long read but a sobering one. “And while Manafort is alleged to have laundered cash for his own benefit, his long history of laundering reputations is what truly sets him apart. He helped persuade the American political elite to look past the atrocities and heists of kleptocrats and goons. He took figures who should have never been permitted influence in Washington and softened their image just enough to guide them past the moral barriers to entry. He weakened the capital’s ethical immune system.”

Oh thank goodness, the NPR annual Book Concierge is here to make the world a better place.

This whole report is sad and unnerving. We humans are so comfortable in the myth of our own superiority and infallibility that I don’t think most people have a grasp of how cosmically minute our patch of rock is and what fragile a thing is life as we know. There is an oddly philosophical line out of the mouth in of a scientist in this piece that has stayed with me, “‘We notice the losses,” says David Wagner, an entomologist at the University of Connecticut. “It’s the diminishment that we don’t see.’”

This Ask Polly column at The Cut had me tearing up at my home desk.

“They simply couldn’t handle him.” This is the best, weird story I’ve read all week.

This guy is scum, but so is the system that enabled him. Power and privilege unleashed and unchecked is awful for all of us.

British journalist, podcaster, literary woman and all around babe Pandora Sykes does a better job of explaining her love of vintage than I could… and I’ve been trying for literal years! She also leaves us this uplifting thought for the weekend:

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Humor, Links, News, Politics, Pop Culture

Weekend Links

“But there is always a November space after the leaves have fallen when she felt it was almost indecent to intrude on the woods…for their glory terrestrial had departed and their glory celestial of spirit and purity and whiteness had not yet come upon them.” 
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars

Happy weekend, ducklings, we made it through another week.

This week was bonkers in the world of work as I’ve had to work on some of the most high-profile stuff I’ve ever done that wasn’t consumer facing…I loved it. It was stressful and fast-paced, but I enjoyed the opportunity a lot. Now, however, all I want to do is sleep and stave off the migraine attack that’s threatening to strike after a week of all too much coffee and not enough healthy food.

Jeff’s birthday was this week so we’re celebrating that this weekend, and starting to plan for the holidays which kick off next week with Thanksgiving. I cannot believe how quickly November is rushing by.

Here is a nice batch of links to get you through the weekend, share what you enjoyed in the comments!

Relevant to my…well, not interests so much as poor habits.

Answering a political question I have never thought to ask: what happens to all that campaign merch?!

I really loved this piece about charm–a highly underrated thing in this day and age.

This piece is a couple of weeks old, but is still worth a read. What does it say that some of the leading tech and platform developers work hard to limit their own children’s access to the things they helped to build?

Move fast and break democracy. (I am the millionth person to make this joke, by the way.) Joking aside, I think we’ve proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Facebook may not be an evil organisation, but it’s far too powerful for what it is and it’s a mistake to not consider its lasting implications and impact which have had a global scale. No organization is blameless or perfect, but why does a company this ubiquitous, rich and powerful keep getting to screw up on the scale it does without consequences?

Surprising literally no one at this point.

What a wild ride!

Big headline, great profile.

Alex Trebrek is a figure of my childhood and I loved this profile piece.

An interesting piece at Politico about how Republican gerrymandering works…for a party system that no longer exists in the post-2016 world. For better or worse they have a new party leader who has promised new policies and commitments that no Republican would have espoused a decade ago. 2018 has shown how that may cost them future elected positions.

This week in Mormon News, a podcast recommendation and a bit of background reading from the incomparable C. Jane Kendrick. A link to the episode of This American Life in question can be found in her post. She sums up many of my feminist struggles with a patriarchal faith masterfully, “My problem is with the system…it is the power dynamics that I refuse. I refuse men in power and authority over women. I don’t care where it comes from. I refuse it… I believe you could put in a thousand checks to this system, you could go and sit with your child through every interview, you could teach your daughters to be the most feminist, but this system–designed to cultivate absolute obedience–will always seep in.”

This piece by The Cut feels like a good follow up to that. It’s hard, but necessary to read.

Also relevant, this piece by Monica Lewinsky for Vanity Fair. “If you want to know what power looks like, watch a man safely, even smugly, do interviews for decades, without ever worrying whether he will be asked the questions he doesn’t want to answer.”

PUNK’D.

This week in misogynistic nonsense…

Lady Washington is all, “Who the **** is Carol, George?!” But seriously, this thread is amazing.

Copy/paste will kill us all.

Yeah…this feels correct…

It’s the Lester Holt/James Comey thing all over again. Nothing is new and neither is the lack of robust response.

A sad week for pop culture with two losses: Stan Lee and William Goldman.

Brexit. What a shit show.

Speaks for itself:

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Humor, Links, News, Politics, Pop Culture, Weekend

Weekend Links: 100 Years

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
– In Flanders Fields, John McCrae

Happy Saturday, kittens! What a week this has been…the midterms, the après midterms, the long anticipated catapulting of Mr. Sessions from the ranks of the Trump cabinet–which is not an uniformly good thing, shockingly. Another mass shooting in the US, another flurry of Brexit shenanigans in the UK. It’s all quite a lot to take in and the news that Notorious RGB broke a rib literally caused me to clutch mine in fear.

We are commemorating the centennial of the Armistice in WWI tomorrow, which is a much bigger deal and more solemn occasion here in Europe than in the States; here the scars of the war are still present on the landscape. Britain has been filled with events, exhibitions, memorials, art, commentary, and remembrance services for a year in the lead up to this Remembrance Sunday, which have been deeply moving.

In other words, the world is filled with highminded thoughts and low brow dark humor, as always. And so, I’m bringing you a links post with a nice mix of important and decidedly lighthearted pickings from around the internet this past week to help you thrill with triumph at humanity, or steel yourself to contend against its darker impulses. Whichever you need this weekend.

Through a glass (or the 18th century) darkly.

Hot damn, this stuff makes me happy!

It’s absurd how expensive this dress is…and how much I’m drooling over it!

This piece at The Atlantic, about the economy of human attention, how we spend ours and how it gets hijacked, was an interesting read.

No shit, Sherlock.

This story is everything I love: Tudor history, gore, historic items discovered in attics–it’s perfect.

Shock. Surprise. Whomever could have guessed. /sarcasm

Whoa, slow down, news!

Obviously.

Consent is sexy! 

This was quite an endeavor…and a recap….

One of my favorite up and coming artists gave a beautiful performance on SNL last week if you are so inclined.

What a wild ride of a tale!

We still have not forgotten the Blake Shelton fiasco, People, but this will do nicely to rectifying your shameful lapse.

That’s one hell of a mis-sent invite, trolls. But thanks!

Meditating on this piece this week.

Let me sing you the song of my people.

About that horrific mass shooting, you’d never guess that mental illness and sexism played a role, huh? Just kidding. Also, more horrifically, it transpires that among the survivors are individuals who also survived the Las Vegas mass shooting earlier this year.

We need to talk bout the overabundance of neutrals in the ethical fashion space. My kingdom for a jewel tone…

EVERYONE ELSE WRITING TWEETS AND HEADLINES CAN GO HOME.

Join me in fangirling over Gillian Flynn some more. Rage, complex femininity, difficult characters…this profile has everything. This is relevant mostly because Katarina and I had a fab conversation about authors adapting their work for the screen and we both talked about how much we liked her work in all its iterations.

This one made me laugh aloud. Brilliant!

Scatological American history.

The only post-election reading I heartily recommend.

Humor, Links, News, Politics, Pop Culture

Weekend Links: VOTE
“Despotism, which in its nature is fearful, sees the most certain guarantee of its own duration in the isolation of men, and it ordinarily puts all its care into isolating them. There is no vice in the human heart that agrees with it as much as selfishness: a despot readily pardons the governed for not loving him, provided they do not love each other. He does not ask them to aid him in leading the state; it is enough that they do not aspire to direct it themselves. He calls those who aspire to unite their efforts to create common prosperity turbulent and restive spirits, and changing the natural sense of words, he names those who confine themselves narrowly to themselves good citizens.” – Alexis de Tocqueville The US midterms elections are next week and the news is appropriately…hectic. Oprah’s out knocking doors, and Trump is releasing racist ads and whipping up fear over a group of refugees over a thousand miles away. I have appreciated the viral moment from the gubernatorial debate between Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Gillum because I think it encapsulates a much bigger debate, and one I wish we would stop having. Much ink has been been spilled as to whether one person or political or another is racist. I think it is more useful to look at the company they keep. I care less than I used to whether Mr. Trump is personally racist or antisemitic. I know that self-avowed racists and antisemites think he is, or at least will protect them. I vote accordingly. If you’re a US citizen, make sure to cast your ballot this week. If there is one good thing coming out of this administration, it’s heightened engagement in our collective government. Last weekend capped a week of bigoted crimes and violence with an act of horrific antisemitism that took my breath away. Like anti-black racism, I was among the comfortable and stupid who assumed this particular bigotry was on the decline. I have been heartsick and ashamed to realize the shallowness and depths of that ignorance, and to watch it surge back into the mainstream. I do not hold Mr. Trump personally responsible for the acts of other people. I do hold him responsible for elevating nationalism, conspiracy thinking, and bigotry to as “acceptable” by either disregarding or failing to understand the importance of his office. He has deliberately normalized, cheered, and even politically accepted benefit from what it is his duty to denounce and hold at bay. I could extrapolate this to a lot of other party leaders as well who may not hold these views themselves, but are perfectly willing to capitalize on people who do. Too many people have winked or ignored what should not be ignored. Conspiracy theories are not harmless, words have consequences. He’s awful. I’m sorry, but he is. This seems like a good week to recall our first president’s words on and to the Jewish community in our newly formed republic. AGAIN. WORDS MEAN THINGS. I had a kneejerk reaction to this news, but I’m comforted by the knowledge that the actual Constitution cannot be amended by tweet or executive order. I think. Who knows any more. People are trash. (The internet being what it is, quite a lot of information started coming out from the person who really instigated the rumor mongering in the first instance. Mostly that he’s bad at faking stuff.) Surprise surprise, more trash people are potentially involved. Here’s a good summary of this bonkers news piece. An evergreen question: are they (all of the people in this orbit) bad geniuses or just lying, dumb, and lucky? Okay, let’s have a palate cleanser from the political news with this trailer which did not make me tear up in the slightest, no sir. One of the most important-to-me artists and albums. Cliche, maybe, but still true. This is too accurate… Summarizing our current political and cultural world through the lens of Kanye West, professional wrestling, and YouTube drama. Seriously. This piece at Politco offers some cold consolation: many celebrities of alt-right have not been able to ride the coattails of that popularity to true power and many are disillusioned with a president they once championed. These self-aggrandizing (mostly) men have inflamed some of the worst of our nation’s impulses and bigotries and enshrined malignant chauvinism and narcissism as the dominant force in our government…but sorry you lost your book deal! (/sarcasm) Oh, Venice! …This is…a headline… Whoops. A longer piece on exactly how we got…here (waves hands at world in general). Relevant to my London interests! Simone Biles is a badass. An evergreen statement, really, but doubly true this week. This headline! From the FT: we’ve got a waste crisis and we’re out of ways to hide from it or try to make it someone else’s problem. GIRL GANG GOOD NEWS MINUTE: https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
News, Politics

A Brief Addendum to an Awful Day

“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe.”
― Elie Wiesel

Humor, Links, News, Politics, Pop Culture

Weekend Links

“How pleasant to walk over beds of these fresh, crisp, and rustling fallen leaves…. How beautiful they go to their graves!”
—Henry David Thoreau, Diary, October 12, 1853

Wow. What a bad week on the news front, in a year of bad weeks. Domestic terrorism, racism, possible test balloons of anti-trans actions (which my cynical brain interprets as gross attempts to seize controls of headlines or a news cycle), conspiracy theories, acts of violence against people of color…well, let’s process that together in the comments. There are so many ongoing stories that may change and evolve more in the coming week, but it’s still be a disheartening one for the state of the US and parts of the world.

In MUCH happier news, one of my best friends friends is coming to visit us soon and I’ve been looking forward to this literally all year. She’s coming off the back of some brilliant news that I can’t share yet but will once I can because I’m so darn proud of her I could cry! On to the links and watch this space!

What an absolute shit show this has been to watch, and I’m heartsick at how no one will be held accountable in a meaningful sense. Fall guys taking a fall is not accountability. Failure to impose sanctions or really any kind of consequence is not accountability. Even the Crown Prince finally calling this act a tragedy and organizing a photo op with the son of the victim (who has since left the country) is not accountability.

This column by Sali Hughes on family estrangements, especially when necessary, hit me directly in the feels.

All hail our dark queen!

A primer for our times, fellow angry women.

A thoughtful piece of writing on the new awkward age for the modern woman: the mid-30s. Old stereotypes about aging and life accomplishments aren’t uniform and there are more choices for women than ever before, which means that the yardsticks we use to measure ourselves by can be confusing. This is an oft-explored topic in writing, but this piece felt very relevant and fresh to me…probably because I’m turning 33 next year. “At this age, it’s possible to be brand-new or old hat at the same thing. There’s no unanimity, and that can be awkward.”

Oh, my heart and childhood!

This, on the other hand, made me clutch myself and feel old.

I’m deeply interested in third-culture kid experiences, for obviously personal reasons.

What is happening in the panhandle of Texas, pray tell?

The corruption and mess continue unabated.

The administration is demonizing a small group of people currently in Central America and nearly two thousand miles away from our borders, but using them to whip up fear and nationalism in the run up to an election. It’s racist and it’s deplorable.

Meanwhile, the US armed forces are shaping the future of warfare. It’s just not in our official army.

The latest Dr Who episode is for our moment and yes, I cried.

A blunter take on the idea of biological clocks.

What weird and stupid times we live in.

Tell me again how scary it is to be a man these days. Go on. I dare you.

I’m pretty sure this is how every science fiction dystopia starts.

He’s awful, racist, and sometimes only semi literate:

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This is fucking scary.

It got worse on Thursday. And after a single statement about national unity, the President went straight back to attacking the media.

And it got worse on Friday when still more targets, including senators, received explosive devices. An arrest was made (thank god for law enforcement), leaving a lot of conspiracy theorist who had quickly advanced the idea of a “false flag” (that this was a fake incident drummed up by Democrats for sympathy before the election) having to delete their tweets or walk back their (insane) potions. “Outsmarted yourself” indeed, Rivera…

And where were these people all radicalized, pray?

Absolutely vital reading: this six month investigation by the BBC.

The presidential twitter feed has been curiously mum on this. To be clear, I don’t think presidents have much to do with the stock market except in the macro and long term, but if you build your PR on the market rising, you own the PR of the market falling.

I believe it, but I’m petty as fuck right now.

This isn’t a “southern” thing or a “racist” thing (though god knows there are elements of racism baked into the core of it). This is a “party keeping itself in power and resorting to increasingly illiberal means to do so” thing.

Finally, let’s end on a nice note. I have learned a new, and highly relevant to me, word!

Humor, Links, News, Politics, Pop Culture, Weekend

Weekend Links

“Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions.” 
― Edward R. Murrow

I have had a spectacularly unhealthy week. Between travel for work and events, I have been eating like crap and continuing my irregular sleep schedule. Not ideal!

We are still managing the hole-in-our-ceiling situation and sleeping in our living room, but I have a weekend of quality time with Jeff, long chats with friends, and hopefully some writing planned to make up for it. Tell me how you’re spending your weekend in the comments, and let’s review the week together in the links!

The facts around journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s now almost-certain assassination are grim, but it’s equally grim watching a president (seemingly at odds with many in his own administration) try to collaborate on an acceptable and blatant cover story. All of the positive photo ops with the Secretary of State, the President vouching for the Saudi’s ability to investigate themselves, and the reports in the public domain of regional and interested parties openly deliberating ways to apply financial pressure to members of the Trump administration make this so ridiculously suspect it feels like the plot of an extremely obvious and dated spy film. But it’s real life.

Mr. Khashoggi’s last, posthumous opinion piece in the Washington Post is worth a read, if for no other reason than to pay respect to a man who literally died for what he believed.

I feel like sooner or later I’m going to have to apply the same kind of “ethical” cost analysis to my food that I once did to my shopping…

Woof, I can’t look away from the Deciem story at this point. It’s bizarre.

Good idea, from a big picture perspective, but going to be extremely difficult to do.

Our society is screwed…

The final lines of this piece are extremely telling in understanding the state of our technological development and why we keep getting into trouble about it.

This whole series on The Cut is just perfection.

It is unfathomable to me how this man has been allowed to NOT recuse himself from overseeing an election in which he is running. And some of his actions aren’t even under the radar.

I don’t need green boots, but goodness Sezanne makes me want them…

Not in the least bit shocked.

Anne Thériault has another installment in Queens of Infamy! 

This judicial pipeline project has been known for years, but the more that is reported on it, the worse it looks.

This piece from the New York Review of Books sums up pretty much all of my political and social concerns rather well and grimly: “No matter how and when the Trump presidency ends, the specter of illiberalism will continue to haunt American politics. A highly politicized judiciary will remain, in which close Supreme Court decisions will be viewed by many as of dubious legitimacy, and future judicial appointments will be fiercely contested. The racial division, cultural conflict, and political polarization Trump has encouraged and intensified will be difficult to heal. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, and uncontrolled campaign spending will continue to result in elections skewed in an unrepresentative and undemocratic direction. Growing income disparity will be extremely difficult to halt, much less reverse…Trump is not Hitler and Trumpism is not Nazism, but regardless of how the Trump presidency concludes, this is a story unlikely to have a happy ending.”

Relevant to my October interests!

Mazel tov, you crazy kids.

The Cut is doing god’s work. What a series!

This shameful, racist shit is ugly. And it’s working on enough people, I’m disheartened to say

No matter how you lean politically, Mitch McConnell has just encapsulated the big issues of the election for a lot of voters. The tax cuts did not pay for themselves, and he does want to slash benefit programs. You either like this future or hate it. Vote as you please, but please vote, kittens.

McKay Coppins at The Atlantic drops another incredible longform profile on Newt Gingrich, delving into the man who laid the groundwork for our current political culture and believes that this is emphatically for the good.

 

Thank god for this random, sweet story from the Royal Tour. What on earth do we have the royals for if not this sort of heartwarming thing in the face of grossness?

Humor, Links, News, Politics, Pop Culture

Weekend Links

“. . . the newspapers of Utopia, he had long ago decided, would be terribly dull.” 
― Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

Kittens! Friday is upon us!

A major hurricane has struck the Gulf Coast and Florida, a prominent journalist has been killed by (apparently) Saudi Arabian order, Princess Eugenie got married (wearing hella emeralds), the stock market is veering all over the place, and Taylor Swift is political now. Just another week in 2018…

Share your weekend plans with me in the comments. I’m still dealing with a collapsed ceiling and we have set up camp in the living room at the moment. It’s all very exciting and uncomfortable. Keeping a household running when you’ve lost a third of your living space and the rest has been compromised is not a walk in the park, believe me.

HIGHLY relevant to my interests, childhood and other wise.

I’m still not over the new direction of Celine.

This piece better articulates than I could ever could why the rise in social tensions (spearheaded by racist and sexist language and policy) are so frightening in the larger context of Western democracy: “…a leader can more easily create political and legal hierarchies if there are other social hierarchies.” Strongmen rise to power on the shoulders of men mobilized to hate and diminish marginalized groups.

How nationalist populism has been on the rise since the 1980s, and why it isn’t going away anytime soon.

This past week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on climate change was issued, and the takeaway is sobering. In terms of agricultural shifts, natural disasters, coastal region changes, and ecological damage, the scientific consensus is that we will begin tracking even more noticeable and rapid changes in the next twenty years. So, what will produce viable change? Virtue arguments about natural preservation have been only moderately effective in addressing climate change, I wonder if issues of human migration and economy are the only ways to frame the risks in ways that the current political reality will accept or engage. That doesn’t speak well of us as a species…

Friend of the Blog Caitlin Kelly wrote a reported, but also deeply personal piece for the New York Times on her experience with a scary medical scenario and the importance of touch in the medical profession.

I am so excited for this show.

Helena Fitzgerald writes for my soul.

This is a hell of a security breach to simply not tell anyone about for this long! We need to lose the narrative that big data is going to save anything, they are just as muddled as the rest of us.

Denials aside, insert the “she’s running” jokes here. Maybe not just yet, or maybe just for future Secretary of State, but she’s running for something.

I’d absolutely spend money on this.

Woof, this beauty news story keeps spiraling…

I argue the premise with this headline. The NYT story didn’t bomb, it’s relevant. Any under-reaction is further testament to the reality that rich people can get away with operating in the shades of gray because people, governments, and even law enforcement don’t care to look into the machinations and side effects of wealth in the same way that they want to police the side effects of poverty.

Hurry up and get here, already!

What an utterly bizarre article…

Although, this piece thoughtfully explores, maybe being bizarre and over exposed is the point. It’s working. The president doesn’t have supporters in the old way, he has a fandom in the new. And the thing about fans is that they are, well, fanatic in their love. That’s the point.

Humor, Links, News, Politics, Pop Culture, Weekend

Weekend Links

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” 
― Elie Wiesel

Remember last week? Approximately thirty years ago?

My god, even in 2018-adjusted terms, this was a hell of a roller coaster and I’m having a hard time trying to put this post together when all I’ve been doing is working, watching the Kavanaugh hearings, and dealing with a fresh set of water leaks in our apartment in my “spare” time. I’m tired and I’m getting sick, which usually happens when the seasons change.

In happier news, a seasonal change means cold weather clothing, and I am ready! Don’t roll your eyes, kittens, in this day and age we need to take whatever trivial joys life gives us with both hands and run.

Here is an extra big heaping does of links for your weekend reading. I will just leave you with the following salute: I adore and am sustained by other angry women–in a way I find hard to explain to even my most sympathetic male friends. Angry women change worlds.

 

Glamour (going out of print, sob!) has a fantastic video series about how women at different salary levels spend their money. It’s interesting, insightful, and is a welcome resource. It’s alarming how little information was out there in terms of financial advice or context geared specifically towards women a few years ago, but I love content that redresses that balance. I really enjoyed their latest especially.

Deeply relevant to my interests and history.

This excellent story about obesity and how we as a society have failed on multiple levels (medically, scientifically, agriculturally, and culturally) to acknowledge and manage it is damning.

Men are cancelled.

“The awful things Kavanaugh allegedly did only imperfectly correlate to the familiar frame of sexual desire run amok; they appear to more easily fit into a different category—a toxic homosociality—that involves males wooing other males over the comedy of being cruel to women.” POW. Right in the feels.

Wanting to be part of the solution requires knowing when you’re part of the problem.

What are we saying? What are our girls hearing?

Thank god for male allies. Though I will accept this rebrand.

THANK GOD FOR ANGRY WOMEN. To support the foundation that one of these brave souls serves as executive director, click here. Here’s to Senator Jeff Flake doing…the absolute bare minimum but thank goodness he is and at time of writing it appears there will be a (weirdly limited) investigation into allegations of poor behavior by Judge Kavanaugh. That is literally how these things are supposed to work: an accusation, and investigation, and a weighing of evidence. My cynicism suggests he will still be seated to the Supreme Court, however. Meanwhile, McKay Coppins of The Atlantic was there to snag the interview.

Literally saw this news alert at 9:30pm last night and logged off of everything but Netflix. There is simply too much happening too quickly

What some of the undercurrents of the 40-year mission to stock the courts with conservative justices look like and why.

This was an actual media event here in Britain while we’re debating how much sexual assault is TOO much sexual assault in the US.

In other men behaving badly news: Elon Musk.

And in businesses screwing up again: Facebook. Again. Oy.

What is the connection between Brexit and religion? You may be surprised!

A fantastic collection of photos–I’m struck at how incredibly American these shots look and feel. It feels poignant, especially given the circumstances.

The President gave a BONKERS hour and a half press conference, which I callously and cynically interpreted as a (slightly unhinged) attempt to grab control of the news cycle the next day…just in time for the Kavanaugh hearings and his much hyped meeting with Mr. Rosenstein. Which was subsequently cancelled, probably because of the Kavanaugh hearings.

Being bad at stuff.

I could be reading this wrong, but is the attitude towards climate change literally, “Well it’s happening and we’re all fucked so why change anything” here?

Long live Misty

Let’s talk about tea. (Editor’s note, this is not about tea.)

And finally, I had a bit of a grim realization this morning. Unlike in the Anita Hill hearings, the strategy was never to attack or discredit Dr. Ford, indeed many republicans said that they didn’t doubt her account exactly, they just doubted she was attacked by Brett Kavanaugh. Which is doubting her account. But no matter. They weren’t going to smear her, they were going to let her speak her piece…and then move on and appoint this man regardless. Yesterday I wrote a piece talking about the decision before us all as a society in this moment, not just with Kavanaugh but certainly typified by his hearings: are women acceptable collateral damage? It hadn’t fully hit me that the decision had been taken and the answer was yes. I am not sure what to do with this realization except to remind every last one of you to vote in the midterms. Confirm your registration today, inform yourself of your local ballot, and get ready.