You know what’s absolutely fucking nuts, though? Even after everything we’ve supposedly learned, I’m not at all convinced we won’t have another highly consequential global respiratory pandemic in the balance of my lifetime.
@inquiline I whiled away the mid-90s reading, like, “The Hot Zone” and “The Coming Plague.” I fully expected The Big One at some point, but also knew that The Big One was not likely to be The Slatewiper. I thought The Big One might even forestall or preempt The Slatewiper. Now I’m just not at all sure of any of that. We’re so terribly, terribly screwed.
Can’t quite believe I’m saying this, but entire stretches of Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack for “Dune: Part Two” could slide seamlessly between, say, Phurpa, Hildur Guðnadóttir and SUNN O))) in a Real Heavy playlist. In fact I wish more movies sounded like this. https://open.spotify.com/album/1PeYjDmxcRNvxLd5mGHuCC?si=E7f9X_QsTXKnb-xfQfJZ2g
It can never be said often enough: Garrett Hardin was an unregenerate, overt white supremacist, and you should never allow your interlocutors to refer to a or the “tragedy of the commons,” even in casual speech, without making this explicit.
Just a heads up that I’m going to be in #Zagreb in April to continue my research into comparative #municipalism. If you are or have been involved in Zagreb je NAŠ!/Možemo, or have opinions about them you’d like to share, I’d love to talk to you.
@GhostOnTheHalfShell As I define it, anyway, it’s a theory and practice of local governance, based on and deriving its legitimacy from deliberative participation in popular assemblies. I would say it’s the most exciting political development of the past quarter-century. For a not-terrible overview, see https://www.fearlesscities.com/
I appreciated the forthrightness of these wastebins on ASU campus, but given what we know about the recycling industry, the options should probably be labeled LANDFILL HERE and LANDFILL SOMEWHERE ELSE ON EARTH, AT A HIGHER CARBON COST.
I’m not sure how I feel about direct action against those who would wear these in public, myself, but I can tell you right now there will be a robust constituency for that.
Announcing the Liberation Studies Collective: a regular, shared, silent meditation practice for folks with liberatory politics, however you interpret that.
While founded in a Buddhist ontology, epistemology and ethics, there is no religious or “spiritual” content in these sessions – they consist merely of brief, practical guidance, followed by an opportunity to be still and present for 40 minutes.
@passenger Thanks for adding that nuance to my understanding of Rosling’s work. My beef with him has more to do with (what I take to be) his implicit dismissal of qualitative modes of inquiry – which also lies at the crux of my beef with Ritchie.
(We know, of course, that Gay’s alleged plagiarism was never her sin, so much as daring to be ambitious and influential while Black and female, and equally that shitbirds like Ackman are utterly immune to charges of hypocrisy. But I see you, Neri Oxman. I see you, Bill Ackman. And I have a loooooong memory.)
If the name “Neri Oxman” rings any bells for you, it’s likely because she was caught up in former MIT Media Lab director Joichi Ito’s effort to sanitize Jeffrey Epstein. (Everything described in this article took place after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor, when it was already radioactively evident what and who he was.) https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/neri-oxman-jeffrey-epstein-13236/amp/