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Weekly Picks – March 24, 2024
“The unique life philosophy of Abdi, born in Somalia, living in the Netherlands.” More at Aeon here.
Credits (clockwise from bottom left): Andrew Testa/ Panos; Kelly Cheng Travel Photography/ Getty Images; Wan Azizi Ws/ Getty Images/ 500px; Evelyn Hofer; AP Photo/ Mahesh Kumar A.; Francisco Negroni; Stefanie Loos; Priscilla Du Preez/ Unsplash.com; Undark via DALL-E; Brandi Morin. Middle: Stefan Gutermuth/ Slate.
This week’s collection:
- Are Evidence-Based Medicine and Public Health Incompatible?
- Botswana’s inspirational women safari guides who are navigating change
- The Fading Memories of Youth
- Empire of the ants: what insect supercolonies can teach us
- Rejecting the Binary
- AP finds grueling conditions in Indian shrimp industry that report calls ‘dangerous and abusive’
- In oil country, First Nation with high cancer rates accuses AER of ‘regulated murder’
- The Basis of Everything: The Fragility of Character in a Truth-Challenged World
- Abolish the clubs: The chumocracy is poison for democracy
- It’s dirty work
And a lovely picture to cap things off:
Introductory excerpts quoted below. For full text (and context) or video, please view the original piece.
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“It’ll have to go”
This post contains spoilers for Douglas Adams’ A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. It also contains rants on a bat-and-ball game.
There is an Indian word called ‘Tamasha’, which means fun, excitement, glamor, uncertainty – all rolled into one.
– Mihir Bose
In Life, the Universe, and Everything, Douglas Adams introduces us to Krikkit, a planet surrounded by a dust cloud. Krikkiters, the planet’s inhabitants, are unaware of the cosmos. They see a perpetually black sky – no starlight piercing through, no clue of what lies behind the curtain. Krikkiters are initially portrayed as unassuming, kind humanoids going about their daily lives within a pastoral bliss. That is, until a spaceship sears a luminous path through the void, crashing onto their planet from nowhere. They look up, astonished – where did it come from?
We quickly find out that the Krikkiters are more than they seem. In unbelievably quick time, they reverse engineer the spaceship and embark on a mission. Launching into the darkness, a small crew leave the planet to discover the truth. For a while, all they see is nothingness; the remarkable fact that they are moving through what they thought was a static celestial tapestry hardly appears to be invigorating. Finally, they happen upon it. A spectacular revelation – the darkness suddenly punctuated with pinpricks of light, their number slowly growing and growing, until the entire universe lies in front of them. All the stars, galaxies, globular clusters – the ignitions of existence – laid bare within infinity itself.
But their response is unexpected: “It’ll have to go.” The Krikkiters cannot share the universe. The potential life forms residing across uncountable worlds all newly discovered enemies; a rude interruption to a way of life that must be preserved through destruction. The Krikkiters head back to their planet, resolved to a new, brutal mission, one that will result in trillions upon trillions of deaths.
It is one of the more incredible moments in a series of novels that envelopes witty hyperbole and poignant interludes with comedy, providing plenty of unsettling narratives.
The Indian Premier League, or IPL, begins today. I wish I felt inspired to write about something more important, but there is a certain gravity to this game that is inescapable.
Let me rattle off a few things about cricket, its stewards, its fans, and a tournament at the node of two eras in the sport’s history.
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Weekly Picks – March 17, 2024
Credits (clockwise from top left): Stefano Summo for ProPublica; Edges of Earth / Adam Moore; Mutual Aid (2009). Photograph by Timothy Vollmer / Flickr; Apu Gomes / AFP / Getty; Brian Snyder / Reuters / Redux; Cole Burston / AFP / Getty; Jon S. / Deed; Alice MartinsCollective struggle – a possible foundation for radical care; solidarity and its discontents the hallmark of destabilizing systems of oppression. Stories from those on the street facing their own unconquerable peaks. Hell on Earth in the heat of the desert, a growing fallout of sustained war, where neglected souls and zealots alike seek peace but remain trapped in turmoil. The surrender of a province and its environment to fossil fuel fanaticism. A historical review of a central African conflict, itself an allegory of how colonialism seeps through social strata. The compounding research behind the ill-effects of rising wealth disparities worldwide. Triads, illicit drug trades, exploited immigrants, and a cavalcade of avoidable problems linking nations who choose to criminalize substances to support their home-grown industries of terror. Freedivers off the coast of Japan preserving community as much as an ancient way of life. Finally, a comment on change in the media landscape, and on trust’s declining value as a commodity used to buy political engagement.
This week’s collection:
- The Revolution Will Be Caring
- Sisyphus on the Street
- The Open-Air Prison for ISIS Supporters—and Victims
- ‘Fire Weather’: Big Oil’s Climate Conflagration
- Intractable Crisis
- Why the world cannot afford the rich
- Gangsters, money and murder: How Chinese organized crime is dominating Oklahoma’s illegal medical marijuana market
- The Plight of Japan’s Ama Divers
- Journalism’s Slow Death Threatens Democracy
Quite a lot of doom and gloom shared above and below. A final comment for this week – you may remember one of the more recent reimaginings of Tears For Fears’ “Mad World”, as interpreted by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules, and popularized by 2001’s Donnie Darko, tv shows, trailers, and video games:
People often remark on Gary Jules’ vocals, but the video’s exhibition, simple yet remarkable, should also be noted, carrying Michel Gondry’s signature in its frames. Worth revisiting as our perpetual cruelty towards one another seems unceasing, gaslighting the collective or impressing upon us, whether falsely or not, a powerlessness to act. But there is hope in preservation – in words, no less. An ongoing reassurance that alongside our deepest laments there exists a choice to latch onto a wider reality, one that persists through inferno.
Note that only excerpts (often introductory) are quoted. For full text (and context) or video, please view the original piece.
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Memories, Randomly Accessed
(Note for those scrolling past: this post contains a gallery of snapshots from Tokyo in 2014. Click “read more” to view.)
A decade ago, nearly half a kilometer above the most populous metropolis in the world, a conversation began between a professor and student of English from two different worlds. The professor was Japanese, born and raised in Tokyo. He was treating his grandkids to a day atop the capital city, their faces eagerly leaning as far as they could towards the slanted glass that overlooked the concrete jungle. The student was Canadian, by citizenship it should be said; attachment to national identity already too nefarious a notion to adequately stomach. He was on a vacation and had come to the tower to spend a few hours photographing the vast steel lanes and their skyscraping endpoints, in light from above during the day and when lit from below at night.
“I do not teach grammar, I want to be clear about that,” the older man explained in a soft tone, “I teach literature.” How to read human beings and their complexity through discussions of their textual output.
The two chatted while the kids ran through people’s legs, mostly young couples, as the evening view transformed from ‘diurnal smog’ to ‘twilight neon’. They spoke about how students approached their studies and of their seriousness in attending to life’s challenges. The professor was empathetic and non-judgmental. He had been born after the big war and lived through the Japanese adoption of global (mostly American) culture. The influx of democracy and capitalism – of modernity and its customs – alien from the pre-war empire but only separated from it by “a few years”. He had watched his neighborhood’s wooden roofs subsumed by a growing encasement of metal, glass, and machinery. He did not own a vehicle, simply stepping outside and catching a train two minutes from his doorstep that took him straight to campus.
The student, a visitor, did little talking, choosing instead to ask questions. A lecture voluntarily attended and with great enthusiasm, in a classroom within the clouds.
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Syllables of Existence
Part of my job involves supporting the development of short to long-term health plans. Part of this exercise is advising on indicators – the measurable outcomes of each activity within the plan that will define the level of its success. The indicators that we usually see work on the lengthier time scales, most monitored on an annual basis. I was reading a particular granular plan recently and it got me thinking about the calculable components of my own labor. But not in relation to monthly or yearly goals – these are easy enough to quantify in projects, reports, meetings, etc. completed. Not even in relation to weekly segments, too short a timeline sometimes when you are in and out of the office in a relationship-based role, trying your best to build something larger.
Rather, it was what I produced on a daily basis that I started to think about. My contribution through emails, calls, in meetings, documents, and online logs. My movement through spaces – my apartment, the office, another’s home, walking along the street, traversing communities – what determinate things could I define through numeric figures? How could I sum up my presence?
Of course, I was not interested in finding actual numbers that I could use to define my output. I was after something more fundamental: the meaning I brought to my work (or job, labor, occupation, call it what you will) and my life. What is it that I produce that is of particular significance to those around me? What is it that I take to my friends and family that keeps them availed?
In search of this latent value, I unearthed a soft revelation. I have a feeling it is something many of us have in common.
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Weekly Picks – March 10, 2024
Credits (clockwise from bottom left): Jean Gaumy/Magnum; Liao Pan/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images; Jennifer Doerr/NOAA SEFSC Galveston; Juan Bernabeu; Katie Martin; Associated Press.A curious case of blinded perceptions between peoples sharing culture across borders. A comment on banalities that have seeped into the collective soul via the microcosm of life’s architecture. The not so surprising fightback of independent bookstores in a digital world. White suburbia’s central role in a domestic industry of fear, manipulation, and persecution. A new hope for a species dwindled by human and climate suffocation. Finally, the plethora of ways that language and meaning are made.
This week’s collection:
- The Dragons Amid the Tigers
- A World Nobody Wants
- What Independent Bookshops Really Sell
- The Suburbs Made the War on Drugs in Their Own Image
- Scientists are throwing a sex party for giant conchs in Florida
- Cathedrals of Convention
Note that only excerpts (often introductory) are quoted. For full text (and context) or video, please view the original piece.
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Formative Fires
Raining ash, a now common occurrence, settles on the hood of my vehicle. July 2023.
July 2023
Another summer and another long drive ahead. From BC’s Northern capital to its swarming metropolis via its paved blood vessels. It is a cool Saturday morning and I have the heater going and a light jacket on, despite knowing it will soon be above 30 C. Another hot day in a drought-stricken summer, driving around in a carbon belching sedan that burns prehistoric life. Luckily, I have some tunes to underscore the journey.
My iPod Touch, bought back in mid-2009 and still going strong, is plugged into the vehicle’s sound system. It carries 800 or so songs and has not been updated in a couple of years. An extended time capsule covering my high school days to my late twenties.
I have my coffee and everything is packed in the back. Time to head off. Initially, in silence. The daylight is barely present and the roads are quiet. Not too many giant metal prowlers – comically big pick-ups and SUVs, to the rest of you – out and about. It feels nice just starting off without any noise in a city that is usually bathed in it. I navigate past the bridge construction and make my way onto the main highway. The signs change from 70 to 100 and I am off. Cruise control set; time to hit play.
It is Paul Simon’s reworked “Can’t Run But”. I turn it up and settle in.
I can’t run but I can walk much faster than this,
Can’t run but.
A cooling system burns out in the Ukraine,
Trees and umbrellas protect us from the new rain,
Armies of engineers to analyze the soil,
The food we contemplate, the water that we boil.
July 2017
Over an hour on transit in with a suit and tie on, during a fairly busy morning, to make my way to downtown Vancouver. I am not a morning person, nor a suit person. Some people say suits are comfortable and/or that the formality they impress upon onlookers is worth the rigmarole of putting one on. Comfort is a moot point – my objections go beyond soft fabric on skin. Identity can be expressive or hidden and clothing only its most visible articulation. What one chooses to wear is then just a social dance, a jig of conformity or non-conformity with various in and out-groups. Suits, thus, associated with many things I choose to avoid. As for the onlookers, I wish I could care less.
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Weekly Picks – March 3, 2024
“His lips do not speak, and in the face of this muteness, I’m haunted. I fall static to my knees before the corpse of poetry.”
– Leopoldo María Panero
Credits (clockwise from bottom left): Daniel Acker / Bloomberg / Getty Images; Mira Sucharov / The Walrus; Avo Walker / Truthout; Dagny Bock: Dust by the Reflecting Pool, 2022; Dan Marker-Moore; Hossein Fatemi/PanosA bookstore in its final days, memory incarnate. The voices of a gender, assured but unheard. The stark reality within all our horizons of a roofless existence. Propagandists who peddle moral fantasies. A diary of recycled narratives, waste, and sorting schemes. The beauty of dust’s movements on a global pallet. Preparations for science done in shadow as our lunar companion moves to conceal us from the Sun. And a poignant poem in the form of an editorial.
This week’s collection:
- Adeus aos Livros (Goodbye to Books)
- Silencing of the Girls
- I’ve Been Unhoused. It Could Happen to You. Let’s Stop Criminalizing It.
- The Academics Helping the Meat Industry Avoid Climate Scrutiny
- At the Recycling Centre
- The Cost of Our Debris
- How the Eclipse Will Change Solar Science Forever
Amira Hass tries to find the words:
- Gaza and Israel, a New Word Association Game
Further reading on the conflict from the past week:
Note that only excerpts (often introductory) are quoted. For full text (and context) or video, please view the original piece.
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On the Intimately Remote
The ghostly Coast Mountains and serene islands straddling Atlin Lake, the base of a makeshift ice rink. February 28, 2024.Here I am contemplating the next great vacation, a jaunt on some foreign land for an extended period of introspection via exploration. A quest to fill a lacuna in self-identity, not confirmed but understood, like the mechanisms behind forces of nature.
The break will have to be a long one. Three to four weeks. Leisure is an illusion; to delay the end of its fleeting nature one of the simple joys of a secure profession. The time is also as necessary as it is limited – parts unknown only discoverable when repeatedly sought, Rooms of Requirement hidden away in alleyways far from tourist meccas.
Fall seems like a good option, all factors considered. Perhaps a trip south of the equator to Chile, where herds of horses hurtle across lands as sacred to astronomers as they are to widows of crushed rebellions. Santiago to the Atacama to the Patagonian outlands. Tempting. But what about one of the Asian Tigers? South Korea, wrestling with deep binaries – cultural differences between men and women, young and old, urban and rural, or rich and poor, while traditional religions flourish amid heightened modernity – a microcosm of globalized struggles. Wait, I have it, Iceland! An isolated reprieve; a romantic outpost. Who could argue with its chilling volcanic landscapes or gorgeous vistas overlooking stellar phenomena?
I am also trying to find companions for the journey. Aside from not being alone with my thoughts for too long, I prefer the benefits (and can tolerate the drawbacks) of travelling in a (small) group. Conversing through novel experiences can enrich them greatly, personal thoughts and assumptions not always the best guides towards, or filters of, wisdom. We all need bouncing boards for our learning and amusement. Finding a group with a small circle is also tough; coordinating leaves and scheduling excursions a terrible foundation of administrative turmoil on which to launch collective adventures.
No matter where I end up travelling, it strikes me that I am always here, on the shore of the cosmic ocean. An inescapable beach with too many grains of sand to sift through. Trifling in the grand scheme of things yet immeasurable in its immensity. Human experience and construction a mere footnote to its natural wonders.
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Weekly Picks – February 25, 2024
Credits (clockwise from bottom left): Sarah O’Gorman / UPY2024; Mustafa Saeed / Noema Magazine; Lalo de Almeida / Folhapress / Panos / Redux; Realy Easy Star / Giuseppe Masci / Alamy; John Moore / Getty Images; María Jesús ContrerasSome standout articles sandwiched between visions from different timelines that share the same world. Plus a deep dive into the lobbyists and billionaires who have undermined one of the most exemplary public vaccination campaigns in humanity’s history.
The main montage, then. Stories from the streets from individuals who find themselves homeless, in a fight not to be pigeonholed as scapegoats. Radical new histories enabled by advancements in science. An argument against the child-laden life from the proselytizer’s of antinatalism. Dispatches from the poet politicians reshaping the Horn of Africa. And the invisible emissions seeping through legal loopholes to grey our future sky, one dying oil well at a time.
This week’s collection:
- A Life Without a Home: Voices from the tents, shelters, cars, motels and couches of America.
- Solar storms, ice cores and nuns’ teeth: the new science of history
- The Case Against Children: Among the antinatalists
- A Country Shaped By Poetry
- The Rising Cost of the Oil Industry’s Slow Death
- Winners of the 2024 Underwater Photographer of the Year Contest
On the fight against a sane approach to cooperation on public health:
- The West Is Sabotaging a Global Pandemic Treaty
- Further reading:
- A podcast discussion on the topic:
Note that only excerpts (often introductory) are quoted. For full text (and context) or video, please view the original piece.