Here are links to my latest work, Daily Posts from the archives (April 21-25) in case you missed them, and some interesting articles from around the internet. You can follow me on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook (I am not accepting new friends on the last platform, but you can use the “follow” option).
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Hello, hello, from the Maw of Hell! People are disappearing, people are being disappeared: what is the grammar of terror, we wonder? We are playing with sharks, literally, and some of us get to escape it all, even if just for eleven minutes.
This week’s Update is all about vigilantism (and its history), space aliens, Roald Dahl, plastic straws, sharks and more. Enjoy.
NEW WORK!
“Fear Is Not an Option.” I think we’re all reaching the stage of, “Oh, fuck this,” and I wanted to write about that.
“On Space, Joyrides, and Prisons.” You know how I love bringing my Alien babies into my writing. I’m quite proud of this essay: everyone has had a take on that Blue Origin flight, and I bring a rather different perspective to the matter. A friend kindly noted the unexpected twist, and I think you’ll see it too.
“Don’t Underestimate Trump.” I mean, seriously: just, don’t, please.
FROM THE ARCHIVES!
“Support Your Media, Or Watch It Die”
“Killing You Softly with Her Dreams: Arianna Huffington’s War on Sleep.”
ELSEWHERE ON THE WEB!
The New York Times reports that Barnard faculty received texts from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that, in essence, asked them if they were Jewish. In the entire history of personkind, “Are you Jewish?” has never been a question that led to anything but the worst outcomes.
From Charlottesville, the Daily Progress reports that three people bounded into a local courthouse and kidnapped two men, while claiming to be “federal agents,” and refusing to show badges or warrants to people who asked. One wore a mask. Residents in the area are furious, and official answers are, so far, vague and confusing. According to the Daily Progress, “County Sheriff Chan Bryant, who oversees law enforcement operations at the courthouse, said Wednesday that the officers showed proper identification to bailiffs prior to the arrests.” The ACLU points out that even if this is true, the process is terrifying to the general public. There’s no news so far about the whereabouts of the two men who were hauled away.
Even if the three men were there under the strictest definitions of the law, it’s worth noting that “Border vigilantes are blurring the lines of law enforcement,” as this detailed Arizona Mirror report from 2024 points out. None of this is new or started under the Trump administration, and the border has been particularly lawless and cruel for a long while now (and that includes the Clinton, Obama, and Biden years).
The Virginia kidnapping may be unsurprising given that the state’s governor Glenn Youngkin has grandly declared that a state security task force has arrested 521 migrants, but provides no details about any of them. Critics point out that this is a distraction from a bad economy. I suspect we are going to see more of this, as the economy worsens over the next many months. We can only hope that people everywhere see through this tactic and call it out.
In Tangle, Rebecca Spicuglia writes, “I Lost My Son to MS-13. I Still Oppose Trump’s Deportations.”
An 82-year-old woman, Kate Korman, died in Arizona last year after her electricity was turned off due to nonpayment, but in scorchingly high temperatures. Her son, Jonathan Korman and activists are advocating for more laws and processes that protect the vulnerable, like the elderly.
Everybody’s praising Harvard for standing up to Trump, but as Nathan J. Robinson points out in “The Cowardice of Elites,” the university “takes great pains to show how much it has done to crack down on protests and boasts that it has distinguished itself from other universities by adopting the controversial IHRA definition of antisemitism.” And the whole mess only came about because someone mistakenly sent out the wrong letter to the university. I’ll have more on Harvard later, but for now you should go back to the Crimson’s op-ed that I posted in a previous update. Harvard is not the hero.
As many Americans face daunting student loan payments and penalties, a reminder that we have always had debtors’ prisons, and these may just become formalised.
In Current Affairs, Samuel Miller McDonald points out that “There Are Many Threats to Humanity. A Low Birth Rate Isn’t One of Them.”
Experts are warning that COVID could raise your risk of early dementia. But, oh, right, I forgot: COVID is “over,” right? Pfft. Mask up, people.
Remember when “the clash of civilisations” was all anyone would or could talk about? That part of the discourse hasn’t gone away, of course. Edward R. Said’s 2001 “The Clash of Ignorance” remains an excellent reminder that terms like “Islam” and “the West” are unhelpful.
Several states are trying to make higher education more accessible with free college programs, and I could not be more delighted. I’m not being sarcastic: I genuinely believe higher education should be freely available to anyone who wants it.
Labor Notes reports that “85 percent of the Chicago Teachers Union’s 27,000 active members voted on a tentative agreement covering 500 public schools across the city.” You can read more in TruthOut. I can already see the Times and other neoliberal outlets descending upon this and describing it as the road to hell, but let’s see.
If you’re thinking of changing your last name after marriage: maybe don’t. It can be hell to change it back, and divorces do happen! (Many thanks to the American Studier blog for posting this link).
Mahmoud Khalil asks, “What Does My Detention by ICE Say about America?”
And it’s worth remembering that Barack Obama signed indefinite detention into law.
Margaret Kimberly, writing in the Black Agenda Report, points out that Bush, Obama, and Biden Gave Trump the Tools for Repression.
Everyone’s scoffing at Trump wanting to bring back plastic straws, but please remember that these are essential for people with disabilities. Have you tried the alternatives? I can’t recall which comic pointed out that the drinks last longer than these things, but they are useless and misery-inducing. And do you want to carry around a steel straw everywhere, with all its potential for harm, and have to keep washing it? And, no, to be clear, saying that people who want them can always just ask is not helpful: do you want to face some snarky, disbelieving server who acts annoyed about your request? Do you want to have to act out your disability to justify getting something as simple as a plastic straw? Read more about the issues here and here, in articles by Ananya Rao-Middleton and Erin Vallely, and this, by Luticha André Doucette.
I knew nothing at all about Gertrude Abercombie (this week’s featured artist), and it turns out she was a Hyde Parker!
Speaking of people we could all learn more about: Mariame Kaba writes about the Black radical and intellectual Bill Epton, who “boldly and consistently stated that the United States was already a police state in the 1960s.” Read about him on her Substack, Prison Culture.
I really liked this podcast on Mavis Gallant, over at the London Review of Books (I believe it’s free to all). Tessa Hadley and Joanne O’Leary engage in the kind of in depth and illuminating conversation that seems impossible to find on American book podcasts, I’m sorry to say. I think we tend to either fetishise books and their authors or demonise them, and rarely apply any sense of historical context to either.
It turns out that we may all—I mean, all, even people at the BBC (I checked)—have been pronouncing Roald Dahl’s name incorrectly. I feel like my entire life has been a giant lie.
Don’t play with sharks. Never play with wild animals, period, but never, ever play with sharks. What are you thinking, playing with sharks?
Some days, I just want to get on a spaceship, on a Night Flight to Venus, man. Yes, it’s a very old recording but, Boney M! (Someone needs to pay me to write a book about the band.)
I hope you enjoy the linked articles, and if you’re able, please support me in any way possible: there are many options here. Stay warm, or cool, wherever you are, and take many deep breaths. I have no idea if that will help but, hey, we have to try everything, right? I will see you next week.
You can find previous Updates here.
Image: Gertrude Abercombie, “Self-Portrait of My Sister,” 1941.
