Here are links to my latest work, Daily Posts from the archives (May 19-23) in case you missed them, and articles, old and new, from around the internet. My aim is not to give you up to the minute news, but a historical understanding of our current times—too many people see everything going on as uniquely special to the current moment. 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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Well, hello, hello. I won’t hope you are well because, really, who among us is, these days? If we’re not sick from COVID—the pandemic that never went away—we are sick and tired in our minds and our hearts. Still, joy persists. Raccoons are taking over our cities, and may they do better than we have with these built environs. We find ways of coping and consoling ourselves. I know there’s a lot of talk about community, an awfully over-used word, and I know I would not survive without mine. But “community” means something different for all of us, and there’s a tendency among us lefties to assume it means we have to cohabit with each other and eschew our literal and metaphorical personal spaces.
Anyway, that’s a topic for another day. I, for one, am coping by talking to friends, yes, but also by watching and rewatching the entire John Wick franchise. I refused to watch the first one when it was released because, dead doggie. For some reason, I thought I’d thought I’d give it a try this past week: after all, I made it through the killing of a Direwolf in Game of Thrones. To my great surprise, I loved all four. Tom Cruise is still my man, but I do love these movies: those sequences are pure ballet.
I’m still working on the “Money” piece—I realised I should pair it with something about A Certain Billionaire Memoir. But, soon.
Onwards.
NEW WORK!
“Juliette Binoche and Orientalism at Cannes.”
I wrote “Why Are We Obsessed with Private Prisons?” I wrote an essay on this topic, “Are Private Prisons Really the Problem?” an entire decade ago, and recently posted it as one of my Daily Posts from the archives. A friend responded that she was tired of constantly pointing out to people that the privatisation of prisons is not a significant issue. On yet another friend’s wall, someone responding to the current heightened drive in the incarceration of immigrants, brought up private prisons as well (my friend gently pointed out the facts). It struck me that there was something odd going on with people’s wilful attachment to the idea that private prisons are a massive problem, so I set out to explore why.
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FROM THE ARCHIVES!
My experimental “Sharbat Gula Is Not Lost,” in Evergreen Review.
“On Plagiarism.” I have some an interesting update coming up soon, but this is the foundational essay.
For fun, “Toronto: Raccoon City.” I loved writing this.
“Who’s Left? A Taxonomy of Sorts.”
My review of “Yes Means Yes! Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World without Rape.”
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ELSEWHERE ON THE WEB!
“Napalm Girl,” perhaps one of the most famous war photos, has long been attributed to Nick Ut, but the “World Press Photo group has suspended the attribution of authorship… after a new documentary challenged 50 years of accepted journalism history,” reports The Guardian. WPP now lists the photographer as “Unknown.”
There was a controversy over plagiarism at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Antiracism Research for Health Equity, and it will now close on May 30. As you know, I write and think about plagiarism a lot and I will dive further into this story for a forthcoming essay, but for now: here’s a report from MPR News.
Violet Affleck wrote “A Chronically Ill Earth: COVID Organizing as a Model Climate Response in Los Angeles” for the Yale Global Health Review. If her last name looks familiar: yes, she is the daughter of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner. Ordinarily, I’m suspicious of anything celebrities or celebrity-adjacent people might have to say on any topic, but this is an extraordinary, wide-ranging, and thoroughly researched and argued essay. I’ve long wanted an article I could post and send around to explain why COVID is not over, and the kind of existential crises we face because of our collective refusal to understand that. Affleck’s work addresses all of that and more, and she makes connections between the ongoing pandemic and the climate crisis. Just read it, absorb it, and share it as widely as you can.
Over at Waging Nonviolence, Barbara Peterson writes about “Why building inspiring alternatives is necessary to counter authoritarianism.” I agree with its basic principles on healthcare as a human right, and the need to resist surveillance in the name of safety. I find that the emphasis on community in such outlets tends to come down on the side of interpersonal dynamics, which is actually made many parts of the radical left a deeply toxic place—but that’s a topic for another day. I will admit that I’m not usually that taken with a certain kind of not-quite-left-but-kinda-sorta-soft-radical vision of the world, but I do think this merits a look.
In Counterpunch, Joe Allen addresses the thorny issue of Sean O’Brien’s support for Trump’s tariffs (a topic of discussion on the left).
In the wake of anti-trans fervour in the UK and the U.S, we are likely to see more stories like this one, about a lesbian teen beaten unconscious at a McDonald’s. To be clear, the point is not that lesbians should not be beaten up by mistake (they should never be harmed): the problem is that trans people are in danger in societies that make it acceptable to demonise and brutalise them.
The London Times released its annual list of the richest people in the UK. Ellen DeGeneres is now on it, having moved to the Cotswolds last year, but the more interesting bit in this podcast is the revelation that two of the richest men on the list are “migrant asylum kings” who own businesses that directly profit from the plight of asylees. The Times, being the Times, claims that billionaires create jobs and are good for the economy (no, they don’t, and they are the opposite), but even its lead reporter on the story seemed a bit bothered by asylum kings. Do listen.
From Der Spiegel, a truly horrifying story about organ trafficking. Empires may vanish but the aftereffects remain.
New Left Review features an interview, “Tactics of Disruption,” with Huda Ammori about the work of Palestine Action, a direct action group based in the UK. Much of the discourse on Gaza is led or directed by white progressives and leftists who like to see themselves as saviours of the disenfranchised: there is much less conversation about the actual acts of resistance anywhere (lefties love their victims). So, no matter what you think of what’s going on, do read this for a broader context.
Speaking of the planet, here is a visualisation of how our ocean systems circulate (courtesy WL).
A man was reunited with his cat who had been lost to him for five years. Microchipping saved the day!
And speaking of pure ballet: here is one of the best fight sequences ever, from Mission Impossible: Fallout.
Be good to yourself: watch all the John Wick movies, and then every Mission Impossible, and then Minority Report, just for good measure (the last one, though, is uncomfortably prescient, sigh, but still worth it).
I will see you next week.
You can find previous Updates here.
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Image: Pillars, Josef Albers, 1928.
