July 31
There's some really good stuff in this profile of Choire Sicha. "Not meddling with talent and not diluting great ideas by committee are two smart strategies in a creative workplace that are rarely deployed successfully."
July 30
A new study argues for a greater appreciation of hedonism in our lives. "Enjoying short-term pleasurable activities that don't lead to long-term goals contributes at least as much to a happy life as self-control."
"Screen time expert" Anya Kamenetz reflects on what she's learned about kids & screens during the intense pandemic lockdown time. "Lean into video chat and real-time interactions. And play games, watch TV and videos together as a family."
MacKenzie Scott just donated $1.7 billion to a variety of organizations working in areas like racial equity, LGBTQ+ equity, functional democracy, climate change, gender equity. Check out the whole list here.
July 29
What Vermont and Its History Might Teach the Nation About Handling the Coronavirus. Whatever the reason for the state's success during the pandemic so far, I feel very lucky to be living here right now.
July 28
A new study may show why SARS-CoV-2 causes a temporary loss of smell and taste. "SARS-CoV-2 infection is unlikely to permanently damage olfactory neural circuits and lead to persistent anosmia."
An oral history of Quokka Sports. This team did incredible, experimental things on the web back in the mid-90s.
July 27
"Where Is My Name?" is a campaign by women in Afghanistan to be able to freely use their names in public. "Women are generally only referred to as the mother, daughter or sister of the eldest male in their family..."
How Police Unions Fight Reform, a long piece in the New Yorker by William Finnegan. "Imagine a nurses' union that hated patients, that went on TV and talked about how much trouble the patients give them."
A new poll indicates that "an increasingly broad majority of Americans are wearing masks in public". The numbers are up significantly since June. Common sense and public health are winning out. Thanks for wearing a mask! Keep going!
July 24
A photo of Comet Neowise photobombed/ruined by SpaceX's Starlink satellites. Yuck. I know most people on Earth can't even see the night sky anymore because of light pollution, but this sucks.
Coming soon from one of my favorite food writers/chefs/magicians Kenji López-Alt: a children's book called Every Night Is Pizza Night, "a story about open-mindedness, community, and family". Includes a recipe for making pizza!
July 23
What You Need To Know About The Battle of Portland. This is a good summary of the situation in Portland written by someone who "has worked as a conflict journalist in Iraq and Ukraine".
July 22
A lovely remembrance of Robin Williams from someone who went to the same 12-step meeting for years. "He kept a very low profile but he was unfailingly kind."
Seven books to read in which very little happens. Includes Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine, which is fantastic.
The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service. Spoiler warning: it's libertarian dipshit Charles Koch, who has done untold damage to our country and the Earth.
Billie Eilish's bad guy, but played in the major key. "instead of playing it normal i'm the good guy so i play it in the major key, to the screams of music majors everywhere."
A Small Needful Fact, a poem by Ross Gay about Eric Garner. The last line of this knocked me on my ass.
NY Times Styles reporter Caity Weaver recorded and annotated everything she looked up on Google or Wikipedia for a week. I would totally read this blog.
The Racist History of Tipping. "The practice spread throughout the country after the Civil War as U.S. employers, largely in the hospitality sector, looked for ways to avoid paying formerly enslaved workers."
July 21
Alex Trebek's memoir, The Answer Is..., is out today. "I want people to know a little more about the person they have been cheering on for the past year."
Why Do Some Vermonters Display The Confederate Flag? "The reason I started flying my Confederate flag is because it does irritate me that you've got these Black Lives Matter flags flying everywhere."
Design a better face mask, win $1 million. "The $1M Next-Gen Mask Challenge aims to reimagine protective face masks used to prevent the spread of COVID-19 by making them more comfortable, functional, accessible, and even stylish."
My mask protects you, your mask protects me, right? Yes, but masks are also protective to the wearer. "The less virus that you get in, the less sick you're likely to be."
July 20
The release of Christopher Nolan's Tenet has been delayed with no forthcoming release date. Theater movies are done in the US for at least 6-12 months – either theaters will be closed or audiences too sparse to justify Hollywood budgets.
The NY Times goes inside the White House's disastrous response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Americans, all of us, should be FURIOUS about this. They straight-up murdered tens of thousands of people – where is the outrage?
John Lewis, Towering Figure of Civil Rights Era, Dies at 80. "Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble."
Unidentified federal officers in unmarked cars are indiscriminately snatching people off the streets in Portland. I'll just point out that this is literally (like literally literally, the literal use of the word "literally") what the literal Nazis did.
July 16
A taxonomy of Reply Guy behaviors. "LIFE STORY REPLY GUY: He saw you post personal anecdotes and assumes that replying to you with HIS life story will be very interesting."
July 15
Over the past 3 years, the past-year usage of LSD by Americans has increased by 56%. Scientists theorize it's because the world has gone to hell and people are looking to self-medicate.
A dozen protestors were partially blinded after the police hit them with "less lethal" munitions. The Washington Post investigated three of the incidents and found that video footage undermines the official police accounts of the shootings.
July 14
Dave Eggers satirizes the sad state of Covid-19 testing in the United States. "Oh, we have plenty of tests. We just don't have appointments."
TIL that after the Civil War, thousands of defeated Confederates moved to Brazil, where slavery persisted until 1888. Confederate flags still proudly fly in Brazil, which is home to an annual Confederate Festival.
July 13
How Bree Newsome Bass took down the Confederate flag from a SC state house flagpole in 2015. "She had never climbed anything more than a tree as a kid or a rope in gym class. So she took a few days off to learn from the Greenpeace activist."
What bird are you most like? I'm a red-tailed hawk! "You understand strategy, and sometimes work with a partner, but overall most of the time you are happy to be alone."
Our government's inept response to the pandemic has rendered American passports worthless. "In the absence of a humane government, America is now ruled by COVID-19. Welcome to the Plague States of America."
July 10
Turkey has revoked Hagia Sophia's status as a museum and Turkish president Erdogan ordered it to be opened for Muslim prayers. I visited the Hagia Sophia a couple of years ago and it was the highlight of my trip.
The Confederacy Was an Antidemocratic, Centralized State. "The actual Confederate States of America was a repressive state devoted to white supremacy."
Sleeping Giants has pushed big advertisers to drop their support of racist & sexist media brands. While that was going on, co-founder Nandini Jammi says: "my white male co-founder gaslighted me out of the movement we built together".
July 9
America Is Refusing to Learn How to Fight the Coronavirus. Instead, we have "a pattern of failure following failure, with each successive failure normalized by the last".
After early success, Israel is facing a resurgence of Covid-19 cases. This bit seems relevant to the reopening schools debate: "Schools — not restaurants or gyms — turned out to be the country's worst mega-infectors."
Cities should greatly reduce the number of cars allowed and give the reclaimed space back to the people. Here's what that could look like in NYC.
PRINT magazine revisits a 1968 piece called The Black Experience in Graphic Design and interviews Black creatives about what's changed. "It is hard to believe that this article was written in 1968. More than 50 years later, very little has changed."
July 8
"There's overwhelming evidence that the criminal justice system is racist. Here's the proof." A massive review of studies of racial bias in policing, our legal system, etc.
Nerissa Zhang, who is a Black woman, sent her startup's pitch deck to several VCs who publicly stated wanting to invest in Black-owned startups. She got 0 responses – until she sent the same messages from her co-founder husband's email.
American Fascism: It Has Happened Here. As Langston Hughes once said, "In America, Negroes do not have to be told what fascism is in action. We know."
July 7
Listen to Tom Hanks, people! "Wear a mask, social distance, wash your hands. That alone means you are contributing to the betterment of your house, your work, your town, your society as a whole. And it's such a small thing."
"The United States has formally notified the United Nations that it is withdrawing from the World Health Organization." Seems about right – the US government doesn't care about the health of its citizens.
Black Death, COVID, and Why We Keep Telling the Myth of a Renaissance Golden Age and Bad Middle Ages. "The Renaissance was not a golden age to actually live in, even if it was a golden age in terms of what it left behind."
The Pandemic Experts Are Not Okay. American public health officials – ignored, attacked, overworked, underappreciated, frustrated, and fatigued – are at risk of burning out just a few months into a years-long pandemic.
July 6
Tennessee Williams with Air-Conditioning. "There is no need to sweat or shout in such a small, well-chilled apartment. I can be heard across the room without raising my voice. Look, I have created a chore wheel for the three of us..."
Pre-order Black Futures, a collection of work by Black creators edited by Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham. Really excited to see how they put "images, photos, essays, memes, dialogues, recipes, tweets, poetry" into a cohesive whole.
I'm a Direct Descendant of Thomas Jefferson. Take Down His Memorial. "The time to honor the slave-owning founders of our imperfect union is past."
A discussion of appropriation & and equity of access in the food/restaurant world. "All food is fusion, so why does it matter who is cooking what?"
A great review of the filmed version of Hamilton by Siddhant Adlakha. "The show's more idealistic elements feel illusory in hindsight. It was made for a different America, and today, it's easy to wonder whether that America ever existed at all."
Why are US cases of Covid-19 increasing while deaths are decreasing? "The answer is simple. It's called Simpson's paradox and it's the result of incorrectly pooling data and arriving at a false conclusion."
July 4
When the Fourth of July Was a Black Holiday. "The Fourth became an almost exclusively African American holiday in the states of the former Confederacy - until white Southerners...snuffed these black commemorations out."
Is the Fourth of July worth celebrating? "After Juneteenth, it's hard to overlook the hollowness of American freedom."
July 2
Popular Mechanics on How to Topple a Statue Using Science. "To break the statue from its base, split into two teams on either side and work in a back-and-forth motion."
Anti-racism work is supposed to be hard. "There should be tears. There should be grief and guilt. There should be shouting and bad words and silence. There should be wariness, even at the best of intentions."
A reminder that for some patients, problems from Covid-19 infections will "persist for months, years or even the rest of their lives". It's not just deaths – the nonchalance some have about this virus is astounding.
July 1
Coronavirus Brings American Decline Out in the Open. "Without fixes for infrastructure, education, health care and government, the U.S. will resemble a developing nation in a few decades."