May 8, 2021
Their brand is cruelty
Out of power in Washington, Republicans pursue hard-right agenda across the country - "In Florida, Oklahoma and Iowa, Republican legislators passed bills granting immunity to drivers who hit protesters, part of a wave of Republican-led legislation aimed at cracking down on public protests of the kind that followed the police killing of George Floyd. Across the country, a bevy of states have passed bills preventing transgender athletes from playing high school sports." (previously) [more inside]
As long as you're still pulling something, you're racing
I don't know if there's really any rules and I'm pretty sure there's not really a point, but apparently every year at Rockford Speedway they have a figure 8 trailer race. That was 2018; here's 2019, and (complete with shouted COVID seating instructions) 2020. Heck, I'll even throw in 2017.
Not into trailers? You drive a hard bargain. Here's some schoolbuses.
How a young Black family fought and changed Seattle
Pop! Pop! Pop(ulation) music!
2021 census includes music playlists In 2015, the Canadian conservative government tried to undermine the census by making it optional. But Canadians fought back and won.
Since then, gleeful social medial posts announce "I got the long form!" and Stats Canada has now provided a CanCon music playlists to enjoy while you enumerate. [more inside]
Out There I Have to Smile
Heather Lanier explores the pressure to perform happiness | Happiness is an encouraged performance in America whether you’re disabled or not. But the stakes of that performance are higher for disabled people and their caregivers.
Heather Lanier's memoir about being a caregiver to a child with Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome, "Raising a Rare Girl," was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice. [more inside]
The silver apples of the moon, the golden apples of the sun.
This week in humanity's exploration of the solar system. Let's start at the center. The Parker Solar Probe set two new records as the fastest object ever made by humanity (330,000 miles per hour, 532,000 km/h) and the closest any spacecraft has gotten to the sun (6.5 million miles, 10.4 million km). Back on Earth, scholars published research into Venusian data Parker caught when it last hurtled past that planet (previously). [more inside]
What if our enemies know us better than we know ourselves?
1943: “The unsolved color problem is gnawing deeper and deeper like a slow venom into the unstable, social structure of the U.S.A. The color riots this summer are in all probability only the forerunners of even more serious disturbances.”The Enemy as Sociologist: American exceptionalism as diagnosed by the Nazi propaganda magazine Signal, by Sara Krolewski .
Finding Beauty in the Ordinary
"In 2017, I created Women Street Photographers, an Instagram account that highlights and celebrates the work of women who work in what has historically been a male space." Staring is rude, but photographs allow us to gaze endlessly at what we find compelling.
Here I go again on my own
Happy 4th Anniversary of Tom Holland on Lip Sync Battle
It's the 4th anniversary of Tom Holland doing Rihanna's Umbrella. By now, of course, there is an oral history of how it happened. (Previously.)
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