September 28, 2021

It’s the great god bird with its altar call

Matthew Brown at the Associated Press reports that the US Fish & Wildlife Service will declare on Wednesday that the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker (and 22 other species on the endangered species list) have gone extinct.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:53 PM PST - 24 comments

How To Not Suck At Writing

In a follow-up to his previous piece on writing, Defector columnist Drew Magary discusses his techniques for improving at being a wordsmith. [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:33 PM PST - 55 comments

A museum gave an artist $84,000 in cash. He delivered blank canvases.

The artist, Jens Haaning, says the artwork is titled "Take the Money and Run."
posted by folklore724 at 2:24 PM PST - 48 comments

chunky cubby chasers

Welcome everyone, to Fat Bear Week 2021! [more inside]
posted by fight or flight at 2:17 PM PST - 39 comments

Five Tropes Local TV News Uses to Dehumanize Homeless People

"Rightwing demagogues like Tucker Carlson incite against the homeless on a nightly basis, but mainline outlets also help stigmatize the unhoused, only with more subtlety." Political writer Adam Johnson shines a light on 5 tropes commonly used to dehumanize the unhoused in mainstream news (with receipts).
posted by splitpeasoup at 2:17 PM PST - 23 comments

…interwoven appreciation of the neural function with literary commentary

What Is Literature For? - A Symposium on Angus Fletcher’s “Wonderworks” (LARB): Three reviews of Wonderworks (two glowing, one scathing) and a reply by the author. Erik J. Larson: "All of this tech-talk injected into literature would seem superficial, perhaps, except that Fletcher makes an entirely convincing case that literature really does function like this, and that the form of the narrative is a key to understanding its impact on us and why we find these creations so important. While the neuroscientific accounts of what’s happening in our brains when we find love or let go of old sorrow might be debatable, the overall achievement of Wonderworks strikes me as immensely important. It’s rare in academic literary circles to find mainstream criticism of literature that reaches outside of theory and into the hearts and minds of real readers. Fletcher no doubt does this. The result is a fantastic tour through the world’s literature, an explanation of how it works as a technology, and a scientific discussion that opens the lid on our complex brains, tying it all to our most ancient and cherished activity: reading stories." [more inside]
posted by not_the_water at 11:27 AM PST - 30 comments

COVID19 and the American empire

The for-profit, Core-Civic-owned Stewart Detention Center (SDC) recently saw their Covid19 case counts surpass the 1000 mark. Nationally, there have been over 6000 confirmed cases of COVID19 in ICE detention facilities [more inside]
posted by paimapi at 9:22 AM PST - 7 comments

Clean air is now the ultimate luxury

The history of Molekule and the business of selling clean air / Molekule: The Worst Air Purifier We've Ever Tested [more inside]
posted by meowzilla at 8:24 AM PST - 38 comments

When Dasani left home

Many of you may remember the story of Dasani, the homeless girl in rapidly gentrifying Fort Greene whose experiences were chronicled in a NYT article several years ago. This article follows up on her experiences since, as she attends a boarding school for lower-income students.
posted by praemunire at 8:20 AM PST - 14 comments

Do Americans Know What a Massive Ripoff American Life Really Is?

What it Means When I Say America is the World’s First Poor Rich Country
posted by clawsoon at 7:50 AM PST - 65 comments

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