November 26, 2018
Gabriel Kahane Sings Twitter
Back in June of this year, Gabriel Kahane (previously) sat down and composed a series of short songs (more like lieder) based on tweets. God's Perfect Killing Machines was the first one, others follow in the comments on the twitter thread, including lyrics by Martha Stewart and Britney Spears, amongst others. [more inside]
Secret Weapons of the Far Right
It's often women who reinforce supremacist movements. White supremacists talk a lot about differences—they draw lines not just between racial groups, but also among their own. Racist internet trolls insist they’re not the same as the Ku Klux Klan because they don’t don hoods or burn crosses; clean-cut college kids who call themselves “identitarians” point out that, unlike skinheads, they’re not inked with swastika tattoos; Southerners who defend Confederate heritage say they have nothing in common with mass murderers like Dylann Roof; anti-Semitic nationalists dismiss anti-immigration activists who are Jewish. [more inside]
The Concept Creep of Emotional Labor
"The umbrella of emotional labor has grown so large that it’s starting to cover things that make no sense at all, such as regular household chores which are not emotional so much as they are labor, full stop. "
Julie Beck interviews Sociologist Arlie Hochschild who coined the term "emotional labor:" "Emotional labor, as [Hochschild] conceived it, referred to the work of managing one’s own emotions that was required by certain professions. Flight attendants, who are expected to smile and be friendly even in stressful situations, are the canonical example. " [more inside]
Lawsuit showcases the dark side of the e-commerce boom
"Sluggo is lit"
"A cat tongue works like a very smart comb"
Cats love to groom themselves almost as much as they love to sleep, spending up to one-quarter of their waking hours cleaning their fur. The secret to their self-cleaning success? The spines on their tongues are curved and hollow-tipped, according to a paper published today in the journal PNAS. These tiny spines, called papillae, can transfer large amounts of saliva from mouth to fur, which not only cleanses Fluffy down to her skin but also lowers her body temperature as the saliva evaporates. [more inside]
“And so we are all connected in the great Circle of Life.”
So Disney Just Gon' Kill Mufasa Again for a Whole New Generation of Kids with This The Lion King Live-Action Remake, Huh? [The Root] “It is officially official: the live-action version of The Lion King, with all of your faves, will hit theaters in July 2019 so we can all excitedly watch Mufasa die. Again. Twenty-five years after he died the first time. There’s no two ways about it, Mufasa’s death in The Lion King is one of the most significant deaths in the black community of all time. It happened way back in 1994, and yet almost all of us who experienced it remember it like it was yesterday. Watching Simba tell his daddy to wake up...lawdt. I’m getting emotional thinking about it now. Sure, I’ve moved on, much like I’ve had to move on from Ricky dying in Boyz N The Hood, but the memories are still there, and it’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday. It hurt then. It hurts now.” [YouTube][Official Teaser Trailer]
Seven Minutes of Terror
NASA is live-streaming the landing of the InSight probe on Mars The InSight probe is landing on Mars at 2PM EST today. You can watch the landing live on NASA TV. Only 40% of Mars landings have succeeded. Mission operators refer to the landing as "seven minutes of terror".
The Two Faces of Lummie Jenkins
The people of Wilcox County, Alabama, remember Sheriff Lummie Jenkins as a god or a monster—it just depends on who you ask... They remember in 1962, as the push for black voter registration began 40 miles away in Selma, how the county shut down the Gee’s Bend ferry, turning what had been a short passage across the Alabama River into an all-but-unmanageable journey. “We didn’t close the ferry because they were black,” Lummie supposedly said. “We closed it because they forgot they were black.”
More ad fraud from Android apps
Eight apps with a total of more than 2 billion downloads in the Google Play store have been exploiting user permissions as part of an ad fraud scheme that could have stolen millions of dollars, according to research from Kochava, an app analytics and attribution company that detected the scheme and shared its findings with BuzzFeed News. [more inside]
Unemployment Is So Low Some People Have 2 or 3 Jobs
What Happened To All The Steady Jobs? “Louis Hyman’s new book, Temp: How American Work, American Business, and the American Dream Became Temporary, shows that this shift in work did not happen on its own, and that it began long before the founding of Uber or TaskRabbit. In this persuasive and richly detailed history, Hyman traces a decades-long campaign to eliminate salaried positions and replace them with contract work.“ (The Nation)
Amidst Keystone XL Fight, NE Farmers Give 10 Acres Back to the Ponca
In addition to deepening an unlikely bond, the gift from Art and Helen Tanderup could help protect the land and drive a wedge into TransCanada’s plans for the pipeline. [more inside]
"A unicorn that poos slime once you have spent nearly 50 quid on it."
With Christmas Eve four weeks away, your 900 Christmas cards signed, and TV schedules firming, The Guardian examines the toys aimed at the Christmas market while The Independent highlights the Boxer Robot that follows you (without pooing) and The BBC outlines gift card risks. The TRA would like you to buy buy buy them all. Are they as good as Pogs, Furby or Lazer Tag, or the Hatchimals of 2016, or even Mouse Trap? And what is a 'fingerings Dino'? In a prelude to Brexit, as Brits fight over a carrot (profit!), for adults a "relationship expert" warns of the perils of giving sex toys (ad disguised as advice/news). Though if you like a sexy gift a day, it's 125 quid through December (other advent calendars are available, plus economy ones). Too many toys? Maybe donate a few.
A Frans Hals Family Reunion.
Fragments of a family portrait by Frans Hals have been reunited. The Toledo Museum of Art is hosting an exhibit reuniting three fragments of a large portrait of the van Campen family by Frans Hals. Although the two larger pieces were long suspected to be linked, it wasn't until recent restoration work was performed that conclusive evidence showed them to be of a former, much larger piece -- together with another portrait.
How the Inca Wrote
How to Read Inca by Daniel Cossins is an overview of current understanding of khipu, the Incan system of encoding information in knots, which has been coming along in leaps and bounds recently. To look at khipu yourself, check out the Khipu Database Project.
Have you ever seen a harvest mouse covered in tulip pollen?
Banks of the Tiber
The embankment walls of Rome’s Tiber river get covered in grime, as city walls will do. In 2005, American artist Kristin Jones removed some of that grime to reveal some She Wolves. In 2016 she and William Kentridge were back with Tevereterno, featuring Triumphs and Laments, 500 meters of Roman history writ large. Youtube has four short videos on the project. Vimeo has a particularly fine rolling shot of the final work. (I particularly like the homage to La Dolce Vita at the 2:19 mark.)
As deadly flames approached, she called her daughters to say goodbye
There is much to say when death encroaches. But when you only have a moment, you just say the truth.
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