Traditional Followup Linkpost Scenario Where I Do One The Next Day after Promising Myself I Won’t Let It Go a Whole Month Again This Time

(Yesterday’s post here, including a bunch of “personal news” updates about recent projects. Get your library to buy The Cambridge History of Science Fiction!)

* Your Stan Lee obituaries. Excelsior. And a tiny little bit of inspiration for a guy whose 39th birthday is this week:

Stan Lee didn't create the Fantastic Four until he was 39. Everything we know about Stan Lee, his entire world-changing body of work, occurred in the second half of his long life.

— Brett White (@brettwhite) November 12, 2018

* One of the most important stories on the planet right now: As Brazil’s Far Right Leader Threatens the Amazon, One Tribe Pushes Back.

* When elections are no longer legitimate. The escalation in GOP conspiracy-mongering and the decision to have party leaders trumpet these theories directly, as opposed to relying on surrogates and propaganda outlets, is indeed very worrying. How fascism works.

1. When electoral procedures lose popular legitimacy, it is nearly impossible to get that legitimacy back. Elections are one great way of building popular legitimacy, and if by assumption they no longer do, what will?
2. Non-electoral sources of power are particularly dangerous when elections no longer legitimately empower politicians. It now falls to the very politicians who are involved in the recount to vouch for its legitimacy. The safest way to defend that legitimacy would be for the losing candidates to rebuke the President, directly and publicly. A public endorsement would be most meaningful if it were to come from, for example, DeSantis. Let us just ponder how likely that is.
3. The downstream consequences from the loss of electoral legitimacy are nearly impossible to predict. I suspect that one consequence will be an ever-greater tolerance for executive malfeasance, on the logic that Congressional representatives and state governments lack democratic legitimacy.

* Luckily, Chuck Schumer is up to the challenge.

* Andrew Gillum appears in a documentary about Bush v. Gore, c. 2000.

* Grad school as conversion therapy.

* U.S. Colleges See Drop in Foreign Students for Second Year Running.

* “It’s annoying to just sit there staring at one screen for so long,” said freshman Mitchel Storman, 14, who spends close to five hours a day on Summit classes in algebra, biology, English, world history, and physics. “You have to teach yourself.”

It is impossible, after thousands of years of human civilization, that there is still "low hanging fruit" in the realm of pedagogical effectiveness. Everyone knows, in their heart of hearts, that effectiveness tracks closely with teacher attention and resources. That's it.

— Adam Kotsko (@adamkotsko) November 13, 2018

The last generation of educational policy in America has been based on a systematic refusal to do the only thing that works, because that costs money. That's it. It's all a complete scam, and again, an entire generation's education has been sacrificed on that altar.

— Adam Kotsko (@adamkotsko) November 13, 2018

* Enough With All the Innovation.

* It has by the fall of 2018 become commonplace to describe the 499 known victims of Larry Nassar as “breaking their silence,” though in fact they were never, as a group, particularly silent. Over the course of at least 20 years of consistent abuse, women and girls reported to every proximate authority. They told their parents. They told gymnastics coaches, running coaches, softball coaches. They told Michigan State University police and Meridian Township police. They told physicians and psychologists. They told university administrators. They told, repeatedly, USA Gymnastics. They told one another. Athletes were interviewed, reports were written up, charges recommended. The story of Larry Nassar is not a story of silence. The story of Larry Nassar is that of an edifice of trust so resilient, so impermeable to common sense, that it endured for decades against the allegations of so many women. Amazing deep read on the Larry Nassar case and how he got away with his crimes for so long.

* The NRA told doctors to “stay in your lane” on guns. I’m a doctor. This is my lane.

* What Happened When a Nation Erased Birthright Citizenship.

* “It is almost like a punch in the gut. Like, wow, you’ve really gone this far to affect children? And it’s just like, have we sunk this low? That’s my feeling,” said the official, who could not speak on the record about the policy. Knife Salesman Very Sad About Stabbing.

* Amazon’s HQ2 Spectacle Isn’t Just Shameful—It Should Be Illegal. Congrats to these hardscrabble communities who just caught a huge break.

So after all the ritual abasements, Amazon just picked the east coast cities that gave them the most proximity to cultural and political power. Would love to see numbers on how much other cities spent—and how much more they were willing to spend—to host an overgrown parasite.

— Andrew Ferguson (@epiktistes) November 13, 2018

* The poetry and brief life of a Foxconn worker: Xu Lizhi (1990-2014). And elsewhere on the Foxconn beat: How does Tony Evers affect Foxconn?

* Two hours from here: Baraboo school district condemns a photo showing a large group of students giving Nazi salute. Maybe the UW should rethink that whole history is over thing.

* California as the surface of the moon.

The current weather is literally "Smoke". #CaliforniaFires pic.twitter.com/IDceEybRMq

— Mike McCaffrey (@mikemccaffrey) November 12, 2018

* Unsafe at any concentration.

* The law, in its majestic equality.

* Twilight of Harley Davidson.

* The Indus civilisation seems to have flourished for 700 years without armour, weapons, inequality or royalty. Here’s how to build a paradise on Earth.

* How AIs cheat.

* Thanks for waiting until after the election to tell anyone! Veterans haven’t received GI Bill benefits for months due to ongoing IT issues at VA. And please, make sure you update me on that horrible caravan of rapists and murderers that is heading towards our country, when you get a moment…

* And tonight, on the most dramatic Rose Ceremony of all time, we’ll finally find out who is the Attorney General.

i came close to exploding with joy when i saw this, bless @Ocasio2018 @IlhanMN @RashidaTlaib @AyannaPressley pic.twitter.com/oN9bya7DNi

— (((rebecca rosenberg))) (@missrrosenberg) November 12, 2018