Tuesday Links!

* A Political History of the Future: Black Panther. Does the film ask its audience to root for the wrong character? Black Panther’s Right Thing.

‘Killmonger is good’ takes just take the character’s left-baiting rhetoric at face value, which is ironically how internet leftists get fooled by CIA ops IRL

— traxus4420 (@traxus4420) February 20, 2018

* Directly following from the notion that life is often boring and annoying, comes the consequence that our characters cannot always be wrapped up in galactic struggles to save existence. Sometimes it just has to be a day at the office, and we keep watching simply because a Federation starship is a more interesting and inspiring office than ours. That thought motivated me to portray the communist future not as a magical resolution of the human condition but, to follow Freud by way of Corey Robin, the conversion of hysterical misery into ordinary unhappiness. To Boringly Go.

* deadmall80s.tumblr.com.

* If science fiction, for example, satisfactorily addresses the challenges of narrating the Anthropocene, why should we care whether the mainstream novel does or not?

* According to a new study, we might be locked in this deadly embrace. Research by an international team of scientists recently published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters says that the cooling effect of aerosols is so large that it has masked as much as half of the warming effect from greenhouse gases. So aerosols can’t be wiped out. Take them away and temperatures would soar overnight. Turns out we have been unwittingly geoengineering for decades, and just like in the movies, it’s gone off the rails.

* We’re witnessing the fastest decline in Arctic sea ice in at least 1,500 years.

The left likes to pretend that climate denial is some quirk of the far-right and not a fundamental tenet of industrial society

— Christopher M (@mammothfactory) February 20, 2018

* The Cardinals will become the first NCAA Division I men’s basketball program to vacate a national title during the Final Four era, according to ESPN Stats & Information.

* The Real Threat To Campuses Isn’t ‘PC Culture.’ It’s Racism.

* Why the media can’t report the truth about John Kelly.

In many instances, the people forming that early narrative about Kelly — the reporters writing the profiles and the sources they quoted — were white. That’s not a determinative fact, but it was likely a factor in which parts of Kelly’s resume were focused on, and which aspects of his personality were prioritized.

* I’m autistic. I just turned 36 — the average age when people like me die.

* Michael: So one day, we were taping, and Fred comes in, and starts singing, “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day … ” puts the shoes down here, goes to hang up the sweater in the closet. And he’s singing, and he opens the door — and there’s his floor manager, Nick, this big guy with his long goatee, pierced ears, hair all over the place, totally nude, just standing there naked in the closet. Well, Fred just fell down; it was the most hysterical thing you’ve ever seen. He was totally cool.

* Why Do Star Wars Fans Want the New Han Solo Movie to Flop? Rey is the new Anakin.

* Challenging new reading of Garfield reframes canonical “anti-Mondays” stance.