Posts Tagged ‘Chelsea Manning’
First Day of School Links!
* Some late but very nice press for my Octavia Butler book: I was on an episode of the nationally syndicated radio show Viewpoints Radio this week, and the book had a lovely review in LARB!
* CFP: Artificial Life: Debating Medical Modernity (April 19-21, UC Riverside).
* $75 million dollars to philosophy at Johns Hopkins.
* And on the pedestal these words appear.
* 12 People Face Misdemeanor Charges for Giving Food to The Homeless in El Cajon.
* A girl-power moment for Medieval Times, where a woman has the lead for the first time. I have wanted to take my kids to Medieval Times ever since listening to the Doughboys episode about it a few months ago.
* Like the story about the sexual assaults of the US gymnastics team, there is something about Eliza Dushku’s story of being abused as a child by adults who were trusted with her care that is just so heartbreaking.
* Meanwhile, McKayla Maroney is facing a $100,000 for violating her NDA with USA Gymnastics.
* ‘Every day I am crushed’: the stateless man held without trial by Australia for eight years.
* ICE Keeps Raiding Hospitals and Mistreating Disabled Children. Feds planning massive Northern California immigration sweep to strike against sanctuary laws. DHS and DOJ Want to Arrest Mayors of Sanctuary Cities.
* How one employee ‘pushed the wrong button’ and caused a wave of panic. America’s emergency notification systems were first built for war, and then rebuilt for peace. A false alarm in Hawaii shows that they didn’t anticipate how media works in the smartphone era. These are fascinating but I still have every confidence that the explanation we have been given for this event is bullshit and that the truth will come out in a decade or so. Pandemonium and Rage in Hawaii.
* “Wisconsin school apologizes for slavery homework assignment.”
* Foxconn boondoggle nearing $4.5 billion.
* “Almost 35 years ago, she let a stranger hold her newborn. It has haunted her ever since.”
* Activists charged with Confederate statue toppling no longer face felonies.
* Chelsea Manning files to run for U.S. Senate in Maryland.
* The True History of Luke Skywalker’s Monastic Retreat.
* Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea.
* How the Female Stars of The Breakfast ClubFought to Remove a Sexist Scene, and Won.
* And of course you had me at “Gorgeous Images of the Planet Jupiter.”
Midday Monday Links!
* ICYMI from earlier this morning: SFFTV is once again looking for reviewers of DVDs and TV series. And of course I posted about a million links yesterday too.
* Scandal as performance of Julius Caesar depicts sitting president.
* Senate Intelligence Committee Post-Show Discussion of Hamlet.
* Binghampton mayoral candidate pulls out of race citing death threats.
* It’s terrible when actors read reviews and pitch their performance to the critics.
* Attorneys general for the District of Columbia and the state of Maryland say they will sue President Trump on Monday, alleging that he has violated anti-corruption clauses in the Constitution by accepting millions in payments and benefits from foreign governments since moving into the White House.
* The Spy Who Funded Me: Revisiting the Congress for Cultural Freedom.
* The physics of bullets vs. Wonder Woman’s bracelets. Given what is depicted in the film we must be dealing with some sort of magnetic attraction as well, and possibly a forcefield. #teachthecontroversy
* Mysteries of the war on terror: A neo-Nazi with explosives and a framed photo of Timothy McVeigh is not a threat, judge rules.
* 51 stars? Puerto Rico overwhelmingly votes for statehood.
* The Long, Lonely Road of Chelsea Manning.
* Obamacare is probably dead. Here’s what will probably happen.
* Nevada, with little fanfare or notice, is inching toward a massive health insurance expansion — one that would give the state’s 2.8 million residents access to a public health insurance option.
* Seen in this light, the tax cut is not simply a billionaire giveaway. It is part of an evangelical campaign for the restoration of a conditional, paternal philanthropy that runs contrary to the principle of unqualified access to health care that is represented by the ACA’s inclusion of people with “pre-existing conditions” in the insurance markets it regulated. Unqualified access means spreading the cost and risks of ill health and therefore sharing the benefits of maintaining good health. For those evangelicals who view health and disease through the lens of a moral economy, spreading the costs of health care is tantamount to facilitating moral hazard, or encouraging sinful behavior and usurping God’s judgment.
* Questions James Comey Should Be Asked About the FBI While He’s Under Oath.
* 41-year-old adoptee deported after 37 years in the U.S.
* All The Wrong People Are Asking All The Wrong Questions About Fidget Spinners.
* The case for prescription heroin.
* And from the archives! The Periodic Table of Nonsense.
I’ve Closed Every Tab I Had Open and I’m Not Sorry Links
* There are no links now. There is only the Orb.
* CFP: In Frankenstein’s Wake.
* Queer Artist Transforms Octavia Butler’s ‘Parable of the Sower’ Into Opera.
* Great literature, by the numbers. The Bachelor/ette, by the numbers.
* But if you read Spencer’s three-pronged narrative as Sam Wilson’s story, it looks very different. It becomes the story of an impeccably qualified black hero whose time in the spotlight is abruptly cut off by the return of an old white man who once had his position and of a public so thirsty for the moral certainty of the Greatest Generation that it can’t see the nightmarish perversion of it that’s right in front of them until it’s too late.
* LARB on the unionization struggle at Yale. A Case for Reparations at the University of Chicago. Crisis at Mizzou. Two sets of universities, two countries, two futures.
* The engine of irrationality inside the rationalists. Why the “Conceptual Penis” Hoax is Just a Big Cock Up. Some Work Is Hard.
* The Ethos of the Overinvolved Parent: Colleges are adjusting to increasing contact with adults who are more ingrained in their children’s lives than ever.
* A brief history of Esperanto.
* Science fiction’s new golden age in China.
* Science fiction doesn’t predict the future, it influences it.
* The Secret History of William Gibson’s Never-Filmed Aliens Sequel.
* Feds use anti-terror tool to hunt the undocumented. Arrests of Undocumented Immigrants Without Criminal Records Spikes 150%.
* Felony charges against inauguration protesters represent ‘historic crossroads.’ The airport lawyers who fought Trump’s Muslim ban are facing a Justice Dept. crackdown.
* Horror in Manchester. Terror in Kansas.
* The Death of the Suburban Office Park and the Rise of the Suburban Poor.
* Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Centre.
* Sheriff Clarke leaving Milwaukee County for position with Department of Homeland Security. Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr.’s departure will be good for department and Milwaukee County. Plainly, indisputably unfit. But not so fast!
* Downward spiral: Special Prosecutor? Independent Counsel? Special Counsel? What’s the Difference? Meet Bob Mueller. A forgotten lesson of Watergate: conservatives may rally around Trump. Did Trump Commit a Crime in Sharing Intelligence With Moscow? Trump Gave Russians Secrets News Orgs Are Being Asked To Withhold. Trump’s disclosure endangered spy placed inside ISIS by Israel, officials say. Trump aides were in constant touch with senior Russian officials during campaign. Notes made by FBI Director Comey say Trump pressured him to end Flynn probe. Trump straight-up told the Russians he fired Comey to obstruct justice and it just. doesn’t. matter. ‘He Looks More and More Like a Complete Moron.’ Even while I was just trying to put this post together more bombshells dropped: Michael T. Flynn told President Trump’s transition team weeks before the inauguration that he was under federal investigation for secretly working as a paid lobbyist for Turkey during the campaign, according to two people familiar with the case. And this one! Flynn stopped military plan Turkey opposed – after being paid as its agent. And this one! It sure seems like Michael Flynn lied to federal investigators about his Russia ties. Shot. Chaser. Donald Trump has committed the exact offense that forced Richard Nixon to resign. Have Trump’s Problems Hit a Breaking Point? Articles of Impeachment for Donald J. Trump. “Don’t See How Trump Isn’t Completely F*cked.” Presidential impeachments are about politics, not law. This is the exact situation impeachment was meant for. Let’s hurry up. Nate Silver runs the numbers. When Will Republicans Dump Trump? Oh honey. But why not him?
* Understanding the self-pardon.
* This seems fine. This seems fine. This seems fine. This seems fine. This seems fine. This seems fine. This one really does seem fine. This seems fine. This is definitely not fine.
* Here at the end of all norms.
* Trump Team Stands by Budget’s $2 Trillion Math Error.
* Any Half-Decent Hacker Could Break Into Mar-a-Lago.
* Can the Anti-Trump Resistance Take the Philadelphia DA Office?
* SNL and the profiteers. Trump and the Hall of Presidents.
* MSNBC replaying its Bush-era history note for note.
* I think maybe I want to trade with the Netherlands.
* At least we can still laugh.
* Star Trek: Discovery is definitely bad. This single photo proves it! Honestly, though, I thought that aside from the strong leads the new trailer looks cheap and bad, with terrible-looking secondary characters and a narrative I have very little interest in. I was very glad when The Incomparable explained to me that none of this had anything to do with the actual plot of the show.
* If The Last Jedi Really Has the Biggest Reveal in Star Wars History, What Could It Be? I’m hoping the poster is wrong, rather than (the only possibility) they’re making Luke bad.
* The Secret History of Dragonlance.
* Jordan Peele’s Next Project Is a Terrifying Lovecraftian Story About Race in 1950s America.
* Today in making fascism fun: 1Password’s new Travel Mode.
* Arctic stronghold of world’s seeds flooded after permafrost melts. The end of the penguins. Miles of ice collapsing into the sea. Scientists say the pace of sea level rise has nearly tripled since 1990. The Greening of Antarctica.
* Millennials and their damned avocados.
* Don’t Like Betsy DeVos? Blame the Democrats.
* It wasn’t just petty infighting that tanked Hillary Clinton’s campaign. It was the lack of any coherent program for the country. But don’t worry! There’s a plan.
* Laura Kipniss is apparently being sued for Unwanted Advances. The book seemed to be absolutely begging for a lawsuit; if the publisher wasn’t absolutely scrupulous it was extremely negligent.
* Maybe let’s not gene-sequence human intelligence.
* Can capitalism survive the rise of the machines?
* Statement of Teaching Philosophy. And on the pedestal these words appear. The circle of life. One fear. So you want to write a book. Why work so hard.
* Listen to what science teaches us, people!
* And the circus is (finally) closed.