A Desperate Last-Ditch Mission to Close All My Tabs

* My Hamilton seminar got some nice national press last week, in both print and video flavors. Check it out!

* Call for Papers: Worlding SF! I’m scheduled to give my first conference keynote at this one.

* Electric Athenaeum: Call for Submissions! Fantasy and Myth in the Anthropocene!

* BookScrolling’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books Written by Women. A solid list! Octavia’s Daughters: Meet the New Queens of Spec Fic. Behold, the mega thread you created with over 200 recs of books by POCs.

* I’m confident this will be the most interesting Star Trek movie of all time, whether it’s the best or worst Star Trek movie of all time.

* Race and high fantasy.

* The Revolutionary Optimism of Iain M. Banks’ Culture Novels. When Obama met Liu Cixin.

* Why You Left Social Media: A Guesswork.

* Still trying not to obsess over every twist and turn of the Trump administration, but this is truly something, even by Republican standards. Proposed rule would protect employers who steal workers’ hard-earned tips. The tax cut that ate America. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act lets corporations loose to do what they will—and then imposes pain to make the numbers work. ‘Death to Democrats’: How the GOP Tax Bill Whacks Liberal Tenets. 15,000 people a year. Oops. Not even CHIP can survive these people. FBI Pretty On-Brand. The rot goes all the way down. Gaming out the risk of nuclear war with North Korea. Opening the floodgates. The case for normalizing impeachment.

The arc of history is long but it bends towards decadence and collapse.

— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) December 2, 2017

* The Uncounted: Jobs and Graduates. I think colleges have ignored just how much goodwill has been burned up by the rise in college costs. Graduate Students Mobilize ‘to Stop Something That Can Ruin Us.’ Universities are also to blame for the GOP’s ‘grad student tax.’ The fire next time. The case for federal universities. Student debt: something has to give. The odd case of Hillsdale College. Meanwhile, in Nebraska, a chilling vision of things to come.

* Isn’t this just a pitch for S.P.E.C.T.R.E?

* Moody’s Warns Cities to Address Climate Risks or Face Downgrades. The Texas Town That’s Been Without Clean Water for Thirty Years.

* More than 20,000 Children Have Been Homeless Since Hurricane Harvey. We don’t talk at all about Puerto Rico anymore.

* O’Keefe, again.

* How did we survive the Cold War?

* When we think about the environmental conditions under which young Americans are developing, a lack of trust makes sense as a survival adaptation. A market that doles out success on an increasingly individual basis is not a strong foundation for high levels of social interdependence. With all youth activities centered on the production of human capital, even team sports become sole pursuits. Add this to the intensive risk aversion that characterizes contemporary parenting and the zero-tolerance risk-elimination policies that dominate the schools and the streets, and it’s a wonder Millennials can muster enough trust to walk outside their own doors. 

* These Doomsday Preppers Are Starting to Switch From Gold to Bitcoin. The longer BTC persists, the worse the eventual blowout—and the more angry people there are going to be. Angry people who are currently being recruited and radicalized by neo-Nazis. Bitcoin Mining Now Consuming More Electricity Than 159 Countries Including Ireland & Most Countries In Africa.

* No thanks. Hard pass.

* Domestic terror: ICE tracks down immigrant who spoke to media in SW Washington: ‘You are the one from the newspaper.’

* Escalating in Afghanistan, again, without even the pretense of a strategic goal.

* Zoning laws and resistance. It’s too late for Robert Mueller to save us. All of our institutions will abet, not arrest, this disaster.

* How the Republicans broke Congress. Trump and the failure of incrementalism.

* Daniel Shaver begged officers not to shoot him. What role will his death play in the push for law-enforcement reforms?

* At this, the girl adopted a stern expression. “You’re not supposed to play!” she said, commandingly. She seemed pleased that the game afforded her an opportunity to reprimand her teacher—a chance to express a different facet of her imagination. “You are not supposed to play in preschool,” she said, with conviction. “You are supposed to work.” The girl had absorbed both the explicit and the implicit lessons of the schoolroom in which she spent her days. So far, it seemed, her education was a success. Against Success Academy.

* MILWAUKEE (AP) — Charter schools are among the nation’s most segregated, an Associated Press analysis finds — an outcome at odds, critics say, with their goal of offering a better alternative to failing traditional public schools.

* To the extent that Jackie was aware that what she told Sabrina Erdely was not true, it was destructive and wrong, cruel and stupid. If she really was not in command of reality, that would mitigate her culpability, but it wouldn’t change the nature of what she did. It was violence. And to me, it was a betrayal — or that’s what it felt like. I knew it was irrational to feel that way, but that’s how I felt. I want to condemn it, and I do condemn it, but I also think I can guess what she was saying, or would have said, which can’t be said reasonably. It must be said melodramatically. Something like: Look at this. Don’t you fucking dare not look. I’m going to make you look. I’m going to make you know. You’re going to know what we’ve decided is worth sacrificing, what price we’ve decided we’re willing to pay to maintain this league of men, and this time, you’re going to remember.

* A Timeline of Everything We Know Happened After Return of the Jedi, Up to The Last Jedi.

* American Airlines Glitch Could Strand Thousands Of Holiday Flights. Good on the pilots for signing up before anyone told management.

* What’s on the ground in The Jetsons?

* Facebook is studying your self-censorship.

* Solidarity to our brothers in arms.

* And on the pedestal these words appear:

Wednesday Links!

* This is the only movie franchise Disney should produce from now on.

* On indigenous futurism.

* It’s not time to degree, it’s time from degree.

* Horrifying, tragic triple murder in Chapel Hill.

* Professors and other university employees wouldn’t be able to criticize or praise lawmakers, the governor or other elected officials in letters to the editor if they use their official titles, under a bill introduced in the Legislature. Having solved every other problem in existence, the Legislature now turns its eyes towards…

* The University of Wisconsin cuts as queen sacrifice.

* What University Administrators Gain from $300 Million in Cuts. Notes from the conspiracy against UW.

 * How our paths have diverged from that August afternoon in 1986. True story: it was freshman orientation just outside Memorial Union. We were two of a couple thousand new Marquette University freshman wistful about what our futures held. Four years later, I graduated from Marquette and later became Wisconsin High School Teacher of the Year. You never graduated, and you became the Governor of the State of Wisconsin bent on dismantling public education. Ironic, isn’t it? Situational irony at its best. I’d laugh if its ramifications weren’t so utterly destructive for the state of Wisconsin.

* First Louisiana, then Wisconsin, now South Carolina ups the ante. Now they want to shut it down for two years. Would it shock you if I told you this was a historically black college? Would it completely blow your mind?

* What Even is African Literature Anyway.

SOFIA SAMATAR: Lately I have been thinking about African literature as the literature that becomes nothing.“African subjectivity…is constituted by a perennial lack: lacking souls, lacking civilization, lacking writing, lacking responsibility, lacking development, lacking human rights and lacking democracy. It is an unending discourse that invents particular ‘lacks’ suitable for particular historical epochs so as to justify perpetuation of asymmetrical power relations and to authorize various forms of external interventions into Africa.” (Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Empire, Global Coloniality And African Subjectivity)This was kicked off when I read Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni on lack. We know that all literary works are copies, but Africanliterature is a copy in a way that obliterates it (Ouologuem, Camara Laye, whatever, choose your plagiarism scandal). All literature is political, but African literature is political in a way that makes it cease to be literature (it’s “too political,” “didactic,” etc.). All literature is produced to suit a market, but African literature is produced to suit an illegitimate, inauthentic, outside market (it’s always in the wrong language). Its market also makes it nothing…

* Crumbs is a new feature-length film project from award-winning Addis Ababa-based Spanish director Miguel Llansó boldly touting itself as “the first ever Ethiopian post-apocalyptic, surreal, sci-fi feature length film.” Its cryptic official trailer, which we first spotted over on Shadow and Act, takes us deep into a bizarre universe inhabited by the beautiful Candy (played by Ethiopian actress Selam Tesfaye) and her diminutive scrap collecting partner Birdy (played by Ethiopian actor Daniel Tadesse Gagano), who sets out on a journey to uncover strange happenings in their otherwise desolate surroundings.

* In the high-stakes world of American education, Pearson makes money even when its results don’t measure up.

* Jon Stewart quits. Brian Williams suspended. Tough times in fake news.

* Another preview of Graeber’s The Utopia of Rules.

* To all the young journalists asking for advice.

* I asked Mr. Trachtenberg if it was morally defensible to let students borrow tens of thousands of dollars for a service that he himself had compared to a luxury good. He is not, by nature, one for apologies and second-guessing. “I’m not embarrassed by what we did,” he said. “It’s not as if it’s some kind of a bait and switch here. It’s not as if the faculty weren’t good. It’s not as if the opportunities to get a good degree weren’t there. There’s no misrepresentation here.” He seemed unbowed but also aware that his legacy was bound up in the larger dramas and crises of American higher education.

* Whatever happened to the teenage entrepreneurs whom Peter Thiel paid to forgo college?

* Jesus Christ: The University of Oregon illegally pried through the medical records of a female student who was expected to file a sexual assault-related lawsuit against the school, a staff therapist claims.

* The salary gap at Berkeley.

* For centuries we the taxpayers have paid to maintain the nation’s treasures and institutions. It would be madness to hand over our archives now.

* I’m Autistic, And Believe Me, It’s A Lot Better Than Measles.

* Rosa Parks — because of her arrest, because of her activism — loses her job at the Montgomery Fair department store, where she was an assistant tailor. She wasn’t fired, they just let her go. And Raymond Parks also loses his job as well. And neither one of them is able to find sustainable employment in Montgomery after that — because of their activism, absolutely. They are basically boycotted. …

This is a 1955 tax return, and of course her arrest is in December of that year, and their combined income is $3,749. So they’re, you know, the working poor, but they’re holding their head above water. And here is their tax return in 1959 when they’re living in Detroit. Their combined income is $661. They have descended into deep, deep poverty.

* On June 30th, 1974, Alberta Williams King was gunned down while she played the organ for the “Lord’s Prayer” at Ebenezer Baptist Church. As a Christian civil rights activist, she was assassinated…just like her son, Martin Luther King, Jr.

* BREAKING: People with Stronger Writing Skills Are Better at Their Jobs, Get Paid More, Better Looking, Less B.O., Just Better Period.

* Five Dials has a special issue devoted to Richard McGuire’s amazing comic Here.

* Review: Jupiter Ascending Is The Worst Movie Ever Go See It Immediately.

* So what would have made Jupiter Ascending work?

* NASA’s latest budget calls for a mission to Europa. OK I think as long as we attempt no landings there.

* Milwaukee streetcar boondoggle project approved.

* Secret Teacher: exams have left my students incapable of thinking. “Incapable” is a bit strong, but elites have certainly turned education into a nightmare.

* TOS for Samsung’s exciting new 4o-inch telescreen.

* What appears to happen during this time—the years I look at are 1994 to 2008, just based on the data that’s available—is that the probability that a district attorneys file a felony charge against an arrestee goes from about 1 in 3, to 2 in 3. So over the course of the ’90s and 2000s, district attorneys just got much more aggressive in how they filed charges. Defendants who they would not have filed felony charges against before, they now are charging with felonies. I can’t tell you why they’re doing that. No one’s really got an answer to that yet. But it does seem that the number of felony cases filed shoots up very strongly, even as the number of arrests goes down.

* 2013 record heatwave ‘virtually impossible’ without climate change, Climate Council of Australia report says.

* Text adventure micro-game of the day: 9:05.

* Fantasy short of the day: “The Two of Us.”

* Sharing companies use their advertising to build a sort of anti-brand-community brand community.  Both sharing companies and brand communities mediate social relations and make them seem less risky. Actual community is full of friction and unresolvable competing agendas; sharing apps’ main function is to eradicate friction and render all parties’ agenda uniform: let’s make a deal. They are popular because they do what brand communities do: They allow people to extract value from strangers without the hassle of having to dealing with them as more than amiable robots.

* 38 Percent Of Women Earn More Than Their Husbands.

* The Worst Commutes In America.

* “I was keenly aware of my Jewishness when I enrolled at Hogwarts in that faraway fall of 1949.”

* The-price-is-too-high watch: Study says smelling farts may be good for your health.

* Black girls are suspended from school 6 times more often than white girls.

* From the archives: The New Yorker‘s 2013 profile of American Sniper Chris Kyle.

* Human sociality and the problem of trust: there’s an app for that.

* Adnan Syed is getting an appeal.

* Detroit needs Sun Ra more than ever.

* But Manson, 80, does not want to marry Burton and has no interest in spending eternity displayed in a glass coffin, Simone told The Post. “He’s finally realized that he’s been played for a fool,” Simone said. Poor guy.

* “This AI can create poetry indistinguishable from real poets.” Finally, we can get rid of all these poets!

* Peace in our time: Marvel and Sony have concluded a deal that will allow Spider-Man to appear in Avengers movies.

* Zoo Security Drills: When Animals Escape.

* Ming the clam, the world’s oldest animal, killed at 507 years old by scientists trying to tell how old it was. RIP.

* Jonathan Blow says The Witness, his followup to Braid, is finally almost done.

* The other Apollo speeches.

* The news gets worse, academics: Your lifetime earnings are probably determined in your 20s.

* And presenting the world’s most delicious diamond.

Thursday Links!

* 2015 CFP for the MRG: “Enthusiasm for Revolution.”

* Reminder: Call for Postdoctoral Fellow: Alternative Futurisms.

* Criminalizing parenting.

* The Long, Wondrous Interview with Junot Díaz You Have to Read. By the great Taryne Taylor! From the same issue of Paradoxa that has my essay on Snowpiercer in it.

* Panel Conversation on Afrofutrism between Nnedi Okorafor and Sofia Samatar at the University of Texas.

* Ellen Craft, the Slave Who Posed as a Master and Made Herself Free.

* Having paddled so hard to avoid the Scylla of hyperprofessionalization in English studies, some promoters of alternative careers may not notice that they are in the grip of Charybdis’s hyperprofessionalization of everything else. The harder they paddle, the harder the whirlpool pulls us all down. Great piece from Marc Bousquet addressing a number of key issues in academic labor.

* Universities without Austerity.

* A History of the MLA Job List.

* The headline reads, “UMass Ends Use of Student Informants.”

* Arbitrator places adjunct on the tenure track.

* The Data Sublime.

* Loved Your Nanny Campus? Start-Up Pledges Similar Services for Grads.

* These Two States Will Revoke Your License If You Can’t Pay Back Your Student Loans.

* He put that cartoon up on the classroom whiteboard, and the teacher left it there all day as a lesson in free speech.

* These World Leaders Are a Worse Threat to Free Press Than Terrorism.

* Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Newspaper Edits Female World Leaders Out of Charlie Hebdo March.

* What’s Missing From the Debate on Obama’s Free Community-College Plan.

* The end of the university in Louisiana.

* Elvis vs. the Beatles.

* Malcolm Harris: The Small Miracle You Haven’t Heard About Amid the Carnage in Syria.

* Urick v. Koenig, part two.

* Report: Duke Ignored Warnings on Research Fraud.

* 53 Historians Weigh In on Barack Obama’s Legacy.

* Back to the Future, Time Travel, and the Secret History of the 1980s.

* To be clear, late-night votes might be a bit of a problem for Joseph Morrissey, the newly sworn-in Virginia House delegate who must report to his jail cell about 7:30 each evening.

* Muslim Americans are the staunchest opponents of military attacks on civilians, compared with members of other major religious groups Gallup has studied in the United States. Seventy-eight percent of Muslim Americans say military attacks on civilians are never justified.

* $1 Million Prize for Scientists Who Can Cure Human Aging. Sure, I’ll go in for a few bucks on that.

* Trial by Ebola.

* Too real:  Woman’s Parents Accepting Of Mixed-Attractiveness Relationship.

* What If We Could Live In A World Without War But Way More Famine?

* Blue-eyed humans have a single, common ancestor.

* A Cybernetic Implant That Allows Paralyzed Rats To Walk Again.

* In 2014, Florida recorded at least 346 deaths inside of their prison system, an all-time high for the state in spite of the fact that its overall prison population has hovered around 100,000 people for the five previous years. Hundreds of these deaths from 2014 and from previous years are now under investigation by the DOJ because of the almost unimaginable role law enforcement officers are playing in them.

* Last week: The City Is Reportedly Losing $10 Million a Week Because the NYPD Isn’t Writing Enough Tickets. This week: NYPD Slowdown Turns Into “Broken Windows” Crackdown.

* The point of a strike is to stop production to show the work you do is essential. The NYPD slowdown has proven the opposite.

* The School-to-Prison Pipeline: Time to Shut it Down.

* Every day, cops toss dangerous military-style grenades during raids, with little oversight and horrifying results.

* Albuquerque cop mistakenly guns down undercover narcotics officer during bungled $60 meth bust. Elsewhere in Albuquerque.

* 1 In 3 College Men In Survey Said They Would Rape A Woman If They Could Get Away With It.

* Danny Boyle Having “Serious” Conversations About 28 Months Later. I’m in as long as it’s the first step towards Years.

* Radically unnecessary Avatar sequels reportedly having script problems. What could explain it?

* Frozen in everything, forever and ever amen.

* Seems legit: NASCAR driver says his ex-girlfriend is a trained assassin.

* This Computer Program Is ‘Incapable Of Losing’ At Poker.

* Scholar and activist Glen Coulthard on the connection between indigenous and anticapitalist struggles.

* This seems like glorified Avengers fan fiction but I’m on board. Meanwhile, in Fantastic Four news.

* Ah, there’s my problem: iPhone Separation Anxiety Makes You Dumber, Study Finds.

* I’m you, from the future! At the 16th most popular webcomic.

* They say time is the fire in which we burn.

* The Marquette Tribune is following the ongoing McAdams suspension at the university.

* Study says we prefer singers who look like big babies during good times. This research must be stopped. Some things mankind was never meant to know.

* “To her disappointment she found that the Purchased Products did not even feel different from her regular socks and tights.”

* Community get a premiere date.

* whothefuckismydndcharacter.com.

* And Cookie-Based Research Suggests Powerful People Are Sloppier Eaters. Of course the sloppy among us have always known this.

Friday Links!

* The Department of Education is surprisingly frank about how impossible it is to turn Obama’s gibberish on education into a usable ratings system. And here is the tentative list of stats colleges must now juke.

* Serial missed its chance to show how unfair the criminal justice system really is. What Serial really taught us.

* Aaron Bady interviews Sofia Samatar on steampunk, Afrofuturism, science fiction, and more. The latest in his Post45 series.

* Marquette says it hasn’t suspended professor John McAdams.

* The best list like this I’ve seen: 5 Reasons To Study The Humanities.

* Uber is a terrible idea.

Uber claims Done wasn’t even the driver who was supposed to pick the woman up, and points out that he passed a background check before he started driving for them.

So did the L.A. driver charged with kidnapping and rape, the San Francisco driver charged with hitting a passenger in the head with a hammer, and another San Francisco driver accused of assault who turned out to have prior felony convictions and was on parole for a previous battery charge.

* But in statehouses across the country, Uber has fought against legislation requiring background checks as strong as those demanded of traditional taxis. Other ride-sharing companies like Lyft and Sidecar, Uber’s chief rivals, have also pushed against the laws, but supporters of stronger background checks say Uber has been by far the most aggressive.

* The Winning Images From National Geographic‘s 2014 Photo Contest.

* The very last Colbert. RIP. Today marks the exact moment this stops being a relevant reference for students, so expect to see it fade from classrooms around 2027.

* And I too wish my snowman were alive.