An irregular hodgepodge of links gathered together … Omnium Gatherum for May 9, 2021

Here’s a variety of notable things I’ve recently found that you may also be interested in checking out:

• From the Aw Snap dept: tweet—”Church is canceled today so mothers won’t have to listen to a bunch of patronizing, patriarchal crap from a pulpit they’re disqualified from.”
• Well, that seems like a missed opportunity to hit some that almost rhymes with Tyrant’s Toga. “Chinese rocket debris crashes into Indian Ocean – state media. The remains of a Chinese rocket that was hurtling back towards Earth have crashed into the Indian Ocean, the country’s space agency says.”
• Stoicon-x Military Conference: Courage, Honor, and Stoicism by Modern Stoicism (Donald Robertson), Sat, May 15, 2021, 11 am – 5 pm CDT. “Virtual conference on Stoicism, leadership, and resilience, open to everyone.”
• Crowdfunding with 17 days to go: “The Prisoner Retro Style Action Figures. The First Ever Officially Licensed Action Figures Based on the Cult Classic TV Show THE PRISONER.”
• Crowdfunding with 18 days to go: “ILLUMINATI CONFIRMED—A New Kind of Strategic Video Game. Classic strategy game of secret societies fighting for global domination—coming to desktop & mobile!”
• A new James Burke’s Connections series? Hell yes! Tweet—”I am VERY EXCITED to announce a project @davidmcraney and I have been working on with the great science historian James Burke. Here it is. Want to make this a reality? Then we need your help. Spread the word and tell all the streaming services you want it!”
• Tweet—”‘As it is, so be it.’ The occult, a sinister sect known as the Process, and a serial killer, all in NYC ca. ’76-’77. Who you gonna call? (Check out episodes 2 & 3)” About The Sons of Sam: A Descent into Darkness, on Netflix—”The Son of Sam case grew into a lifelong obsession for journalist Maury Terry, who became convinced that the murders were linked to a satanic cult.”
• Watch “Ground Control to Sara Lance“, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, S06e01, featuring a goofy mention of an imaginary version of Aleister Crowley and his “book of alien spells”(?!) The Book of the Law, and they cast someone as David Bowie, including a special song.
• “Authenticity is a sham. From monks to existentialists and hipsters, the search for a true self has been a centuries-long project. Should we give it up?”
• “The Death Cult of Smart.” About The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher] by Fredrik deBoer—”Leftist firebrand Fredrik deBoer exposes the lie at the heart of our educational system and demands top-to-bottom reform.”
• “Simone Weil for Americans.” About The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher] by Robert Zaretsky—”Known as the “patron saint of all outsiders,” Simone Weil (1909–43) was one of the twentieth century’s most remarkable thinkers, a philosopher who truly lived by her political and ethical ideals. In a short life framed by the two world wars, Weil taught philosophy to lycée students and organized union workers, fought alongside anarchists during the Spanish Civil War and labored alongside workers on assembly lines, joined the Free French movement in London and died in despair because she was not sent to France to help the Resistance. Though Weil published little during her life, after her death, thanks largely to the efforts of Albert Camus, hundreds of pages of her manuscripts were published to critical and popular acclaim. While many seekers have been attracted to Weil’s religious thought, Robert Zaretsky gives us a different Weil, exploring her insights into politics and ethics, and showing us a new side of Weil that balances her contradictions—the rigorous rationalist who also had her own brand of Catholic mysticism; the revolutionary with a soft spot for anarchism yet who believed in the hierarchy of labor; and the humanitarian who emphasized human needs and obligations over human rights. Reflecting on the relationship between thought and action in Weil’s life, The Subversive Simone Weil honors the complexity of Weil’s thought and speaks to why it matters and continues to fascinate readers today.”
• “Weary of Work. Factories produced tired workers. A new frontier in fatigue studies followed.”—”‘A tired person is literally and actually a poisoned person,’ Goldmark wrote, ‘poisoned by his own waste products.’ Adequate rest was essential because it enabled the body to eliminate the ‘noxious products of activity’ and rebuild tissues.” “By the time the Fatigue Laboratory closed in 1947, the struggle for shorter hours had faltered. A key event was the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. Rather than restricting night work, the law created the right to “time-and-a-half” overtime pay, effectively ending the campaign to reduce hours. After that, both the number of hours Americans worked each week and the number of weeks they worked each year began to rise.” From Sick and Tired: An Intimate History of Fatigue [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher] by Emily K. Abel—”Medicine finally has discovered fatigue. Recent articles about various diseases conclude that fatigue has been underrecognized, underdiagnosed, and undertreated. Scholars in the social sciences and humanities have also ignored the phenomenon. As a result, we know little about what it means to live with this condition, especially given its diverse symptoms and causes. Emily K. Abel offers the first history of fatigue, one that is scrupulously researched but also informed by her own experiences as a cancer survivor. Abel reveals how the limits of medicine and the American cultural emphasis on productivity intersect to stigmatize those with fatigue. Without an agreed-upon approach to confirm the problem through medical diagnosis, it is difficult to convince others that it is real. When fatigue limits our ability to work, our society sees us as burdens or worse. With her engaging and informative style, Abel gives us a synthetic history of fatigue and elucidates how it has been ignored or misunderstood, not only by medical professionals but also by American society as a whole.”
• “Drunkards, Nazis, and Fascist Masculinity: The Ambivalent Resistance Lit of Hans Fallada. Clayton Wickham Rereads The Drinker.” About The Drinker [Amazon, Publisher] by HANS FALLADA, translated by Charlotte Lloyd and A.L. Lloyd—”Written in an encrypted notebook while incarcerated in a Nazi insane asylum and only discovered after his death, The Drinker may be Hans Fallada’s most breathtaking piece of craftsmanship. It is an intense yet absorbing study of the descent into drunkenness by an intelligent man who fears he’s lost it all.”
• “The Yid and Yang of Poet Charles Bernstein. For Poetry Month, a series of encounters with the homely, octopuslike demystifier of verse.”—”Dare we mistake Bernstein to be a brain in a jar with an air-tight ars poetica?”
• “The Enemy as Sociologist American exceptionalism as diagnosed by the Nazi propaganda magazine Signal.”—”What if our enemies know us better than we know ourselves?”
• “Novels and Novellas and Tomes, Oh My! The long and short of novel lengths.”
• “Lolita, Blake Bailey, and Me. For the author of the memoir Being Lolita, some details from the sexual abuse allegations against the Philip Roth biographer are all too familiar.”
• “What Does Book Publishing Stand For? A series of controversies has called the industry’s supposed values into question.”
• “A Female Vision of Sci-Fi.” About Terminal Boredom: Stories [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher] by Izumi Suzuki—”The first English language publication of the work of Izumi Suzuki, a legend of Japanese science fiction and a countercultural icon. At turns nonchalantly hip and charmingly deranged, Suzuki’s singular slant on speculative fiction would be echoed in countless later works, from Margaret Atwood and Harumi Murakami, to Black Mirror and Ex Machina. In these darkly playful and punky stories, the fantastical elements are always earthed by the universal pettiness of strife between the sexes, and the gritty reality of life on the lower rungs, whatever planet that ladder might be on.
  Translated by Polly Barton, Sam Bett, David Boyd, Daniel Joseph, Aiko Masubuchi, and Helen O’Horan.”

• “Sanctimony Literature.”—”What we are denied is the intellectual excitement of trying to answer the exceedingly complicated question of what a morally serious person should be like. It is because sanctimony literature eschews moral realism that it foregoes the sort of style that might at last confer substance. We already have enough politics; now it is time for us to find an ethics; and if we are demanding of our skills and our sensibilities, an aesthetics may follow. If we cannot have enough good people, we may still aspire to more good books.”
• “How To: On the Unlikely Political and Cultural Power of the DIY Manual. Bethany Kaylor Digs Into the History of Doing It Yourself.”
• “Scientists find Africa’s oldest human burial, a child from 78,000 years ago. The discovery of a deliberately buried toddler may offer new insights into the Middle Stone Age, a key period in the human timeline.”
• “Handprints discovered in ancient Mayan cave. The handprints found in a cave in Mexico are believed to be part of an ancient Mayan ritual.”
• “Remains of nine Neanderthals found in cave south of Rome. Italian archaeologists believe most of Neanderthals were killed by hyenas then dragged back to den.” Also watch “Remains of nine Neanderthals discovered near Rome.”—”Archaeologists in Italy discovered the remains of nine Neanderthals, the oldest said to be dated to as many as 100,000 years ago, at a prehistoric site near Rome.”
• “Sharks Use the Earth’s Magnetic Field Like a Compass. Biologists have long believed that these animals rely on magnetic sensing to migrate across oceans. Someone finally figured out how to prove it.”
• “Tiny dinosaur hunted in the dark and heard better than an owl.”
• “‘Mother Trees’ Are Intelligent: They Learn and Remember. And ecologist Suzanne Simard says they need our help to survive.”
• Um. This is probably someone goofing around? But, I mean, cool to think about. From the Fungi from Yuggoth dept: “Fungi on Mars? Evidence of Growth and Behavior From Sequential Images.”—”Fungi thrive in radiation intense environments. Sequential photos document that fungus-like Martian specimens emerge from the soil and increase in size, including those resembling puffballs (Basidiomycota). After obliteration of spherical specimens by the rover wheels, new sphericals-some with stalks-appeared atop the crests of old tracks.” Also “Experts Shred Paper Claiming to Identify Mushrooms on Mars.”
• “Study: Female students’ graduation rates improve with better birth control access.” Also “The Mars Mushrooms Are Probably Fake, But Organisms Could Likely Survive on the Red Planet.” Also “No, NASA photos are not evidence of fungus growing on Mars, sorry. Despite what you might have read, the claims about life on Mars are shoddy and unscientific.”
• “Seven rare gold pendants were sacrificed 1500 years ago in Østfold county of Norway. It must have been a considerable ritual act, reserved for only the most privileged in society, according to researchers.”
• “Mighty morphin’ flat-packed pasta takes on 3D shapes as it cooks.”
• “The Challenges of Animal Translation. Artificial intelligence may help us decode animalese. But how much will we really be able to understand?”
• “Four astronauts make first nighttime landing in the ocean since 1968. ‘I would just like to say, quite frankly, y’all are changing the world.'”
• “A Roman Emperor and His Finger, Separated for 500 Years, Finally Reunited.”
• “Inside Ibogaine, One of the Most Promising and Perilous Psychedelics for Addiction.” Also 2020’s “Scientists re-engineered natural psychedelic drug as treatment for depression and addiction, without the trippy effects.” Also 2019’s “Why the Curious Story of William S. Burroughs’ Heroin “Cure” Still Matters.” Also 2019’s “A Detox Drug Promises Miracles—If It Doesn’t Kill You First. The heavy hallucinogen ibogaine is illegal in the US, but some addicts are flocking to Mexican clinics for it, hoping to be cured. A physician investigates.”
• “Republicans promote pandemic relief they voted against.”
• “Anti-vaxxers aren’t the cause of America’s dropping vaccine rates. This fact is crucial to getting the US’s vaccination campaign back on track.”
• “‘We are witnessing a crime against humanity’: Arundhati Roy on India’s Covid catastrophe. It’s hard to convey the full depth and range of the trauma, the chaos and the indignity that people are being subjected to. Meanwhile, Modi and his allies are telling us not to complain.”
• “Why It Feels So Uncomfortable To Resume Your Life After Your Vaccine. It can feel almost wrong to make plans once you’ve had your COVID-19 shots. Here’s how to shake that and why it matters that you do.”
• “We Still Don’t Know Who the Coronavirus’s Victims Were. One year into a racial pandemic within a viral one, the gaps in our collective knowledge are still startling.”
• Watch “Scannable QR code appears in sky above China’s Shanghai.”
• Watch “Self-Assembling Wires That Can Solve a Maze!”
• Watch “We need Action – Right to Repair Explained.”
• Tweet—”Back in 2017, @fightfortheftr started noticing suspicious comments flooding the FCC docket. All of them opposed #NetNeutrality. We published a blog post about it and some journos started investigating. Today the NY AG announced they have proof this fraud was funded by the ISPs.” Also tweet—”After a multi-year investigation, we found the nation’s largest broadband companies funded a secret campaign to influence the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality rules — resulting in millions of fake public comments impersonating Americans. These illegal schemes are unacceptable.” Also “NY AG report finds 18 million FCC net neutrality comments were fake. Out of a total of 22 million.”
• “Apple Discussed ‘Punitive Measures’ Against Netflix for Dropping In-App Purchases.” Also “Apple practically begged Netflix to allow new subscribers to pay using the App Store’s platform.”
• “Apple banned Shadow app after Microsoft used it as an example to get xCloud for iOS approved.”
• “Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales. Internal report flagged lack of controls over access to seller data.”
• “Verizon sells internet trailblazers Yahoo and AOL for $5B.”—”AOL and Yahoo are being sold again, this time to a private equity firm.”
• “The Computers Are Getting Better at Writing. Whatever field you are in, if it uses language, it is about to be transformed.”
• Tweet—”What was that old Mac game where the character could leave the game area and start overwriting other running programs and kernel memory. That’s maybe literally the best anecdote I’ve ever heard about why programs crashing is definitely NOT the worst thing that can happen.”
• “Tesla Cybertruck Hits Streets of NYC, Breaks Several Traffic Laws.”
• “AirTag hacked and reprogrammed by security researcher.”
• “What Happens to Stocks and Cryptocurrencies When the Fed Stops Raining Money? An unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus led by the Federal Reserve is fueling a new investor euphoria. Is this a new bubble? And when could it burst?” Also tweet—”Cryptocurrencies are now worth more than all U.S. dollars in circulation.” Also tweet—”Tesla is now worth more than the next five most valuable automakers combined (Toyota, VW, Daimler, GM, BMW)”
• “A robot that can help you untangle your hair. Robotic arm equipped with a hairbrush helps with brushing tasks and could be an asset in assistive-care settings.”
• “IBM creates first 2nm chip.”
• “From memes to race war: How extremists use popular culture to lure recruits. It’s community and culture, more than ideology, that attracts most followers, experts say.”
• “‘Full-blown assault’ on free expression: Inside the comprehensive Liberal bill to regulate the internet. Bill C-10 proposes to subject whole realms of the Canadian online world to content oversight from broadcast regulators, including podcasts, online videos and websites.”
• “West Virginia Governor Can’t Name 1 Time Trans Kids Received Advantage In Sports. Republican Gov. Jim Justice passed a bill this week banning trans women and girls from playing on sports teams consistent with their gender identities.”
• “How Arizona’s Attorney General Is Weaponizing Climate Fears To Keep Out Immigrants. As the right grapples with what comes after climate denial, a Copper State lawsuit suggests creeping ‘eco-fascism’ in Europe may be a model.”
• “Republicans Are Still Waiting For Joe Biden’s Tea Party Backlash. The GOP insists the same type of conservative backlash President Barack Obama faced is coming for President Joe Biden.” What could possibly be the difference?
• “Giuliani Raid Netted 10 Computers, Phones In Hunt For Plot To Oust US Envoy To Ukraine: Report. Investigators are seeking Giuliani’s conversations with Ukrainian officials about a push to boot the corruption-hunting Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.”
• “Gaetz Probe Expands From Sex Trafficking To Cannabis And Corruption. What began as an inquiry into sex trafficking has reportedly grown into a larger review of public corruption.”
• Former Ethics Chief Slams Cruz’s Warning To ‘Woke’ CEOs As ‘Most Openly Corrupt’ Ever. Walter Shaub’s castigation came after the Republican said his party will no longer give special treatment to deep-pocket corporate donors if they get too ‘woke.'”
• “Is There a Case for Legalizing Heroin? The addiction researcher Carl Hart argues against the distinction between hard and soft drugs.”
• “The ‘Machine That Eats Up Black Farmland’. After decades of discriminating against Black farmers and ignoring their complaints, the USDA is promising to do better. Again.”
• “How police and politicians undermine civilian oversight of law enforcement.”
• “Only Two NYPD Officers Face Serious Discipline From a Watchdog’s Investigations Into Abuse of Black Lives Matter Protesters. After ProPublica detailed the lack of disclosure about protest cases by New York City’s Civilian Complaint Review Board, the agency has revealed how little progress has been made on many of the investigations.”
• “GOP lawmaker charged with ‘knowingly’ letting rioters breach the Oregon Capitol. Oregon state Rep. Mike Nearman is facing misdemeanor charges for appearing to purposefully let far-right demonstrators breach the state Capitol in December.”
• “A Tradition of Violence. The History of Deputy Gangs in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. A 15-part investigative series by Cerise Castle.”
• “Pressure rises on Minister Grace after girl subjected to Christian Indoctrination.”
• “Cheerleader sues Northwestern University, says she was groped and harassed by drunken fans and that officials tried to ‘cover up’ her complaints, lawsuit alleges.”—”head coach Pam Bonnevier continued telling the cheerleaders to socialize on their own, despite their requests to pair up during football tailgates and donor events. The female students were instructed to take photos with fans even if they behaved inappropriately, the lawsuit says.” “‘At every home game, the cheerleaders were instructed to walk around the tailgating lots, unsupervised, in their skimpy cheerleading uniforms,’ the lawsuit says. ‘They were expressly told to split up and mingle with extremely intoxicated fans alone and were not provided any security.'” “In addition to the pregame responsibilities, female cheerleaders were also required to attend alumni events when directed by Bonnevier, the lawsuit alleges. For these events, the lawsuit says, cheerleaders ‘had to be especially attractive’ and were ‘forced to dress in their tiny cheerleading uniforms to parade around men old enough to be their fathers and even grandfathers.'” “A team contract states that cheerleaders who quit or are dismissed must pay back all expenses incurred from travel, equipment and practice, according to a copy provided by Richardson’s attorney. The contract said that’s ‘approximately $2,000 to $4,000.'”
• Tweet—”A Thread of Women of Color/Femmes of Color Characters who inexplicably can’t/don’t communicate with the main cast of mostly white characters. Starting with Karen Fukuhara’s character Kimiko in Amazon Prime’s new hit series The Boys, Season 2 now available for streaming.”
• “Captain Marvel 2 is now The Marvels and arrives next year. The movie will be a team-up between Marvel’s cosmically powered women.”
• “Marvel reveals first look at the godlike Eternals. Angelina Jolie, Richard Madden, and Salma Hayek’s characters look pretty cool.”
• “The man on a remote island keeping Napoleon’s flame alive.”
• “Pope: One act of pure love is greatest miracle Christians can perform>.”
• “The Crushing Contradictions of the American University. Our blind faith in the transformative power of higher ed is slipping. What now?”
• “What Makes Music Universal. Music brings us together to show us how different we are.”
• “The Slander Industry. Who makes money from destroying reputations online?”
• “All My Strangers.”—”A couple weeks ago, fully vaccinated, I went to a bar with friends for the first time in a year and a half. A couple hours into the night, I locked eyes with myself in the bathroom mirror while I was washing my hands. A mask covered the bottom half of my face. My eyelids were heavy from a couple too many old fashioneds, and my eyes were wild, sparkling with the thrill and anxiety of being out in the world again. A question flashed through my mind as I examined the reflection of this strange, awkward creature: ‘Who are you?'”
• “INSPIRISLES is a completely original all ages Tabletop RPG promoting storytelling, empathy and Deaf awareness with an emphasis on cooperation.”
• Watch “The music artists using ASMR.”—”The music industry has been inspired by the relaxing sounds of Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) to help people step back from their busy lives.”
• Watch “Conquering Your Personal Demons“, an ASMR Roleplay.
• Watch “What if Lil Nas X’s MONTERO was a Gospel Song?”
• Watch “Infininski“—”An infinite zoom through the surreal art of painter Beksinski. Made using AI Text to Image synthesis combined with a technique for infinite zooming. Soundtrack Jean-Michel Jarre ‘Ethnicolor I'”

What have you been seeing around and thinking about lately? What have you seen that caught your eye? Thinking about something lately, or reading something interesting, or have a project you’re working on? Participate by tagging @[email protected] in the ‘verse with what you’ve got to share. Like, boost, or comment posts by that account to help curate the best stuff for everyone.

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