An irregular hodgepodge of links gathered together … Omnium Gatherum for July 4, 2021

First Omnium Gatherum of the month, so hello to all Patrons on Patreon again! And, in a year, hello to everyone else reading this on the blog when it goes public!

Also, I suppose happy setting fires, blowing things up, freaking out all the animals day! Erm. During a drought in many places and freakish “omega” heatwave. Yeah. Stay safe out there!

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

• Message from Anthology Artist i AM esper: “Hello just a reminder my new short 2 track ep ‘hydroxyzine’ is available now via bandcamp All proceeds from this ep go directly to Cattitude a cat rescue in New Jersey that has given many homes to homeless cats, in honor of my cat Isadora who passed in January.” Hydroxyzine-EP by i AM esper.
• Free Kindle version through July 5th: PRONAOS: Reflections on the Preliminary Practices of Buddhist Tantra from a Western Perspective by Greg Kaminsky—”If you’re interested in esoteric spirituality and the pursuit of gnosis, seeking effective and practicable methods that produce transformation and even have the potential to bring the practitioner to self-realization, then this book is for you. Designed to provide readers with a perspective on the preliminary practices of Buddhist Tantra (Vajrayana), presenting the view and methods in a way that is accessible and applicable to modern Westerners, using examples and quotations from familiar philosophical and esoteric traditions. Because human beings are essentially similar, this path of esoteric Buddhism can be effective and has proven to be so for women and men across centuries, continents, and cultures. The highest spiritual realization is available to all of us regardless of who we are, where or when we live, or any other circumstance provided we receive the teachings and practice the methods. This book is a first step towards that.”
• “An Introduction to Arabic Manuscripts, a free, intensive online workshop featuring leading authorities on the study of Arabic manuscripts, Monday, August 23, 2021 to Friday, August 27, 2021.”
• “What we know about Rise of the Moors, group engaged with Massachusetts State Police in Interstate 95 shutdown.” Watch “11 arrested after standoff between Massachusetts state troopers and armed men shuts down I-95.” Also “Massachusetts armed group arrested after stand-off with police. Police near Boston, Massachusetts, have arrested nine people after an hours-long stand-off with an armed group.”—”On its Instagram account, which has over 17,000 followers, the Rise of the Moors says it is a non-profit organisation ‘dedicated to the upliftment of fallen humanity’ and seeks to ‘continue the work that Prophet Noble Drew Ali has laid down for us’. Timothy Drew, known Noble Drew Ali, founded the Moorish Science Temple of America in the 1920s. The religious group follows Islam and believes that all African-Americans can trace their lineage to Moab – an ancient kingdom in modern-day Jordan.” Also “Police Make Arrests After Armed Standoff With ‘Rise Of The Moors’ Group Near Boston.” Also “Who is the Rise of the Moors militia group that stopped traffic on the highway in Wakefield?”
• “Once a dead religion, Moorish Science is seeing a curious resurgence. Writer Omar Mouallem explores what drives devotion to beliefs predicated on pseudoscience.”—”Most scholars identify Ali as one Timothy Drew, an orphaned North Carolinian who discovered Islam somewhere in the U.S. northeast and founded the Moorish Science Temple of America sometime between 1913 and 1925. However, a recent book by historian Jacob S. Dorman says Ali was John Walter Brister, a Broadway child star and enigmatic circus performer who faked his death and reinvented himself as a Muslim prophet in Chicago. Ali, of course, told a different story. He taught followers he’d discovered a forgotten section of the Qur’an in North Africa, after a high priest of Egyptian magic had identified him as the reincarnation of Jesus and all other prophets. Ali’s scripture, the Holy Koran of the Moorish Science Temple of America, often called the Circle 7, professed that there is “no negro, black, or colored race.” African Americans were actually undeclared Moroccans, via ancient Muslim Moors. Curiously, Ali’s version of Moorish civilization bore little resemblance to that of any textbook. He told of a kingdom indigenous to northwestern and southwestern Africa and the Americas, and that still ruled over Morocco. As native Moors, he and millions of others were thus exempt from American segregation laws, so long as they had the right identity papers, which only Ali’s temple could notarize (for a small fee). Studied in tandem with the 1786 Moroccan-American Treaty of Friendship (the United States’ oldest unbroken treaty with a foreign nation), Ali’s teachings convinced thousands that they could break the shackles of white supremacy by taking his legal oath of Moorish American identity. It was both Black nationalism and denial; Ali’s acolytes sincerely believed that they’d never be true citizens — and therefore free of abuse and mistreatment — until proclaiming Moorish nationality.” By Omar Mouallem, author of Praying to the West: How Muslims Shaped the Americas [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] due Sept—”Journalist Omar Mouallem travels to thirteen remarkable mosques and discovers the surprising history of their communities. But what he finds also challenges his own long-held personal beliefs, and even his sense of identity.” Also mentions The Princess and the Prophet: The Secret History of Magic, Race, and Moorish Muslims in America [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library, Website] Jacob S Dorman—”The just-discovered story of how two enigmatic circus performers and the cultural ferment of the Gilded Age sparked the Black Muslim movement in America.” More about Dorman’s book, from 2020: “The Circus Performer Who Would Become Prophet and the Spark of America’s Black Muslim Movement.”—”Once upon a Gilded Age, Americans treated Islam and Muslims with both fascination and respect. Hard to believe in our post-9/11 timeline, but it’s true. Swept by romanticized images of Muslims found in most popular entertainment at the time and Arabian Nights, thousands of Americans were enthralled by the Islamic Orient. Some, in fact, saw Islam as a global antiracist movement uniquely suited to people of African descent living in an era of European imperialism, Jim Crow segregation, and officially sanctioned racism. Some, like enigmatic circus performer John Walter Brister, who would found the Moorish Science Temple of America in 1925, the prequel to the Black Muslims of the Nation of Islam. By then, he was known as Prophet Noble Drew Ali. Thus, at this moment in US history, the Black Muslim movement in America began.”
• “What If?: Alternative Histories of Witchcraft & Paganism. What if things in the Pagan and Witchcraft world’s had unfolded just a little bit differently? Would we all still be here today? Maybe Druids would be more abundant than Witches?”—”Jack Parsons Kick Starts American Witchcraft in 1952. Most occultists are familiar with Jack Parsons (1914-1952), rocket scientist, magician and OTO member. What many of them don’t know is that before Parsons’s untimely death from a laboratory explosion in 1952 he was putting together a mail order course to promote a new religion, one he called Witchcraft! Parson’s Witchcraft would have been wildly different from what Gerald Gardner (1884-1964) shared with the world in 1951, though the influence of Aleister Crowley would have been a part of both Witchcrafts. In addition to Crowley’s flavor of ceremonial magick, Parsons’s planned to add his own Babalon Prophecy to the Witchcraft Practice, along with elements of the short-story Darker Than You Think. In addition to providing Parsons’s with a magickal vehicle, his Witchcraft would have elevated the influence of the bewitching Marjorie Cameron (1922-1995). Parsons’s referred to Cameron as “his witch” long before devising his mail order class, and Cameron had the presence and temperament to be an equal to Parsons had he been able to share his version of Witchcraft with the world.”
• This is kinda not so great, tbh, and one of the links in the article (on the word “medium”) is clearly SEO bait, to what appears to be the original byline author’s site, but there it is: “The Life of Aleister Crowley. Aleister Crowley; a man deemed the wickedest man in the world. Crowley was also an influential figure in the Western esoteric traditions. Furthermore, he is not forgotten since his death on December 1, 1947. His legacy lives on.”
• Tweet—”Austin Osman Spare produced an extraordinary body of realist portraits as well as portrayals of Hollywood stars including this one from 1933 of Joan Crawford. He referred to these as ‘sidereal’ portraits, a play on the meaning of the term ‘of the stars,’ and ‘real from the side.’”
• “Swami Vivekananda Smriti Divas: Check out 6 interesting facts about spiritual leader Swami Vivekananda Smriti Divas: He was considered a “shrutidhara”, a person with a prodigious memory. Other than studying Sanskrit scriptures and Bengali literature, Vivekananda studied Western philosophers as well.”
• Grigori Rasputin at Britannica. Compare to Sleep of Siloam and variants: “perverted Khlysty beliefs into the doctrine that one was nearest God when feeling ‘holy passionlessness’ and that the best way to reach such a state was through the sexual exhaustion that came after prolonged debauchery”
• Watch “Parsons, Hubbard and the Babalon Apocrypha by Peter Grey.”
• From 2015: “Looking at the life of reviled poet and occultist.”—”In his lifetime Aleister Crowley was revered, slandered, celebrated as a great poet and reviled as a thoroughly wicked person. He was a mystic, a poet, a chess master, a scholar, an accomplished rock climber and mountaineer, a magician and occultist, a novelist and author of more than two million words.”
• “Stonehenge – the rock venue! Architect’s concept that the famous stones were simply the base for a vast Neolithic temple is brought to life by mesmerising models. Landscape architect Sarah Ewbank believes Stonehenge once had thatched roof. Sarah believes iconic Salisbury monument was an all-purpose Neolithic temple. After making models, the architect believes it had a large oval hall overlooked by galleries in which the crowds might have gathered to hear the speakers below.”
• “4,400-year-old shaman’s ‘snake staff’ discovered in Finland. Researchers said the carved, wooden lifelike snake matches “magical” staffs portrayed in ancient rock art from the region.”
• “Excalibur is a fan wiki for the best ’70s TV show that never existed. Do what thou wilt.”—”Does anybody else remember Excalibur? You know, Excalibur: the British TV show that ran for two seasons in the mid-1970s, mixing Arthurian legend with Aleister Crowley mysticism, interplanetary exploration, an undead (sorry, spoilers!) villain named Poseidon, and a deeply troubled production history? If so, that’s a little weird because it never existed — but if enough people remember it, maybe that could change. Excalibur is, in fact, an interactive fiction project made by J. J. Guest, G. C. Baccaris, and Duncan Bowsman. It’s a detailed “fan wiki” for the eponymous (and fictitious) BBC series, and clicking through it reveals layers of in-show plot summaries, behind-the-scenes cast and crew drama, and a running conflict between the wiki’s contributors themselves. Exploring the wiki will slowly unlock new pieces of it, and there’s a simple walkthrough on the “Help” page if you happen to get stuck.”
• Metamodernism: The Future of Theory [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm, due July 20—”For decades, scholars have been calling into question the universality of disciplinary objects and categories. The coherence of defined autonomous categories—such as religion, science, and art—has collapsed under the weight of postmodern critiques, calling into question the possibility of progress and even the value of knowledge. Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm aims to radicalize and move beyond these deconstructive projects to offer a path forward for the humanities and social sciences using a new model for theory he calls metamodernism. Metamodernism works through the postmodern critiques and uncovers the mechanisms that produce and maintain concepts and social categories. In so doing, Storm provides a new, radical account of society’s ever-changing nature—what he calls a “Process Social Ontology”—and its materialization in temporary zones of stability or “social kinds.” Storm then formulates a fresh approach to philosophy of language by looking beyond the typical theorizing that focuses solely on human language production, showing us instead how our own sign-making is actually on a continuum with animal and plant communication. Storm also considers fundamental issues of the relationship between knowledge and value, promoting a turn toward humble, emancipatory knowledge that recognizes the existence of multiple modes of the real. Metamodernism is a revolutionary manifesto for research in the human sciences that offers a new way through postmodern skepticism to envision a more inclusive future of theory in which new forms of both progress and knowledge can be realized.”
• “A New History Changes the Balance of Power Between Ethiopia and Medieval Europe. For centuries, a Eurocentric worldview disregarded the knowledge and strength of the African empire.” About Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy with Latin Europe [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Verena Krebs—”This book explores why Ethiopian kings pursued long-distance diplomatic contacts with Latin Europe in the late Middle Ages. It traces the history of more than a dozen embassies dispatched to the Latin West by the kings of Solomonic Ethiopia, a powerful Christian kingdom in the medieval Horn of Africa. Drawing on sources from Europe, Ethiopia, and Egypt, it examines the Ethiopian kings’ motivations for sending out their missions in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries – and argues that a desire to acquire religious treasures and foreign artisans drove this early intercontinental diplomacy. Moreover, the Ethiopian initiation of contacts with the distant Christian sphere of Latin Europe appears to have been intimately connected to a local political agenda of building monumental ecclesiastical architecture in the North-East African highlands, and asserted the Ethiopian rulers’ claim of universal kingship and rightful descent from the biblical king Solomon. Shedding new light on the self-identity of a late medieval African dynasty at the height of its power, this book challenges conventional narratives of African-European encounters on the eve of the so-called ‘Age of Exploration’.”
• “Anti-capitalist Queer Liberation: A Reading List. Featuring books on the constructions of gender, the ongoing fight for sex worker’s rights, and memoirs and manifestos on the personal and political.”
• “Ditching grass could help your backyard thrive. Lawns are ecological “dead space.” Experts explain how ditching grass can make your backyard thrive.” The subhead includes a quote from Doug Tallamy, author of Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library]
• “New Species of Beetle Discovered in Dinosaur Ancestor’s 230 Million-Year-Old Poop.”
• “‘Extreme’ white dwarf sets cosmic records for small size, huge mass.”
• “LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA finds elusive mergers of black holes with neutron stars.” Also “Astrophysicists detect first black hole-neutron star mergers. Mix pair is ‘elusive missing piece of the family picture of compact object mergers’” Also “Black holes swallow neutron stars like ‘Pac-Man’“—”Scientists have for the first time detected black holes eating neutron stars, ‘like Pac Man’, in a discovery documenting the collision of the two most extreme and enigmatic objects in the Universe. The collisions occurred one billion years ago.”
• “Are We Missing Other Earths? Astronomers studying stellar pairs uncover evidence that there could be many more Earth-sized planets than previously thought. Some exoplanet searches could be missing nearly half of the Earth-sized planets around other stars. New findings from a team using the international Gemini Observatory and the WIYN 3.5-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory suggest that Earth-sized worlds could be lurking undiscovered in binary star systems, hidden in the glare of their parent stars. As roughly half of all stars are in binary systems, this means that astronomers could be missing many Earth-sized worlds.”
• “Unique use of ESA spacecraft ‘housekeeping’ data reveals cosmic ray behaviour. Using data originally gathered for spacecraft ‘housekeeping’ aboard ESA’s Rosetta and Mars Express missions, scientists have revealed how intense bursts of high-energy radiation, known as cosmic rays, behave at Mars and throughout the inner Solar System.”
• “Russian Scientists Create Unique Alloy For Air, Rail Transports.”—”Scientists from the National University of Science and Technology “MISiS” (NUST MISIS) in cooperation with their colleagues from the Siberian Federal University and the Research and Production Centre of Magnetic Hydrodynamics (Krasnoyarsk) have developed a technology for producing a unique heat-resistant aluminium alloy with improved durability. According to the researchers, this new alloy could replace more expensive and heavier copper conductors in aircraft and high-speed rail transport.”
• “A Promising New Pathway to Treating Type 2 Diabetes. Researchers at the University of Arizona believe the liver may hold the key to new, preventative Type 2 diabetes treatments.”
• “German scientists built a high-resolution microscope out of Lego bricks. The only non-Lego components are the lenses, salvaged from smartphone cameras.”
• Don’t spill this on the Lego microscope! “Microbes in cow stomach can break down plastic. Bacteria found in cow stomachs can be used to digest polyesters used in textiles, packaging, and compostable bags, according to a new study by the open access publisher Frontiers. Plastic is notoriously hard to break down, but microbial communities living inside the digestive system of animals are a promising but under-investigated source of novel enzymes that could do the trick. The new findings present a sustainable option for reducing plastic waste and litter, co-opting the great metabolic diversity of microbes.”
• Also, in other Lego news: “The LEGO Group reveals first prototype LEGO® brick made from recycled plastic.”
• What could possibly go wrong? “Astronauts demonstrate CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing in space. First successful use aboard International Space Station of new technique for studying DNA repair in yeast.”
• “Oxford scientists show how green mining could pave the way to net zero and provide the metals we need for a sustainable future. Scientists at the University of Oxford demonstrate how it is possible to directly extract valuable metals from hot salty fluids (‘brines’) trapped in porous rocks at depths of around 2km below dormant volcanoes. They propose this radical green-mining approach to provide essential metals for a net zero future – copper, gold, zinc, silver and lithium – in a sustainable way.”
• “Success in Reversing Dementia in Mice Sets the Stage for Human Clinical Trials.”—”Researchers have identified a new treatment candidate that appears to not only halt neurodegenerative symptoms in mouse models of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, but also reverse the effects of the disorders.”
• “Spinning electricity from heat and cold. Magnetic layers interact with sunlight differently, creating a temperature gradient that generates electricity day and night.”
• This is medieval. “Researchers develop world-first weight loss device.”—”DentalSlim Diet Control is an intra-oral device fitted by a dental professional to the upper and lower back teeth. It uses magnetic devices with unique custom-manufactured locking bolts. It allows the wearer to open their mouths only about 2mm, restricting them to a liquid diet, but it allows free speech and doesn’t restrict breathing.” “‘The main barrier for people for successful weight loss is compliance and this helps them establish new habits, allowing them to comply with a low-calorie diet for a period of time. It really kick-starts the process,’ Professor Brunton says. ‘It is a non-invasive, reversible, economical and attractive alternative to surgical procedures. The fact is, there are no adverse consequences with this device.'” Um. Wow. Yeah. Except for it being a torture device and leading to lawsuits and therapy? The main barrier is compliance, indeed.
• From the Pranayama dept: “5-minute breathing workout lowers blood pressure as much as exercise, drugs.”—”Working out just five minutes daily via a practice described as ‘strength training for your breathing muscles’ lowers blood pressure and improves some measures of vascular health as well as, or even more than, aerobic exercise or medication, new CU Boulder research shows. The study, published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, provides the strongest evidence yet that the ultra-time-efficient maneuver known as High-Resistance Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training (IMST) could play a key role in helping aging adults fend off cardiovascular disease––the nation’s leading killer.”
• “UN confirms 18.3C record heat in Antarctica.”
• “Nowhere is safe, say scientists as extreme heat causes chaos in US and Canada. Governments urged to ramp up efforts to tackle climate emergency as temperature records smashed.” Also “Western Canada burns and deaths mount after world’s most extreme heat wave in modern history.” Also “Fire clouds spark 710,117 lightning strikes in western Canada in 15 hours. Storm-producing fire clouds threw out hundreds of thousands of lightning strikes over wildfire-stricken British Columbia and northwestern Alberta provinces in Canada Wednesday and Thursday, bewildering meteorologists.” Also Tweet—”I’ve watched a lot of wildfire-associated pyroconvective events during the satellite era, and I think this might be the singularly most extreme I’ve ever seen. This is a literal firestorm, producing *thousands* of lightning strikes and almost certainly countless new fires.” Also “Wildfire consumes small British Columbia town that hit 121 F.”
• “Revealed: ExxonMobil’s lobbying war on climate change legislation. A senior ExxonMobil lobbyist has been captured on camera revealing how the oil giant is using its power and influence to water down US climate legislation.”
• “Enormous Antarctic lake vanishes in 3 days. The lake disappeared by creating an enormous fissure in the ice beneath it.” Also “Scientists Track Sudden Disappearance of Antarctic Ice Shelf Lake. Detailed observations enable better understanding of future ice shelf stability.”
• “California couple fined $18,000 for illegally uprooting 36 Joshua trees. The imperiled desert species is being considered for protection under the state’s endangered species act.”
• “A dry California creek bed looked like a wildfire risk. Then the beavers went to work.”
• “Solar sail spacecraft could be used to intercept interstellar objects.”—”To date, astronomers have spotted one asteroid and one comet visiting our planetary neighbourhood from other star systems. In both cases, though, we have only been able to get long-range views of these rare interstellar wanderers as they whip past during fleeting encounters. Now a group of scientists in the US has been looking at using a solar sailing spacecraft to chase down, and examine up-close, similar objects when they appear in the future.”
• “Richard Branson will attempt to beat Jeff Bezos to space.” Also Tweet—”Wouldn’t it be cool if Billionaires were competing to end homelessness and food scarcity in their nation instead? It will cost them about the same as having their own little space stations.” But also, kinda cool, this “Trailblazing female pilot will go to space at age 82 with Jeff Bezos.”—”Funk, then a 21-year-old pilot, was the youngest of the 13 women who passed the same rigorous testing as the Mercury Seven male astronauts in NASA’s program that first sent Americans into space between 1961 and 1963, but were denied the chance to become astronauts themselves because of their gender.”
• “Microsoft exec: Targeting of Americans’ records ‘routine’.”—”Federal law enforcement agencies secretly seek the data of Microsoft customers thousands of times a year, according to congressional testimony Wednesday by a senior executive at the technology company.”
• “Covid-19: ‘Dungeons and Dragons got us through lockdown’.”
• “The 3 Simple Rules That Underscore the Danger of Delta. Vaccines are still beating the variants, but the unvaccinated world is being pummeled.”—”1) The vaccines are still beating the variants. 2) The variants are pummelling unvaccinated people. 3) The longer 2 continues, the less likely 1 will hold.”
• “Unvaccinated people are “variant factories,” infectious diseases expert says.”—”That’s because the only source of new coronavirus variants is the body of an infected person. ‘Unvaccinated people are potential variant factories,’ Dr. William Schaffner, a professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told CNN Friday.”
• “New face mask prototype can detect Covid-19 infection. The sensor technology could also be used to create clothing that detects a variety of pathogens and other threats.” Also “Face mask can help diagnose COVID-19. Wearable biosensors enable rapid, accurate detection of virus, other pathogens and toxins.”
• “Another Respiratory Virus Is Spreading as U.S. Gets Back to Pre-Covid-19 Life. RSV cases, typically more common in winter months, are rising in Southern states.”
• “What Level Of Covid Deaths Will The Public Be Prepared To Tolerate This Summer? It’s not just Boris Johnson who ought to be asked that question.”
• “The Delta variant has now been detected in all 50 states and Washington, DC.”
• “Trumpworld App Is Bankrolled by Fugitive Chinese Billionaire. Trump adviser Jason Miller launched a new social media company that’s being bankrolled by a buddy of pardoned Trump strategist Steve Bannon.” Tweet—”‘Get her?'”
• “Trump Organization Charges Magnify Risks of Debt Refinancing. The Trump Organization has more than $590 million of debt coming due within the next four years with more than half personally guaranteed by Trump. This includes $100 million on Trump Tower in Manhattan maturing next year and $125 million due in 2023 for the Trump Doral golf resort near Miami.”
• “Why do conspiracy theories flourish? Because the truth is too hard to handle. People need to explain to themselves their immiseration, their disenfranchisement, their lack of power. Conspiracies do that.”
• “California’s yoga, wellness and spirituality community has a QAnon problem.”
• Neil Mackay’s Big Read: The inside story of the terrifying rise of the far right
• “The NYPD Has Its Own Scandinavian Welfare State.”—”Most NYPD officers retire in their mid-40s. If they live to be 80, they will collect close to $2 million in pension payments on top of the roughly $2 million they earn during their active-duty years.”
• “We should thank the unemployed for their service. They’ve been used to control inflation.”
• “Iowa climate activist sentenced to eight years in federal prison for Dakota Access pipeline sabotage.” There’s a lot going on here. First there’s the connection to the Catholic Worker movement. Also there’s the explicit, saying the quiet part aloud, equation of terrorism with stopping the flow of oil. Also there’s the harsh sentencing because of her record, which is actually related to charges brought against her for other activism.
• “Supreme Court Upholds Arizona Voting Restrictions. The decision, a test of what remains of the Voting Rights Act, suggested that challenges to many new measures making it harder to vote may not be successful.” Also “Supreme Court Erodes Votings Rights Act in 6-3 Vote: Conservatives See No ‘Racially Discriminatory Purpose’ in Arizona Precinct Rules.”—”‘What is tragic here is that the Court has (yet again) rewritten—in order to weaken—a statute that stands as a monument to America’s greatness, and protects against its basest impulses,’ Kagan wrote. ‘What is tragic is that the court has damaged a statute designed to bring about ‘the end of discrimination in voting.”” Also “The Supreme Court Just Mangled the Voting Rights Act Beyond Recognition. Don’t buy Alito’s spin: Equal access to the ballot is dead.” Also tweet—”Who could have imagined that years of ham-handed, in-broad-daylight court packing by dark-money conservatives like the still-secret ones that paid off Kavanaugh’s debts would result in a SCOTUS that sees voting in a democracy as a bug, not a feature?”
• “Donald Rumsfeld, Killer of 400,000 People, Dies Peacefully. Do not mourn the defense secretary. Mourn his victims. There were nearly too many to tally, but his Pentagon refused to count anyway.”
• How about “No”? “Consider God in the way our government works.” Yes, it was written by a Pastor.
• “But what about colonial cancel culture?“—”Note: My annual dose of holiday satire.” “Well, last week. I painted ‘Federalist Pig’ in whitewash on Silas Twiterton’s livery stable. It was a clear, brief and artistic distillation of my outrage. But by the next day, he had painted over it and banned me from the stable. What about my right to free speech?”
• “There’s One Man to Blame for Bill Cosby’s Release.”—”By promising not to prosecute Mr. Cosby, Mr. Castor was essentially letting him off the hook criminally so that he could be vulnerable to civil penalties. It is not the duty of a prosecutor to assist a victim in litigation strategy for a civil case. A prosecutor’s duty is to use discretion responsibly to make decisions about charges. Mr. Castor failed to use his discretion responsibly.” Also “Bill Cosby Walks Free Because of This Power-Hungry Prosecutor. Bill Cosby, who has admitted to using drugs to target women, is out of prison. And Bruce Castor is the disastrous Trump impeachment lawyer who set the stage.” Also from 2018: “The Prison Paradox. Ending Mass Incarceration in the Age of Cosby.”
• “More Churches Up in Flames in Canada as Outrage Against Catholic Church Grows. The incidents occur amid ongoing reports of more than 1,000 unmarked graves of Indigenous children found at former residential schools, with the latest site announced in B.C. on Wednesday.” Also from 2018: “The horrors of St. Anne’s. Ontario Provincial Police files obtained by CBC News reveal the history of abuse at the notorious residential school that built its own electric chair.” Also “After Bodies Are Found, Some Say Canada Day Is Nothing to Celebrate. Heeding calls from Indigenous people, some places have canceled plans to mark the holiday, after hundreds of children’s remains were discovered at former boarding schools for Indigenous children.” Also “Screaming into silence. Cindy Blackstock: I believe those little spirits buried on the grounds of residential schools came to ensure the work gets done to end the injustices facing survivors.”—”Residential school survivors knew where the children were buried because some of them had dug their graves. They told their truths to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and gave the country a national plan in their 94 calls to action for ending the injustices facing this generation of First Nations, Métis and Inuit children, and to ensure nothing like this happens again. Some of us heard them, but what they said was too confrontational for most—so people called them ‘stories’ and looked away. The survivors must have felt they were screaming into silence.”
• “Minneapolis Police Reportedly Identify Viral ‘Umbrella Man’ As White Supremacist.”
• From the the Little FREE Library dept: tweet thread—”Something else (other than the obvious) about this bullshit copaganda bothers the bejesus out of me.” “You can even go to the original lie or the doubling-down and gander at the comments. Plenty are well-deserved and (very creative) drags, most of which I’m envious of because I wish I’d thought of them. But take a look at the others. What do you notice now?”
• “Rising Crime in Cities Like Chicago Should Not Lead to More Policing. This op-ed argues that policing can create conditions that allow for even more violence.”
• “Britney Spears’s Conservatorship Nightmare. How the pop star’s father and a team of lawyers seized control of her life—and have held on to it for thirteen years.” Also “After Britney Spears testimony, lawmakers push changes to conservatorship laws. Disability rights activists say proposed reforms don’t go far enough and that flaws in the system trap people in abusive arrangements.”
• Tweet—”There is no need for Sha’Carri to apologize. We need to get rid of archaic rules for a substance that is fully legal in 19 states plus DC. And we need to legalize it at the federal level.” Also “Sha’Carri Richardson, a Track Sensation, Tests Positive for Marijuana. Richardson, a gold-medal favorite in the women’s 100 meters, was suspended for a month, putting in doubt an appearance at the Tokyo Olympics.” Tweet—”So Sha’Carri can’t run because of marijuana, multiple African runners can’t run because their T levels are “too high,” and swim caps for Afro hair have been banned. Anyone else see a pattern here?” Tweet—”If the Olympics would just come out and say ‘we hate Black women,’ it’d save a lot of time.” Tweet—”Starting a petition to replace all Marvel superheroes with Sha’Carri Richardson.” Also “Seth Rogen, Other Celebrities Denounce Sha’Carri Richardson’s Olympics Suspension: ‘If Weed Made You Fast, I’d Be FloJo’.” Tweet—”I hope her confusing record about LGBTQ comments is part of the past, I’m confused about her old tweets and wish her the best today. Love is love. Cannabis is medicine. Hate has no place in a truly civilized world. Time to civilize the world.”
• Tweet—”You have GOT to be kidding me… Michael Phelps had an “unfair biological advantage” because he produces half the lactic acid as competitors. Why wasn’t he ineligible? Athletic greatness is rooted in biological anomalies. This decision is rooted in racism and transphobia.” Also from 2019: “Stop talking about testosterone – there’s no such thing as a ‘true sex’. Sports bodies want a biological criterion to indicate an athlete’s sex. But it’s mind-bogglingly more complicated than that.”
• Tweet—”The ocean is on fire in the Gulf of Mexico after a pipeline ruptured. Good system.” This crop makes it look like a view from space or something, but it isn’t. Still, it’s like every CGI apocalypse or alien space-time rift. Call in the Jaegers! Also “‘Eye of fire’ in Mexican waters snuffed out, says national oil company.” Also “Oil company blames gas leak for fire on ocean’s surface in Gulf of Mexico. The fire was extinguished after five hours with no injuries, the state-owned firm says.” Another view (and what’s up with the little boat in the top left? I mean, at least they tried?): Tweet. Also, from April: “Abandoned Oil Pipelines Are a Disaster Waiting to Happen in the Gulf of Mexico.”
• Quentin Tarantino’s New Bruce Lee Controversy Explained. In Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’s novelization, Quentin Tarantino doubled down on his slanderous depiction of the late Bruce Lee and made it worse.” Also “Bruce Lee’s daughter Shannon slams Quentin Tarantino again: ‘I’m tired of hearing from white men in Hollywood’. Shannon Lee slammed the filmmaker after he dismissed criticisms of his depiction of Bruce Lee in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”
• “Mackenzie Scott Excludes Evangelicals in Donations to Groups Advocating Religious Freedom.”—”‘We are all attempting to give away a fortune that was enabled by systems in need of change,’ said Scott, in a post on Medium. ‘The social structures that inflate wealth present obstacles to equality and justice for women, and racial and sexual minorities.'”
• From the Weyland-Yutani dept: “New Alien TV Series Will Be Class Warfare With Xenomorphs. Showrunner Noah Hawley explains what you need to know about his upcoming FX show and his latest novel, Anthem.” Tweet—”…So it’ll be an Alien movie. Looks like it’s gonna be a long, LONG day of people using a lot of words to say ‘i never understood the alien movies and I don’t care to.'”
• “Where Did That Cockatoo Come From? Birds native to Australasia are being found in Renaissance paintings—and in medieval manuscripts. Their presence exposes the depth of ancient trade routes.”
• From the Postponing the Heat Death of the Universe dept: “These Chinese Millennials Are ‘Chilling,’ and Beijing Isn’t Happy. Young people in China have set off a nascent counterculture movement that involves lying down and doing as little as possible.”

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