An irregular hodgepodge of links gathered together … Omnium Gatherum for December 15, 2021

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

• “Is a new kind of religion forming on the internet? Algorithms are surfacing content that combines Christian ideas like prosperity gospel with New Age and non-Western spirituality — along with some conspiracy theories.”
• “About Three-in-Ten U.S. Adults Are Now Religiously Unaffiliated. Self-identified Christians make up 63% of U.S. population in 2021, down from 75% a decade ago.”
• “Magical exhibit: 3,500-year-old Hittite tablets on display in Izmir. Four rare 3,500-year-old tablets from the Hittite Empire describing festivals, mythological marriages and rituals for magic are now on display in a new exhibitition at the Izmir Archaeological Museum on Turkey’s Aegean coast. The clay cuneiform tablets were the final unique pieces to be added to the collection for the museum’s monthlong “You Will See What you Can’t See” exhibition.”
• “Best physical evidence of Roman crucifixion found in Cambridgeshire. Near 1,900-year-old skeleton discovered with nail through heel bone during excavation in Fenstanton.”
• “Story of Stonehenge to be told in major British Museum exhibition. Curator puts monument in context of era, with loaned objects including 3,600-year-old Nebra sky disc.”
• “A Preliminary Study of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica: Texts, Context, and Doctrines.”
• “Houston-area Hindu group trafficked, threatened poor Indian workers at Stafford temple, lawsuit claims.”
• “What are God’s pronouns? How the church today is (or isn’t) gendering God. Many congregations are actively deciding how to refer to God’s gender in their liturgies, hymns and prayers.”—”More than three years after Beth Allison Barr moved to the small Texas church where her husband is pastor, the Baylor University historian was alerted to a single word in the church’s belief statement, posted on its website: ‘Godself’ — an attempt, apparently inserted with the blessing of one of Barr’s husband’s predecessors, to portray the Almighty as beyond gender, neither a ‘himself’ nor a ‘herself.'” “The council’s gambit backfired: The church received more than $26,000 in donations in support of Barr, if not the pronoun, which the church has since changed to ‘Himself.’ And the email only fueled a somewhat dormant, if sometimes divisive, debate on the matter of God’s gender. In some seminaries and university religion departments, ‘Godself,’ though somewhat awkward, has become second nature; professors are even known to dock points from papers that use ‘he’ for God.”
• I either forgot this or missed it. The Fugs, who famously did a public sex magic ritual at the Pentagon in 1967 returned 50 years later, in 2017, to do an exorcism of the evil spirits at the White House. Also this shows up in my random playlist with an odd frequency Exorcising the Evil Spirits from the Pentagon October 21, 1967 (2006 Remaster).
• “‘A beautiful cottage [where] I might write all these visions…’: Restoration of Sussex cottage to celebrate the life of William Blake.”—”One of the only two surviving homes of visionary artist and poet William Blake, Blake’s Cottage is a Grade II*-listed building situated in the conservation area of Felpham, West Sussex. The Cottage was recently added onto the Heritage at Risk register due to its deteriorating condition. Significantly, the 17th-century Cottage was home to Blake when he began writing his epic poem Milton, the beginning of which is best remembered as the lyrics to the hymn, ‘Jerusalem’. Recognising that artist’s homes can provide a unique insight into their lives and works, this week the Architectural Heritage Fund awarded a Project Viability Grant to The Blake Cottage Trust to kickstart the process of conserving the Cottage, and transforming the site into a heritage and arts centre dedicated to Blake and his circle. This grant was funded through Historic Assets moving into Community Ownership, a programme supported by Historic England. The grant is among 12 awards the AHF made this month, with projects ranging geographically from Surrey to Orkney and funding totalling £112,220. ”
• Javamancy—”No one should be expected to disperse prophesy before they’ve had their coffee, and now they don’t have to. Combine your love for coffee and divination with this unique fortune telling design, or gift it to that friend who shares those interests. Many are familiar with tea leaves or coffee grounds being read for fortune telling. Javamancy is designed as a throwing board, on which three coffee beans are gently thrown onto the board, revealing secrets based on what symbols they fall near. There are two sides to each coffee bean, a smooth side which demotes the positive aspect of the symbol it falls near, and a cleft side that speaks of a symbol’s negative attributes. In all, there are 36 unique symbols, each of which has the potential for two meanings, providing for 72 distinct messages. Javamancy comes in a cotton, drawstring bag stamped with its logo. It contains basic instructions and definitions for each of the symbols. The board itself is crafted from birch, and is approximately 9 by 9 inches, providing plenty of room for casting the three coffee beans that are provided in their own cotton pouch. This piece is a quarter inch thick, well stained and varnished, and is an heirloom piece for anyone who collects divination products. This simple form of fortune telling is quite telling indeed, and folk who have used it have been amazed by the accuracy of its insights. As you continue to use Javamancy, you may develop your own relationship with the symbols, and develop interpretations unique to yourself, and this is encouraged.”
• Watch “STUDIO 666 SNEAK PEEK.” Unicursal hexagram around 00:10.
• Living Fairy: Fairy Witchcraft and Star Worship [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Morgan Daimler, part of the Pagan Portals series—”The human world and the Otherworld have always been intrinsically connected just as the beings within them are, but these connections have been strained in the Western world over the last millenia. Cultural and religious shifts have pushed the Other to the fringes and centred humanity in the world and in many spiritual frameworks. As we move into the 21st century the Othercrowd is pushing back, seeking a return to their place in things. Many witches are feeling this shift. Living Fairy is a look at ways to deepen your practice of fairy witchcraft by actively calling the Good Neighbours back, and connecting to them more experientially. It emphasizes older ways of relating to them within a modern framework, while acknowledging the good and the bad that comes with this work. There is also an emphasis on moving away from solar and lunar holy days into a system focused on the stars, which may perhaps be an older way to relate to both the fairies and our spirituality.”
• Let There Be Money: Understanding Modern Monetary Theory and Basic Income [Amazon] by Scott Santens—”What is money? How is it created? What’s the point of taxes and how should they be implemented? Are federal deficits bad for the economy? Would abolishing poverty lead to higher inflation? Is inflation something to avoid? These are just some of the questions Scott Santens explores in order to answer the biggest question of all about the concept of universal basic income (UBI) and virtually all government spending in general: ‘How do we pay for it?’ Utilizing modern monetary theory (MMT), Santens leads readers through a fascinating journey. He connects the economic dots in a way everyone can understand in order to clearly see the big picture that is humanity’s relationship to money and what’s truly possible with it if used to its maximum potential. With a shift from money-based thinking to resource-based thinking, Santens masterfully communicates the need for MMT to be embraced by policymakers, and the need for MMT advocates to embrace UBI and evidence-based policymaking. MMT’s incorporation of UBI provides us the means to finally build an economy that works for everyone, built with a mindset of abundance on an unconditional foundation of human rights and opportunity for all.”
• As I sit at Hermetic Library World HQ, mid-December, in t-shirt, shorts and sandals, with my windows wide open for the last 24 hours, and the predicted high of 80 has only gotten to a wild-enough 75: “Newly-confirmed Arctic record 100-degree heat in Siberia setting off climate change ‘alarm bells,’ U.N. says.”
• “As Earth Warms, Old Mayhem and Secrets Emerge From the Ice. Climate change is revealing long-frozen artifacts and animals to archaeologists. But the window for study is slender and shrinking.”
• Thread—”We’ve just published new research in @SciReports – @TravisCoan1, @cboussalis, Mirjam Nanko & myself trained a machine learning model to automatically detect climate misinformation.” “Then we fed 2 decades of denier blogs into the model to construct a 20 year history of climate misinformation. The first result that jumped out at us – attacks on scientists/science were by far the biggest category of climate misinformation. This surprised & disturbed me.” See “Computer‑assisted classification of contrarian claims about climate change—”A growing body of scholarship investigates the role of misinformation in shaping the debate on climate change. Our research builds on and extends this literature by (1) developing and validating a comprehensive taxonomy of climate contrarianism, (2) conducting the largest content analysis to date on contrarian claims, (3) developing a computational model to accurately classify specific claims, and (4) drawing on an extensive corpus from conservative think‑tank (CTTs) websites and contrarian blogs to construct a detailed history of claims over the past 20 years. Our study finds that the claims utilized by CTTs and contrarian blogs have focused on attacking the integrity of climate science and scientists and, increasingly, has challenged climate policy and renewable energy. We further demonstrate the utility of our approach by exploring the influence of corporate and foundation funding on the production and dissemination of specific contrarian claims.”
• Tweet—”‘Canada is a major oil and gas-producing company, er, country,’ Trudeau says in what was definitely not a Freudian slip.” Tweet—”i mean.” Also “Canada is fake. What Americans think of as their friendly neighbor to the north, if they think of it at all, is a scam.”—”The logic of resource extraction, led by private companies and enforced by the state, is what motivates Canadian policy and justifies Canadian national identity. Canada is three mining companies in a trench coat, wearing a stupid hat and carrying a gun. Scratch the surface, and that’s all that’s underneath it. Canada is fake. But the consequences are real.”
• “Einstein’s theory of general relativity passes one of its toughest tests yet. General relativity remains undefeated.”—”General relativity has withstood perhaps its toughest challenge to date. The theory, which Albert Einstein published in 1916, revolutionized our understanding of physics and the cosmos. It explains gravity as a consequence of space-time’s flexibility: Massive objects warp space-time, creating depressions around which other bodies orbit. Scientists have put general relativity to the test repeatedly over the past 105 years, trying to find situations or circumstances in which it comes up short. They have not yet found one.”
• “NASA craft ‘touches’ sun for 1st time, dives into atmosphere. A NASA spacecraft has officially “touched” the sun, plunging through the unexplored solar atmosphere known as the corona.” Also “NASA craft ‘touches’ sun for 1st time, dives into atmosphere“—A NASA spacecraft has officially “touched” the sun, plunging through the unexplored solar atmosphere known as the corona. Scientists announced the news Tuesday. The Parker Solar Probe actually flew through the corona in April during the spacecraft’s eighth close approach to the sun.”
• “Wormholes may be viable shortcuts through space-time after all, new study suggests. The new theory contradicts earlier predictions that these ‘shortcuts’ would instantly collapse.”
• “Fireball streaks by St. Louis Arch during Leonid meteor shower in EarthCam video.”
• “Archaeologists Find 2,700-Year-Old Assyrian-Style Leather Armor in China. The ancient leather armor, datable to 786-543 BCE, was originally made of about 5,444 smaller scales and 140 larger scales, which, together with leather laces and lining, had a total weight of 4-5 kg.” Also “Scale Armor. 8th–3rd century B.C.” Also “No borders for innovations: A ca. 2700-year-old Assyrian-style leather scale armour in Northwest China.”
• “Israel: Second Synagogue Found in Hometown of Mary Magdalene. Never before have two synagogues been found in the ancient towns of the Galilee dating to the Second Temple era. The new discovery seems to have served the Magdala industrial zone.”
• “Archaeologists Discover 200,000-Year-Old Hand & Footprints That Could Be the World’s Earliest Cave Art.”
• “3,250-year-old seal belonging to Hittite prince discovered in southern Turkey. Ancient cuneiform tablet dating back 3,400 years also unearthed.”
• “Earliest adorned female infant burial in Europe significant in understanding evolution of personhood“—”Ten thousand years ago, just after the last Ice Age, a group of hunter-gatherers buried an infant girl in a cave in what is now Italy. They entombed her with a rich selection of their treasured beads and pendants, and an eagle-owl talon, signaling their grief and showing that even the youngest females were recognized as full persons in their society. The excavations and analysis of the discovery are published this week in Nature Scientific Reports and offer insight into the early Mesolithic period, from which few recorded burials are known.”
• “Atom laser creates reflective patterns similar to light“—”Cooled to almost absolute zero, atoms not only move in waves like light but also can be focused into shapes called caustics, similar to the reflecting or refracting patterns light makes on the bottom of a swimming pool or through a curved wine glass. In experiments at Washington State University, scientists have developed a technique to see these matter wave caustics by placing attractive or repulsive obstacles in the path of a cold atom laser. The results are curving cusps or folds, upward or downward “V” shapes, which the researchers describe in a paper for Nature Communications. While it is foundational research, these caustics have potential applications for highly precise measurement or timing devices such as interferometers and atomic clocks.”
• “CityU physicists discovered special transverse sound wave“—”Can you imagine sound travels in the same way as light does? A research team at City University of Hong Kong (CityU) discovered a new type of sound wave: the airborne sound wave vibrates transversely and carries both spin and orbital angular momentum like light does. The findings shattered scientists’ previous beliefs about the sound wave, opening an avenue to the development of novel applications in acoustic communications, acoustic sensing and imaging.”
• “Technosignature from Proxima Centauri — and why astronomers rejected it. The forensic analysis of a potential signal from another civilization reveals how challenging the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is likely to become.”
• Nuclear Crystal Pentagrams! “A Nuclear Test Creates A Forbidden Crystal. This Is the Fivefold Way.“—”In the 1940s, the very first atomic blast deep in the New Mexico desert spawned something that has lain underground all these years, waiting. Something forbidden, something so bizarre that scientists swore it couldn’t exist on Earth. They had found it in meteorites, oh yes, from the depths of space that had come. But this was forged in the radioactive fires of The Bomb, something that could only be born when humans arrogantly tampered with the laws of Nature itself, letting loose the terror of… Icosahedrite, the quasicrystal.”
• Tweet—”Six Komodo dragons have hatched at the Bronx Zoo! This is the first time the species has successfully bred in our 122 year history. Some of the new hatchlings can currently be seen on exhibit in World of Reptiles.”
• “Exclusive: Facebook owner is behind $60 mln deal for Meta name rights.” Also “Instagram disabled artist’s @metaverse handle after Facebook rebranded to Meta. Thea-Mai Baumann had used the account for more than a decade but it suddenly vanished, taking all her work with it.”
• “At SpaceX, we’re told we can change the world. I couldn’t, however, stop getting sexually harassed. From the man who brought you TITS U, I present SpaceX: an environmentally irresponsible company so rife with sexism, the only remedy is for women to leave.”
• “OSHA opens probe into deadly Amazon warehouse collapse in Illinois. OSHA is investigating a collapse at an Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois. The facility collapsed on Friday after a tornado rolled through, killing six employees.” Also Tweet—”This is all that’s left of an Amazon warehouse in Illinois after a tornado struck the building, in what’s being described as a ‘mass casualty event’ by officials. Several tornadoes struck a number of US states overnight, with reports of more than 50 people killed.” Also “Deadly Collapse at Amazon Warehouse Puts Spotlight on Phone Ban. Online retailer is returning to a cell phone ban in warehouses. Workers say they want access to weather alerts, communication.”
• Tweet—”the people in the mayfield candle factory that collapsed worked 12-hour shifts that paid $8 an hour. 110 ppl were inside. 40 ppl are still unaccounted for. they haven’t recovered a survivor since 3 am.”
• “The Infrastructural Power Beneath the Internet as We Know It. Control over underlying tech infrastructure determines who benefits from it, raising the prospect of alternative ownership and profit models.”—”I’ve lately been trying an exercise where, when reading anything by or about tech companies, I replace uses of the word ‘infrastructure’ with ‘means of production.’ For example, from Facebook’s engineering web page: ‘Our data centers are the cornerstones of the global means of production that brings Facebook apps and services to you every day.'”
• “North America has its first video game union at Vodeo Games. Vodeo Workers United partnered with CODE-CWA.”
• “Activision Blizzard employees launch strike fund, move closer to unionizing.”
• “Kellogg to permanently replace striking employees as workers reject new contract.” Tweet—”What to permanently replace in your pantry.”
• “First U.S. vaccine mandate in 1809 launched 200 years of court battles.” Also “From Smallpox ‘Animal Product’ Fear, to Polio Jab Conspiracy Theory, Vaccine-hesitancy Irks Since 18th Century“—”Wariness and outright hostility to vaccines did not start with Covid-19, they date back to the 18th century when the first shots were given. From real fears sparked by side-effects, to fake studies and conspiracy theories, we take a look at anti-vax sentiment over the ages.”
• Tweet—”Former US Senate candidate and first Maine resident to catch COVID Max Linn found dead in hot tub after being sued for pulling gun on former aide during cryptocurrency disagreement.” Also “Max Linn, colorful candidate, dead at 62. Linn privately speculated in 2020 that he may have caught COVID-19 during a trip to Wuhan in late 2019.”
• “Pro-Trump counties now have far higher COVID death rates. Misinformation is to blame.”
• “Lee’s Summit refuses to back down on COVID orders after Missouri Attorney General threatens lawsuits“—”A lawyer for the Lee’s Summit School District said the attorney general’s recent letters ordering dozens of school districts to drop their mask mandates and quarantine orders ‘not only lack legal effect — they are simply wrong.'” Also “Missouri flu cases nearly double in a week.”
• “Yale researchers develop mRNA-based lyme disease vaccine. Yale researchers have developed an mRNA vaccine that targets the antigens found in tick saliva in order to alert individuals to tick bites as well as prevent the tick from feeding correctly, thereby reducing its ability to transmit pathogens.”
• “CNN Segment on ‘Extremism’ Equates Racism and Homophobia With ‘Prejudice Against Business People’. John Avlon’s new video series on the ‘threat of extremism’ is an unintentional parody of middlebrow centrist false equivalency schlock.”
• Tweet thread—”That the vast majority of American media is either owned & operated by the super-wealthy or algorithmically manipulated by them doesn’t bode well for multiracial democracy in this moment of white backlash.”
• Tweet thread—”Last week, during our last session of my White Backlash graduate course, my students asked me if I thought the U.S. would descend into a civil war during the next decade. I replied that the current situation is much more bleak than that. Here’s why”
• “If you’re celebrating what happened to Steve Bannon, you don’t understand what’s going on behind the scenes. 2024 is coming and loyalties are being tested. This is an audition.”
• “Thinking about Rittenhouse and Right Wing Murder Safaris“—”Court observers appear divided on whether the Kyle Rittenhouse trial is headed to a hung jury or an outright acquittal. Very few seem to think the case is headed toward a conviction. That’s very jarring because many of us see it as obvious that Rittenhouse is unquestionably the guilty party, even if precisely what he is guilty of may be open to interpretation and despite the fact that the nature of self-defense laws in many states give the defense plenty of room to work with even in a case like this. Setting aside the technical components of first degree murder charges where this trial seems deeply unjust. Rittenhouse traveled to Wisconsin loaded for bear looking for trouble, found it and the law says that’s okay. That is compounded by the way the right in the US has made Rittenhouse into a folk hero.”
• “Iowa Republican; felony charges for teachers over ‘obscene’ books. Sen. Brad Zaun said he supported charging teachers who allow students to read “obscene” books, including LGBTQ+ themed books, with felonies.”
• “‘Teacher Loyalty’ bill would restrict how U.S. history, especially racism, can be discussed in school“—”The proposed bill, HB 1255, is titled ‘An Act Relative to Teachers’ Loyalty,’ and seeks to ban public school teachers from promoting any theory that depicts U.S. history or its founding in a negative light, including the idea that the country was founded on racism. The bill updates a piece of Cold War-era law that bans educators from advocating for communism in schools, and adds additional bans on advocating for socialism and Marxism.”
• “Trump’s Next Coup Has Already Begun. January 6 was practice. Donald Trump’s GOP is much better positioned to subvert the next election.”
• Thread—”(Video) Lies and Simplifications I’ve been feeling worn out lately tackling what I’ve been calling ‘simplifications’ or ‘rage-inducing simplifications.’ So I recorded a video taking them all on at once. I’ll have a transcript on my blog shortly.” Watch “Dangerous Lies and Simplifications“—”I begin this video by talking about the nature of the lies generated by the right-wing: the kind you see on right-wing media such as Newsmax. Because the Republican Party has abandoned truth, it’s up to the left to preserve truth. The truth is nuanced and complex. It doesn’t fit well into a soundbite or a tweet. It’s easy to fire off a lie. It’s hard to respond with the truth. This is why the party that wants to spread lies has an advantage over the party that wants to preserve truth. Here’s the problem. What I’m seeing on the left is a proliferation of what we might call “simplifications” that trigger rage. They take complex situations and boil them down to something that seems true and perhaps has some truth in it, but are problematic. Here I analyze these simplifications, explain why they are dangerous, and then suggest solutions.” Read “Dangerous Lies and Simplifications.”
• “New bill quietly gives powers to remove British citizenship without notice. Clause added to nationality and borders bill also appears to allow Home Office to act retrospectively in some cases.”
• “One in 10 staff at government’s gender equality department report harassment. Despite working in division responsible for Australia’s sexual harassment laws, 40% said they did not report it.”
• “US auctions off oil and gas drilling leases in Gulf of Mexico after climate talks. Biden administration launching auction of more than 80m acres for fossil fuel extraction that experts call ‘incredibly reckless’.”—”Just four days after landmark climate talks in Scotland in which Joe Biden vowed the US will ‘lead by example’ in tackling dangerous global heating, the president’s own administration is providing a jarring contradiction – the largest ever sale of oil and gas drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico.” “Jen Psaki, Biden’s press secretary, said on Monday: ‘It’s a legal case and legal process, but it’s important for advocates and other people out there who are following this to understand that it’s not aligned with our view, the president’s policies, or the executive order that he signed.’ But legal experts say the court decision doesn’t, in itself, prevent the administration from stopping or delaying a scheduled lease sale, or from scaling it back.”
• “Thwaites: Antarctic glacier heading for dramatic change. Scientists are warning of dramatic changes at one of the biggest glaciers in Antarctica, potentially within the next five to 10 years.”
• “Arizona students stage hunger strike to urge Sinema to support voting reform. College students say they will be striking indefinitely until Arizona senator agrees to support Freedom to Vote Act.”
• “Newsom to use Texas abortion law tactics to go after assault rifle, ghost gun makers.” Also tweet thread—”BREAKING: California Gov. Gavin Newsom just announced that his administration will make it easier for private citizens to sue people who sell assault rifles and parts for untraceable ghost guns, an approach modeled on Texas’s attempt to prohibit abortions.” Also tweet—”There it is. Best bet? Copy texas S.B. 8 word-for-word, replacing reproductive health terms with firearms manufacture and sale terms.”
• “The open-source investigators trying to bring justice to Myanmar. They’re using pioneering digital forensics to lay the groundwork for future crimes-against-humanity trials.”
• Thread—”If we know police, lawyers, judges, juries & politicians are all fallible people like everyone else, how do we arrive at this conclusion that they should be sanctioned to murder people? And it’s ok that those murdered are most often Black, poor or disabled? Or even innocent?”
• “White supremacist prison guards work with impunity in Fla.“—”In June, three Florida prison guards who boasted of being white supremacists beat, pepper sprayed and used a stun gun on an inmate who screamed ‘I can’t breathe!’ at a prison near the Alabama border, according to a fellow inmate who reported it to the state. The next day, the officers at Jackson Correctional Institution did it again to another inmate, the report filed with the Florida Department of Corrections’ Office of Inspector General stated. ‘If you notice these two incidents were people of color. They (the guards) let it be known they are white supremacist,’ the inmate Jamaal Reynolds wrote. ‘The Black officers and white officers don’t even mingle with each other. Every day they create a hostile environment trying to provoke us so they can have a reason to put their hands on us.'”
• “Workers at federal prisons are committing some of the crimes“—”More than 100 federal prison workers have been arrested, convicted or sentenced for crimes since the start of 2019, including a warden indicted for sexual abuse, an associate warden charged with murder, guards taking cash to smuggle drugs and weapons, and supervisors stealing property such as tires and tractors. An Associated Press investigation has found that the federal Bureau of Prisons, with an annual budget of nearly $8 billion, is a hotbed of abuse, graft and corruption, and has turned a blind eye to employees accused of misconduct. In some cases, the agency has failed to suspend officers who themselves had been arrested for crimes.”
• “Judge Spares Man in Teen Rape Case: ‘Incarceration Isn’t Appropriate’. The man, Christopher Belter, had pleaded guilty in the sexual assaults of four teens. He faced eight years in prison, but a judge sentenced him to probation instead.”
• “The Editorial Board: Judge’s nonsensical gag order violates his oath and serves no legal purpose“—”We don’t know what came over Niagara County Judge Matthew J. Murphy III last week, but it wasn’t the law. Murphy had no legal standing to order news outlets, including The Buffalo News, not to publish the name of a 20-year-old rapist whose family lives in a mansion in Lewiston. But he did anyway. The ruling wasn’t merely lawless, it was weird. The man’s name had previously been reported by Western New York news outlets, and repeatedly. The court hearing in which the judge issued his nonsensical order was open to the public, so anyone there could have spread it on social media. The name is available through online searches. But most of all, the order was an abuse of authority – the kind that gets judges overruled and sometimes disciplined.”
• “Judge Tries to Block New York Times’s Coverage of Project Veritas. The state court order, which The Times said it would immediately oppose, raised concerns from First Amendment advocates.”
• “Sapelo Island’s Geechee population fight development, sea-level rise, land loss to preserve culture.”
• “David Gulpilil: Profound legacy of a trailblazing Aboriginal actor. One of Australia’s greatest actors, David Gulpilil (Kingfisher) Ridjimiraril Dalaithngu, died last week aged 68, following a battle with lung cancer. In accordance with custom he will be returned to the place of his birth, known to Aboriginal people as his Country, for ceremony.”
• “Oxford postgrad says sexual assault complaint was met with hostility. Open letter condemning Harriet’s treatment has been signed by hundreds of students and supporters.”
• “The End of Gendering Wine. As the vocabulary of wine evolves, can it escape the gendered frameworks that forged it?”—”In traditional wine writing, education and marketing, gendered language has been used to describe everything from texture to geographical region to level of skin contact. Structured wines are masculine. Velvety wines, feminine. Rich, tannic Napa reds are for him, while satiny, pink Provençal rosé is for her. In Robert Parker’s 2002 Wine Buyer’s Guide, the terms are deployed no fewer than 75 times each, with ‘masculine’ appearing most often in association with the words ‘powerful’ and ‘muscular,’ and ‘feminine’ coinciding with ‘supple’ or ‘sexy.’ Today, it’s commonplace to hear the descriptor ‘slutty’ wielded to describe a particularly aromatic sauvignon blanc, or ‘mom wine’ used in correlation with a particularly suburban marketing sector.”
• “‘This isn’t the 60s again’: psychedelics business takes off amid culture clash. Experts fear if psychedelics fall exclusively into the hands of big pharma the industry will follow the same path as legal marijuana, making the rich richer.”
• “The labor shortage is a health problem“—”Almost half of unemployed Americans say health issues are the primary reason they’re not working, according to new survey data from McKinsey, shared exclusively with Axios.”
• “Health costs during pandemic pushed over half a billion people into poverty.”
• “How—and Why—America Criminalizes Poverty. Tony Messenger on a Neverending Cycle.”—”It’s hard not to call this what it is: the criminalization of poverty. The process starts with…the trampling of due-process rights as guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.” Excerpt from Profit and Punishment: How America Criminalizes the Poor in the Name of Justice [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Tony Messenger—”In Profit and Punishment, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist exposes the tragedy of modern-day debtors prisons, and how they destroy the lives of poor Americans swept up in a system designed to penalize the most impoverished. As a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Tony Messenger has spent years in county and municipal courthouses documenting how poor Americans are convicted of minor crimes and then saddled with exorbitant fines and fees. If they are unable to pay, they are often sent to prison, where they are then charged a pay-to-stay bill, in a cycle that soon creates a mountain of debt that can take years to pay off. These insidious penalties are used to raise money for broken local and state budgets, often overseen by for-profit companies, and it is one of the central issues of the criminal justice reform movement. In the tradition of Evicted and The New Jim Crow, Messenger has written a call to arms, shining a light on a two-tiered system invisible to most Americans. He introduces readers to three single mothers caught up in this system: living in poverty in Missouri, Oklahoma, and South Carolina, whose lives are upended when minor offenses become monumental financial and personal catastrophes. As these women struggle to clear their debt and move on with their lives, readers meet the dogged civil rights advocates and lawmakers fighting by their side to create a more equitable and fair court of justice. In this remarkable feat of reporting, Tony Messenger exposes injustice that is agonizing and infuriating in its mundane cruelty, as he champions the rights and dignity of some of the most vulnerable Americans.”
• “‘Worker Data Science’ Can Teach Us How to Fix the Gig Economy. Gig workers are asking to see the algorithms that govern their labor. Their fight has important lessons for creating equitable workplaces for all.”
• “South Dakota teachers scramble for dollar bills in ‘demeaning’ game. Company behind the competition apologises after footage showing teachers stuffing notes into clothing to fund classrooms goes viral.” Also “South Dakota teachers scramble for dollar bills to buy classroom supplies in half-time game – video. A competition pitting 10 teachers against each other to scramble for dollar bills to fund school supplies in a city in South Dakota has been described as ‘demeaning’ and drawn comparisons with the hit Netflix series Squid Game. The local Argus Leader newspaper reported that $5,000 (£3,770) in single dollar bills was laid out on the ice skating ring during the Sioux Falls Stampede hockey game on Saturday night, and the teachers from nearby schools competed to grab as many as possible in less than five minutes.”
• “Wheel of Time improved a fantasy saga’s gender binary in just six episodes. The show’s One Power works differently than in Robert Jordan’s books.”
• Tweet—”New year, new universe. Watch the trailer for EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE, an epic sci-fi/kung fu adventure from mad geniuses @Daniels and starring legends only, Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, James Hong, and Jamie Lee Curtis. In Theaters March 25!” Watch “Everything Everywhere All At Once | Official Trailer HD | A24“—”A film from Daniels and starring Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, Jenny Slate, Harry Shum Jr., with James Hong and Jamie Lee Curtis. EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE – In Theaters March 25, 2022! #EverythingEverywhere RELEASE DATE: March 25, 2022 DIRECTOR: Daniels CAST: Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, Jenny Slate, Harry Shum Jr., with James Hong and Jamie Lee Curtis.” Tweet—”finally someone understands what I want in a movie: an infinite number of Michelle Yeohs.” Also get your promotional 100-pack of googly eyes in the A24 shop.
• Watch “NIGHTMARE ALLEY | Neo Noir Featurette“—”In NIGHTMARE ALLEY, an ambitious carny (Bradley Cooper) with a talent for manipulating people with a few well-chosen words hooks up with a female psychiatrist (Cate Blanchett) who is even more dangerous than he is. Directed by: Guillermo del Toro Cast: Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Rooney Mara, Ron Perlman, David Strathairn.”
• “The Expanse | Designing the Belter Creole Accent and Language.” Tweet—”A lot of careful work and thought and respect went into the development of lang belta.”
• “Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser Preview – We Visited the Star Wars Hotel! A hotel experience far, far away from anything we’ve ever experienced.”
• “Stranger Kings, Dice, and Authority From Beyond“—”I always felt curious about why, in the creative space of tabletop roleplaying games, we developed such a fixation with dice.”
• “Dungeons and Dragons tavern, adventure castle proposed for Lake Geneva“—”Lake Geneva is the birthplace of the now famous Dungeons and Dragons fantasy game, where players create a role playing adventure. Now, Daniel Colwell wants to take the fantasy game to the next level by creating Griffin & Gargoyle Tavern, an immersive themed restaurant and amusement center in Lake Geneva.” Also “Dungeons & Dragons-Themed Immersive Restaurant Announced.”
• “Lord of the Rings keycap sets will transport your keyboard to Middle-earth. Type in either Elvish or Dwarvish with new keycaps on Drop.”
• Tweet—”Meet Ji-Young — the first Asian American muppet on ‘Sesame Street.’ She is Korean American and has two passions: rocking out on her electric guitar and skateboarding. She’ll be formally introduced in a special that drops on Thanksgiving.”
• “The inner lives of cats: what our feline friends really think about hugs, happiness and humans. They do what they want, all the time – and can teach us a lot about how to live in the present, be content and learn from our experience.” In part about Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by John Gray—”The author of Straw Dogs, famous for his provocative critiques of scientific hubris and the delusions of progress and humanism, turns his attention to cats—and what they reveal about humans’ torturous relationship to the world and to themselves. The history of philosophy has been a predictably tragic or comical succession of palliatives for human disquiet. Thinkers from Spinoza to Berdyaev have pursued the perennial questions of how to be happy, how to be good, how to be loved, and how to live in a world of change and loss. But perhaps we can learn more from cats–the animal that has most captured our imagination–than from the great thinkers of the world. In Feline Philosophy, the philosopher John Gray discovers in cats a way of living that is unburdened by anxiety and self-consciousness, showing how they embody answers to the big questions of love and attachment, mortality, morality, and the Self: Montaigne’s house cat, whose un-examined life may have been the one worth living; Meo, the Vietnam War survivor with an unshakable capacity for ‘fearless joy’; and Colette’s Saha, the feline heroine of her subversive short story ‘The Cat’, a parable about the pitfalls of human jealousy. Exploring the nature of cats, and what we can learn from it, Gray offers a profound, thought-provoking meditation on the follies of human exceptionalism and our fundamentally vulnerable and lonely condition. He charts a path toward a life without illusions and delusions, revealing how we can endure both crisis and transformation, and adapt to a changed scene, as cats have always done.”
• NFTs! Collect them all. No really. “The Billion Dollar Torrent (all NFT’s from Ethereum & Solana).” Also “Keanu Reeves doesn’t get the NFT hype either. Neo is a HODLer.” Watch “Keanu Reeves on NFTs: LAUGHING HISTERICALLY – Keanu Reeves The Verge Interview.”
• Back from Italy, they’ve arrived in Texas! “Dozens of feral hogs invade Southeast Texas neighborhood.”
• Tweet thread—”In 1918, there was a lesbian spy network working to “exterminate the manhood of Britain” called The Cult of The Clitoris… Except actually, there wasn’t. It was a fake news scandal that somehow won a libel trial. This is the story of the sapphic cult that wasn’t.”

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.

This post was possible because of support from generous ongoing Patrons. Patrons get access to Omnium Gatherum immediately. On the blog, this will be exclusive to Patrons for one year, after which I’ll make it publicly available to everyone so they can see what they’ve been missing.

An irregular hodgepodge of links gathered together … Omnium Gatherum for August 1, 2021

It’s the first OG of the month, so hello again to all Patrons!

I’ve made all the OG posts from July 2020 public on the blog, so that people can go back and see what they’ve been missing. And, in a year, when this one goes public, hello to everyone else on the blog!

Happy observed Lughnasadh, Lammas, or whatever harvest festival you celebrate! Also, astronomically speaking, August 7 at 6:53am UTC is when ☉ in 15° ♌︎ (Sol is in 15° Leo), so why not party for the whole week?

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

• Be sure to check out all the upcoming calendar events listed in Hermeneuticon for August!
• “Saturn will glow brightly in the sky next week. Here’s how to see it.”—”On August 1 and 2, Saturn will be at opposition, meaning the Earth will be located between the ringed planet and the sun. This is when the outer planet will be at its most luminous, making for a brilliant night sky view. Saturn’s opposition is at 2 a.m. ET on August 2, or 11 p.m. PT for those on the West Coast, according to EarthSky. Once Venus sinks below the horizon after the sun sets, Jupiter will be the brightest object in the sky, EarthSky said. To find Saturn, look just west of Jupiter.”
• “Plans for Stonehenge road tunnel ruled unlawful. Unesco warns UK to protect its heritage sites.” Wild. What a rollercoaster. I remember them talking about this kerfuffle back in, oh, hell, whenever the heck I was there, 2000-ish.
• Tweet—”Want to know “the right way” to make pancakes? John Locke’s got you covered (Bodleian MS Locke c. 25, f. 85).” Serve Crowley Curry on them?
• “Spinoza’s Death Mask, and Reflections on Working at the RBML.”
• “NIETZSCHE! The Musical Will Have a Staged Reading Next Month. The reading will take place at the Fort Salem Theater in Salem, NY, August 21 at 7 PM.”—”Hebron residents Kimerer LaMothe and Geoffrey Gee will present a developmental reading of their brand new musical – Nietzsche! – on the MainStage of the Fort Salem Theater in Salem, NY, August 21 at 7 PM. Nietzsche! The Musical traces the tangled, passionate relationships that shaped the life and legacy of one of the most influential philosophers in the western world: Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). While many people are familiar with the name “Nietzsche,” few know about the two women who helped make him who he was: Lou Salomé, the woman he wanted as his wife, and his sister Elisabeth, who married an anti-Semitic Christian activist and moved to Paraguay to found a colony for the pure German race. Nietzsche’s love for both of these women brought him face to face with challenges that threatened to destroy him. Yet time and again, he reached for a way to love life – all of it. His story of struggle and affirmation carries relevance for our time.”
• Codex Seraphinianus: 40th Anniversary Edition [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Luigi Serafini, due September, 2021—”Published to coincide with the 40th anniversary of its original publication, this special edition of the beloved, best-selling cult classic features a new design, new cover illustration, and 15 never-before-seen drawings. Featuring a handsome new package redesigned by the author himself, this edition is a must-have for fans and collectors of Luigi Serafini’s art. First published in 1981 in Milan by F.M. Ricci, the book has been hailed as one of the most unusual yet beautiful art books ever made. A visual encyclopedia of an unknown world written in an unknown language, it has fueled much debate over its meaning. Written for the information age and addressing the import of coding and decoding in genetics, literary criticism, and computer science, it has now fascinated and enchanted two generations. While its message may be unclear, its appeal is obvious: it is a most exquisite artifact, blurring the line between art book and art object. This edition presents it in a new, unparalleled light complete with 15 new illustrations by the author. With the advent of new forms of communication, continuous streams of information, and social media, the Codex is more relevant and timely than ever. A limited numbered deluxe edition, bound in real cloth and presented in a handsome slipcase, is also available. It includes a signed print of a new illustration made by the author to commemorate the 700th anniversary of the death in 1321 of Dante Alighieri, one of Italy’s greatest writers and creator of The Divine Comedy.”
• “Why Flat Earthers, Moon Landing Truthers, and Other Conspiracy Theorists Believe Their Own Nonsense. John V. Petrocelli on the Alarming Spread of Fake News and Society’s Increasing Aversion to Critical Thinking.”—”A public without basic bullshit detection and disposal skills cannot defend itself against the many unwanted effects of bullshit.” Excerpt from The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by John V. Petrocelli—”Expanding upon his viral TEDx Talk, psychology professor and social scientist John V. Petrocelli reveals the critical thinking habits you can develop to recognize and combat pervasive false information that harms society in The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit. Bullshit is the foundation of contaminated thinking and bad decisions leading to health consequences, financial losses, legal consequences, broken relationships, and wasted time and resources. No matter how smart we believe ourselves to be, we’re all susceptible to bullshit—and we all engage in it. While we may brush it off as harmless marketing sales speak or as humorous, embellished claims, it’s actually much more dangerous and insidious. It’s how Bernie Madoff successfully swindled billions of dollars from even the most experienced financial experts with his Ponzi scheme. It’s how the protocols of Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward resulted in the deaths of 36 million people from starvation. Presented as truths by authority figures and credentialed experts, bullshit appears legitimate, and we accept their words as gospel. If we don’t question the information we receive from bullshit artists to prove their thoughts and theories, we allow these falsehoods to take root in our memories and beliefs. This faulty data affects our decision making capabilities, sometimes resulting in regrettable life choices. But with a little dose of skepticism and a commitment to truth seeking, you can build your critical thinking and scientific reasoning skills to evaluate information, separate fact from fiction, and see through bullshitter spin. In The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit, experimental social psychologist John V. Petrocelli provides invaluable strategies not only to recognize and protect yourself from everyday bullshit, but to accept your own lack of knowledge about subjects and avoid in engaging in bullshit just for societal conformity. With real world examples from people versed in bullshit who work in the used car, real estate, wine, and diamond industries, Petrocelli exposes the red-flag warning signs found in the anecdotal stories, emotional language, and buzzwords used by bullshitters that persuade our decisions. By using his critical thinking defensive tactics against those motivated by profit, we will also learn how to stop the toxic misinformation spread from the social media influencers, fake news, and op-eds that permeate our culture and call out bullshit whenever we see it.”
• Via email from Ken Knabb of Bureau of Public Secrets: “From January to May 2021, I did a series of ten Zoom presentations of French songs — ranging from nineteenth-century cabaret songs, through the noirish chansons réalistes of the 1930s, to the astonishing Renaissance of great post-World War II singer-songwriters such as Léo Ferré, Jacques Brel, Anne Sylvestre, and above all Georges Brassens […] During each session I gave a roughly 90-minute presentation, briefly introducing the singers or songwriters, translating or summarizing each song before I played it (unless it happened to have English subtitles), and sometimes making other remarks on the cultural or historical contexts. Video recordings of all ten of these Zoom presentations can now be freely accessed from http://www.bopsecrets.org/recent/frenchsongs.htm. The same webpage also includes links to a variety of additional performances, film clips, articles, interviews, etc., in case you would like to explore further on your own.”
• “Richard Double (1948-2021)“—”Richard Double, emeritus professor and former chair of philosophy at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, has died. Professor Double was known for his work on free will. Professor Double was known for his work on free will. You can browse some of his writings here.” Works by Richard Double.
• “Scientists find two huge red rocks with ‘complex organic matter’ in the asteroid belt that shouldn’t be there. 203 Pompeja and 269 Justitia are thought to have moved into the belt from beyond Neptune at the start of the solar system.” Also “2 Red Objects Were Found in the Asteroid Belt. They Shouldn’t Be There.”
• “Iceland may be the tip of a sunken continent. ‘Icelandia’ was lost to the sea 10 million years ago.”—”Iceland may be the last exposed remnant of a nearly Texas-size continent — called Icelandia — that sank beneath the North Atlantic Ocean about 10 million years ago, according to a new theory proposed by an international team of geophysicists and geologists. The theory goes against long-standing ideas about the formation of Iceland and the North Atlantic, but the researchers say the theory explains both the geological features of the ocean floor and why Earth’s crust beneath Iceland is so much thicker than it should be. Outside experts not affiliated with the research told Live Science they are skeptical that Icelandia exists based on the evidence collected so far. Even so, if geological studies prove the theory, the radical new idea of a sunken continent could have implications for the ownership of any fuels found beneath the seafloor, which under international law belong to a country that can show their continental crust extends that far.” Um. It’s a continent. In the Atlantic. That sunk. DUN DUN DUN!
• “Animals Emerged 350 Million Years Earlier Than Previously Thought, Fossil Discovery Suggests. Tube-like impressions found in Canadian rocks are further evidence that sponges were the first animals on Earth.”
• “Light from behind a black hole spotted for 1st time, proving Einstein right. The “luminous echoes” come from the rear part of the black hole’s corona.” Also “Thanks to a gravitational trick, astronomers observed light from behind a black hole.”
• “Underground ‘Lakes’ on Mars May Just Be Big Globs of Clay. Recent detections of something that looked like liquid water could be chalked up to an esoteric mineral, according to new research.” Also “Lakes on Mars May Be a Mirage, Scientists Say. A new batch of research shows that clay, not water, may be the source of bright spots under Mars’ South Pole.”
• “Archaeologists Discover 2,550-Year-Old Carving of the Last King of Babylon. Found in northern Saudi Arabia, the inscription depicts sixth-century B.C.E. ruler Nabonidus holding a scepter.”
• “Mysterious Ancient Greek ‘Phaistos Disc’ in LOST language finally decoded to reveal sexy secret. A LANGUAGE expert claims to have decoded an ancient Greek relic that has baffled researchers for over a century.”—”According to his data, the disc is a religious text about a ‘pregnant goddess’ who takes shape in the face of Astarte.”
• “The Forgotten History of Amazon Warrior Women of Ancient Scythia. The remains of more than 300 ancient warrior women have been unearthed over the years — and more discoveries are likely, researchers say. Here’s their story — and why scholars chose to ignore their history for decades.”
• Ancient psychoactive plants in a global village: The ritual use of cannabis in a self-managed community in Catalonia—”The contemporary use of APP in Western societies is gaining popularity. International drug policies and the schedule of controlled drugs claim to be based on scientific evidence, but this evidence is limited. The contemporary myopic focus on the risks and harms of drugs overlooks important realities, such as the benefits of non-problematic drug use. These omissions could in part be rectified through the consideration of scientific findings from the field of ethnography regarding the spiritual and community dimensions of drug use.”
• “Neanderthal Blood Study Hints at One Possible Reason They Went Extinct. A landmark analysis reveals what we can learn from blood.”
• “He Wrote a Gardening Column. He Ended Up Documenting Climate Change. Over 45 years, his advice to Alaskans has changed with the transformation of the planet.”
• “Western Wildfires Are Sending Carbon Offsets Up in Smoke. The offsets’ vulnerability to wildfires shows they’re a flawed climate tool, particularly as big blazes become more common.”
• “As wildfires burn in Canada, an ‘unprecedented’ blanket of smoke hangs over Minnesota. Smoke from across the Canadian border is seeping into Minnesota. Officials warn unhealthy air quality will persist until next week, fueling concerns over possible health impacts.”
• “The amount of Greenland ice that melted on Tuesday could cover Florida in 2 inches of water.”—”Greenland is experiencing its most significant melting event of the year as temperatures in the Arctic surge. The amount of ice that melted on Tuesday alone would be enough to cover the entire state of Florida in two inches of water. It’s the third instance of extreme melting in the past decade, during which time the melting has stretched farther inland than the entire satellite era, which began in the 1970s.”
• “Brains Might Sync As People Interact — and That Could Upend Consciousness Research. When we cooperate on certain tasks, our brainwaves might synchronize. This finding could upend the current understanding of consciousness.”
• From the That’s Not A Noodle dept: “Weird, noodle-shaped amphibians known as caecilians found in South Florida canal.”
• From the Dinosaurs Are Still Here dept: “Bird brains left other dinosaurs behind.”—”Today, being ‘birdbrained’ means forgetting where you left your keys or wallet. But 66 million years ago, it may have meant the difference between life and death—and may help explain why birds are the only dinosaurs left on Earth.”
• Watch “Harvard Scientists May Just Have Uncovered the Holy Grail of Battery Technology“—”For almost five decades, Lithium Metal Batteries or Solid State Batteries have held the promise of capacities, lifetimes, and charging capabilities many times that of today’s Lithium Ion batteries. But dendrites and low current densities have held them back. A discovery at Harvard in May of 2021 might just change all that.”
• “Eternal Change for No Energy: A Time Crystal Finally Made Real. Like a perpetual motion machine, a time crystal forever cycles between states without consuming energy. Physicists claim to have built this new phase of matter inside a quantum computer.”
• “‘I will not be silenced’: Women targeted in hack-and-leak attacks speak out about spyware. Female journalists and activists say they had their private photos shared on social media by governments seeking to intimidate and silence them.” Also “On the list: Ten prime ministers, three presidents and a king. Among 50,000 phone numbers, the Pegasus Project found those of hundreds of public officials.”
• “Artificial intelligence can now be recognised as an inventor after historic Australian court decision.”
• “Facebook’s metaverse gambit is a distraction from its deep-seated problems. Facebook’s problems aren’t sexy to solve, so it found another challenge.” Also “‘Metaverse’: the next internet revolution?”
• “Here are the latest accusations Activision Blizzard employees have leveled at the company.” Also “‘Cube Crawls’ and ‘Frat Bro’ Culture: California’s Huge Activision Blizzard Lawsuit Alleges Yet Another Toxic Workplace in the Video Game Industry. Several hundred Activision Blizzard employees stage a walkout which they say is in a response from company leadership to a lawsuit highlighting alleged harassment, inequality, and more within the company outside the gate at Activision Blizzard headquarters on July 28, 2021 in Irvine, Calif.” Also “Inside Blizzard Developers’ Infamous Bill ‘Cosby Suite’. Booze, sexual remarks, and a giant portrait of Cosby are all at the center of Activision lawsuit.” Also “Former Blizzard Developer and ArenaNet, Undead Labs Founder: ‘We Need Unionization’. Jeff Strain writes an open letter calling for full unionization within the games industry.”
• Tweet—”My take on Activision Blizzard: If the company wants to change, it should start by firing a significant portion of its thoroughly polluted executive team.” Tweet—”When people say they don’t want politics in games, this – a line up of right-wing politicians being given executive positions in Activision Blizzard – should be what they mean rather than it just being a complaint about gay or female characters existing.” Also, not a good look: “Activision Blizzard Hires Union-Busting Firm As Workers Start To Come Together. WilmerHale will ‘review’ Activision Blizzard HR policies.”
• Tweet—”The artist mentioned in this post is John Polidora. From ages 22-24, I basically lived in constant anxiety because I knew he was actively talking poorly about me to his peers at Blizzard because I chose not to date him.”
• “Amazon MMO New World Trolled With Real Facts About The Company. Lulu Chiba has taken it upon herself to spread the truth.”
• “Safari Extension Rejected Because Developer Not ‘Reputable’“—”First, Reed and his company very much are reputable, and their products have even been recommended by Apple itself. Second, Apple claims to treat developers the same. Third, how can a new developer ever get started if being reputable is a prerequisite?'”
• “Belabored: Why ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ Fails Workers. A close look at what happens when corporations police themselves.”
• “Suspended Hell.”—”All social media both feeds and feeds on narcissism, but Twitter’s capacity to mirror the world and its users’ neuroses in discrete verbal and visual units, at least in certain corners of the site, elevates self-regard to a formal principle. We compulsively iterate ourselves as memes, set pieces, and DIY allegorical photos, as if hoping we’ll eventually perfect the reflection.”
• “Philosophical CAPTCHAs—”Select all the square with pipes.”
• “‘A nightmare scenario’: how an anti-trans Instagram post led to violence in the streets. Misinformation about Wi Spa, a Korean spa in Los Angeles, quickly spread around the world. Since then, trans women in LA have faced violence and online abuse.”
• “Olympic Gymnast Luciana Alvarado Included a Black Lives Matter Tribute in Her Floor Routine. ‘We’re all beautiful and amazing.'”
• “You got your California digital vaccine record. But how does the QR code work? The QR code associated with your digital vaccine record uses a technology meant to…” Tweet—”Using a QR code to verify relevant health information between individuals interacting together without exposing other aspects of their private information is just one of many things California has learned from adult entertainment workers.”
• Meet the Dommes Who Are Demanding Their Submissives Get Vaxxed. ‘I specialize in toilet play, and I can’t do it with people who are unvaccinated,’ says one domme requiring proof of vaccination for dungeon entry.”
• “The Surprising Innovations of Pandemic-Era Sex. Many queer people are reimagining their own boundaries and thinking of this reentry period as a time for sexual self-discovery.”
• “Some vaccinated Americans have lost their patience with those refusing the shot as Covid-19 cases surge and mandates return.”—”‘Why should those who don’t seem to want to do what’s best for the public now get to just benefit from being open again, while they also just spread Delta variant around?’ she said.
  ‘Those of us who got vaccinated, we want to live our lives,’ Tolford said. ‘The way to do it was to get vaccinated and we’ve done it and now you guys still don’t want to put other people first and put the greater good of society first, so maybe you guys need to just go stay home. Maybe it’s time for you guys not to be able to do everything because you don’t want to participate.'” Also tweet—”People in Missouri are donning disguises to receive a coronavirus vaccine, according to a doctor there. Patients are worried about how their family members and friends will treat them if they reveal they have been vaccinated.” Watch “Getting the Facts: COVID-19 Vaccines and Confidentiality.”

• “Netflix To Require Covid Vaccinations For Actors & Other “Zone A” Personnel On Its U.S. Productions.” Also Tweet—”Thank fucking god. The personal rights of conspiracy-theorists to endanger their own health don’t trump the rights of those of us living in reality to get our lives back. Hope to see this mandated to the rest of the company and beyond. It’s time to quit playing around.” By the by, check out this tweet with a picture of Alex Hirsch and Dana Terrace, with Dana in a Garfield & Baphomet dress.
• “The pandemic proved basic income works in the U.S.. Here’s how to answer Pope Francis’ call to build back better.”
• Oh, ffs. “More than half of the white-tailed deer in Michigan have been infected with coronavirus.”
• “Lock down properly, and pay workers more to stay home.”—”Governments are willing to throw billions of dollars at business affected by lockdowns, with few strings attached, but drag their feet before announcing measures to help the working class.”
• “Damn Right Jan. 6 Was a Coup—This Was Trump’s Call That Led There. Before the MAGA goon squad stormed the Capitol building at the beginning of January, Trump had tried to get the DoJ to roll over for him at the end of December.”
• “Trump’s aggressive efforts to overturn election results come to light. A hand-written document released by the DOJ has the former president’s actions catching up with him.”
• “Former Virginia policeman charged in Capitol riot to stay in jail after buying guns. A federal judge called his purchases ‘a remarkable shopping spree for high-powered assault weapons.'” Tweet—”Was a police SERGEANT at the time of the insurrection * Was released on bail * Bought 34 firearms online * FBI finds a partially assembled pipe bomb in his home. * Since his arrest ‘has expressed pride’ in the riot and ‘enthusiasm for the prospect of future political violence.'”
• “‘Comically Minimal Ego-Stroking’: Inside The Bumble Takedown Of A Violent Capitol Rioter. Andrew Taake was arrested for pepper-spraying and attacking police officers with a whip at the U.S. Capitol. Here’s how a Bumble dating app user reeled him in.”
• “The MyPillow Guy Really Could Destroy Democracy. In the time I spent with Mike Lindell, I came to learn that he is affable, devout, philanthropic—and a clear threat to the nation.”—”He will not admit he is wrong; he will not stop believing. He will not understand that he was conned out of the millions he has spent ‘validating’ fake data.”
• “That Sneaky QAnon-Flavoured Post in Your Yoga Group. You can tell by the keywords. This isn’t going away.”—”Several commenters responded negatively to its ‘toxic positivity’. Some were suspicious that the text looked like a ransom note made from magazine-letter cutouts. But as a conspirituality researcher, three things stood out for me: ‘Consent’. ‘Agenda’. ‘I hereby nullify’.” “If you come across an anodyne but vaguely paranoid meme that offers spiritual solutions to a fallen world in strangely hackneyed language — dig a little. QAnon isn’t going away.”
• “Home Office set up fake website to deter asylum seekers from crossing Channel with ‘misleading’ claims. Exclusive: ‘On The Move’ website claims to offer ‘reliable information’ but does not disclose government affiliation.”
• “The Biden Administration must walk back the MailGuard program banning letters from home in federal prisons. The Bureau of Prisons is implementing a heartless, ineffective policy with far-reaching effects.”
• Tweet—”EXCLUSIVE: Frito-Lay worker Brandon Ingram was severely electrocuted on the job, disabled and denied medical care. Now Brandon, his wife, and children are being stalked and secretly filmed by company agents. This is the most disturbing Frito-Lay story we’ve covered.”
• “How Games Workshop grew to become more profitable than Google. Tabletop gaming, based on a mix of science fiction and fantasy worlds, has seen sales surge during lockdown.”—”This week the Nottingham-based company, which produces the Warhammer fantasy role-playing brand, announced all of its workers would get a £5,000 bonus after sales and profits surged during the pandemic.”
• “Fire Engulfs Warehouse of South America’s Largest Film Collection.”—”A storage facility belonging to the Cinemateca, the national film institute in São Paulo, Brazil and South America’s largest film collection, went up in flames Thursday night. The 70,000-square-foot building is the nation’s latest cultural asset to succumb to preventable fires and floods, largely a consequence of deep budget cuts in the sector and government negligence.”
• “The revolutionary idea behind America’s urban trails. Pioneered more than a century ago by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, greenways are nature-filled city hikes that point to the future.”
• “How Black Foragers Find Freedom in the Natural World. Foraging has opened their eyes not just to the possibilities of new food sources, but to the legacy of land separation.”
• “Investment in Public Transportation That Exacerbates Inequality.”—”Government investments in public transport systems may very well be exacerbating inequality due to their direct ties with the global capitalist system.”
• “Cuts to art subjects funding ‘walk us back 60 years’, says artist Helen Cammock. UK’s decision to slash subsidy is designed to stifle criticism from artists, Turner prize winner says.”
• “Revealed: Science Museum signed gagging clause with exhibition sponsor Shell. The Science Museum has signed a gagging clause in its agreement with Shell International to sponsor its climate change exhibition, agreeing to take care not to say anything that could damage the company’s reputation, Channel 4 News has learnt.”
• “Ex-Cardinal McCarrick charged with sexually assaulting teen.”—”McCarrick is the first cardinal in the U.S. to ever be criminally charged with a sexual crime against a minor, according to Mitchell Garabedian, a well-known lawyer for church sexual abuse victims who is representing the man alleging the abuse by McCarrick.”
• Tweet—”If anyone was considering entering this @Medium contest, make sure you read the fine print, which includes one of the shadiest content/rights grabs I’ve ever seen. Medium takes full rights, including derivative, for all pieces ENTERED in the contest (not just winners).” Also tweet—”honestly everyone just needs to stay the fuck away from Medium as platform. money and IP grabbing union busters. ask yourself why they’re running competitions for new writers after they sacked all the professionals they had just a few months ago.” Also tweet—”it’s hard to say no to work and hard to work in any sort of ethical or equitable framework nowadays, but Medium has so recently and repeatedly fucked people over — some of them friends — that I can’t help but side-eye folks I know working for and at Medium. if you can, pls avoid!”
• “The newest self-publishing platform for writers? OnlyFans.“—”The Internet has opened up new modes of self-publishing for writers: subscription services like Substack and Patreon, online releases on platforms like Gumroad, and even NFTs. Now, we’re seeing the debut (to my knowledge) of a new self-publishing model: writer Aurora Mattia has published her latest story “Ezekiel in the Snow” on her OnlyFans page, where she also releases adult content for her subscribers.”
• “The first bestselling paperback original in the US was a work of lesbian pulp fiction.” From 2005: “Sapphic soldiers. Tereska Torres — author of 1950s lesbian pulp novel ‘Women’s Barracks’ — talks about the ladies of the Free French Forces, shocking American audiences, and being mistaken for a ‘lesbian writer.'”
• More on this: “Britney Spears’ New Lawyer Suggests Her Dad Dissipated Her Fortune.”
• “Scarlett Johansson Sues Disney for Breach of Contract Over ‘Black Widow’ Release.” Also “Women In Film, ReFrame & Time’s Up Condemn Disney For “Gendered Character Attack” On Scarlett Johansson In Her ‘Black Widow’ Lawsuit.” Why can’t Marvel and Disney ever pay people? Also, this is about streaming rights in contracts. We’ve been here before. Remember the hullabaloo around 2006 or so about residuals for talent from DVD sales? And the writers’ strikes? Also music rights: “The weird legal reason many of your favorite shows aren’t on DVD.” (Remember the big deal about Sita Sings The Blues? See “Sita sings the copyright blues.” Music rights was also an issue for Synthetic Pleasures.) You know, frankly, I think the entire crew of a production should get residuals too. It is obscene how abusively bifurcated compensation is between casts and crews. That’s not to even mention how screwed voice actors are comparatively. But, releases direct to streaming services should probably change the equation, and, if DVD was a clue, not be presumed free for residuals. (Moreover “Is Matt Damon the last of Hollywood’s leading men? The actor is one of the world’s biggest stars — but he’s alarmed by the way cinema is changing. Is the A-lister one of a dying breed?”—”Movies as we know them aren’t going to be a thing in our kids’ lives.” Which, let’s be honest, even before lockdown, it has been so long since I went to a cinema that I can’t even remember when I was in one last, like by now it’s been, what, almost a decade for me? Seriously! They mostly suck, and in so many ways, and have for a very long time. Except for “specialty” cinemas, of which there are none anywhere near me anyway, they’re awful. I just don’t have much interest anymore, my self. Even the nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. And nowadays I wouldn’t trust a room of strangers around here not to be plague zombies.)
• “‘The Green Knight’ Review: Monty Python and the Seventh Seal. Dev Patel plays a medieval hero on a mysterious quest in David Lowery’s adaptation of the 14th-century Arthurian romance.”
• Watch “A Memoir Blue” trailer. “What are the moments that bond family together? From Cloisters Interactive, A Memoir Blue is a poignant story of a mother and daughter, experienced through memories cherished and memories suppressed.”
• Watch “The Artful Escape” trailer. “A teenage guitar prodigy sets out on a psychedelic, multidimensional journey to inspire his stage persona and confront the legacy of a dead folk legend. Starring voice performances by Michael Johnston, Caroline Kinley, Lena Headey, Jason Schwartzman, Mark Strong, and Carl Weathers.”
• Watch “Solar Ash” gameplay trailer.
• Okay, Annapurna is already on fire with the surreal and wild stuff in the previous things, but I’ve literally been excited about and waiting for this since 2015, when it first burst out as a little demo of a cat in Kowloon that set certain parts of the Internet on fire. It’s finally going to release in 2022! Now it’s called Stray and is coming from Annapurna. Watch “Stray” offical gameplay and release trailer. Check out the HK devblog, which goes back to 2015. And this from 2016: “A Video Game Where You Play a Cat Exploring Hong Kong’s Densely Populated Kowloon Walled City.”—”HK Project is a video game where you play cat exploring Hong Kong’s densely populated, mostly ungoverned Kowloon Walled City. Players control a cat as it explores its stylized world by jumping and crawling around the city.”
• Watch “Brand New Cherry Flavor“. “This isn’t your average revenge flick. A filmmaker heads to Hollywood in the early ‘90s to make her movie but tumbles down a hallucinatory rabbit hole of sex, magic, revenge – and kittens. Brand New Cherry Flavor — a new limited series starring Rosa Salazar, Catherine Keener, Eric Lange, Jeff Ward and Manny Jacinto — premieres August 13.” From Netflix: “A filmmaker heads to Hollywood in the early ’90s to make her movie but tumbles down a hallucinatory rabbit hole of sex, magic, revenge — and kittens.” “Created by ‘Channel Zero’ writers Lenore Zion and Nick Antosca and based on the novel by Todd Grimson.” From 1996: Brand New Cherry Flavor [Amazon, Local Library] by Todd Grimson “Losing out on a much-needed directing job, Lisa Nova sets out to wreak a special vengeance on the high-living denizens of Hollywood, an erotic, nightmarish quest that awakens an age-old, implacable curse and leads to an encounter with the ultimate evil, the Soul Eater.” “In the world of Hollywood’s panderers, philanderers, has-beens, and sycophants, aspiring screenwriter and director Lisa Nova considers herself a rising star who can transcend the lies, cheating, and hypocrisy for the sake of her art. When she is coldly betrayed by one leering producer too many, she turns to Boro, the enigmatic leader of a local biker gang, to exact vengeance and she gets more than she bargained for. It begins with the strange tattoos that appear overnight on her skin like stigmata, followed by the hallucinations of ancient cults of the undead. Lisa soon finds herself contending with white jaguars and cannibalistic demons rising from the grave, and the lines between dreams and reality quickly dissolve in this surreal and exhilarating blend of satire and the macabre.”
• “A24 Lands Rights To Octavia E. Butler’s ‘Parable Of The Sower’, Setting ‘Time’ Director Garrett Bradley To Helm“—” A24 has won rights to Octavia E. Butler’s science fiction odyssey Parable of the Sower, the first in a two-book series, and has set Time director Garrett Bradley to direct. Originally published in 1993, the book has recently been rediscovered by fans and appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for the first time in September 2020, fulfilling a lifelong dream of Butler’s. Paul Mezey will produce the film. The rights deal was negotiated by Anonymous Content on behalf of Merrilee Heifetz at Writers House. A24 will finance and distribute. Set in a near-future Los Angeles devastated by societal collapse, a teenager with a unique gift must lead humanity in a battle against extinction.” Of course, this is about Parable of the Sower [“>Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Octavia E Butler—”This acclaimed post-apocalyptic novel of hope and terror from an award-winning author pairs well with 1984 or The Handmaid’s Tale and includes a foreword by N. K. Jemisin (John Green, New York Times). When global climate change and economic crises lead to social chaos in the early 2020s, California becomes full of dangers, from pervasive water shortage to masses of vagabonds who will do anything to live to see another day. Fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina lives inside a gated community with her preacher father, family, and neighbors, sheltered from the surrounding anarchy. In a society where any vulnerability is a risk, she suffers from hyperempathy, a debilitating sensitivity to others’ emotions. Precocious and clear-eyed, Lauren must make her voice heard in order to protect her loved ones from the imminent disasters her small community stubbornly ignores. But what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: the birth of a new faith . . . and a startling vision of human destiny.”
• Watch “The Day When All The Planets Will Align In This Century“, if you can stand to stick this silly thing out. However, I always thought that a configuration like this would be a good, essentially objective milestone from which to start a calendar year count that wasn’t, you know, based on monarchic or imperialistic measures. (See Burroughs on the five steps to consolidating revolutionary gains: “proclaim a new era and set up a new calendar”.)
• Chaucer, Milton, Shakespeare, Seuss! Watch “Popular Words Invented by Authors.”—”Authors often create words just for a one-time usage… but a special few will gain traction and become full-fledged parts of our shared lexicon!”
• From the Robots Coming For Our Jobs dept., wait. Actually, this is cool. Let the little machine work! “Robot arranges 100,000 dominoes into a Super Mario Bros. mural in one day. The robot is fed dominoes by another robot.” Watch “World Record Domino Robot (100k dominoes in 24hrs).”
• Watch “NECRONOMIDOL – RITUAL.” Also tweet—”Note the unicursal hexagrams on the new Necroma outfits.”
• “Masters of the Universe: Revelation Celebrates the Origins of He-Man.” This rightly notes that there are some bits of deep lore shown in animation for the first time ever in the new show.
• “Life lessons from beekeepers – stop mowing the lawn, don’t pave the driveway and get used to bugs in your salad.”
• Could Apes Build a Society in 3,000 Years? the Science Behind Planet of the Apes—”There might come a day when our ape cousins emerge as something new, but we’re going to need to give them time. Probably a lot of it. Here’s hoping by then we’ve learned to get along.” Welp. No time for that. Let’s just start the uplift programs already!
• From 2020: “An Ancient Dinosaur Relative Is Also Related to Humans—and Its DNA May Hold the Secret to Living Longer.”—”The tuatara is old. 250 million years old. That was when this bizarre creature shared its last common ancestor with other reptiles before it evolved further and diverged. It used to be one of of several Rhynocephalia species that crawled across the antediluvian continent of Gondwana, but is now the only one that remains. Its genome links it not only to reptiles (which it most obviously resembles), but also birds and yes, mammals like humans. DNA from this living relic could also be the elixir of life.”
• From 2020: “A Parade of Earthly Delights: Floating Bosch Parade Celebrates Painter Hieronymus Bosch in Spectacular Aquatic Event.” “Until the next parade kicks off on June 17, 2021, stay up to date with the striking floats planned for the next event on Instagram and YouTube.” Also “Stunning Photos From The Bosch Parade, The Sailing Parade In The Spirit Of Jheronimus Bosch” Welp. Didn’t happen this year in June. It was rescheduled for June 16-19, 2022, so, you know … Check out Instagram, YouTube, and their website for more, and to follow along.
• “Alan Moore and Glycon by SerhiyKrykun.”

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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An irregular hodgepodge of links gathered together … Omnium Gatherum for February 17, 2021

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

• Tweet—”I’m so thrilled to announce that I have just released a jewelry collaboration with @MetaphystWolf! We’ve designed a special talismanic unicursal hexagram necklace together. If you want an unique thelemic piece, pick yours up here: https://winterwolfjewelry.com/unicursal.”
• Bring It Home: Bringing a Hawke’s Bay occult legend back to life. Toitoi marketing manager Rosie Dawson-Hewes’ charming Arts and Crafts​ home in sunny Havelock North has a strange history. Before being moved down the hill in the 80s, their 1910-built home was connected to the category 1 listed building Whare Ra. It was used by Whare Ra’s owner, Dr Robert Felkin, the then head of the Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn, an international occult group that once included Aleister Crowley among its adherents, as a surgery. Now she and her teacher husband Phil Dawson-Hewes are returning the home to its original glory, starting with the petrol blue living room.” “Felkin was really into the teachings of Rudolf Steiner, so all the upstairs bedrooms were used for colour therapy. When we bought it, it had all been painted white for sale, so that’s one reason why we’ve gone for such bold colours, because we felt like that is true to the history of the building.”
• Comments about Three Books of Occult Philosophy [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, translated with commentary by Eric Purdue, due November 2021, on this edition, via Facebook: “I thought I’d make a public post about why a new translation of Agrippa’s ‘Three Books of Occult Philosophy’ is necessary, since I’ve seen a few comments asking what is wrong with Tyson’s version. This is a natural question. Tyson’s edition of ‘Three Books’ has become sort of a mainstay in occult circles. It’s a good edition and I still flip through it even though I translated a newer version. There are several issues though: 1. Tyson did NOT translate ‘Three Books’. There are a lot of misonceptions about this. He transcribed the 1650 JF translation, modernized the spellings, changed the grammar, annotated it, and made corrections as he saw them. Sometimes these corrections were good. Sometimes they weren’t, precisely because he was not going by the Latin. Sometimes Agrippa was blamed for errors JF made. 2. JF mistranslated a lot of astrological material. Tyson did not notice these mistranslations. To be fair, this was edited in the early 90s, so much of what we know about the astrology of Agrippa’s time wasn’t known then, or at least easily available. It seems like he mostly consulted Ptolemy, which only helped somewhat. JF also mistranslated a lot of herb and stone names. Sometimes Tyson caught this, usually not. Sometimes Tyson annotated these with the wrong information because of the faulty translation. 3. Some of the graphics/sigils are flipped. 4. Tyson’s annotations often show secondary and tertiary sources. This is fine for an informational perspective, but my preference was to cite books Agrippa actually had access to. 5. Tyson didn’t know that the bulk of ‘Three Books’ is actually word-for-word transcriptions from other books. Agrippa created the narrative, but he essentially was copy and pasting from other books. I identified these books in the text. So now you too can have Agrippa’s library! Also it’s important to remember that everyone is working from the same 17th century translation. Maybe it’s time for a new look?”
• “How to Escape the Confines of Time and Space According to the CIA. In the 80s, the spy agency investigated the ‘Gateway Experience’ technique to alter consciousness and ultimately escape spacetime. Here is everything you need to know.”
• Podcast episode “Enoch, Hermes & Hermetic Philosophy.”—”We explore Hermetic Philosophy and how it bestowed early humanity with a unified science-religion. It begins with understanding the ancient Egyptian “Sophia of the Ages.” Then it’s a journey with this primordial Gnosis first nurtured by the figures of Enoch and Hermes, smuggled across time by the classical Gnostics and other alchemists, and injected into modernity by luminaries like Giordano Bruno, John Dee, William Blake, and others.” About The Lost Pillars of Enoch: When Science and Religion Were One [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Tobias Churton—”Showing how the lost pillars stand as a twenty-first century symbol for reattaining our heritage, Churton ultimately reveals how the esoteric strands of all religions unite in a gnosis that could offer a basis for reuniting religion and science.”
• Originally from 1994, but I think recently re-issued, or maybe that was 2015, idek: From India to the Planet Mars: A Case of Multiple Personality with Imaginary Languages [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Theodore Flournoy (in 1900), edited by Sonu Shamdasani, preface by C. G. Jung, afterword by Mireille Cifali—”A classic in the field of psychology, From India to Planet Mars (1900) depicts the remarkable multiple existence of the medium Hélène Smith, who claimed to be the reincarnation of Marie Antoinette, of a Hindu princess from fifteenth-century India, and of a regular visitor to Mars, whose landscapes she painted and whose language she appeared to speak fluently. Through a psychological interpretation of these fantasies, which consisted in the subliminal elaboration of forgotten memories, Théodore Flournoy vastly extended the scope and understanding of the unconscious, and in particular, of its creative and mythopoetic capacities. In the introduction to this work, Soriu Shamdasani evokes the rich cultural and intellectual setting which Flournoy published his findings, and discusses their impact on Freud, Jung, and other pioneers psychology. Originally published in 1994.”
• Lights, Camera, Witchcraft: A Critical History of Witches in American Film and Television [Bookshop, Amazon] by Heather Greene, due October, 2021—””No industry has been as influential at shaping the popular notion of what it means to be a witch quite as much as Hollywood. This book traces the fascinating history of witchcraft and witches in American film and television. From Joan the Woman and The Wizard of Oz to Carrie and Charmed, author and film scholar Heather Greene explores how these films helped influence the public image of the witch and profoundly influenced how women negotiate their power in a patriarchal society. Lights, Camera, Witchcraft uncovers fascinating insights into the intersection of entertainment, critical theory, gender studies, and spirituality.”
• “Vicious Highsmith. A review of Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires, by Richard Bradford.” About Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires: The Life of Patricia Highsmith [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Richard Bradford—”‘My New Year’s Eve Toast: to all the devils, lusts, passions, greeds, envies, loves, hates, strange desires, enemies ghostly and real, the army of memories, with which I do battle – may they never give me peace’ PATRICIA HIGHSMITH (New Year’s Eve, 1947)”
• “How a secret European language ‘made a rabbit’ and survived.” By Martin Puchner, author of The Language of Thieves: My Family’s Obsession with a Secret Code the Nazis Tried to Eliminate [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher]—”As a boy, Martin Puchner learned this secret language from his father and uncle. Only as an adult did he discover, through a poisonous 1930s tract on Jewish names buried in the archives of Harvard’s Widener Library, that his own grandfather had been a committed Nazi who despised this ‘language of thieves.’ Interweaving family memoir with an adventurous foray into the mysteries of language, Puchner crafts an entirely original narrative. In a language born of migration and survival, he discovers a witty and resourceful spirit of tolerance that remains essential in our volatile present.”
• Tasting the Pickle: Ten flavours of meta-crisis and the appetite for a new civilisation.” Adapted from Dispatches from a Time Between Worlds: Crisis and Emergence in Metamodernity [Publisher] edited by Jonathan Rowson and Layman Pascal, due Spring 2021.
• “How to be a genius. I travelled the world and trawled the archive to unearth the hidden lessons from history’s most brilliant people.” By Craig Wright, author of The Hidden Habits of Genius: Beyond Talent, IQ, and Grit – Unlocking the Secrets of Greatness [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher]—”He argues that genius is about more than intellect and work ethic–it is far more complex–and that the famed “eureka” moment is a Hollywood fiction. Brilliant insights that change the world are never sudden, but rather, they are the result of unique modes of thinking and lengthy gestation. Most importantly, the habits of mind that produce great thinking and discovery can be actively learned and cultivated, and Wright shows us how. This book won’t make you a genius. But embracing the hidden habits of these transformative individuals will make you more strategic, creative, and successful, and, ultimately, happier.”
• “Miraculous Mozart.” About Mozart: The Reign of Love [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Jan Swafford—”From the acclaimed composer and biographer Jan Swafford comes the definitive biography of one of the most lauded musical geniuses in history, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.”
• “‘Dostoevsky in Love’ Review: Possessed by Words. Sentenced and reprieved, exiled and returned, Fyodor Dostoevsky made human suffering the center of his work.” About Dostoevsky in Love: An Intimate Life [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Alex Christofi—”Reading between the lines of his fiction, Christofi reconstructs the memoir Dostoevsky might have written had life – and literary stardom – not intervened. He gives us a new portrait of the artist as never before seen: a shy but devoted lover, an empathetic friend of the people, a loyal brother and friend, and a writer able to penetrate to the very depths of the human soul.”
• Speculative Los Angeles [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] edited by Denise Hamilton—”The debut title in a new city-based anthology series featuring all-new stories with speculative, sci-fi, and paranormal themes–each using distinct neighborhood settings as a launching pad.”
• “If Classics Doesn’t Change, Let It Burn. The field as is doesn’t deserve to persist. But scholars are hard at work improving it.”
• “Why Computers Will Never Write Good Novels. The power of narrative flows only from the human brain.”
• “5,000-year-old “industrial-scale” brewery unearthed in Egypt.”
• “Where Did the Dinosaur-Killing Impactor Come From? A new study blames a comet fragment for the death of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. But most experts maintain that an asteroid caused this cataclysmic event.” Also “Astronomers: A comet fragment, not an asteroid, killed off the dinosaurs. Jupiter’s gravity pushed comet toward Sun; comet was ripped apart by tidal forces.”
• “America’s Brutal Racial History Is Written All Over Our Genes. Our country has struggled to reckon with the horrors of the past. Could DNA tests help?”
• “Accusations of Sexual Harassment Rock Greek Arts World. Dozens of actors have accused some of the nation’s best-known performers and directors of sexual harassment and abuse, leading to several high-profile dismissals and resignations.”
• “The FBI Wants You To Make These Photos Of Capitol Insurrectionists Go Viral. Inside the bureau’s evolving strategy to get photos of the Trump supporters who invaded the U.S. Capitol on your social media feed.”
• “Will the Federal Government Finally Embrace the Psychedelic Revolution? From approving religious exemptions to budgeting for medical research, advocates are hopeful that Biden and a Democratic Congress could mean progress for psilocybin and other therapeutic psychedelics.”
• Watch “170 Manatees and Some Jumping Dolphins in St Petersburg, FL.”
• “Point of No Return. Alex Kitnick on the discontent with museums.”
• “Nation’s first human-composting funeral home is now open in the state of Washington. In California, where the massive number of COVID-19 deaths has inundated funeral homes, one legislator hopes the Golden State becomes the next place to legalize the process of converting bodies into soil.”
• “Neanderthals used stone tool tech once considered exclusive to Homo sapiens. A child’s molar from an Israeli cave links Neanderthals to the cave’s stone tools.”
• “Can a Fine Whiskey Age Overnight? That’s the claim being made by several companies that are using technology to speed their spirits to the liquor-store shelf.”—”Whiskey, in other words, is ready to be hacked — at least according to Stuart Aaron and Martin Janousek. Their company, Bespoken Spirits, in Menlo Park, Calif., says it can make whiskey in just a few days, using heat and pressure to force alcohol in and out of small pieces of wood that give the spirit its characteristic flavor and color. ‘With modern material science and data analytics, we can change this antiquated industry,’ Mr. Aaron said.”
• “Planet Nine Might Be a Giant Illusion, Scientists Say, And Here’s Why.”—”A hypothetical mystery planet thought to be responsible for strange orbits in the outer Solar System just got dealt one of its biggest blows yet. According to a comprehensive analysis of extremely distant objects, led by physicist Kevin Napier of the University of Michigan, Planet Nine may not exist – because the evidence for its existence doesn’t exist. Rather, what astronomers took to be the influence of a planet’s gravity is instead selection bias in the observations.”
• Uh oh. “Antarctic researchers discover mysterious creatures deep beneath ice shelf. ‘How did they get there?'”—”Drilling through half-a-mile-thick ice and peering beneath Antarctica’s Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, researchers have accidentally stumbled upon strange creatures lurking on a rock beneath the icy continent. Using a GoPro, a team of polar scientists with the British Antarctic Survey examined a boulder at a depth of over 4,000 feet and found it was alive with alien stalks.” “‘Our discovery raises so many more questions than it answers, such as how did they get there? What are they eating? How long have they been there?’ asks Griffiths.” Yikes. I’ve seen this movie. It doesn’t end well for the humans.
• “This Ammonite Was Fossilized Outside Its Shell.”
• “Here’s How a 635 Million-Year-Old Microfossil May Have Helped Thaw ‘Snowball Earth’.”
• “Do quantum effects play a role in consciousness?”
• “Teen Interning at NASA Discovered a New Planet Which Orbits Two Stars.”
• I propose a buddy movie with the girl that found “Excalibur”! “Four-year-old girl discovers 220 million-year-old dinosaur footprint at a beach in Wales.”
• From the Crowley’s Curry dept: “What Eating Hot Chillies Does to Your Body. How a plant that hurts so good became the heart and soul of Mexican culture.”
• A new haint for your haunt: “Meet YInMn, the First New Blue Pigment in Two Centuries. The vibrant pigment, created accidentally in 2009 by chemists at Oregon State University, is now commercially available.”
• “Biblical ‘royal purple’ found at Timna offers look at King David wardrobe.”
• “We may have found the most powerful particle accelerator in the galaxy. And it’s quite a surprising source.”
• From the Javacrucian dept: “Regular caffeine consumption affects brain structure.” Also “Tomar un café bien cargado media hora antes de hacer ejercicio aumenta la quema de grasa, según un estudio” (Drinking a strong coffee half an hour before exercising increases fat burning, according to a study)
• “Video game play is positively correlated with well-being“—”People have never played more video games and many stakeholders are worried that this activity might be bad for players. So far, research has not had adequate data to test whether these worries are justified and if policymakers should act to regulate video game play time. We attempt to provide much-needed evidence with adequate data. Whereas previous research had to rely on self-reported play behaviour, we collaborated with two games companies, Electronic Arts and Nintendo of America, to obtain players’ actual play behaviour. We surveyed players of Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville and Animal Crossing: New Horizons for their well-being, motivations, and need satisfaction during play and merged their responses with telemetry data (i.e., logged game play). Contrary to many fears that excessive play time will lead to addiction and poor mental health, we found a small positive relation between game play and affective well-being. Need satisfaction and motivations during play did not interact with play time but were instead independently related to well-being. Our results advance the field in two important ways. First, we show that collaborations with industry partners can be done to high academic standards in an ethical and transparent fashion. Second, we deliver much-needed evidence to policymakers on the link between play and mental health.”
• “Finding Ourselves Within Ourselves: How Pandemic Hobbies Have Become A Lifestyle.”
• “What Really Caused the Supply Chain Mess Over PPE Last Year. Automation and complex distribution software created a nightmare scenario we’re still unpacking.”—”The mask is the perfect prism with which to understand the world in 2021 … Politically, economically, culturally … it explains so much of the dysfunction in the world, especially if you start with just the basic supply chain side of it. It’s insane. It’s really insane.”
• “Inside the Lincoln Project’s ‘toxic’ workplace. Interviews with nearly two dozen people with knowledge of the group’s workings reveal a culture of infighting, sexist language and disparate treatment.”
• “What Comes Next For QAnon Followers.”
• “Democracy Is Weakening Right in Front of Us. Is technopessimism our new future?”—”It’s a mistake to conceive of technology as an external force with a known definitive effect on social relations.”
• “Anarchism: An Everyday Philosophy. ‘If we switch our mental focus and ground our conception of anarchism in the here and now, then what would our anarchism look like?'”
• How’s that deregulated, privatized and dis-interconnected grid (to avoid federal regulation) working out for you? “Texas’ power grid crumples under the cold. Competition for natural gas and frozen wind turbines are only some of the problems.” Also “Texas knew for years power grid was at risk but did little about it. Unbelievable.” Also tweet thread—”A short thread of Texas Republicans sharing their thoughts on rolling blackouts elsewhere.” Also tweet—”1. 88% of Texas electricity is supplied by natural gas and coal power plants. 2. The electrical grid was deregulated, privatized, and removed from interconnected networks to avoid federal regulation and line the rich’s pockets. Simply put, Republicans fuck everything up.”
• “Understanding UBI with LEGO Bricks.”—”After watching this video, you’ll better understand how the concept of universal basic income works, how affordable it actually is to implement, how it removes the employment disincentives created by any conditional welfare it replaces, and how the rich can actually receive fewer subsidies from the government than they do now, despite also getting UBI just like everyone else.” Be like Golden Dawn Auntie Maude Gonne. Support UBI.
• “Judicial review hearing into Stonehenge road project ordered. Campaigners have secured a hearing in their judicial review challenge about the decision to allow a new A303 dual carriageway and tunnel that would cause significant harm to the Stonehenge World Heritage Site (WHS).”
• “The Sinner Season 3 Ending Explained. The Sinner season 3 concludes with an unexpected lesson thanks to Matt Bomer’s Jamie experiencing something real, rather than half-baked Nietszche-ian philosophy.”—”From Aleister Crowley to Frederick Nietzsche, Jamie and Nick are enraptured by intellectual theories that assure that God is dead, and the only meaning in the world is what you make of it.”
• “The Cosmic Journey of Kacey Musgraves. The queen of ‘galactic country’ is following up a career-defining album (and a divorce) with a little help from Bach, Greek tragedy, and magic mushrooms.”
• “The Hannibal Lecterverse Is Obsessed With the Human Mind—and How to Crack It Open. The films and TV shows based on Thomas Harris’s books may seem to center around serial killers, but really they’re an exploration into the mind. And the series’ directors each have their own ways of showcasing it.”
• “Love Under These Conditions.”—”I am, as I’ve made clear, a romantic in this sense, and I want to love, which is the best way to fall in love. Perhaps I will be very happy. Or perhaps I won’t. Who knows what counts as love under these conditions?”
• “Diamonds Aren’t Special and Neither Is Your Love. We’ve coupled love to marriage and marriage to gems, and all three thrive on the assumption of rarity. What would it mean for love to be common?”
• “I Put a Penis Fish in My Mouth and You Should Too. The flavor is mild, but it’s the experience of trying something you’d expect to find disgusting that’s so liberating.”
• “The Art of the Cover Letter.”—”I’ll say this: what I have done to language in the service of cover letters haunts me.”
• “HBO’s horror show 30 Coins explores evil with the style of an RPG. The latest from a Spanish horror master re-imagines both horror and religion.”
• “Review: ‘Beforeigners’ brings the heathen past to the present.”
• “The funny stories of Black Sabbath dealing with witches.”
• Tweet—”There she goes – Trump Plaza casino imploded in Atlantic City.” Also tweet—”May this be just the beginning.”
• Watch “Artist’s animation of the TOI-178 orbits and resonances (sound on!)“—”In this artist’s animation, the rhythmic movement of the planets around the central star is represented through a musical harmony, created by attributing a note (in the pentatonic scale) to each of the planets in the resonance chain. This note plays when a planet completes either one full orbit or one half orbit; when planets align at these points in their orbits, they ring in resonance.”
• Instagram—”Oh wow, my tiny apartment was actually an INFINITY SPACESHIP this whole time.”
• Meanwhile, at The Onion, “reporting” from Vancouver, WA (the ‘Couv, aka “Vantucky”): “Something About The Way Society Was Exposed As Complete Illusion Over Past Year Really Getting Man Down Today.”
• Released today, watch ANDREW W.K.’s “Babalon“, official video.

This post was possible because of support from generous ongoing Patrons and Members of the newsletter. Both Patrons and Members get access to Omnium Gatherum immediately and directly via web and email. On the blog, this will be exclusive to Patrons for one year, after which I’ll make it publicly available to everyone so they can see what they’ve been missing.