October 4, 2020
Vanessa has never complained about your own oddities
Eight scifi/fantasy stories about people in tough situations trying to help each other, including three by Susan Palwick (previously). [more inside]
Down the Drain
According to Thames Water, dual-flush toilets specially designed to save water are wasting more than they conserve, thanks to leaking. [more inside]
all born of the same wounds.
'We’re used to thinking about mass incarceration or climate change or public health or reproductive rights or immigration as singular issues. That’s why, for example, when the pandemic kicked off in the United States in earnest, there was a pernicious drop in climate coverage. As I and others pitched stories about the climate crisis, we were told, again and again, that “it wasn’t the time.” And now we’re out of time.' A powerful essay by Mary Annaise Heglar about climate grief, "climate vision" and the way crises cascade and injustices interlink.
"That’s actually my favorite part of making images, doing the coloring."
Sara Varon has written many excellent graphic novels and picture books for kids but she doesn't draw people, except herself. She does draw a squid who would like to be president, a cupcake who is friends with an eggplant (and loves to bake), and (coming soon) a dog detective. [more inside]
Essential biscuits
"Like many other Indians, Malik had less than four hours to make transformative decisions, ones that would have ramifications for himself, his family, his colleagues, and his employer, all without a road map. Yet his were more impactful than most: The product he makes is among the most universally consumed in India." Alia Allana wrote about Parle- G biscuits and the varied Indian experiences of the COVID-19 lockdown in June 2020 for the Atlantic. [more inside]
The Insufferable Hubris of the Well-Credentialed
A four-year university degree has become necessary for dignified work. Michael Sandel says that’s a huge mistake. "The meritocratic hubris of elites is the conviction by those who land on top that their success is their own doing, that they have risen through a fair competition, that they therefore deserve the material benefits that the market showers upon their talents. Meritocratic hubris is the tendency of the successful to inhale too deeply of their success, to forget the luck and good fortune that helped them on their way. It goes along with the tendency to look down on those less fortunate, and less credentialed, than themselves."
Another Dark Side of the Moon
Martin Miller Session Band perform live in studio a cover of The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd.
There’s No Stronger Way to Meet the Unknown
Working with dogs in the wilderness means negotiating countless shifting variables: snow and wind, wild animals, open water, broken equipment, each dog’s needs and changing mood. I learned that plans, when I made them, were nothing but a sketch; the only thing I needed to count on was that the dogs and I would make decisions along the way. What My Sled Dogs Taught Me About Planning for the Unknown By Blair Braverman [From the NYT's series on resilience, via Farnam Street.]
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