April 6, 2023
Accuweather's look ahead to the 2024 Total Eclipse across North America
Mammoth Meatball
They made a meatball with mammoth DNA. They made a website with mammoth DNA.
Therapeutic Benefits, “Exotic” Amazonian Origins, and Nationalist Cachet
Given that nationalist symbols of Brazil’s so-called racial democracy such as soccer, samba, and Carnival have generated ample scholarly attention, guaraná’s historiographical sidelining is noteworthy. Because guaraná never formed part of the slave-plantation complex, nor featured as a large-scale export commodity, the crop did not generate the trove of documentation of other Brazilian agricultural products, such as coffee and sugar. Unlike cocaine, opium, or marijuana, guaraná was never criminalized, sparing its consumers stigma and arrest, but excluding the drug from the vast documentation of state bureaucracies implicated in the coercive biopolitics of industrial capitalism and the racialized construction of vice in modern societies. And while the ingredient features today in energy drinks worldwide, guaraná soft drinks have not attained the fame of Coca-Cola, whose global brand recognition owes to U. S. political and corporate hegemony. from A Taste of Brazil: How Guaraná Soda Became a National Icon
My city had been pulled down, reduced to parking spaces
Parking Lot Map. This map shows you how much of the downtown land of 50 major US cities is taken up by parking lots . The loser is Arlington, Texas, where 42% of downtown land is taken up by parking. The map comes from the Parking Reform Network, which seems like a balanced part of your recommended daily allowance of urbanist activism.
a lynch mob assembled to not lynch me but our democratic process
Reps. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville), Justin Jones (D-Nashville), and Justin Pearson (D-Memphis), now being called "The Tennessee Three," have faced expulsion from the TN General Assembly since Monday, for breaking decorum rules to join gun violence protestors (gift link) after they were not permitted to speak in the Chamber, on March 30, in the wake of the Covenant School shooting in Nashville on March 27. [more inside]
“No one must know or they’ll kill us and destroy the book.”
The Sarajevo Haggadah has been kept in the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina off and on since the late 19th Century. It is a medieval Hebrew codex, made to be read at the Passover Seder, and is beautifully illuminated, with a focus on the story of Joseph. The Haggadah has inspired plenty of art, including The Sarajevo Haggadah: The Music of the Book, by Bosnian composer and accordionist Merima Ključo, here performed with the CityMusic Cleveland Chamber Orchestra (with a panel discussion afterwards), which itself drew inspiration from Geraldine Brooks novel, The People of the Book. Brooks recounted the history of the Sarajevo Haggadah, and its incredible rescue by Islamic scholar Dervis Korkut during World War Two in a 2007 New Yorker article called The Book of Exodus.
Reverse Obitfilter
An age is passing before our eyes, a time that had never been so media saturated. We've lost a lot of people in the internet age, from Abe Vigoda to Betty White. The Mystery Science Theater 3000 official forums has a thread on old stars who are still around that's worth celebrating, while we can! Still with us are Dick Van Dyke (97), Mel Brooks (96), Bob Newhart (93), Willie Nelson (89), Gene Hackman (93), James Hong (94), Harry Belafonte (96), Sir David Attenborough (96), Roger Corman (97), Norman Lear (100!), Norman Jewison (96), Tony Bennett (96), Jimmy (98) and Rosalyn (95) Carter, John Astin (93; Gomez Adams! Sean's father!), Mamie Van Doren (92, on Twitter though sometimes NSFW), Tony Bennett (96), Hal Linden (92), John Williams (91), then there's Carol Burnett (89), Julie Newmar (also 89), Joan Collins (also also 89), and Willie Mays (91). [more inside]
Flipping the surveillance state
After the Los Angeles Police Department voluntarily turned over 9300 police officers' photos, names, ranks and badge numbers in response to a public records request, it is now suing a reporter and the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition to return these materials, over a concern for undercover officers' privacy. [more inside]
Sleight-of-hand magic trick only fools monkeys with opposable thumbs
members have gone on strike six times: in 1960, 1973, 1981, 1985, 1988
What you need to know about the looming WGA strike. [Polygon] “The WGA’s membership consists of writers spanning across the TV and movie industry. [...] The Writers Guild represents a ton of movie, television, and documentary writers. Most of your favorite shows and movies are written by union writers: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Star Trek: Picard, The Walking Dead, Detective Pikachu, Abbott Elementary, Better Call Saul, and plenty, plenty more — too many to name, really. [...] On April 3, WGA leadership asked its members to take a strike authorization vote. Basically, the union wants to know if its writers are willing to strike if a contract isn’t negotiated by the time the old one lapses. Voting on the authorization will start on April 11 and continue until April 17. Should the writers vote in favor, they’ll go on strike on May 1 if a new agreement isn’t reached. Negotiations have been ongoing with the AMPTP since March 20, and WGA representatives told the Los Angeles Times that the AMPTP hasn’t brought good enough offers to the table just yet.” [WGA 2023 list of broad demands] [Contract bulletins]
Rishi Sunak appears to miss the prison hulks of 1776-1857.
Clarence Thomas And The Billionaire
A ProPublica news piece has just dropped examining the relationship between Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Texas Real Estate Developer Harlan Crow, and the frequent travel-related gifts Crow has showered on Thomas for 20 years - all of which Thomas has failed to disclose. [more inside]
Manifesting The Muse -- Dan Carlin and Rick Rubin On Human Creativity
Rick Rubin joins Dan to discuss human creativity. This unusual show evolves as it goes though and by the end covers a wide array of subjects and topics. By the end it isn't even clear who is asking questions and who is answering them. Carlin pulls a rabbit out of his hat, his work is history yet here is a great show on Creativity, interviewing a man who lives Creativity, Rick Rubin. Aside from his Johnny Cash albums I knew very little about Rubin, who I can now report is an outstanding human being. Rubin, when he is asking questions, is not afraid to put Carlin on the spot. It's really a great interview, both ways.
New York Jewish Conversational Style
New York Jewish Conversational Style (17-page pdf, 1981)
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