June 15, 2023
"I have a very strong pinky finger..."
How a dose of MDMA transformed a white supremacist
Brendan was once a leader in the US white nationalist movement. But when he took the drug MDMA in a scientific study, it would radically change his extremist beliefs – to the surprise of everyone involved.
Suffering from Success
The Instant Pot Failed Because It Was a Good Product
The Instant Pot is, by all indications, a perfectly good machine—maybe even a great one. The IP, as the device is known to its many devotees, is a kitchen gadget in the most straightforward sense of the term: It’s a classic labor-saver, promising to turn ingredients into family meals while you clean up, tend to your kids, and do all of the other things you could be doing instead of keeping an eye on the stove. Once you get the hang of the electric pressure cooker, it seems to basically deliver on that promise, chugging along gamely through years’ worth of weeknight dinners of pork green chili or chicken tikka masala. Since its debut in 2010, the Instant Pot has sold millions of machines and spent years as a must-have kitchen sensation.
Sure enough, in 2019, when the private-equity firm Cornell Capital bought the gadget’s maker, Instant Brands, and merged it with another kitchenware maker, the combined company was reportedly valued at more than $2 billion. A few years and one pandemic later, the company filed for bankruptcy on Monday, weighed down by more than $500 million in debt after years of supply-chain chaos and limited success expanding the Instant brand into other categories of household gadgetry. Perhaps counterintuitively, that the Instant Pot remains a useful, widely appreciated gadget is not unrelated to the faltering of its parent company. In fact, it’s central to understanding exactly what went wrong.[more inside]
Watch a blue jay with an acorn. See that they take the caps off.
The Slow Birding project, on the pleasures of and lessons learned from carefully observing common birds, was launched 13 years ago by animal behavior biologist Joan E. Strassmann. Now it's a book. An author interview: "the reason I wrote a whole book is that I wanted to tell the stories of the commonest birds, because the commonest birds are also the most-studied, and ornithologists have figured out some pretty amazing stories about them. So I also wanted to tell the stories of both the scientists and the common birds." On blue jays: "It may well be that these brilliant colored birds are the only ones I recognize in my early morning daze." [more inside]
What if I die and the last thing I hear before I go is Don Henley?
Musician Gurf Morlix tells an amazing story about the time he had a heart attack right before a gig in Florida. (SLYT)
e-zee stuff
Euler's Number is Irrational (SLYT). A musical proof. "Euler's number is irrational.
Euler proved it so there is no debate!
Euler's number is irrational
And it's about two point seven one eight."
The Moral Crisis of America's Doctors
Military psychiatrists label "moral injury" the soldiers' emotional wounds, when they commit acts- such as raiding a home or killing non-combatants, that transgress their core values. Doctors on the front lines of America’s profit-driven health care system were also susceptible to such wounds, as the demands of administrators, hospital executives and insurers forced them to stray from the ethical principles that were supposed to govern their profession.
The Façade, Not the Perversions
Ann Rule had spent most of her career warning other women about the “monstrous self behind the pleasant face.” But even she could not escape this final betrayal. As naïve—about the police, about psychology, about the larger forces that shape crime and criminal justice—as Rule’s books can seem now, after decades of social change, she got that one thing right: We’re the most vulnerable where we most trust. from How the Queen of True Crime Transformed Murder Stories Forever
200+ things that Fox News has labeled “woke”
200+ things that Fox News has labeled “woke.” “Fox personalities struggle to define ‘woke’ because they have attributed the term to nearly everything under the sun, stripping it of any meaningful definition and surrendering it to right-wing dog whistles...Here is a list of over 200 things Fox News personalities, guests, and writers have called ‘woke.’” [more inside]
Indian Child Welfare Act Upheld
Supreme Court delivers win for Native American tribes in adoption case (NBC News, CNN, NPR, WaPo). [more inside]
“Who the hell’s interrupting my Kung Fu?!”
The Black action star pantheon [Polygon] Action movies have a long and storied history with Black stars and Black audiences, and the genre wouldn’t be what it is today without that history. To build the pantheon of Black action stars, Polygon gathered a group of film critics, academics, authors, and experts to weigh in. Our esteemed panel includes Frankie “Balboa” Diaz, action film critic; Matthew Essary, freelance film critic; Christian Valentin, film reviewer; Lee B. Golden III, Film Combat Syndicate founder and editor; and Josiah Howard, author of Blaxploitation Cinema: The Essential Reference Guide.
Each of them submitted a list of their 10 favorite Black action stars of all time, with thoughts on their favorites. What follows is the culminating list, with actors in descending order of how often they showed up on those individual lists, a few recommendations on the movies to show off their action bona fides, and the runners-up of Black action stars who were nominated and recognized by our committee.
I always thought "I've arrived" every step of the way.
Happy Pride Month! It's been a while since Brandi Carlile released her album In These Silent Days [YT playlist], but that doesn't mean she hasn't been busy. Just recently, Brandi help usher Joni Mitchell back before a paying audience for the first time in over 20 years [Seattle Times]. Spin has an article with video links. She also brought Tanya Tucker out of retirement, and made a documentary about it [1m30s trailer]. Here's Tanya and Brandi on Today talking about the film. [12m43s] [more inside]
"Hand on heart...
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