Category: Links and Notes

Regular(ish) posting of things which have caught my attention.

Links and Notes for the Week of July 15, 2018

John Winkelman

Between work, vacation, and illness, and recovering from all three, I have missed a few weeks. I have also missed you-all! Welcome back.

* This is a great list of over 100 Russian writers, past and present, who are worthy of consideration.
* An excellent MetaFilter post from user Kliuless, offering a huge list of links concerning the concept of authority, narratives, cultural inertia who we allow to write the stories in which we live.
* Resisters of the Rust Belt
* Speaking of Metafilter, here is their latest post concerning the increasingly despotic and idiotic tenure of the fascist bootlick Donald Trump. Many worthy links and news sources in the comments.
* As a balm for living in this timeline, I’ve been listening to a lot of Ta-Nehisi Coates lectures and interviews lately. Here are a few of my favorites:
** The Necessity of Tomorrow(s) – Ta-Nehisi Coates on Afrofutures
** Futureface: Alex Wagner and Ta-Nehisi Coates discuss racial identity
** Ta-Nehisi Coates speaks at the Harvard “Universities and Slavery” conference
** Richard Rothstein, “The Color Of Law” (with Ta-Nehisi Coates)
** In Conversation With Ta-Nehisi Coates

Links and Notes for the Week of June 10, 2018

John Winkelman

* The Calvert Journal is publishing Beyond the Game, a series of video vignettes exploring each of the cities in Russia which will be hosting the football during the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
* TOR.com has posted nice big long lists of the major genre releases for June 2018:
** All the new Fantasy Books Coming Out in June 2018.
** All the new Science Fiction Books Coming Out in June 2018.
** All the new Genre-Bending Books Coming Out in June 2018.
* Metafilter has posted the latest catch-all thread for links and commentary concerning the presidency and administration of Donald Trump, whose daddy issues exceed even those of George W. Bush, which is an astounding accomplishment. Baby Hands and Daddy Issues would be the title of the most accurate possible biography of our current and perpetually emasculated president.

Links and Notes for the Week of June 3, 2018

John Winkelman

* A worthy list from BookRiot: 50 Must-Read Books with Gorgeous Writing. From this list I have read The Ocean at the End of the Lane, One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Kite Runner, and White Oleander. Looks like my Mount Tsundoku will be growing soon.
* The Midwest Socialist has published an excellent 5-part (so far) primer on the basics of radical thought and history.
** Part 1 – Dialectical Materialism
** Part 2 – Alienation
** Part 3 – Class
** Part 4 – Value
** Part 5 – Praxis
* Goddammit so much. Anthony Bourdain has left the kitchen. Here is a good round-up of the best writing about Bourdain to be found on the web.

Links and Notes for the Week of May 20, 2018

John Winkelman

* Happy 21st Century, from Charles Stross.
* The files of the SCP Foundation should be good for writing prompts and nightmares.
* The one Trump scandal which encompasses all the rest.
* Emasculated president Donald Trump, who is terrified of everyone who is not white and rich, believes all Mexicans are part of MS-13. When this was pointed out, he called it “fake news,” which is actually verification of the charge, since literally every time Trump squeals “fake news,” is it because something true was printed and he didn’t like it.
* Metafilter has posted a new catch-all politics thread. Many good links and comments therein.
* If you have a few minutes and you like simple adventure-type games, give Dicey Dungeons a try.

Links and Notes for the Week of May 13, 2018

John Winkelman

* The Rage of the Incels – https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-rage-of-the-incels?mbid=social_facebook

* The Persistence of Anti-Muslim Hate on Facebook – https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/05/05/persistence-anti-muslim-hate-facebook

* Longreads is publishing a series called Bundyville, which tells the story of the neo-Nazi Bundy clan and their treasonous attempts to steal federal land for their own profit. As of this post, four of the seven parts have been posted.

* The WFMT Archive of Studs Terkel Interviews

Links and Notes for the Week of May 6, 2018

John Winkelman

* Some words: incubate, incubus, cubiculum, cubicle, purgatory

* A small selection of Afrofuturism books to get started in the genre.

* Kim Stanley Robinson: Science Fiction is the Realism of Our Time

* Donald Trump as attention-seeking virus

* Metafilter has posted a new catch-all thread following the current hell-state of American politics. Much information to be had from links and comments therein.

* How So-Called “Right to Work” Laws Aim to Silence Working People

Links and Notes for the Week of April 29, 2018

John Winkelman

* Some words: phenotype, phenomenon, noumenon, nootropic, phenotropic

* This week’s Politician Cut from the Same Cloth as Emasculated President Donald Trump: Viktor Orbán of Hungary. What is happening in Hungary now is the same thing that Trump and his water carriers and lickspittles are trying to make happen here in the United States. Viktor Orbán Versus the Enlightenment. Look to Hungary if you want to know what you’re fighting against. The man who thinks Europe has been invaded.

* In honor of the 200th birthday of Karl Marx, here are some interesting links:
** Capital (PDF)
** Marxist Internet Archive Library
** Happy Birthday, Karl Marx! You Were Right!
** Crises of Capitalism
** The Seventeen Contradictions of Capitalism

Links and Notes for the Week of April 22, 2018

John Winkelman

* How Shareholder Primacy Hurts Jobs and Wages – Shareholders who are not also stakeholders are parasites, by and large.

* Incel, the misogynist ideology that inspired the deadly Toronto attack, explained – Now that they have Emasculated President Trump as a role model, the incels (of which Men’s Rights Activists, GamerGaters and Three Percenters are notable subsets) are able to overcome some of their cowardice and unleash their daddy issues upon the rest of the world. Just like Trump.

* I Joined the Tea Party to Drain the Swamp. Trump Isn’t Helping. – To the surprise of literally nobody with more than two working brain cells, Trump is like King Midas, except everything he touches turns to shit. See also: the entirety of the Alt-right, of which the Tea Party (and by extension, the KKK) is a subset.

Links and Notes for the Week of April 15, 2018

John Winkelman

* The 2018 Pulitzer Prize Winners – Congratulations to everyone on the list.

* Apropos of something or other, What is a Kakistocracy?

* 100 Years of Tax Brackets – Note that there is a direct correlation between rich people dodging taxes and the rise of fascism in any given country. See, for instance, United States of America, particularly during the Trump presidency.

* The Fall of the “Alt-right” Came From Anti-fascism – The alt-right is synonymous with the mainstream right in the United States. Thus Antifa is de facto the most patriotic way to be an American.

* Investigating Pathways to the Alt-Right – or, how racist trash becomes racist trash.

Links and Notes for the Week of April 8, 2018

John Winkelman

* White People Anonymous

* How nostalgia for white Christian America drove so many Americans to vote for Trump

* The Demise of the Nation State

* Mud season in Russia: Putin, Rasputin

* Two lists from Tor.com – All the New Fantasy Books Coming Out in April. All the New Science Fiction Books Coming Out in April.

* “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” – from this comment (#26, by Frank Wilhoit) on a post over at Crooked Timber.

* An excerpt from William T. Vollmann’s new book No Immediate Danger.