May 26, 2023 3 min read

You Should Read - May 26

Just One Thing

“Parents, you are a shepherd, not an engineer.”

This is Dr. Russell Barkley, an expert on ADHD. But what he says here is wisdom for all parents. And, this gets at the crux of the right-wing “parental rights” mania. These fanatics are convinced that they alone should mold their children’s lives. The world doesn’t work like that.

And that’s why they’re afraid. They’re deathly afraid of the influence of an outside world that they don’t understand. An outside world that subtly, but relentlessly, undermines the fantasies, conspiracies, and delusions they’ve been poisoned with by fringe religion, media, and politics.

Their attempts at parental control are futile. So, in their desperation, they pervert laws and sow terror.

Collected Ephemera

Lion's Roar Tina Turner: What’s Love Got to Do With It?
⇛ The late Tina Turner practiced in the Nichiren school of Buddhism for over 50 years.

Video Games Chronicle Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom ‘Was Delayed by Over a Year for Polish’: The game wasn’t released in 2022 because Nintendo wanted ‘to make sure everything was 100 percent to our standards’

Killed By Google A continuously updated directory of 0ver 285 products killed at Google. RIP Reader.

Nature Quantifying the Human Cost of Global Warming

What is the human cost of climate change and who bears it? Existing estimates tend to be expressed in monetary terms, tend to recognize impacts on the rich more than those on the poor (because the rich have more money to lose) and tend to value those living now over those living in the future (because future damages are subject to economic discounting). From an equity standpoint, this is unethical—when life or health are at stake, all people should be considered equal, whether rich or poor, alive or yet to be born.

Collins To Be Creative, Practice

Scientific American Anti-Trans Moral Panics Endanger All Young People: Moral panics aimed against trans people are both attacks on that community and part of a broader strategy to control youth across the US

Business Insider He's Played Chess With Peter Thiel, Sparred With Elon Musk and Once, Supposedly, Stopped a Plane Crash: Inside Sam Altman's world, where truth is stranger than fiction

Heated Why We're Not Calling It "Natural Gas" Anymore: The fossil fuel industry's greenwashing of gas threatens a livable future. We want to ensure our readers won't be fooled.

NPR Survey: Surprising to Some, Veterans Are Less Likely to Support Extremism

Bloomberg Green Banks Spring Up in States, Spurred by $27 Billion Fund

Joe Wrote The WGA Strike & The Leftward Shift of American Television

To my great surprise, the most radical piece of abolitionist art came in the Star Wars spinoff Andor. Though Star Wars has its origin in a critique of American foreign policy, its post-Disney acquisition has dropped all commentary in favor of plots that are light on substance but heavy on merchandising opportunities. In the concluding episodes of Andor, which follows the radicalization of Cassian Andor from common criminal to Rebel operator, Andor is sentenced to hard labor in an Imperial prison, which promises freedom in exchange for obedience and hard work. But when it is discovered that even the best behavior won’t earn the prisoners their liberty, the group understands that their only chance at escape is by fighting the system they once thought was their path to freedom.

Esquire 40 Years on, ‘Return of the Jedi’ Is the Most Surprisingly Revolutionary Star Wars Movie: The most underrated entry into the original trilogy, the third film touched on themes of imperialism that soared over many viewers’ heads

Democratic Socialists of America Freedom Advisory Against Florida Fascism

A society where the vast majority of our lives is spent working for someone else’s profit is not free. A society where a person can only have food, housing, or healthcare if it is profitable for someone else to provide it to them is not free. A society where humans are powerless to fight an ongoing mass extinction and where our movement across land is criminalized is not free.

The Conversation Tiredness of Life: The Growing Phenomenon in Western Society

Vanity Fair The V Files: The Shocking Legacy of an ’80s Sci-Fi Cult Classic: Hollywood backstabbing, conspiracy theories, and the devastating murder of a star behind the TV alien-invasion sensation.

The Onion Conservatives Claim Hitler’s Nazi Allegiance Greatly Exaggerated

The Wabbit Hole