Old-school blog maestro Jason Kottke occasionally posts a list of what he calls his recent media diet. Just, here’s what he’s been interested in, and he hopes you might be too. He usually chooses pretty interesting stuff, which is sometimes intimidating. A lot of what I’ve been consuming recently is deliberately not that interesting.
But after a long day of global insanity it’s terribly nice to shut out the outside world. The Guardian says that “comfort TV” is a legitimate trend, and I am completely unsurprised.
Anyway, I’ve been reading a sweeping space opera series called The Expanse. It’s been bumbling around in my awareness for ages and is now more widely known because of a somewhat-popular TV adaptation from Syfy and (ugh) Amazon.
I’m obsessed. Right now I’m waiting for two more volumes of the series to arrive at my library. But it’s not a media food I can recommend unreservedly, in the way I recommend Becky Chambers to everyone even if they don’t like sci-fi. For one thing, the first book is heavily macho, featuring a hard-boiled detective dude, a washed-up military dude with lofty ideals, and a young woman in peril. Second, it’s enormous: eight volumes so far, each thick enough to stun an ox. By the time the novels begin to interrogate and mock the macho tropes laid out in the first volume, you’re already seven or eight hundred pages in. Key bits of the universe – the actual expanse of the title – don’t even begin to show up until volume four. “Give it two or three thousand pages” is a pretty big ask for most folks skeptical about the premise of intergalactic political intrigue.
On to the linkings.
How We Live Now
Briefings from the Justice Department have included articles from noted white nationalist website VDare
A Falun-Gong affiliated group has been spending heavily on pro-Trump ads on Facebook
Sydney Morning Herald: US in the Midst of a White Nationalist Terrorism Crisis
Dallas police recorded laughing as they killed a man they had arrested
An incoming Harvard freshman was deported on arrival because he’s Facebook friends with someone who has opinions that CBP didn’t like
Someone has felt the need to develop a fashion line designed to confuse automated license plate readers
Cultivating Joy
This very round bird is adorable
This kitten and dog are friends
There were once giant parrots in New Zealand
The “glamorous opossum lady” is living her truth and we should respect that
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Secretly Ironic 