Category: Blogosphere

Some interesting items for your consideration:

Why are people poor? (short video) The intelligent and incisive Jamelle Bouie comments on the recent immoral fiasco surrounding SNAP benefits.

Zohran Mamdani Wants Civilians to Replace Cops. Will It Work?

Civilian alternative programs are controversial—a prominent police abolitionist has lauded Mamdani’s plan, while one retired NYPD sergeant called it “probably the worst idea I’ve heard of in a long time.” But most coverage has failed to ask: what do we actually know about what civilian alternative response does? Are they a brilliant intervention, or a disaster waiting to happen?

The author, Charles Fain Lehman, is a fellow at the conservative think tank Manhattan Institute. I recommend his Substack, The Causal Fallacy, where he consistently uses data in a good faith to make his arguments.

Full Days and the Long Walk. Craig Mod continues to walk many kilometers and notes,

The more people with control of their attention, the better our art, music, scientific research, political legislation, and, I believe, the more kindness and empathy in the world. Also, the more prepared you can be to fight. Without understanding and cultivating fullness, you lose sight of the battles worth fighting, and lack the energy to go after them.

And here’s an abrupt transition:

The Goon Squad: Loneliness, porn’s next frontier, and the dream of endless masturbation. A link to this was in Craig Mod’s essay above. Maybe don’t read this at work.

What are these gooners actually doing? Wasting hours each day consuming short-form video content. Chasing intensities of sensation across platforms. Parasocially fixating on microcelebrities who want their money. Broadcasting their love for those microcelebrities in public forums. Conducting bizarre self-experiments because someone on the internet told them to. In general, abjuring connective, other-directed pleasures for the comfort of staring at screens alone. Does any of this sound familiar?

The Map on the Wall. This essay now seems quaint given the drastic changes in the Department of Defense, but highlights the influence we each have as individuals.

But I can’t control what goes on “out there.” All I can do is try to foster a culture within my hangar — within our squadron — where we address things like race, gender, sexuality, and religious difference in a mature way that reinforces some very basic truths: we’re better because we’re different. We’re stronger because we come from everywhere. And, we’re much more dangerous to any potential adversary because we don’t all approach difficult problems the same way.

I Am a Drug Historian. Trump Is Wrong About Fentanyl in Almost Every Way. (gift link) The author gives a succinct summary of the history of drugs in America, then highlights why the federal government’s current approach (i.e., tariffs, threats of war, and extrajudicial murders) is wrong. He notes more effective strategies:

These successful policies all do one thing: They make drugs boring again. Drugs are not magic, they are not demonic, they are not fundamentally different from all the other problems society faces. They are highly desirable and highly dangerous consumer goods. They are not unique in that regard.

How to Be a Good Neighbor. This is from J Wortham’s Substack, where the writing is more casual and spiritual, though is just as thoughtful and genuine as their essays in the New York Times.

Good neighboring feels like an active term, and clearer to me than the vagaries of community, a noun that gets tossed around with such abandon that it has become semantically satiated and bleached of all intention and meaning. Good neighboring feels like tapping into the actual network of people and place that make up a shared ecology.

We Followed the Rules. ICE Jailed Us Anyway. (video, gift link) What ICE is doing across the nation is already horrifying in its own right. As someone who has worked as a psychiatrist in a county jail, I am sorry to say that the conditions of the detention facilities described in the video are far worse than anything I ever encountered. (To be clear, I’m not saying that it’s okay to detain people for no cause as long as they are held in more humane settings.)

Happy Lunar New Year! May the Year of the Rabbit bring you health, wealth, and peace. I send specific wishes of safety and serenity to those who are afflicted by war. Some cultures believe that there is a rabbit in or on the moon. I hope that those who are living through war know that, when they look at the (rabbit on the) moon, there are other people on the planet who are also looking at the moon and pray for them.

What to Do If a Rat Comes Up Your Toilet. This is actual guidance (in cartoon form!) from the Seattle-King County Public Health Department. Some regions have experienced flooding due to the rivers of rain running through the sky. May you never have to deal with this problem, but if you do, now you know how to proceed.

Donations to Cover DNA Testing. This is an actual headline in the Seattle Times: Investigators ask public to fund DNA testing on foot found near Port Angeles. I learned a number of facts here:

• “If a body sinks and decomposes underwater, scavengers begin feasting — often picking at the soft ligaments and connective tissues of human ankles first, causing the feet to become separated.”
• “Changes in sneaker design since 2007 have made shoes more buoyant, as manufacturers began using lighter foam for soles.”
• “Since 2007, nearly two dozen human feet in sneakers have washed up along the coasts of the Salish Sea in the U.S. and Canada.”

It is a travesty of justice that law enforcement agencies need “to crowdfund or seek donations from philanthropists” to help identify a deceased person.

The Enduring, Invisible Power of Blond. The incisive and provocative Tressie McMillan Cottom wrote this piece that ostensibly is about the power of blondness; the key quote is this: “When people have outsize emotional reactions to benign inquiries about their self-evident beliefs, it is often an indicator that status is doing invisible work.” Though there are some loud, public pushes to encourage (or cajole or threaten or berate) people to recognize their prejudices and change their behaviors, meaningful shifts actually result from quiet, internal effort. Recognizing and reflecting on “outside emotional reactions” are opportunities, as some say, “to do the work”.

Recommended: Dr. Bill Gardner’s Substack. I first started reading Dr. Gardner’s writing many years ago on the health services blog, The Incidental Economist. He now shares his thoughtful wisdom on I Have Serious News…. Much of his current writing focuses on his cancer diagnosis. He continues to write with clarity, compassion, and insight. If you seek inspiration about clear communication about health, both on individual and population levels, consider subscribing to his Substack.