Reading List: The World’s Bats Hear Your Slander, And As Such Will Not Share Their Secrets.
I woke up this morning to no hot water (weeeeee!) so I am apologizing ahead of time to my seatmates on the flights I’m taking today, because a shower is looking increasingly unlikely (yikes). So how about we look at everything loaded on my Kindle for travel?
TO THE LONGREADS!
Anonymous doctor, I’m an intensive care doctor. Covid patients are younger this time (The Guardian) - I know I’m preaching to the choir here when I share pieces on the importance of getting vaccinated. But we all need to be reminded that this whole pandemic war isn’t over, the fronts have just shifted.
Tim Miller, Who’s Actually Responsible for the “Culture War”? (The Bulwark) - Y’all know I’m a Tim Miller stan and I love when he comes out swinging against bad faith conservative pearl clutching, so obvi I’m going to share this meticulous takedown of those who claim it’s all the fault of liberals that we’re talking about identity politics so much.
Ed Zitron, The Burnout Conversation Is A Corporate Tool To Turn Your Suffering Into Marketing (Where’s Your Ed At) - As someone in management, I found a lot of this cut deep, because Ed is freaking right: “Burnout is not a mental health issue, it is an organizational issue that causes mental and physical health issues. It is not something that should be dealt with by giving people apps, or having all-hands about the effects of burnouts, or write corporate handbooks about “dealing with burnout.””
Amy Dockser Marcus, Bat Scientists Warn That the World May Never Know Covid-19 Origins (Wall Street Journal) - I haven’t consumed this yet so excuse me if this point is made, but let’s not read this if we’re already fixated on how scary nature truly is, and let’s definitely not pick up Spillover again to once again understand that science knew this stuff was coming (the subtitle of the book was Animal Infections And The Next Human Pandemic and it came out in 2012!!!)
Cecilia Kang and Sheera Frankel, An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination - Going to try and start this this weekend, and if Casey Newton’s Platformer review is any indication, I’m going to be fascinated/terrified by it.
Elamin Abdelmahmoud, What Winston Marshall’s Departure From Mumford & Sons Reveals About The Band’s Brand (BuzzFeed News) - I was today years old when I learned that Mumford and Sons is a British band, and that some of the songs on their 2018 album were influenced by the work of the internet’s “custodian of the patriarchy.” Ick.
That’s it, that’s all. Be kind to yourself and others, drink some water, try a five minute meditation and try to get outside if you can this weekend!
xoxo Amy