Reading List: Yes, I Know That Driving An Electric Vehicle Isn't a Personality. I Am Also Loud.
Dearests! No time for pleasantries this morning, I have a morning of meetings and need to go put on my face before the doggy dictator yells at me to take her out. Well, except for, I THINK YOU LOOK LOVELY TODAY! Go get ‘em!
TO THE LONGREADS!
Daniela Santamariña, What abortion laws would look like if Roe v. Wade were overturned (The Washington Post) - I wish I could muster the righteous fury to write something brilliant about how the dread of knowing reproductive rights are about to be gutted by the Supreme Court has converted my normally-present optimism into a nihilism of epic proportions, but I’m exhausted. So instead, I’m going to share a tweet from local Bay Area journo Stuart Schuffman and go wrap myself in a blanket burrito while those who would have identified as fathers consider which abortion fund to donate to. (FYI, an abortion fund is “an on-the-ground organization that helps arrange and pay for abortion care for patients who need it.”)
David French, The New Right’s Strange and Dangerous Cult of Toughness (The Atlantic) - Speaking of, whenever anyone asks about why I yell about how the cult of patriarchy and toxic masculinity harms as all, no matter what gender, I’m going to point them to this article - this poison has wide-reaching tentacles and metastasizing political impacts.
Felicity Barringer, Car batteries are the goal. Lithium is the quickest way to make them. Does a global good require local sacrifice in the Southwest? (& the West) - I am an EV driver, and a smug one at that. I love that I can fuel my car while shopping for groceries, that the only reason I’ve had to go near a gas station in years is for a car wash or to put air in my tires, and that I am contributing less carbon emissions to the atmosphere than I did before. But, as I am often asked when someone skeptical finds out that I drive an EV, what about the other environmental impacts of the technology I use to road trip around the Bay Area? Friend of the Missive Felicity Barringer wrote a brilliant overview of what goes into making the batteries that make my vehicle roll and, like so many things that power our consumptive society, how that environmental burden will have its own ripple effects.
Cade Metz, Can a Machine Learn Morality? (The New York Times) - Haven’t read yet, but can’t wait to because Cade Metz is such a great writer AND especially since I’ve been known to yell about how technology comes from flawed humans and biases, and therefore will embody the spectrum of human goodness and awfulness, within the ten minutes of the start of a first date (if this surprises you, read again why I’m “too much”.)
Jennifer Szalai, ‘Looking for the Good War’ Says Our Nostalgia for World War II Has Done Real Harm (The New York Times) - I love when book reviews make me reconsider how I’ve approached history for the last fifteen years. I haven’t read this book yet, but will certainly now to consider how, “Glib treatments of World War II have done real harm… distorting our understanding of the past and consequently shaping how we approach the future,” especially since my time period of historical fascination is exactly that.
Honoring Those Lost to the Ghost Ship Fire (KQED) - (CONTENT WARNING) And finally, five years ago, the Bay Area was rocked by a warehouse fire in Oakland that killed 36 people attending a concert hosted in an artist collective. On this awful anniversary, KQED does a beautiful job of putting faces and stories to everyone who died that night.
Thank you for being you. Be kind to yourself, fill up that water bottle to stay hydrated, and take one moment this weekend to notice something beautiful around you. You’ve got this.
Xoxo Amy