The Word Art Heard Round the World.
Happy July 5th, darlings. I hope you all had a splendid long weekend, whether you’re north or south of the 49th. I'm recovering from a chest cold, so I was extra grateful for more time to drink chicken stock and sleep. Such a glamorous life I lead…
A few things:
The Toast, a recently-shuttered bastion of humor, literary commentary and feminism, closed up with a bang: Hillary Clinton sent ‘em out with an ode to spaces for women. The Atlantic talks about how contributing to super-niche online communities like this is aligned with Clinton’s desire to connect with individual groups of voters. I mean, I’m biased, but I love it.
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign tweeted an anti-Hillary image with a Star of David-shaped icon over top of a money background, an image was sourced from a white nationalist twitter account. The campaign then and reposted the same image with a circle not a star, then claimed it was misunderstood, and then blamed Clinton’s campaign after they responded. And Microsoft Word. Meanwhile, and goodness I really don’t like agreeing with Breitbart, Trump’s campaign got massive coverage of an attack ad. I hate all the things.
Now seems like a good time to remind everyone that Empathy Is Actually a Choice (thanks to Greg for sharing.)
President Obama is a night owl who sends midnight emails from his Blackberry, after spending “four or five hours” by himself after dinner with his family. I’ve always been a morning person, so I can’t completely relate (also not being the leader of the free world,) but I totally get the need to have a few hours of time to yourself. Since I was in middle school, I’ve required my solo morning routine of coffee, reading the news - hey kids, it used to be an actual paper - and now writing to you all.
You've probably heard of the dynamiting of the massive 1500-year-old Bamiyan statues of Buddha destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, examples of how the Taliban, Al Qaeda and ISIL use cultural destruction as a battle tool. Joshua Hammer’s new book, pointed out to me by my Mum, looks at the individuals who fought to keep the ancient manuscripts of Timbuktu out of Jihadist hands. You’d better believe that The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu is now on my kindle.
And finally, GUYS WE’VE PUT A SOLAR-POWERED SPACECRAFT IN JUPITER’S ORBIT HOLY SHIT. I wonder what Miles Traer, whose Sounds of Space podcast was one of Wired’s picks of the week, thinks about all this.