Weekly Grounding #2
News, links, writing
Weekly Groundings are published on Fridays to highlight the most interesting news, links, and writing I engaged with during the past week. Please subscribe if you’d like to receive these updates directly in your inbox.
Without further ado, here’s this week’s Weekly Grounding:
This detailed timeline of censorship in America from 1917 to 2022 is an excellent resource to keep on hand. The author, Matt Farwell from
here on Substack, notes that “the methods of censorship had changed over time, matching changes in the communication technology.” However, “one thing has been remarkably consistent. Government targeted for special attention journalists who reported accurately on the ugly truth of American foreign policy…” The continued efforts of the Biden administration to extradite Julian Assange are a sad reminder of the lengths to which the U.S. government will go to punish journalists who tell the truth about American wars.
The continued revelations about Jeffrey Epstein’s tie-ups with the rich and famous have confirmed some of the most extreme speculations about his role in elite circles. This reporting by The Wall Street Journal chronicles Epstein’s efforts to blackmail Bill Gates over an affair Gates had with a young Russian woman. I wrote about the significance of Epstein’s activities in 2019 before his alleged suicide at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York later that year. It’s essential that we remember just how profound Epstein’s impact has been across a wide range of elite spaces.
This article by former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Tara Sonenshine, illustrates the unregulated and unpredictable nature of drone warfare. Particularly noteworthy is her observation that “multiple drones can communicate with each other remotely, creating shared objectives rather than an individual drone path or pattern. Like a swarm of bees, these drones form a deadly and autonomous aerial army ripe for accidents. With the advent of artificial intelligence and more sophisticated unmanned aerial vehicles, drones can change speed, altitude and targeting in seconds, making them even more difficult to track and investigate.”
“The U.S. Needs Minerals for Electric Cars. Everyone Else Wants Them Too”
This reporting by The New York Times demonstrates the false promise of electric vehicles as a “solution” to environmental crisis. The pivotal role of “critical minerals” like lithium, cobalt, and nickel in the production of electric cars would demand a massive increase in mining worldwide: “Biden officials agree that obtaining a secure supply of the minerals needed to power electric vehicle batteries is one of their most pressing challenges. U.S. officials say that the global supply of lithium alone needs to increase by 42 times by 2050 to meet the rising demand for electric vehicles. Projections by the International Energy Agency suggest that global demand for lithium will grow by 42 times by 2040.” Even more troubling is the neocolonial arrangement that the so-called “green” electric car revolution depends upon: “Some U.S. officials argue that the supply of critical minerals in wealthy countries with high labor and environmental standards will be insufficient to meet demand, and that failing to strike new agreements with resource-rich countries in Africa and Asia could leave the United States highly vulnerable.”
“Drowning in Liquid Modernity: One Working-Class, Southern White Woman’s Story”
Curtis Price’s writing on working class life in the American South at Gasoline & Grits is incredibly powerful. This pithy piece is no exception: “Like so many people under stress, ‘N’ always seems self-absorbed. And why not? People under stress focus on immediate dangers to their lives and integrity, a supremely rational decision in their cases. The chain-smoking soldier in a foxhole with bullets flying overhead is foolish to worry about contracting lung cancer decades later. Future orientation is a privilege of the stable and satiated, but a luxury for all others. You live in the present because nothing is guaranteed.”
“Resisting an Attention Deficit Empire”
This is an excellent essay by
here on Substack about attention deficit, different forms of attention, and the narratives surrounding both of these topics. I found this paragraph particularly thought-provoking: “Being in nature may not only restore our attention but attune it to certain nuances of perception. We see not only a tree, but rough furrowed bark and low horizontal branches and variably-lobed leaves shiny on top and pale underneath—a bur oak, perhaps. Or we don’t see these details in separation, but the tree as a whole at sunset, standing alone in a farm field, presiding over the hunched silhouettes of wild turkeys.”
Did you read anything interesting this week? Feel free to share in the comments!