Must Read
- Derrick Jensen, Beyond Hope
PEOPLE SOMETIMES ASK ME, “If things are so bad, why don’t you just kill yourself?” The answer is that life is really, really good. I am a complex enough being that I can hold in my heart the understanding that we are really, really fucked, and at the same time that life is really, really good. I am full of rage, sorrow, joy, love, hate, despair, happiness, satisfaction, dissatisfaction, and a thousand other feelings. We are really fucked. Life is still really good.
- Sarah Kobos, Want Community? Build Walkability.
- Mass Energy, Switch to Clean Electricity Today [Ed: Energy from renewables not ‘greenwashing’ of conventional sources. For those of us who live in MA and are pro-environment/anti-global-warming it’s a good opportunity to put our money where our mouths are. It will probably cost you an extra $20-40/month.]
Should Read
- Frederik Hewett, Dirty Water: Good And Bad News About The Future Of The Charles River
- Sam Richards, Drones: Law Enforcement’s Secret Eye In The Sky
- Samuel Oakford (NYT), Saudi Arabia Kills Civilians, U.S. Looks the Other Way [Ed.: Daniel Larison has been on this for months – see here, here, here, here and here – but it’s good to see a major news outlet paying attention. ]
- Andrea Germanos, Stiglitz Blasts ‘Outrageous’ TPP as Obama Campaigns for Corporate-Friendly Deal [Ed.: More on the TPP here.]
- Chris Dillow, Capitalism, neoliberalism & excellence
- Aaron Carroll (NYT), The EpiPen, a Case Study in Health System Dysfunction
- Charlie Pierce, What I Learned from Watching a Week’s Worth of Olympic Ads [Ed.: A must read if you live in MA.]
Energy and Environment
- MassLive, Eversource, National Grid withdraw petitions for capacity on Access Northeast gas pipeline
- Jennifer Medina and Matt Richtel (NYT), California’s Emissions Goal Is a ‘Milestone’ on Climate Efforts
- Tatiana Schlossberg (NYT), English Village Becomes Climate Leader by Quietly Cleaning Up Its Own Patch
- Jack Healy (NYT), Occupying the Prairie: Tensions Rise as Tribes Move to Block a Pipeline
Politics
- The Onion, After Obama Victory, Shrieking White-Hot Sphere of Pure Rage Early GOP Frontrunner for 2016 [Ed.: From 2012]
- Yael Abouhalkah, New jobs report is an utter disaster for Kansas and Brownback
- Dean Baker, Tennessee Republicans May Keep Residents from Getting Insurance on Exchanges: Are Congrats in Order?
- Zaid Jilani and Naomi LaChance, Hillary Clinton Picks TPP and Fracking Advocate To Set Up Her White House
- Sarah Emerson, Why Voters Should Be Concerned About Clinton’s Environmental Policies
- Daniel Larison, Yes, Clinton is a Hawk, and It’s Silly to Deny It
- Noah Millman, Why The Clinton Foundation Is Gross
- Andrew O’Hehir, Trading Places: If the Democrats Are Now a Coastal Elite Party and the GOP Are the Populists, Trump Is Only the Beginning
- Samuel Stein, How the Trumps Got Rich
- Matt Taibbi, Curt Schilling Is the Next Donald Trump
- Dylan Mathews, The alt-right is more than warmed-over white supremacy. It’s that, but way way weirder.
- driftglass, Journalism: Then and Now [Ed.: Watch the first video.]
Higher Education
- Corey Robin, Great Minds Think Alike
- Henry Farrell, The University of Chicago is made of safe spaces
Justice
- Larry Laudan, ‘Not Guilty’: The Misleading Verdict
[Sigh]
- Frank McAndrew, Don’t try to be happy. We’re programmed to be dissatisfied
Science
- Elizabeth Segran, You Won’t Believe What It Takes To Move A 2-Ton Satellite Across California
- Ian Sample, NASA’s Juno probe to make closest pass of Jupiter
- Chad Orzel, Three Tricks Physicists Use To Observe Quantum Behavior
- i am trask, A Neural Network in 11 lines of Python (Part 1)
- Andrew Gelman, P Values and Statistical Practice
Gardening
- Stark Bros, The Best Berries for Baking
- Erika Jensen, Cover Crop Basics
- The Growing Club, Starting on the Path to Abundance [Ed.: Excellent gardening advice if you live in the suburbs. Related.]
- Jonathan Wolfe (NYT), New York Today: Community Cropping Up
Water Conservation
- Brittany App, Super Easy DIY Grey Water System
- The Growing Club, How to Install a Laundry to Landscape Greywater System
- This Old House, How to Install a Graywater Irrigation System
Baseball
- Tyler Kepner (NYT), With a Pinpoint Sinker, Zach Britton Raises His Cy Young Award Chances
- Amanda Hoover, Watch Red Sox rookie Andrew Benintendi hit his first major league home run
- Meagan McGinnes, Did Red Sox rookie Andrew Benintendi just make the catch of the year? [Ed.: He’s now on the DL but he had a heck of a week until he got hurt.]
Ending on a Positive Note
- Kristen Hohenadel, Terra Is Literally a Lawn Chair—a Chair That You Grow in Your Yard