Commentary on links that caught my attention around the web.
Notable Links
[Oneofthelibrarians at LibrarianShipwreck] Some advice about how to survive this era from LibrarianShipwreck, one of my most favorite blogs on the planet: "So, uh, it’s pretty bad out there! You are probably trying to figure out what the hell to do about it. Here are some words of
Notable Links
[Judd Legum and Rebecca Crosby in Popular Information] The removal of banned terms on both internal and external government websites is going more stupidly than one might have expected: "One example included a job listing page for the Department of Homeland Security that removed language about maintaining an “inclusive
Notable Links
[Iker Seisdedos interviewing Judith Butler in EL PAÍS English] Judith Butler is as on-point as ever: "Q. It wasn’t just Trumpism. Some Democratic voices say it’s time to move beyond the issue of trans rights in areas like sports, which affect very few people. A. You could
Notable Links
[Jessica Kutz at The 19th] USAID's defunding will lead directly to women's deaths: "As of 2023, 67 percent of contraceptives supplied through USAID went to Africa, where some of the leading causes of death for girls and women are related to pregnancy and sexually transmitted
Notable Links
[Mica Rosenberg, Perla Trevizo, and Zisiga Mukulu in ProPublica, co-published with The Texas Tribune] This is a beautifully-designed co-production between ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, illustrating the immigration policies that Donald Trump enacted on day one. These encompassed dozens of policies that were revived from his first term, as well
Notable Links
[Natalia Antelava in Coda Story] This is a useful framework for thinking about ongoing harm. "It was 2014, and I was standing in the ruins of Donetsk airport, when a Russian-backed rebel commander launched into what seemed like an oddly academic lecture. Between bursts of artillery fire, he explained
Notable Links
[Dan Hon in MIT Technology Review] The always-brilliant Dan Hon on DOGE: "We’re seeing in real time that there are no practical technical measures preventing someone from taking a spanner to the technology that keeps our government stable, that keeps society running every day—despite the very real
Notable Links
[Gil Duran in The Nerd Reich] Curtis Yarvin's influence is felt again: " In an essay on his paywalled Substack, he imagined a second Trump presidency in which Trump would enable a radical government transformation. The proposal will sound familiar to anyone who has watched Musk wreak havoc
Notable Links
[Avi Asher-Schapiro, Christopher Bing, Annie Waldman, Brett Murphy, Andy Kroll, Justin Elliott, Kirsten Berg, Sebastian Rotella, Alex Mierjeski, Pratheek Rebala and Al Shaw at ProPublica] My colleagues at ProPublica have published the largest list yet of who is actually involved in DOGE: "While some have been public about their
Notable Links
[Caralee Adams at the Internet Archive] The Internet Archive is always a gem, but it's been particularly important this year. "With two-thirds of the process complete, the 2024/2025 EOT crawl has collected more than 500 terabytes of material, including more than 100 million unique web pages.
Notable Links
[Janus Rose at 404 Media] This is an important but hard pill to swallow: "“The reality is you are oxygenating the things these people are saying even as you purport to debunk them,” Katherine Cross, a sociologist and author of Log Off: Why Posting and Politics (Almost) Never Mix,
Technology
[Alex Heath at The Verge] And so begin the knock-on effects on companies across America: "In a Wednesday memo to employees that I obtained (and you can read below), Google’s head of HR, Fiona Cicconi, said there will no longer be DEI hiring targets due to the company’