‘He couldn’t move’: New York City man falls into sinkhole full of rats
The West has failed – US and Europe have made a mess of handling the crisis
Column: U.S. individualism isn’t rugged, it’s toxic — and it’s killing us
It’s Time to Talk About Covid-19 and Surfaces Again
Yih and Kulldorff’s “Radical” Covid Strategy: A Recipe for Disaster
‘They give me the willies’: scientist who vacuumed murder hornets braces for fight
‘Zombie batteries’ causing hundreds of waste fires, experts warn
Wagner’s “Götterdämmerung,” in a Detroit Parking Garage
I close with a quote that seems appropriate both for Halloween and for the political crises we’re in. It’s from one of my favorite books, Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism: Is there no alternative? and builds off of Marx’s love of a snarky vampire metaphor:
The most Gothic description of Capital is also the most accurate. Capital is an abstract parasite, an insatiable vampire and zombie-maker; but the living flesh it converts into dead labor is ours, and the zombies it makes are us. There is a sense in which it simply is the case that the political elite are our servants; the miserable service they provide from us is to launder our libidos, to obligingly re-present for us our disavowed desires as if they had nothing to do with us.
Thanks! These links brightened my Monday!