Bharat’s Pocket Scraps August 4
What I found interesting this (short for me) week.
A short list this week, as I am on vacation (part of the week, FWIW).
How to Build Resilience in Midlife
Good article, I am doing some of this, but could work on my don’t personalize it aspects, I suppose
Much of the scientific research on resilience — our ability to bounce back from adversity — has focused on how to build resilience in children. But what about the grown-ups?
Read How to Build Resilience in Midlife
Why the lack of Indian and African faces in Dunkirk matters
The blockbuster purports to be a historical portrayal, but in fact it’s a whitewash. And these decisions help corrode societal attitudes What a surprise that Nigel Farage has endorsed the new fantasy-disguised-as-historical war film, Dunkirk.
I guess WW II was the last noble war North Americans and Brits feel like they fought, hence the constant mythologizing and whitewashing of the history. I don’t watch war movies in general, and this one will be no exception.
Read Why the lack of Indian and African faces in Dunkirk matters
Like a lake in a thunderstorm: men, patriarchy, and feminism
For all of us who are men who believe in social justice, who want healthy and beautiful lives for our loved ones, and who are working for positive change in the world, let us commit or re-commit to making feminism central in our lives, values, and actions.
Thank you, whoever it was that posted this on facebook for me to read, a timely reminder for me.
Read Like a lake in a thunderstorm: men, patriarchy, and feminism
A journalist uses statistics to uncover authors’ ‘cinnamon words’
In his latest work, data journalist Ben Blatt takes an unusual approach to literary analysis: He crunches numbers. For instance, did you know that the word “she” only appears once in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit?
LOL at Tolkien’s word choices, interesting read!
Read A journalist uses statistics to uncover authors’ ‘cinnamon words’
This Is How Big Oil Will Die
It’s 2025, and 800,000 tons of used high strength steel is coming up for auction. The steel made up the Keystone XL pipeline, finally completed in 2019, two years after the project launched with great fanfare after approval by the Trump administration.
Oil’s demise has been predicted before. It feels different now, like this is the end. But, who knows, I am starting to read of oil shortages in parts of the world, and Venezuela’s chaos may yet fuel another boom. If I were to hazard a guess, I would predict that the oil age has a couple more bounces left, but the next 10 years will be very interesting. I also very much want to believe that things are going to change very quickly. So, I liked this article.
Read This Is How Big Oil Will Die
Black America: Amazon alt-history series to depict a post-reparations US
In contrast to HBO’s controversial Confederate, this Amazon drama will imagine a timeline where black Americans inhabit a sovereign nation
Now that’s more like it!
Read Black America: Amazon alt-history series to depict a post-reparations US
To end, on a related note…
The Lost Cause Rides Again
Germany has spent the decades since World War II in national penance for Nazi crimes. America spent the decades after the Civil War transforming Confederate crimes into virtues. It is illegal to fly the Nazi flag in Germany. The Confederate flag is enmeshed in the state flag of Mississippi.
Ta-Nehisi Coates says it best, as he always does, on this how enmeshed confederate alt-histories are into modern America, and how lazy and unoriginal HBO’s approach would be. Also, this is the last post on Confederate, I promise, I don’t even watch TV (well, maybe a couple of hours a month?). but I sure meta it.