Arundhati Roy’s Sissy Farenthold Lecture at the University of Texas, in Literary Hub:

Before I begin, I would like to say a few words about the war in Ukraine. I unequivocally condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and applaud the Ukrainian peoples’ courageous resistance. I applaud the courage shown by Russian dissenters at enormous cost to themselves.

I say this while being acutely and painfully aware of the hypocrisy of the United States and Europe, which together have waged similar wars on other countries in the world. Together they have led the nuclear race and have stockpiled enough weapons to destroy our planet many times over. What an irony it is that the very fact that they possess these weapons, now forces them to helplessly watch as a country they consider to be an ally is decimated—a country whose people and territory, whose very existence, imperial powers have jeopardized with their war games and ceaseless quest for domination.

And now, I turn to India. I dedicate this talk to the increasing numbers of prisoners of conscience in India.

More here.

Iain Boyd in The Conversation:

I am an aerospace engineer who studies space and defense systems, including hypersonic systems. These new systems pose an important challenge due to their maneuverability all along their trajectory. Because their flight paths can change as they travel, these missiles must be tracked throughout their flight.

A second important challenge stems from the fact that they operate in a different region of the atmosphere from other existing threats. The new hypersonic weapons fly much higher than slower subsonic missiles but much lower than intercontinental ballistic missiles. The U.S. and its allies do not have good tracking coverage for this in-between region, nor does Russia or China.

More here.

From the HRW website:

“Ken’s fearless passion for justice, his courage and compassion towards the victims of human rights violations and atrocity crimes was not just professional responsibility but a personal conviction to him,” said Fatou Bensouda, former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. “He has indeed been a great inspiration to me and my colleagues.”

Today, amid the horrific abuse taking place in Ukraine, an infrastructure is in place to hold perpetrators accountable.

Roth also created special teams to address the needs of certain marginalized people, including women, children, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, refugees, people with disabilities, and older people. He also oversaw the development of specialized programs on poverty and inequality, climate change, technology, and corporate social responsibility. In addition, he initiated a program to address human rights in the United States.

More here.  And more from the NY Times here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtCocq4b5Bo&ab_channel=InOurTime

Robert Rubsam at Commonweal:

We see a pile of cloth in a barely lit room. We look, and we look some more, and might make out an ever-so-slight movement under the cloth, as if the object were breathing. Then wham: a walloping sound bursts the silence, the covers fall back, and Tilda Swinton rises into frame.

I have seen Memoria four times now, but every time I see it again I forget this basic order of events. Such is the beguiling magic of filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s new film: I find myself so absorbed by the nearly dark frame, illuminated by the little streetlight showing through the curtains, that the noise hits me like a blow every time, and I shake in my seat, momentarily as disoriented as our protagonist. That feeling will persist for the rest of the film.

more here.

Tausif Noor at The New Yorker:

Upon returning to Paris in the aftermath of the riots, Bourouissa began spending time in the banlieues with friends, who introduced him to more people who lived there. He eventually conscripted these figures, mostly men from immigrant backgrounds, as subjects for a series of staged photographs composed in the tradition of tableaux vivants, or living pictures—an uncanny arrangement that places ordinary people in relief against their normal environments, to an intimate yet estranging effect. The first of these staged pictures, “La fenêtre” (“The Window”), depicts two Black men captured mid-conversation, a shocking lime-green wall their background. The taut musculature of their torsos—one clothed, the other bare, a large tattoo sprawling across the curve of his back—is accentuated by the light streaming in through the titular window at top left, heightening the dramatic tension that pervades the scene. Here, the two figures stand in for the strained relations between the state and its frustrated poor, and between civil society and the immigrant class circumscribed to its périphérique—the name Bourouissa would later give to the series of photographs, after the circular highway separating Paris from its outer suburbs.

more here.

Bobby Allyn on NPR:

Elon Musk will soon hold the keys to Twitter.

The company announced on Monday that it has accepted the Tesla CEO’s $44 billion offer to take the company private. That means the world’s richest person who has a penchant for theatrics and erratic behavior is about to have the power to reshape discourse on a social network used by more than 200 million people every day. How might Musk wield that power? Here are some proposals for Twitter that he’s floated.

Loosen up content rules in the name of free speech

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO describes himself as a “free speech absolutist” and has criticized what he sees as excessive moderation on online platforms. He nodded to these beliefs in his statement announcing the purchase by saying that “free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.” Musk has argued that social networks should not remove comments that, while offensive, are still legal. During a recent interview at a TED conference he said, “If it’s a gray area, let the tweet exist.”

More here.

Alanna Mitchell in The New York Times:

Modern civilization, it is said, would be impossible without measurement. And measurement would be pointless if we weren’t all using the same units. So, for nearly 150 years, the world’s metrologists have agreed on strict definitions for units of measurement through the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, known by its French acronym, B.I.P.M., and based outside Paris. Nowadays the bureau regulates the seven base units that govern time, length, mass, electrical current, temperature, the intensity of light and the amount of a substance. Together, these units are the language of science, technology and commerce.

Scientists are constantly refining these standards. In 2018, they approved new definitions for the kilogram (mass), ampere (current), kelvin (temperature) and mole (amount of substance). Now, with the exception of the mole, all of the standards are subservient to one: time.

The meter, for example, is defined as the distance light travels in a vacuum during one-299,792,458th of a second. Likewise, the new definition of the kilogram rests on the second, in a manner too complicated to explain in fewer than several paragraphs. “All the units now are not autonomous units, but they are all depending on the second,” said Noël C. Dimarcq, a physicist and the president of the B.I.P.M.’s consultative committee for time and frequency.

More here.

Statement of Teaching Philosophy

In February’s stillness, under fresh snow,
two bright red cardinals leaping
inside a honeysuckle bush.
All day I’ve thought that would make
for a good image in a poem.
Washing the dishes, I thought of cardinals.
Folding the laundry, cardinals.
Bright red cardinals while I drank hot cocoa.
But the poem would want something else.
Something unfortunate to balance it,
to make it honest. A recognition of death
maybe. Or hunger. Poems are hungry things.
It can’t just be dessert, says the adult in me.
It can’t just be joy. But the schools are closed
and despite the cold, the children are sledding.
The sound of boots tamping snow are the hinges
of many doors being opened. The small flames
of cardinals and their good talk in the honeysuckle.

Keith Leonard
from The Echotheo Review
4/28/22

Emma Levy in The Seattle Times:

The Seattle Times chatted with Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk about her immersive, visionary 1,000-page novel that follows the extraordinary life of Jacob Frank, a Polish Jew who believed himself to be the Messiah and commanded a large religious movement in the 18th century.

What did you see in the story of Jacob Frank? What do Jacob’s followers see in him?

Jacob Frank is a complicated character who escapes univocal judgment. His supporters remembered him as a handsome man while the opponents recalled an ugly hunchback. Nobody knows for certain what he was like, we can only guess. The controversy that surrounded him, and the enormous influence he held over people from all social classes has provoked me to fill in the blanks in his biography. His followers saw him not only as an inspired mentor but also as a chance to improve their social standing: most of the Frankists hailed from the small-time bourgeoisie of Podolia. Jacob might have been admired for his ascension above rules of society. This is a character in a state of perpetual transformation, especially after the trauma he endured in the Częstochowa prison. From an influential guide and leader to the masses, he turned into a cynical political player, driven by his own ambitions. He descended into hubris, became an emperor’s favorite and even an adviser to Maria Therese [ruler of the Habsburg Empire]. He stood above the law and his direct connection to divinity guaranteed that he would be obeyed.

More here.

Sarah Burch in Undark:

On April 4, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the final installment of its Sixth Assessment Report, an epic synthesis of science exploring the causes and consequences of climate change. This latest document focused on the causes — chiefly, the rampant emission of greenhouse gases — and how to reduce them, fast.

As one of the lead authors of the new report, I and more than 230 scientists from around the world collectively reviewed over 18,000 scientific articles and responded to around 60,000 reviewer comments over the course of more than three years. Our goal was to compile the most accurate and nuanced picture of current climate science and social science, and to use this to inform international climate change treaty-making and policy design. The result was a nearly 3,000 page document that details a stark, urgent threat — but that also gives us reason for optimism.

First, the grim news: Average annual greenhouse gas emissions were the highest during the past decade than they have been in human history.

More here.

Jen Silverman at MacDowell:

I think we’re laboring under a moment in which many believe that the sole function of art is to provide moral guidance.

I understand how we got here. Our politicians and leaders have for the most part abdicated responsibility on this front – not in what they say (there’s always moralizing) but in what they’re caught doing later. An entire parade of celebrities has been similarly revealed to be mouthy, handsy monsters of hypocrisy. The arts, though underfunded, have a history of being a fallback battleground for American morality. And also, always, America is obsessed with the idea of virtue. Ours is a country founded on many myths, but one of them inarguably is purity: pristine forests, clear water, virginal women, God everywhere.

More here.

David de Jong in Literary Hub:

The invitations, sent by telegram four days earlier, left no doubt. The capital was calling. On Monday, February 20, 1933, at 6 pm, about two dozen of Nazi Germany’s wealthiest and most influential businessmen arrived, on foot or by chauffeured car, to attend a meeting at the official residence of the Reichstag president, Hermann Göring, in the heart of Berlin’s government and business district.

The attendees included Günther Quandt, a textile producer turned arms-and-battery tycoon; Friedrich Flick, a steel magnate; Baron August von Finck, a Bavarian finance mogul; Kurt Schmitt, CEO of the insurance behemoth Allianz; executives from the chemicals conglomerate IG Farben and the potash giant Wintershall; and Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, chairman-through-marriage of the Krupp steel empire.

Three weeks earlier, Adolf Hitler had seized power in Germany after concluding a backroom deal that led the Reich president, Paul von Hindenburg, to appoint Hitler as chancellor. Now the leader of the Nazi Party wanted to “explain his policies” to the group of industrialists, financiers, executives, and heirs, or at least that’s what he’d led them to believe.

More here.

From:

Five Villanelles

The crack is moving down the wall.
Defective plaster isn’t all the cause.
We must remain until the roof falls in.

It’s mildly cheering to recall
That every building has its little flaws.
The crack is moving down the wall.

Here in the kitchen, drinking gin,
We can accept the damndest laws.
We must remain until the roof falls in.

And though there’s no one here at all,
One searches every room because
The crack is moving down the wall.

Repairs? But how can one begin?
The lease has warnings buried in each clause.
We must remain until the roof falls in.

These nights one hears a creaking in the hall,
The kind of thing that gives one pause.
The crack is moving down the wall.
We must remain until the roof falls in.

by Weldon Kees
from Strong Measures
Harper Collins, 1986

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1ye60-Zbyw&ab_channel=jimmywangyucollection

Nina Li Coomes in Guernica:

Wet earth. Loam. Bitter ash, brine on the wind. The unfurling of cedar, a smell that takes me out of this place and back to bathtubs in Japan; a portal of a scent, sacred and red. These are the smells of the Pacific Northwest wood from where I write this. In the daytime, as light pours around the unfamiliar landscape, I think of it as a new smell, something to gulp. But last night, clambering up the half-hill toward the cottage where I am staying, I took another breath and was suddenly tearful. The damp soil transformed into the smell of my Jiji, wood-smoke mimicking cigarette-smoke lingering in the folds of his shirt.

To read In Sensorium is to be made as aware of the sensuousness of place, time, and body, as I am now aware of all the smells around me. When I tried to read your essays back in my Chicago apartment, I found myself frustrated and lost in the swirling meditations. I was distracted and fractured, couldn’t slow down to digest. But here, alone in the deep quiet with nothing to do but move my body through the day, your prose has opened up for me. Or rather, I have opened up to your prose.

More here.

The Team at Vox:

“We often begin to understand things only after they break down. This is why, in addition to being a worldwide catastrophe, the pandemic has been a large-scale philosophical experiment,” Jonathan Malesic, author of The End of Burnout: Why Work Drains Us and How to Build Better Lives, writes in this month’s issue of the Highlight.

What has broken down, of course, is work, and what American workers, policymakers, and employers now can see plainly are the countless truths the pandemic laid bare: that productivity does not actually require an air-polluting, hourlong daily drive to a soulless downtown office building; that a fair and just society ought not put the poorest, most vulnerable Americans in danger in the name of capitalism; that the entire economy might just be held together by a rapidly dwindling sea of people — child care workers — earning roughly $13 an hour, with no benefits.

In this month’s Future of Work issue, the Highlight and Recode teamed up to explore the precarity faced by those workers whom the Great Resignation did not offer much in the way of increased power or security. We look beyond simply what is broken about their working lives, asking policy experts and workers themselves: What could make work better?

More here.