Cold War
I learned to watch Julia Ioffe a while ago. She’s the smartest reporter I’ve read on Russia and the ex-Soviet empire. Which of course means she’s underappreciated in the mainstream media. Which I presume at least partly explains why she’s decided to go off on her own. Here she is on Joe Biden meeting Vladimir Putin.[1] If you worry about the two most heavily nuclear-armed powers on the planet, and how they’re getting on, well, this is important stuff. She’s broadening out a bit, but you might want to subscribe to her newsletter.
Julia Ioffe, “‘As Ready for War as We Were in the 1970s…’: The Biden-Putin Rumble is Just Beginning,” Tomorrow Will Be Worse, June 19, 2021, https://ckarchive.com/b/4zuvhehd06x9
California
I really should have gotten to this story[2] sooner, but I’ve had my own terrifying experience with California wildfires—nothing anywhere near so harrowing as what David Wallace-Wells describes[3]—but rather with a sense of apocalypse when a fire burning 100-150 miles away generates so much smoke that I can barely see a couple blocks down the road. I’ve seen the red sun at noon. I’ve seen when I couldn’t see Marin County’s Mount Tamalpais from the parking lot at Corte Madera Town Center. And I saw this kind of thing for a few years before I moved to Pittsburgh.
Even clear across the country and over two years absent, California wildfires touch a raw nerve for me. And really only in part because I still have my mother out there.
David Wallace-Wells, “California’s Last Fire Season Was a Historic Disaster. This One Might Be Worse,” New York, June 16, 2021, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/06/why-2021-could-be-californias-worst-fire-season-ever.html
Domestic terrorism
This has been all over my Twitter feed for a couple days now:
Joe Biden’s new anti-terrorism initiative classifies “anarchist violent extremists” that “oppose all forms of capitalism, corporate globalization, and governing institutions, which are perceived as harmful to society” as “domestic violent extremists.”
— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) June 18, 2021
It’s actually not all that new. Nor is the discrepancy between the “terrorist” label being applied to leftists and its absence in application to right-wing extremists.[4] I think, however, I should point out what most of my tweeps are missing: That preamble on top, which means I just might have to turn in my domestic terrorist card. Sorry folks.
Computer chips
As I understand it, this[5] is why it’s taking so long for me to get my new car.
Debby Wu, Sohee Kim, and Ian King, “Why the World Is Short of Computer Chips, and Why It Matters,” Bloomberg, June 17, 2021, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-17/the-world-is-short-of-computer-chips-here-s-why-quicktake
- [1]Julia Ioffe, “‘As Ready for War as We Were in the 1970s…’: The Biden-Putin Rumble is Just Beginning,” Tomorrow Will Be Worse, June 19, 2021, https://ckarchive.com/b/4zuvhehd06x9↩
- [2]David Wallace-Wells, “California’s Last Fire Season Was a Historic Disaster. This One Might Be Worse,” New York, June 16, 2021, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/06/why-2021-could-be-californias-worst-fire-season-ever.html↩
- [3]David Wallace-Wells, “California’s Last Fire Season Was a Historic Disaster. This One Might Be Worse,” New York, June 16, 2021, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/06/why-2021-could-be-californias-worst-fire-season-ever.html↩
- [4]David Benfell, “I am a terrorist,” Not Housebroken, February 15, 2015, https://disunitedstates.org/2015/02/15/i-am-a-terrorist/↩
- [5]Debby Wu, Sohee Kim, and Ian King, “Why the World Is Short of Computer Chips, and Why It Matters,” Bloomberg, June 17, 2021, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-17/the-world-is-short-of-computer-chips-here-s-why-quicktake↩