violence
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On noticing.
Even now, when many of us feel so powerless, we’re in control of our choices. And they matter.
animal cruelty, animal welfare, choice, death, dominance, ethical living, ethics, fences, harm reduction, mortality, nature, nature observation, parenting, plant based, rabbit, rabbit aggression, rabbit violence, raising children, talking to children about death, talking to kids about death, teaching children about death, teaching kids about death, territorial violence, territory, the ethics of eating, vegan, veganism, vegetarian, violence, walls
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On vengeance and Ahmed Saadawi’s ‘Frankenstein in Baghdad.’
We all share blame for the ills perpetrated in our names, but some among us are made to suffer outsize portions of the costs.
Ahmed Saadawi, Albany, Arabic fiction, cocaine, cooperation, Correction, Correction (pt. ii), Correction part 2, corrections, evolution of cooperation, evolution of eusociality, forgiveness, forgiving, Frankenstein, Frankenstein in Baghdad, incarceration, injustice, Iraq, jail, jail poetry, Jonathan Wright, justice, Lori Milks, mass incarceration, most provable murder case I have ever seen, murder, murder victims, neurology, neuroscience, philosophy, poetry, poetry in jail, prison, public defender, punishment, rehabilitation, reprisal, restorative justice, retribution, Saadawi, teaching in jail, teaching poetry in jail, terrorism, the healing power of forgiveness, the neurology of justice, vengeance, victims of terrorism, violence, War on Drugs
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On ‘The Ravanayan’ and women traveling alone.
It’s bad enough that our thousands-year-old myths feature women attacked for traveling alone … why are we still letting this happen today?
A. K. Ramanujan, comic books, comic review, comics, did Shoorpanakha deserve to be punished, did Shurpanakha deserve to be punished, fate, fear curtails liberty, female desire in the Ramayana, freedom to travel, gender violence, gendered violence, graphic novel, graphic novel review, graphic novels, Holy Cow, Holy Cow comics, Indian mythology, Mohanty and Goel, monkey battle, mythological violence, mythology, oppression, oppression of women, Rama, Ramanujan, Ramayana comic, Ramayana variants, rape culture, Ravana, Ravanayan review, retellings of the Ramayana, review of the Ravanayan, Sexism, sexual impropriety, Shoorpanakha, Shoorpanakha mutilated, Shurpanakha, Three Hundred Ramayanas, toxic masculinity, Vijayendra Mohanty, violence, violence against women as terrorism, violence against women in the Ramayana, violence against women to instill fear, Vivek Goel, why was Shoorpanakha attacked, why was Shurpanakha attacked, women traveling, women traveling alone
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On two degrees and the worst year (yet) to be alive.
We’re hoping to limit climate change to two degrees … but even two degrees could turn our world into a terrible place to live.
536, 536 A.D., archaeology, atmospheric science, borrow Earth from our children, borrow the land from our children, carbon, carbon cycle, carbon economy, carbon emissions, carbon neutral, carbon tax, climate change, climate cycle, climate instability, crops, Dark Ages, Facebook, famine, feedback loop, food crops, forests, global warming, great depletion, greenhouse gases, heat sink, inherit the Earth, loss of fecundity, melting ice caps, Michael McCormick, most privileged generation, moving south for the winter, science, server farms, trains, trees, two degrees, two degrees Celsius, Venus, Venus was habitable, violence, volcano, weather, Wendell Berry, worst year to be alive
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On reading poems from Donika Kelly’s ‘Bestiary’ in jail.
Will poems about lovelorn bowerbirds help men in jail for domestic violence? At least the words are beautiful.
abuse, abusive relationships, affirmative consent, AI, art, assault, Bestiary, Bower, bowerbird, Bruce Weigl, child abuse, Child Beater, consent, CPS, creation, DCS, desire, domestic, domestic violence, Donika Kelly, drinking, Heartbreak, incarceration, jail poetry, Kavanaugh, kindness, love, love poems, mass incarceration, mouse, objectification, poems, poetry, pornography, pre-emptive excuses, relationships, respect, romance, sex education, sexual assault, sexuality, teaching in jail, teaching poetry in jail, That Cat, The Impossible, trauma, violence, What Gay Porn Has Done for Me, writing, writing poetry
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On violence and gratitude.
Although I consider myself a benevolent tyrant, some of my cells have turned against me. Mutinous, they were swayed by the propaganda of a virus and started churning out capsids rather than helping me type this essay. Which leaves me sitting at a YMCA snack room table snerking, goo leaking down my throat and out…
animal cruelty, animal life, animal welfare, apoptosis, appreciation, autotroph, biology, biology from a cell’s perspective, cancer, cancer biology, cell biology, cell death, cellular biology, cold, competition, consciousness, cooperation, cost, defection, DNA, do plants have feelings, doom, eat more plants, ethics, farming, gamete, genetics, germ cell, herbivore, heterotroph, immunology, inevitable death, irrationality, metastasis, microbiology, molecular biology, multicellular organisms, other perspectives, photosynthesis, plant-based diet, plant-based lifestyle, programmed cell death, psych experiment, psychology, Richard Dawkins, sacrifice, self sacrifice, selfish gene, sick, somatic cell, Suzana Huculano-Houzel, terrorism, The Human Advantage, the inevitability of death, tyrant, value, vegan, veganism, vegetarian, violence, viral infection, virology, virus, we value what we pay for, wine, wine tasting
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On substitutes.
High school classrooms turn chaotic when a sub is running the room … and now they’re sending substitute teachers to maintain order in prisons??
classroom culture, corrections, education, federal hiring freeze, gang control, gang violence, guest teachers, head count, high school, incarceration, insufficient prison guards, Issac Bailey, Issac J Bailey, jail, jail guards, jail staffing, jail violence, mass incarceration, My Brother Moochie, New York Times, prison, prison gangs, prison guards, prison head count, prison murders, prison staffing, prison violence, prison walk throughs, rehabilitation, safety, secretaries patrolling prison, staffing shortage, sub plans, subs, substitute teacher, substitute teacher training, substitute teachers, substitutes, teacher training, teaching in jail, trauma, unsafe jails, unsafe prisons, violence, violence in jail, violence in prison, walk through, who deserves good teachers
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On protest, the Supreme Court, and autocratic minority rule.
I was planning an essay on cell phones and surveillance. The central thesis was that our Supreme Court is a massively flawed institution. Many of our current Supreme Court justices are both willfully ignorant and opportunistically illogical. This set of people are not exceptionally knowledgeable, nor are they particularly clever. But we have given them…
45, changing demographics of the United States, detention centers, Donald Trump, free market, gerrymandering, hate machines, human migration, immigration, immigration detention centers, incarceration, Issac Bailey, migration, minority control, murder, My Brother Moochie, political power, PotUS, property rights, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, Supreme Court opinions, supressing influence, Trump, U.S. politics, United States, violence, wilful ignorance, wrenching apart families
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On genetic inheritance and sexual assault.
Violence flourishes whenever people want control without putting in the work. But humans can stand against injustice.
animal breeding, arranged marriage, CAFO, consent, duck genitalia, duck rape, duck sex, ducks, evolution, factory farming, feminism, feminist, forcible fertilization, freedom, freedom of choice, gender violence, genetic inheritence, injustice, instinct, instinctual behaviors, interspecies sexual assault, lek mating, male feminists, manakin, mate choice, mating strategies, Mean, Myriam Gurba, orangutan, parenting, patriarchy, post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, puppy mill, rape, rape culture, rape in nature, sexual assault, sexual autonomy, sexual violence, slut shaming, smooth guardian frogs, the opportunity to consent is sexy, violative assault, violence, what does evolution want, zoo, zoos
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On Syria, and the complexity of causality.
Syria was in dire straits before the drought — climate change made a bad situation even worse.
Abdullah Al-Udhari, Abu Al-Ala Al-Ma’arri, Assads, Birds Through a Ceiling of Alabaster, civil war, climate change, climate instability, drought, extremism, food insecurity, George Wightman, global warming, ISIL, ISIS, jihad, Lindsey Hilsum, misogyny, oppression, paradise, plough, plow, poetry, protests, refugee, refugee crisis, Syria, Utopia, violence, War of All Against All, Yassin al-Haj Saleh
Frank Brown Cloud 