Backlogged on work, so fuller catch-up here tomorrow.

For now:

Thank you for your presence, & not just with my posts, but in your own lives, so richly & fully inhabited.

We have such different POVs, shaping different responses to war, identity, trauma, politics, how best to post "nudes" (see below)...

What matters is *not* that we're always on the same page.

It's that we feel safe to share what our page contains, & to learn from other pages too.

May you always know the value of your own. 🕊️

Today's new vocab, from the crossword, included this macabre synonym for a carousel: tiovivo.

What a weird history. The term comes from the owner of a famous carousel who either claimed that he was alive just before dying, or gave everyone a shock when it seemed like he was coming back to life after death.

Ergo "tío" (uncle, also friend) "vivo" (is alive): because his state of being kept turning, like the carousel he'd owned! 😂

Language is SO WEIRD sometimes.

This is a problem I wanted to write about this summer, and should still try to pitch somewhere soon. Debt servicing is *consuming* most countries' budgets.

How is this possible? Because of neoliberalism. Our public-private systems have siphoned public funds into private debts, which countries can't negotiate away through public/foreign-policy channels.

This system is starving our ability to invest in our citizens' future. We won't be able to tackle big problems until it's solved.

#Colombia

All right, loves. 🕊️

While writing recent war explainers, I was aching for a chance to reflect more directly on #GlobalHumanism:

What it means as a philosophy.

How it champions both our individuality and our shared humanity against anything that would divide us to do us harm.

Identity is a key part of the human experience. But wherever one's identity requires harm done to another person, our species always suffers for it.

Who are we really, and what do we truly "owe"?
https://onlysky.media/mclark/the-struggle-for-our-shared-humanity/

A lot of academics subscribed to my newsletter this week, so I figured this was as good an opportunity as any to write a piece encouraging them to see past the forms of writing most do within niche disciplines, to think about how they can help curate better content in terrible times like these.

To that end, this piece also addresses Israel-Gaza disinformation in news media - but I mark the section clearly enough that you can skip ahead if you're heavy with war trauma. 🕊️

https://mlclark.substack.com/p/academic-writing-in-a-wounded-world

I was 15 on 9/11. That night the news suggested Canadians all go outside with a candle to connect with neighbours, & to affirm our common humanity after so horrific a day.

I did, but no one else on my street went out, & my family wasn't really the "bond in hard times" sort.

So I sat alone on the front step with my candle, and I thought about all the other people who also couldn't see anyone out on their blocks.

I hoped they wouldn't lose hope in our common humanity.

I hoped I wouldn't, too.

Well, my morning's complete now. 🙂

#Nature #StrangeTrashPandas

Evening loves. 🕊️

Today's deep-dive is heavy, and still related to the war.

When I wrote my four-parter on Israel and the West earlier this year, I tried to dispel Western ideas that keep getting imposed on Israel, instead of listening to Israel's democratic society.

That issue has come to the fore again.

So, today I contrast Bush after 9/11 with Netanyahu leading up to and after October 7: to remind folks that democracy is complicated, and *always* a casualty of war.

https://onlysky.media/mclark/two-democracies-when-at-war/

So far, you folks are painting a really terrific scene of a summer at the cottage with your sensory landscapes...

Either that, or a tender small-town reunion, where everyone shows up and finds comfort in one another, even amid difficult surrounding circumstances!

Sounds about right. :)

A beautiful reframe of a classic "joke" about hopelessness amid depression.

#MentalHealth

I didn't sleep so well last night.

I realized that this year I've lost all clear sense of a dream to pursue. So much has gone wrong these last few years.

There's a quiet in my heart where a lot of goals once sat.

Mind you, it's a lot less painful then when I had to leave academia.

But it's a dangerous thing to live without direction or hope.

Nevertheless, this is the land I'm walking in for now. (The world is, too!) The aim is to tread carefully, and see what arises in the new terrain.

#CoSoFilms

Tonight I'm popping on... uh... a horror classic? Well, debatable. 🙃

It has an IMDb score of 3.8, but I still have fond recollections of my first time watching it.

(Yes, fond: This series is decidedly more quaint for an atheist. I even watched the first alone in the dark at 13 but it all felt very silly to me. Loved the patient, suspense-filled storytelling structure, though!)

Here we go!

EXORCIST 2: ̶E̶L̶E̶C̶T̶R̶I̶C̶ ̶B̶O̶O̶G̶A̶L̶O̶O̶ The Heretic! 🎉

Night, CoSo!

All right. This is a long one, but necessary. 🕊️

It covers normal human behaviour and cognitive bias that war trauma and propaganda quickly exacerbates.

It looks at histories of collective punishment and the complexity of breaking from cycles of violence.

And it looks at the failure of international systems to provide the moral weight necessary to protect civilian rights.

Oh, and I talk about the Book of Judges.

Y'know. As a "treat".

#War #GlobalHumanism #History

https://onlysky.media/mclark/moral-war-a-contradiction-of-terms/

Tomorrow I will have a piece on collective punishment: a history, contemporary praxis, the human behaviours that underpin its use, and why we're so far from being able to halt its presence in conflict.

But that bleakness is for after I post today's newsletter and teach tonight's classes.

Here are some merry little roadside moo cows for you, too.

Please nobody tell them what horrible things we humans rationalize, and do.

This, for instance, is the kind of explainer I enjoy being able to take my time with: a piece in February that explained why "dark energy" is a misnomer, and reflected on how the terms we use when reporting on science can massively impact broader understanding of key concepts in our cosmos.

I've also tackled the dangers of medical news reporting, and of course biology, but anything related to cosmology has my heart above all else.

Gotta lean into joy again soon!

https://onlysky.media/mclark/early-black-holes-simplify-the-question-of-dark-energy/

Today's poem on Rattle is a nice one, which might elicit a weary smile or rueful chuckle. It does what #poetry can do better than most any other form: carry deep concepts forward through slight images, quotidian scenes.

This one's title encapsulates that range well: it *is* about dogs, and grief! But mostly, it's about how we move through the world with our wounds. Imperfectly. Messily. Fill with embarrassment, some days. But pressing on, all the same.

👌🏻 Tent delivered to the fellow sleeping rough across from my building. Best part is that he was sleeping soundly, so I could leave it without awkward exchanges / forced gratitude, and I still got back to my apartment in time to watch him wake to it from my balcony. He's setting it up now, which is good because I think we're in for evening rain.

Being houseless doesn't mean one doesn't merit safety, privacy, a home.

Happy Thanksgiving, all. However you honour it: thank you thank you thank you.

I'm not sure what wearies me more: that there are still 2.5 months this year for us to muck up, or that we have so much decade left to fumble, too.

There *are* good things in life.

And we treat life far too carelessly.

This Thanksgiving, I'm thankful I was in a position to *try* to help others this year. And I'm thankful for all of you, who help in so many ways.

And...

I'm thankful to still be here, I suppose--that I may try and try again.
May you never forget the gift of your presence too.

Morning, CoSo. 🕊️

Today, I summarize some key regional context and ways to think about the news you're seeing about the violence in Israel and Gaza. Hamas, Iran, political spin, Palestinian struggle with local authorities, Israeli internal politics swept aside by these attacks...

It's titled, simply, "War, again", because there is enough gamified media whenever the world falls apart.

The main goal is to retain the better parts of our humanity every single time it does.

https://onlysky.media/mclark/war-again/

Also, my piece wasn't chosen for Rattle's Poets Respond this week, so I can share it here with you instead.

It was inspired by news of a Russian woman who learned that she'd lived her whole life with a needle in her head - clearly a failed attempt at infanticide in the 1940s, when life was hard, and many thought better days would never come.

How striking, no? All the things that do not kill us... even when we're sure they must.

#Poetry