🙃 I really don't know why I thought I'd be able to finish this piece before midnight, on our mythmaking about early humans, and how those narratives have changed (but not enough) with recent anthropological research.

I'm not going to post anything that's still underbaked, just to meet an arbitrary cut-off I set for myself in a VERY prolific writing schedule, so it'll go up early tomorrow morning instead... but gosh darn it:

Someone remind me to choose a SMALLER, SIMPLER topic next week, eh?

Still in a weird, highly cynical mood today, but I am holding on to gratitude for all the little things.

Thankful for inquisitive, questing people who share space and ideas and kindness, where they can.

Thankful for the fact that we can trip up, and fall away, and find our way back to one another again.

Thankful for health enough to have a tomorrow (probably?), when I will wake up and try again.

Off to teach now.

G'night, all you lovely rotters--whatever you're moving through yourselves. 🕊️

One other thing I love about editing is that, when I'm doing it for others, I become suspicious of the tongue on a whole other level.

While editing for others, one starts to side-eye every common idiom, every preposition and phrasal verb, every descriptive noun to ensure it's the right one for that sort of scene. NOTHING feels human anymore. You're studying an alien language.

And... that leads a person down some super fun etymological and grammar factoid rabbit holes! #Nerd #WordNerdThings

The sweet, sweet irony of double-checking to make sure that one is using the word "malapropism" correctly. 👌 #WordNerdThings

All right.

Industry sucks, but this afternoon I have 4 hours blocked to work on a CoSonaut's fantastic dreaming, and that is going to make the world moderately OK again.

I freaking love seeing the dreams you folks are dreaming.

(Yes, even the ones with relentless screams.)

#OffToMyHappyPlace
#AmEditing

Hooooooooo boy.

Industry is ridiculous.

We all know sketchy operators in it. People who'll do whatever it takes, and not always for the wrong reasons.

But good grief, sometimes when someone in industry tries to pitch you on doing something incredibly shady, there's just... a moment when you're left wondering what the point even is of working in such scummy fields.

Geopolitical nepotism and counter-sleaze all the way down. Sheesh!

This is a bad vibes Thursday.

I'm going to need more coffee.

As Google search continues to devolve, are we going to keep using "google" as a verb?

Or should we start popularizing "let me trashfire that for you" instead? 🤔 For integrity's sake?

(I'd suggest "dumpster dive", but you can still find some pretty good things up top in the real-life version, if you go to the right ones!)

Mental note:

As with turning off tech before bed, be sure to turn off at least a few parts of the polycrisis before 9pm for optimal rest!

Didn't sleep until very late and not very well. Possibly all the churning over all the bits I reviewed from South Africa that didn't make it into yesterday's post, or oil war from Tuesday?

But today I'll have a much simpler one: just a look at how we've talked about early hominins and how those changing narratives reflect more about ourselves and our desires/prejudices today than history itself (now changing rapidly due to genetic insights & expanded dig sites).

Morning folks! Happy Thursday.

The tricky part is that I'm not raising this as a "gotcha". Israel is like any number of modern states in this way.

What I find fascinating is that, for all the grand shows of fealty, the West rarely shows an interest in treating Israel like a real country--which it is! With a parliament & political range & everything!

So none of this should be shocking, or taboo to mention. Israel has a right wing that wants more land, and now has a chance to get it. Not rocket science. Basic state politics.

When I mentioned in today's piece the disconnect between reading local Israeli news then watching what filters into the West, this is what I mean.

Locally, Israelis know full well that far-right extremists are leveraging this war to expand territory as per holy duty, and that the conflict is with far more than Hamas. Smotrich has more power than your average extremist in US Congress, but there's a lot in common (although do note: he's meeting with some pushback here).

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/smotrich-says-hell-cut-off-transfer-of-pa-funds-after-3-european-nations-set-to-recognize-palestinian-state/

@BosmangBeratna @NiveusLepus @ceorl @corlin @redenigma @LaurelGreen

Off to do other things, but PLEASE feel free to lob ideas, thoughts, etc. 🍅

I've got that inside-cover page set up for us to add little kernels of weird wisdom or silly inside jokes, for instance, as per the goofiness of classic zines, but we could put a whole quote in, or a dream, or a prayer, or what-have you. Lots of room to fill in bits and bobs to make this zine properly eccentric!

OK, #Zine Team!

I've got a promo ad ready, and layouts for all kinds of material match-ups.

There are only 12 pages here, but that's just because these are templates waiting for juicy juicy content!

At 8.5x5.5, we're going to want 16 or 32 (one page of 8.5x11, folded over, creates four sides of madness).

I've set up an email with an easy-to-remember pw that we can share in meetings. Hope this helps to visualize the dream!

@BosmangBeratna @NiveusLepus @ceorl @corlin @redenigma @LaurelGreen

#Zine Team! I have the draft layout and I'm just working on our little content ad now, to share later this evening.

Anyone around to pitch ideas for a first-issue title/theme for our hopepunk, solarpunk, survivalist, rewilding nerd-out of a publication? Or should we go in raw and just call it #1?! 👀

@BosmangBeratna @NiveusLepus @ceorl @corlin @redenigma @LaurelGreen

Also, bonus Mafalda #comic, if only as a reminder to everyone wearied by the news that we're not alone--and never have been.

---

Panel 1: Mafalda listens to the radio with a shattered look as the announcer declares, "...And this has been the World View."

Panel 2: Mom in a towel shouts from the bathroom, "Mafalda! Did you take my creams?"

Panel 3: Mafalda, standing next to a slathered globe, calls back, "Only the ones for beautifying things!"

--

Be the creams you want to see in the world! 😘

This one took a while to finish because I hated my first ending - way too much "copium" / forced positivity.

Then I hated my second ending - way too bleak, sad dead turtles all the way down.

But now I hope I've struck a better balance.

Did you know that it is VERY HARD to try to solve the world's deep existential problems in a single essay?

One might even say impossible, but the endings must still flow.

Okay. For Rewind Wednesday, we visit a story from South African apartheid, and related truth and reconciliation processes, to reflect on the cruelty of news cycles that don't give us the tools we need to think more seriously about justice.

What would it look like?

Do we have the means to achieve the ends we desire?

Or should we be looking for a sense of liberation somewhere else, while fighting the good fight in all our unjust systems, too?

#Justice #History #Humanism
https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/what-sort-of-justice-can-we-expect

Today's piece (in progress) deals with one tiny part of South Africa's history, in relation to philosophies of activism and the truth commission, but I'm definitely going back to this regional history (SO poorly understood in the West) in future work, too.

For now, I just want to note that "necklacing" remains one of the most disturbing forms of torture we humans have come up with.

(And we've come up with a lot!)

Don't google it if you don't recognize it. Enjoy your Wednesday! More soon. 🕊️