Weekend Links
Hey piglets, I am in fact alive. Proper catch up coming, but have a meaty bunch of links in the meantime.
Utah news that Jeff and I have been following.
Oh look, my other husband being adorable!
This podcast episode is worth a listen.
Abortion has always been used by women to preserve their health, save their lives, plan their families, protect their incomes, and enjoy sex with their partners. Always. While often obscured by innuendo, the history is clear on this. Occasionally it’s also incredibly blunt. The topic of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision is worthy of its own post but even weeks later my main reaction is still one of rage and shock. And frankly, fright for the tide of entho-religious-nationalism which continues to rise.
We’re already seeing some horrifying stories of assault victims and children being forced to carry pregnancies or go through way too many roadblocks to terminate them. This is going to get worse, and poorer people are going to bear the brunt.
Absolutely incredible. Sustained, clear feedback about what the users want and the parent company just saying no because they want to sell us more ads and spon con. Truly has there ever been a company that seems more dedicated to lurching from self goal to self goal. I’ve not be shy that the “metaverse” is Not For Me but I wonder who it’s actually going to be for and what the business case for it is.
Casey Newton interviewed the CEO of Instagram following the backlash, also worth reading.
No, I’m NOT sick of the millennial think pieces, at least the thoughtful ones written in good faith.
White marble is a LIE, the ancients were gloriously tacky:
Amanda Mull for the win! Sunscreens in the United States are awful compared to European and Asian options. Anyone who’s been reading me for more than a minute knows I swear by Thank You Farmer SPF, a South Korean brand which has an elegant application with zero white cast. New and better options are trickling up from Australia these days which I want to try too. The idea that we will ever move back to the states is less likely every year, and high on my list of trivial positives is my access to higher quality consumer goods. Though, knock on wood, given *gestures to the world at large.
The best commentary I’ve found on the whole Twitter/Musk kerfuffle of late is the Pivot podcast. One of the hosts also has a great post about the problem of the people who enable prominent personalities to do bad, unethical, or downright weird stuff.
Speaking of Elon Musk, hair transplants.
Things in the UK have been…not going well. This video is several months out of date now and a LOT has happened in British politics, but still provides a pretty good snapshot of what the process, stops and starts of Brexit have taught us:
In our semi recurring segment, This [Blank] in Mormon News, there have been some real doozies! First up, a potential photo of the founder, Joseph Smith Junior, has been produced by one of his descendants. Besides being historically relevant, I followed a fascinating byproduct of the story, which was a lot of online Mormons having intense reactions about the image. Specifically, dealing with the fact that the image does not at all match the many images of Smith used by the church, almost all of which are paintings or portraits made long after his assassination. In other words, this potential photo doesn’t match the view of Smith many members have associated with him for their whole lives. I’m far from the first person to draw analogy to how the historical reality of Mormonism often messes up the romanticised or smoothed over images we prefer to prioritise.
Secondly there has been a lot of discourse about the Hulu series Under the Banner of Heaven, which is a fictionalised telling of a real life murder case stemming from fundamentalist Mormon belief. It’s not yet available in the UK but Jeff and I are counting down the days. A lot of Mormons absolutely hate it, not least of all because it relies on fringe views and centres the voices of nonpracticing or exMormons. but I have the privilege of being acquainted with one of the consultants for the show, and loved this piece she wrote asking the age old questions about who gets to be included in a narrative, and who gets to tell the story.
And finally, your fun read of the week! “Brand Twitter” has been a phenomenon with several waves, but this piece in Vulture is a hilarious and brilliant distillation of their latest trends: being horny on main, as the kids say.
