Other sources of cultural malaise are not discussed

It’s been a really rough couple of weeks, so instead of the typical newsletter, we’re going with two basic link lists in quick succession. This week: Read some interesting articles. Send me some good vibes. Buy my book. Hug your dogs.

“How can women be expected to trust their doctors when they’ve been failed by them at every turn? It’s not surprising they’d turn to snake oil salesman promising miracle cures for symptoms that aren’t being taken seriously by their health-care providers.” “Why Are So Many Women Rejecting Medical Science?”

Thanks to chumboxes, we’ll never actually know: “A mysterious gut doctor is begging Americans to throw out “this vegetable” now. But, like, which?“

WHAT THE FUCK, EVOLUTION: “This Bird Went Extinct and Then Evolved Into Existence Again”

“The hyper-focus on “solutions” is a way to avoid acknowledging systemic injustice. It happens when we talk about uncomfortable things like racism and white privilege, or sexism and male privilege, or colonization and wealth. Going directly to solutions makes us feel productive while allowing us to avoid feelings of guilt, shame, and helplessness that often accompany these conversations.” “Solutions Privilege: How privilege shapes the expectations of solutions, and why it’s bad for our work addressing systemic injustice”

One more entry in the tiring list of ways capitalism shifts the responsibility for solving systemic problems onto individuals: “The Mindfulness Conspiracy”

“[The ability] to encode malicious software into physical strands of DNA…represents an impressive, sci-fi feat of sheer hacker ingenuity.” “Biohackers Encoded Malware in a Strand of DNA”

Come for the dismal stats, stay for the diversity-pandering Bingo board: “Why women in tech are being Photoshopped in instead of hired”

“I thought about my mother, shifting the Volkswagen from first to second, telling me in her offhand manner what an abortion was, in the same tone she’d told me why New Hampshire was the Granite State, or what was in a snickerdoodle.” “The Best Abortion Ever”

Let’s talk about the broken and punitive bail system in this country:

• Here’s a Twitter thread from a public defender that just boiled my blood.

• Appolition is a program that takes spare change from your regular financial transactions and applies it to bail-outs.

• Please support the National Bail Out fund. Money won't fix the system, but it can help reduce the suffering under it.