Elia Ayoub's Picks, Part 1
Waubgeshig Rice, Srsly Wrong, Spectral Voyager, Sharon Lin, Molly Crabapple, Sally Hayden, and more.
I will do my best to do posts like these on a monthly basis.1 As of next month I'll probably put it behind a paywall. Sorry about that folks, need to live under capitalism and shit.
If you wish to support me without paying Substack2 - and I understand the concern - you can do so via my Ko-Fi page with any amount.3 Just email me afterwards and I'll give you access to the newsletter.
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Waubgeshig Rice on the Niigaaniin Podcast. The author of the excellent Moon of the Crusted Snow and Moon of the Turning Leaves, talks about his Anishinaabe heritage, becoming a writer and learning the language to teach to his children. I was particularly impressed by his reflection on how belonging to a people that has already experienced an apocalypse gave him a useful framework to write post-apocalyptic novels.
I wrote a short review of the books on my Instagram page and I would love to invite him on The Fire These Times too. No promises though as I've been overwhelmed lately.
Check out his website.
Sharon Lin is the host of the Taiwanese podcast More Than Meets the Eye, a podcast platforming interesting people. I found it especially meaningful that she's platformed Syrians talking about the Assad regime and Palestinians talking about the Israeli occupation. The video interviews, which you can find on Instagram, are subtitled in Chinese, allowing them to reach a wider audience that may not get such exposures otherwise. Here's an interview with Marwan Makhoul on his friendship with Mahmoud Darwish.
You can also listen to the audio versions wherever you get your podcasts.
The brilliant journalist Sally Hayden, author of My Fourth Time, We Drowned which documents migrants fleeing Libya to Europe, has been taking photos from the ruins left behind Israeli bombs in Lebanon. Note: Sally was on The Fire These Times back in 2022.
You can also follow the work of Justin Salhani and Kareem Chehayeb, both Lebanese journalists, to get the latest on Israel's war on Lebanon. Note that I'm friends with both of them so I'm biased, but they know their shit. I linked to their Bluesky profiles but they're on the other apps too.
I had Justin and Lebanese writer and translate Lina Mounzer on The Fire These Times recently too. Guess the topic.
This is a perfect paragraph in Lord of the Rings that explains how Tolkien viewed power itself as the problem. If you read just this you’ll know what makes LotR so special to me, and why I am very stubborn in opposing people like Thiel and co who pretend that it’s about anything else.
One of my favourite things about LotR is how someone like Sam was inconceivable to Sauron and Saruman. He made no sense to them.
I'm also reminded of an interview Tolkien did in which he said "I don't believe in absolute evil but I do believe in absolute good"
I talked about something similar on the Political Philosophy podcast some time ago if you're interested.
Matt Goodwin, the Far Right loser who lost losingly to the Greens’ Hannah Spencer in the Gorton and Denton by-election, used ChatGPT to hallucinate a book in which he whines about things like a loser. He forgot to remove “Utm_source=chatgpt.com” because, in addition to be the aforementioned loser, Goodwin is also very lazy.
Nothing more to say here. Just found that hilarious.
Could we be finally witnessing the beginning of the end of the era of fossil fuel dominance? Even the Associated Press noted that: "The war in Iran is exposing the world’s reliance on fragile fossil fuel routes, lending urgency to calls for hastening the shift to renewable energy."
Spotted by Justin Mikulka on Bluesky.
A mother who was diagnosed with sickle cell disease at just two months old has been cured of the condition after undergoing an “experimental” treatment at Johns Hopkins University.
Zack Polanski, leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, talking about Jewish Anti-Zionism on the BBC. Note how Zack, the only major Jewish politician in the UK right now, keeps on being asked to justify his anti-Zionism.
A reminder that believing that Jews somehow owe something to the Israeli state, let alone Zionist ethno-supremacy currently committing a genocide against Palestinians, is antisemitic.
Since we're on the topic, check out Molly Crabapple’s new book on the history of the Jewish Labour Bund: Here Where We Live Is Our Country.
You can buy it on Bookshop.org or ask your library to order it.
Molly was on The Fire These Times last year to talk about the Bund, and I'm planning on having her on again to talk about how the Bund's history speaks to our current political moment.
After British Muslims prayed in Trafalgar Square, the British right lost its mind again. The argument, as usual, relies on the assumption that there is something inherently foreign about Islam in the UK. You see, the British Right have taken a break from saying that Judaism and/or Catholicism are foreign to the UK because it's become more fashionable for them to focus on Islam instead. It's the same reactionary impulse.
As part of the responses to right-wing hysteria, Adil Ray noted how so many of Britain's most prized architectural heritage is itself at least partly influenced by Islamic architecture:
“If some are still worried about Islam dominating London, please don’t tell them the gothic architecture of Big Ben and the Houses or Parliament are hugely influenced by Islam. Big Ben is inspired by the minaret of the Great Mosque of Aleppo, Syria. And the HoP arches of the Mosque or Cordoba. ❤️”
calmerfuture.bsky.social then found a fascinating extract from the book Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe which reads:
”Sir Christopher Wren (born in 1632), an acclaimed English architect, wrote in the 1700s: “Modern gothic… from all the marks of the new architecture, it can only be attributed to the Moors; or what is the same thing, to the Arabians or Saracens”. Saracen was a derogatory term used for Muslims at this time, and even to this day. Its original Arabic meaning is linked to the word “to steal”, and was supposed to reference Muslims as thieves and looters. Diana Darke, author of ‘Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe’ writes extensively about the origins of Gothic architecture in Europe and the western world, in her book. She says in an interview with the Guardian: “Against a backdrop of rising Islamophobia, I thought it was about time someone straightened out the narrative.””
I haven't read it yet but I definitely will at some point. You can buy it on Bookshop.org or ask your library to order it.
Pentagon to adopt Palantir AI as core US military system, memo says. Why is this disturbing? Palantir’s leaders, including the anti-Christ obsessed (this is not an exaggeration) Peter Thiel, have openly declared on multiple occasions their ideological opposition to democracy.
Relatedly, see: Palantir deals with UK state total at least £670m – including £15m contract with nuclear weapons agency by Carole Cadwalladr, Charlie Young and Max Colbert
Gamblers on Polymarket threatened to kill this Israeli journo who reported on an Iranian strike because he said the strike wasn’t intercepted (which is true) but they bet that it was.
Polymarket must be banned.
The story is on The Times of Israel which I won't link to as they are complicit in the Gaza genocide. Here's the archived link.
Scientists film whale giving birth while other whales work together to help her. What do I even say? this is amazing. I love whales so here's a story about whales.
“A 3-year study published in Pediatrics examined newborns in Norway. It found a clear benefit for the baby when mom gets a COVID vaccination during pregnancy.” Read here.
Please continue defending vaccines against antivaxxers before they kill us all.
Speaking of antivaxxers and how they will kill us all if we don’t stop them, ProPublica published the following: “Researchers at Stanford University modeled how many people could die or be disabled in 25 years if vaccines for polio, measles, rubella or diphtheria were no longer available.”
Polio: 23k paralyzed
Measles: 290k deaths
Rubella: 41k born w/ congenital rubella syndrome
Diphtheria: 138k-1M deaths”
Every single one of these potential deaths is preventable with vaccines.
Every now and then I catch up on some podcasts and that's what I did today with the Srsly Wrong podcast, one of my favourites.
I listened to Does Parenting Make You More Conservative? and We’re Joining the War on Cars which I highly recommend.
The parenting one tackles this widespread notion that becoming a parent makes it more likely for someone to identify as a conservative. As a parent who is very much not a conservative, I appreciated Srsly Wrong doing this deep dive and adding nuance to a topic that's often treated simplistically. It's also hilarious as usual.
The cars one was like catnip to me as someone who is fanatically pro-public transport. As most of us live in car-centric societies, we take for granted just how much of our lives and cities and money have gone to feeding this one method of transportation at the expense of everything else including, in hundreds of thousands of cases, our very lives. And yes, it's hilarious.
You can support Srsly Wrong on Patreon.
Season 2 of The Spectral Voyager by Jake Rockatansky and Brad Abrahams is finally out and I immediately listened to the first two episodes. I listened to the first season twice, something I rarely do. It's that good.
The mini-series is not public but season 1 is still available on the QAA podcast.
You can get season 2 by subscribing to Cursed Media.
I finally figured out a convenient way to write down what I’ve been reading, listening and watching (If there are any issues with this site that you’re aware of please let me know.) I’m still using Google even though I wish to move away from American tech. It’s a work in progress. Check out Paris Marx’s Getting off US tech: a guide
Yes I am still planning on moving to Ghost. I just haven't had the time yet.
Suggested: $5 or more.