Jerusalem Demsas, Why America Doesn’t Build:
Local American environmentalists have developed tools to help citizens delay or block development. These tools are now being used against clean-energy projects, hampering a green transition. The legal tactics that allow someone to challenge a pipeline can also help them fight a solar farm; the political rhetoric deployed against the siting of toxic-waste dumps can be redeployed against transmission lines. And the whole concept that regular people can and should act as a private attorneys general has, in practice, put the green transition at the mercy of people with access, money, and time, while diluting the influence of those without…
The problem with bad projects isn’t the local opposition; the problem is that they are bad. Opposition can be a sign of that, but it can also just be a sign that people fear change. The green-energy transition rests on our ability to distinguish between the two. Right now, we can’t.
People often fret about the dangers of entertainment media in terms of things like desensitizing people to violence. But people are mostly pretty good about distinguishing fantasy from reality on that score. I think a less-appreciated harm is cultivating main character syndrome.
As in: Most of life for most people is a little boring. You try to do your work well and love your family. But probably you never become president or thwart a terrorist plot or discover a lost city full of booby traps and treasure.
We’ve been inundated for the last 50 years, to an extent prior generations haven’t really experienced, with visions of life as Epic in a way it just isn’t for most people. And I think that leaves a lot of folks with an itch video games won’t scratch.
Dan Drezner, Is the U.S. Foreign Policy Apparatus Working?
As the crisis in Israel and Gaza enters its third week, there are signs that U.S. foreign policy and national security officials are feeling the strain. Those affected range from the inner sanctum of the White House to the lower rungs of the State Department…
I think there are three different dynamics at work here. The first is at the level of the Biden White House, which probably feels like its circuits are overloading and its influence over regional dynamics is limited…
As for the staff, my hunch is that they are coping with twin pressures. The first is just the overall beleaguered state that regional experts are feeling right now…
The second is that, weirdly enough, I suspect the State Department personnel are feeling an even more heightened sense of the helplessness that outsiders have been feeling about the escalating spiral of violence. At least outsiders know their influence is limited. State Department personnel are supposed to be able to help mold policy. In a crisis situation like this one, however, administrations often narrow the decision-making circle. That certainly seems to be the case with the Biden team right now…
WGBH News, What international laws apply as civilians die in Gaza and Israel?
The first rule of just war is to avoid killing innocent people, but thousands of civilians have been killed so far in the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas. What does international law say about the kind of violence we have seen in the past two weeks and what kind of power does the global community have to enforce it? To answer those questions, Gautam Mukunda was joined by former Harvard and Georgetown professor, Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, and Tom Dannenbaum, co-director of the Center for International Law and Governance at Tufts University.
Fred Pearce, Abandoned Lands: A Hidden Resource for Restoring Biodiversity:
Abandoned farmland has been increasing, with a billion acres — an area half the size of Australia — lost globally. Ecologists are increasingly pointing to the potential of these lands and of degraded forests as neglected resources for rewilding and for capturing carbon.
Fred Hewett, I learned to love Boston from the banks of the Charles River
I’ve lived within a mile of the river for over 40 years, and it has profoundly shaped my experience of the city. As you spend more time around Boston, the Charles infuses into your consciousness…
As the river’s health steadily improved over recent decades, my natural affinity for water and open space led me to deepen my engagement with it…
I found myself drawn to the river not only for recreation but also because I felt a connection. It became both a place for a walk with a new friend and a refuge for solitary contemplation in difficult times. When my mother died, the river consoled me. It became my reference point, the physical and cultural locus through which I understood my adopted hometown.
Helen Rosner, “Letterkenny”, a Surreal Canadian Comedy to Rival Schitt’s Creek. From The New Yorker’s Twitter feed:
“Letterkenny” is laced with more sex and drugs and violence than your standard half-hour comedy, but it’s balanced out by a profusion of surreal, almost over-the-top structural devices.
For example… a very NSFW and inappropriate even for impolite company example… an example as funny as it is NSFW and inappropriate…