Curated Nerd-Cool (Nov 18)

I promised to intermittently share what I find digging through the crates of life. Here’s the best and most interesting of what I came across the past couple weeks. ✌️

War in Gaza and US Policy

Security in Context had a webinar putting the war in Gaza and US policy…in context. It included a great group of experts, including: Steven Simon, Mouin Rabbani, Matthew Duss, Sarah Leah Whitson, and Omar Dahi.

It’s getting harder to find discussions of Gaza that take seriously the history that frames the current conflict and proceeds without succumbing to whataboutism. This webinar was a good corrective.

Reading Politics and Policy

• Spencer Ackerman, “Gaza Shows the Difference Between International Law and the ‘Rules-Based International Order,’” The Nation

• Interview with Veronica Gago, “The Logic of Plunder,” The Drift

• M. Taylor Fravel, Henrik Stålhane Hiim, and Magnus Langset Trøan, “China’s Misunderstood Nuclear Expansion,” Foreign Affairs

• Andrew Elrod, “A New Class Consciousness,” Dissent

• Marco de Jong, “NZ’s slide into sinister Pacific power play,” E-Tangata

What You Missed In Substack Notes

Substack has a very Twitter-like social feature called Notes. You can follow people, and you can interact with what people post (I think you can post too). I’ve started using it more, and except for a center-right lean of the content being shared around, it seems promising. So I’ll share here any big thing you might’ve missed from not being on Notes, like this:

Non-Sequitur

@nodutdolJoin us at Stanford University on Friday to say NO to the trilateral military alliance! Stanford has invited Yoon and Kishida for a joint speaking event to celebrate the alliance between the US, Japan, and south Korea. But this alliance only serves US interests and leads Asia closer toward war. Join us in protest at 12:30-3:30 pm in front of the Traitel Building at Stanford University. NO to APEC! NO to the trilateral military alliance!

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The protest event he’s talking about in this TikTok already passed, but this short clip represents so many fascinating things.

• Using TikTok to mobilize the public on behalf of peace and democracy.

• Calling out the Hoover Institution.

• De-naturalizing the merits of APEC and the labor repression happening in Korea that’s being justified in national security terms.

• A new generation of Asian-Americans calling out Condoleeza Rice.

The kids are alright. It’s the rest of us who are f*cked up.

Entertainment

Just finished watching The Other Black Girl and thought it was great. Seeing a story from the perspective of a white-collar black woman navigating the New York publishing world was utterly novel. The writing was punchy, and funny. And the show has at its core a mystery that leads to a number of surprising twists by the end of the season.

I spent part of my childhood in Los Angeles. Both there and in Florida, I grew up adjacent to the cholo culture of flannel, Dickies, low-riders, bandanas, spicy food, and a gangbanging way of talking that feels very natural to me. I thought everybody referred to friends, enemies, family, and strangers as “fool”—an insult or a term of endearment depending on context. I still describe literally everyone as fools in my unguarded moments.

Anyway, that culture is on full display in This Fool, one of the funniest shows I’ve seen in years. It depicts working-class life in LA. Whether you want to laugh or get a slice of America as it really is, watch This Fool.

The most memorable, vulgar song I’ve ever heard. To this day I’m unsure if it’s female empowerment or misogyny. Why was this on my mind? Because non-union workers at a Starbucks outside the dorms at the University of Pennsylvania led a chant to the cadence of this song: “My neck, my back, fair wages & contract.” Legends.