New Year, New Pandemic Links

Lost Semester Linkblogging! Lost in January Links

New Year, New Pandemic Links

Depressingly relevant New Years cartoon from exactly 100 years ago, at the end of our previous deadly pandemic. pic.twitter.com/aE3HBnwqgF
— Derf Backderf (@DerfBackderf) December 31, 2021

* Brace for Omicron. Wisconsin COVID-19 case counts matching levels not seen since November 2020. Omicron is spreading at lightning speed. Scientists are trying to figure out why. Where are hospitals overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients? Look up your state. After Vaccines: Where Covid Death Rates Have Risen. Omicron Is Pushing America Into Soft Lockdown. “Things will likely get worse, experts warn.” As Omicron Looms, These Colleges Will Start Their January Classes Online. Junior year. You don’t say. In this Midwestern diner, patrons are sticking with coronavirus.

It’s honestly amazing that the CDC released guidelines lowering the time you have to isolate after COVID and the only stated reason was “well, too many people were getting sick”
— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) December 28, 2021

not great https://t.co/EI0JJ53Q3B
— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) January 3, 2022

* The pandemic killed so many dialysis patients that their total number shrunk for the first time in nearly half a century.
* Flood of Creative Works Enter the Public Domain on Jan. 1.

https://t.co/IAQPLJRZ6C pic.twitter.com/A6S0mYQdrv
— Chris Kohler (@kobunheat) December 24, 2021

Please note that Disney’s depiction of Winnie the Pooh is still under copyright. It’s the character from the books that entered the public domain.

Red shirt on the bear, artists beware. If nude he be, your Pooh is free.
— Tim X. Price (@timxprice) January 3, 2022

winniethepoohraunchysexcomedy.xxxversion.20220101draft.v3.docx
— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) January 1, 2022

* Absolutely beautiful, don’t even care if it’s true.

succinct explanation for why all the people who said online isn’t the future of higher ed were 100% right https://t.co/emMVfKMn9e
— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) December 29, 2021

Universities and the ideals they stand for die when you starve departments based on engineered crises and then create a discretionary slush fund that exists entirely outside faculty control.
— Philip Rocco (@PhilipRocco) December 24, 2021

obviously going online mitigates (some of) the harms from teaching but the only way to truly help our most disadvantaged students is to abolish education altogether https://t.co/MKTBzFzkPT
— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) December 30, 2021

* How Will the History Books Remember 2021?
* Retired general recommends wargaming potential coup scenarios. That’s just prudent!
* America’s Electoral Future. What elections?
* Redistricting is Going Surprisingly Well for Democrats. Oh, honey.
* The Twitter Putsch. The Big Lie.
* John Roberts, Democratic hero. Joe Biden Has Been Very Good for the Military-Industrial Complex.
* Milwaukee ranks 2nd in poverty level among top 50 most-populated cities in U.S.
* Non-Mortgage Household Debt in the United States, 2003-2022.
* Fast-Moving Wildfires Burn Hundreds of Homes in Denver Area. ‘We Are in a Climate Emergency.’
* ‘The Fuse Has Been Blown,’ and the Doomsday Glacier Is Coming for Us All. The climate apocalypse is real, and it is coming. The trap of climate optimism.

I was thinking about the climate and the "it doesn't even feel like Christmas" tweet and then I remembered this off-the-cuff answer I gave to a Q&A a few years back that has haunted me ever since https://t.co/uGdbY5etlG
— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) December 24, 2021

yikes https://t.co/xaGcMuVhaA
— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) January 3, 2022

* We stan.
* We’re preparing for apocalypse wrong — and that could make things even worse. What The Marvel Movies Don’t Say About The End Of The World.

But taken together, at the 100,000-foot level, the fact that each property is basically about someone doing what they were doing anyway, then having to deal with some new iteration of surreal but familiar external forces invading, and never having any time to really think about what it all means because the next thing is already happening, as it turns out — now that we really do live in a notable historical period of continual surreal events that could make you question the foundations of society — everyone has to continue doing what they were doing anyway when the world is ending, and you’ll never have that much time to think about what it all means because the demands of the next thing will be upon you.

What does it feel like when the world ends? It just feels like aliens invading until something else happens.

* The Subversive Playfulness of the ‘The Matrix.’ ‘The Matrix Resurrections’ captures the real crisis of our post-truth era. ‘The Matrix Resurrections’ Is the Anti-sequel Sequel. The Matrix Resurrections is a messy triumph. Too many movies right now are “about trauma.” The Matrix Resurrections actually does the work. Why trans fans connect to ‘The Matrix’. On the Matrix Resurrections. Blank Check. Even Neo Can’t Log Off.

Even putting the oddness with the actor who played Tank aside, you still have the reboot doing multiple very weird, sidelining things with the Morpheus character, arguably the most iconic of the core three and the heart of the first movie, and don't even get me started on Niobe.
— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) December 25, 2021

.@GriffLightning and @davidlsims had some reflections on the latest @blankcheckpod on Zoom life as a sort of uncanny and exhausting performance of what used to “come naturally” that I think could be really valuable for teachers wondering why the last two years have felt so bad.
— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) January 2, 2022

pic.twitter.com/gOXoNA8Bsp
— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) January 2, 2022

change my mind pic.twitter.com/pbF8PmJade
— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) December 27, 2021

* Another person discovers the terrible truth about jazz in the Star Wars universe.
* The case against the trauma plot.
* Placement games were 2021’s most calming trend. Black Games Studies.
* LARB’s top-ten most-read of 2021.
* The Radical James Baldwin.
* The End of Neoliberalism in Chile?
* Space Colonists Will Likely Resort to Cannibalism, Scientist Says. Henry Kissinger: AI Will Prompt Consideration of What it Means to Be Human.
* Routine Maintenance: Embracing habit in an automated world.
* Why am I being hurt?
* The Judge Rotenberg Center, a Massachusetts school, still uses electric shock therapy to punish disabled students. How can an entire field of mental health accept this as fine?
* Death Drive Nation.
* I’m older than Frasier. I’m older than Cliff Claven.
* Behold: Star Trek: Coda.
* What are you doing? Listen to Man Bites Dog.
* And the news just gets worse: Exercise necessary for older people later in life, study says.

IN & OUT FOR 2022

out: complaining about how individual years are bad, pretending you believe in astrology

in: overthrowing capitalism, pretending you believe birth-order determines destiny
— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) January 1, 2022