Note: Because of the chaos of last week, I was never able to collect links like I usually do. So, the handful that I had that I was originally going to post last Sunday are here with the ones for this week.
“HuffPost spoke to nine children of QAnon believers in seven states, ranging in age from 19 to 46. Some are desperately trying to deradicalize their moms and dads — an agonizing process that can feel maddening, heartbreaking and futile. Others believe their parents are already too far gone and have given up trying to help them. A few have made the painful decision to cut off contact entirely, for the sake of their own mental health.”
This Politico story about the QAnon Casualties Reddit board is along those same lines.
I’m glad to see that Shelley Duvall is alive and well and living in a community that cares for her. She deserves it.
“Happy Anniversary to the Best Accidental Headline in Christian Newspaper History”.
“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday that Congress will establish an independent, Sept. 11-style commission to look into the deadly insurrection that took place at the U.S. Capitol.”
“American anti-majoritarians have always promised that minority privilege will deliver positive results: stability, sobriety, the security of the public debt, and tranquil and peaceful presidential elections. But again and again, those promises have proved the exact opposite of reality. In practice, the privileged minority has shown itself to be unstable and unsober.”
“With Trump out of office, this group of researchers is now working to make sense of the deluge of data that they’ve collected from platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. It’s been a lesson in modern populism: a world leader amplified once-obscure conspiracy theories, with each tweet and retweet strengthening the ideas and emboldening their supporters. Now, researchers are retooling to understand — and prepare for — what comes next.”
“Working for the Trump hotel meant putting on a performance every night—right down to the gummy bears and popcorn.”
“Scientists have recovered DNA from mammoth fossils found in Siberian permafrost that are more than a million years old. This DNA—the oldest genomic evidence recovered to date—illuminates the evolutionary history of woolly mammoths and Columbian mammoths. It also raises the prospect of recovering DNA from other organisms this ancient—including extinct members of the human family.”
There’s a disclaimer at the beginning of The Muppet Show episodes on Disney+, because as my friend Therese notes, it’s a 40-year-old show and some things that were funny or at least not remarkable in the 70s are not so today. Deal with it.
The snow truthers of TikTok.
I don’t know when lying stopped being a sin. It’s still in my Ten Commandments.
“Ah, those delightful Germans! Always with the single word that describes a very specific thing that any normal language would never have a single word to describe! Well unsurprisingly, the Hamsterkauf was just the Eisbergspitze. Over the past year, German has coined some 1000-plus new terms endemic to the Now Times — ironic capitalization, by the way, being an annoying method that English-speakers use to create new language.”
“The world is a bit bleak at the moment, so we decided to get a little nerdy this week and dive into an entirely new frontier. So grab a bowl of your favorite Klingon cuisine and a barrel of blood wine, because we’re exploring something a bit different: the Klingon language and its interesting impact on modern pop culture.”
“Over the next five-plus years, I learned a lot about covering national politics. Some lessons came the hard way: By being really wrong. So now that we’re about a month into a new presidential administration, I’m trying to keep those lessons front and center.”
“Federal judges are at risk. What are we going to do about it?”
“Using social media, people across the state are volunteering their time and digital expertise to help others navigate the complicated and confusing web of allocation lists, websites, phone numbers, and seemingly endless waiting lists that make up Texas’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan.”
“Is it Mr. Potato Head or not?”
You too can help beloved MAD Magazine artist Al Jaffee celebrate his 100th birthday, but you will have to act quickly.