Last gasp: The Sunday night reader for 5/2/21
The For the People Act and humanity's 'extra life'
Voting Bill Presents Democrats with a Quandary
By Astead W. Herndon. “[Democrats] are pushing a colossal elections system overhaul that would take redistricting out of the hands of politicians, introduce automatic voter registration and restore voting rights for the formerly incarcerated. For some Black Democrats in the South, the fact that this fight is happening at all — in 2021 — is a profound failure of the Democratic Party’s politics and policies…
“If the people who were most impacted by this were white people, Democrats would’ve done something about this a long time ago,” said Rukia Lumumba, the executive director of the People’s Advocacy Institute in Jackson…“They thought, ‘Oh, that’s just the South,’ and not that what we’ve experienced here was coming to the rest of the country.” Read more.
An appreciation: Michael Collins
This one’s by me. A remembrance of Michael Collins, who flew on Apollo 11 and died this week. “He’s the man who was in lunar orbit, waiting for Aldrin and Armstrong’s return. His mission wasn’t to walk on the moon. His mission was to find his way home, even if his crewmates didn’t.” Read more.
More than 3,500 people read stories from the blog this week. Thanks for sharing! I really appreciate your support.
How Humanity Gave Itself an Extra Life
A terrific analysis of the factors that have extended human lifespans over the centuries by Steven Johnson. It’s not just a matter of science. It’s a matter of public health, sociology, and marketing. China first started using inoculation techniques a thousand years ago. India and Africa picked them up when they arrived there. But a white aristocrat didn’t convince Europe that they were acceptable until the 1700s. Consumers hated pasteurized milk when it emerged because it tasted different; producers hated it because it cut into profits. It took a couple of decades of politic activism to shift public perception and laws on pasteurization, even though it dramatically reduced child mortality.
Technology has doubled the average lifespan in the previous 100 years, but it’s also caused an explosion of new, complicated inequalities and dangers. “All those brilliant solutions we engineered to reduce or eliminate threats like smallpox created a new, higher-level threat: ourselves. Many of the key problems we now face as a species are second-order effects of reduced mortality…
“No place on earth embodies that complicated reality more poignantly than Bhola Island, Bangladesh. Almost half a century ago, it was the site of one of our proudest moments as a species: the elimination of variola major…But in the years that followed smallpox eradication, the island was subjected to a series of devastating floods; almost half a million people have been displaced from the region …Today large stretches of Bhola Island have been permanently lost to the rising sea waters caused by climate change. The entire island may have disappeared from the map of the world by the time our children and grandchildren celebrate the centennial of smallpox eradication in 2079.” Definitely worth a read.
ICYMI
My take on “American Utopia,” the concert film directed by Spike Lee based on David Byrne’s Broadway show. “Throughout the show, they answer David’s life-long questions about whether anyone is really having fun with an easy ‘yes.’ Yet they maintain their trademark sincerity and intensity when talking about violence, racism, and nativism. At the end, we watch David and the 11-person band glide through the streets of Manhattan on bikes, free and almost starry-eyed. There’s beauty in the struggle — as long as you’re always on the hunt that connection, always grasping for the humane among the inhuman.
“They both know those things to their bones. David puzzling out the world from a distance as Spike constantly draws the world closer.” Read more.
“American Utopia” is on HBO Max, but you can watch all of “Stop Making Sense” on YouTube (legally, even, as far as I can tell). It’s terrific too.
Say it plain…
