Retroactive: ICYMI From Ordinary Times This Week

Retroactive is a #ICYMI #links listing of all the great reading from the week that was. This week’s unique writing on culture and politics contributed by @trumwill @hyacinthgrrl @musepolsci @samwilkinson @wvEsquiress @OG_Jaybird @four4thefire and more.

SCOTUS Issues Two New Opinions
Today’s SCOTUS decisions are not world-rocking, but the largely homogeneous agreement is noteworthy. It is likewise noteworthy that neither of these decisions lend themselves to much partisan hand–wringing.
By Em Carpenter

Democrats and Chicken Little Politics
This is the problem for Democrats. All of the comparisons to Hitler, all of the sky is falling rhetoric, and all of the breathless coverage of Trump’s… inept administration will not force people to feel anxious enough. What if… and this is the gut punch question.. what if it turns out the new normal ain’t so bad?
By Mark Kruger

The Moral Authority Hierarchy of Loss
Sitting down to write about the moral authority hierarchy of loss in the current political landscape, I found I did not know where to begin. Death, although universal, is too terrifyingly intimate to handle indelicately. But the use of the dead as bludgeons to further essentially ephemeral agendas is abhorrent. And we are becoming entirely too comfortable with it.
By April Joy

Remembering Anthony Bourdain
When you suddenly realize that a person you never met had a significant impact on your adult life.
By Mike Dwyer

SCOTUS Upholds Ohio’s Voter Purge Practices
The case involved the practice in Ohio of purging voters who have not voted in several years and who fail to return a notice card confirming their address. The case, Husted v Randolph Institute, et al., concerned whether the practice violated the National Voter Registration Act. SCOTUS says it does not.
By Em Carpenter

Supreme Court Majority To The Wrong Voters: Drop Dead
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority makes a decision that happens to align perfectly with its own political preferences. It’s all just the damndest coincidence.
By Sam Wilkinson

Taxing in the Name Of: Seattle Head Tax Repealed
Back in May the Seattle City Council unanimously passed the “head tax” under the auspices of raising funds for the homeless. But in the face of opposition from Seattle’s largest businesses, and a certain legal challenge to the law itself, the council has reversed themselves.
By Andrew Donaldson

Supercomputers Reach The Summit, For Now
Oak Ridge National Laboratory is a facility born from the drive to accomplish scientific feats before an international competitor does the same. In the modern day race for the worlds most powerful computer, the ORNL-housed Summit supercomputer has put the US back in the lead…for now.
By Andrew Donaldson

Speaking of the Dead: Obituary in the Social Media Age
The obituary, long the traditional and biographical announcement of a death in a newspapers, has found new life online and in social media. And apparently the old adage of “speak not ill of the dead” might be changing with it, especially if it helps the notice go viral.
By Andrew Donaldson

Weekend! and Saturday! posts, Tech Tuesday, and all the Morning Ed: links from the week that was.

All the Ten Second News from the past week:
Humans Weren’t Meant To Live In Cities
Manafort Ordered to Jail
“Classical” Thoughts on Solving Urban Planning
Giving Up Your Seat
Teaching Philosophy to Weaponized AI
Net Neutrality Passes Away (2015-2018)
The Third Coming of Mitt Romney
One Second Is Worth A Thousand Words
Super Mario’s Great Escape
Are Individualist Societies More Cohesive?

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