one of the best essays i've read recently, by my dear friend alfred jung lee www.thebeliever.net/on-descripti...

a thing historians will marvel about when they study this era is the extent to which the "war is a thing that happens to poorer, browner people" class went about systematically dismantling every aspect of the global political order that confined the costs of war to poorer and browner people

My latest review for @bookforum.bsky.social is also out now. In it, I think alongside Namwali Serpell’s resplendently rigorous new book on Toni Morrison about the last greatest living writer’s legacy and how we’re meant to read her.

A redevelopment project in Nairobi’s Ngara district promises revival—but raises deeper questions about capital, memory, and who has the right to shape the city. africasacountry.com/2026/02/visi...

What is a city but masses pulsing in the illusion of a heartbeat? Here, within the old Central Business District, lies Nairobi’s innermost tree rings. This old neighborhood is ripe for entry into the future, says the pitch deck…

Ngara has always changed; it archives the evolution of Nairobi itself. So then what of the change brought by the urban renewal project unfolding in Ngara now? What is the real question behind the question of gentrification? I wrote this for @africasacountry: africasacountry.com/2026/02/visi...

Remember that awful Guernica essay about Palestine last March that triggered dozens of resignations and an ultimate retraction? This is a great conversation between two of those resigning (volunteer!!!) editors.

When Hassan returned home to Chicago, he was eager to share his experiences and advocate for an end to Israel’s assault on Gaza. But instead of being welcomed like he had been after previous missions to Ukraine and Syria, Hassan soon found himself on the receiving end of a doxxing campaign.

International diplomats assume that regional powers simply need to be convinced that their interests are better served by a stabilized Sudan. Sudan's actual wartime political economy—which turns exorbitant profits for Gulf States and militias alike—belies that. novaramedia.com/2025/11/14/g...

"UN refugee agency official Jacqueline Wilma Parlevliet said that the new arrivals told stories of widespread ethnic and politically motivated killings, including reports of people with disabilities shot dead because they were unable to flee" this keeps getting worse www.ctvnews.ca/world/articl...

"It was not liberalism that bestowed upon America a utopian aura; it was the country’s sheer power, the sense of boundless strength it projected after its geopolitical win in the early 1990s." Rahmane Idrissa for @equatormag.bsky.social www.equator.org/articles/sta...

Particularly compelled by how Sarah Khatry and @aprzhu.bsky.social's @nplusonemag.com interview shows the ways Chen's poor craft obscures Israel's colonial project. www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...

"Common decency stigmatizes people that do not participate in it—removes them from voluntary association. We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply." me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...

"Aziz knew that not all the trash would make it back to America.... But that is, to some extent, the point. Part of the violence of the occupation lies in America’s refusal to accept the gravity of what it left behind." Joshua Craze on Aziz Hazara's art canopycanopycanopy.com/contents/jun...

This is good. Really really good. A lot of insights to take away to all our conversations about empathy & its limits. And some crucial ideas for me to consider as someone who hopes & tries to be a writer of both empathy & liberation.

Last March, I and other editors at Guernica resigned over the publication of an essay by an Israeli writer about treading the line of empathy. The ensuing criticism—'condemn even empathy?'—pushed my ex-colleague and I to re-interrogate the piece's shortcomings. www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...

Last March, I and other editors at Guernica resigned over the publication of an essay by an Israeli writer about treading the line of empathy. The ensuing criticism—'condemn even empathy?'—pushed my ex-colleague and I to re-interrogate the piece's shortcomings. www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...

"Today in UFW History - 8/21/88: Cesar Chavez ended his 36 day fast over the pesticide poisoning of farmworkers & their children during a mass at the UFWs “Forty Acres” property attended by Ethel & Kerry Kennedy, Rev. Jessie Jackson and 1000s of farm workers and supporters.

politics is conflictual and you should pay attention to who benefits from pretending otherwise and how they do so

Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif was killed in an Israeli strike, while he and other journalists were inside their tent

40 minutes before he was killed by an Israeli air strike, Palestinian journalist Anas al-Sharif shared this message.

More vile than calling this war "a war about nothing" is attributing the humanitarian tragedy in any way to the retreat of the US, whose unmentioned sanctions (with exemptions for the American empire of Coke) shaped Sudan's extractive, militarized economy. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

"[Dubai] provides normal people with the chance to buy the purest form of the most heinous commodity: the exploitation of others. If you want to know how it feels to have slaves, in the modern world – and not be blamed openly for this desire – visit Dubai." newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...

[email protected] wrote about the complicated co-authorship of Malcolm X’s autobiography with Alex Haley—particularly Haley’s lack of understanding of Malcolm’s Pan-African turn (which he sometimes made up for with plagiarism), leading to distorting omissions. aeon.co/essays/how-a...

A spokesperson for the Freedom Flotilla Coalition tells me: “Chris Smalls is still in Givon Prison and despite repeated requests to meet with the U.S. Embassy has been ignored by his country after being abducted by the IOF in international waters.”

Breaking news: Federal immigration officers may deport immigrants with as little as six hours’ notice to countries other than their own, even without assurances that the arrivals will be safe from persecution or torture, a top official said.

Kristi Noem didn't renew the expired call center contracts for five days, resulting in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) failing to answer nearly two-thirds of calls to its disaster assistance line from flood survivors in Texas. It's malevolence mixed with incompetence again and again.

Our hearts are heavy for the grieving family of Jaime Alanis, who died from injuries sustained during a chaotic raid on Thursday. We will do everything we can to support them. We continue to work with the hundreds of farm worker families navigating the aftermath of this violent raid.

The horror in Kenya continues into the night as police or people acting as agents of the police allegedly break into apartment complexes and sexually assault women in their homes.

NEW: A ChinaFile investigation into China's powerful, but leaky, internet censorship system at locknet.chinafile.com 1/21

Wrote a micro-review on the film Black Tea (2024) in @thedrift-mag.bsky.social www.thedriftmag.com/mentions/

“Bring back the child you murdered. If the state and empire wishes to act like a God that can take life, it should function as a God and resurrect life. If it cannot, then it is not a god, and its laws are not legitimate when they’re predatory.” Professor Joy James

crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their consultants

The Ghetto Foundation, a Mathare-based grassroots organization, has been doing community-led research, environmental protection, and youth work programs for decades. They're raising €20k to build a Community Resilience Center. Please contribute whatever you can! www.gofundme.com/f/building-h...

In 2022, the only mortal remains of Patrice Lumumba, a single gold-capped tooth, were returned to his family, more than 60 years after his murder. Only now are Belgian prosecutors planning to go after anyone for their role in the 1961 killing.

You’d think even pro war pundits would have learned their lesson at this point but no www.nytimes.com/2025/06/22/u...

Since the air pollution crisis was relocated out of Beijing, people just care a lot less. It's still grim. "In 2019 PM2.5 pollution was responsible for some 1.4m premature deaths in the country" www.economist.com/china/2025/0...

Today's quick update [Jun 21]: - SAF drone strike on a hospital in Mogled, West Kordofan; per West Kordofan ERR, 41 civilians were killed, along with tens of injured. #KeepEyesOnSudan

The cost of smelting copper in China is now -$45 a ton. This is historically very unusual. Mining companies normally pay to have their metals processed, now they get paid. Hard to see how countries that plan to become wealthier by processing metals can compete with this.

Vance Boelter’s alleged assassination of a pro-choice lawmaker isn’t just a tragedy—it’s a warning. His path from charismatic Bible colleges to spiritual warfare rhetoric & targeted political violence shows how Christian nationalism can radicalize seemingly ordinary believers into deadly extremists.

"The yield, or amount of energy released when the nuclear weapon is detonated, is higher for the new bombs. The new B61-13s are approximately 300 kilotons. The B61-12’s maximum yield is 50 kilotons. The bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima was estimated at 15 kilotons." Good to say it.

The US has denied the visas of all 12 members of the Senegalese women’s basketball team who were scheduled to travel to the country as part of their preparation for the Afrobasket tournament that begins in August. Afrobasket is also the African qualifiers for the Olympics. #wnba

I wrote for @ca.theconversation.com re: the 30th anniversary (this Fri) of President Jacques Chirac's June 13th, 1995 announcement that France would be resuming nuclear testing in the Pacific. 210 detonations in Algeria & Mā'ohi Nui (French Polynesia) from 1960-1996. Thousands of victims.

The Mennonite colony that, pushed out of Mexico by locals, has settled on diamond land in Angola. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/15/w...

“This is a massacre. The blasts haven’t stopped. Children are crying and we fear many civilians have been killed. There’s a smell of death in the air. I can’t stop crying."

There it is. The first ever Heat Advisory issued in Alaska. This is the first year it has been an option. @alaskawx.bsky.social

Botswana’s economy was built on diamond mining. Now that lab-grown synthetics are cheaper and faster to get, it’s all crumbling down, Duncan Money (@mininghistory.bsky.social‬) writes.

FORTY EIGHT

“Israeli Gas, Kenyan Tears” A report by THRAETS and @omegarf.bsky.social on tear gas supply chains omegaresearchfoundation.org/storage/2025...