Turn, Turn, Turn, Notes from the Underground, Jason Segedy, April 16, 2020

It’s been long enough now that it’s interesting to go back and read early-pandemic writing. That has sort of become its own genre—for what it got right, got wrong, and just for the sense of perspective and history-making that it gives. (For example, I was watching a video on YouTube from March 2020 the other night, and the guy mentioned that the kids were home from school for a month. Little did he know.)

I know Jason Segedy from his work on urbanism in the Rust Belt, but his blogging about current events is also great. This is a long, thoughtful piece about generational attitudes, social trust, order, and crisis. Read the whole thing—it’s too long and nuanced to summarize here. But just take this paragraph to heart:

A long period of social unraveling is all that many of us have ever experienced - one in which ever-worsening social, political, and economic problems are ignored and kicked further and further down the road.  The pandemic has made ignoring them impossible.  

Whether we’ve really learned that or not is a different issue, but the point is undeniable to me.

Enormous cost of relocating US climate refugees from coastal town a stark example for the whole world, researchers warn, Frontiers, Suzanna Burgelman, November 8, 2021

This article is about Tangier Island, a small island in the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. (I wrote about it once here.) The point I made there was that conservatives who see climate change as a “liberal issue” should recognize that what’s at stake isn’t “the planet” in some amorphous sense, but thousands of local and distinct places and cultures.

Tangier Island, which has lost nearly two-thirds of its habitable land in the last 50 years, has become famous as one of the first examples of a place in the United States that will generate “climate refugees.” It’s still possible to save the island, at the expense of hundreds of millions, and that project may eventually happen. But the money and infrastructure capacity will not exist to save every place everywhere in the world.

The Decades-Long Quest to Design a Car Stereo That Can't Be Stolen, Vice, Ernie Smith, December 4, 2016

This is a surprisingly in-depth article about different design approaches to securing car stereos against thieves. With music now mostly integrated into the car’s center console, this isn’t such an issue anymore, but the article is really interesting. It reminds me of this video about electronics designed for use in prisons, which is also fascinating.

The fourth piece today is not an article, but this great Thanksgiving history thread by my editor over at The Bulwark, Adam Keiper. It’s a fun and season-appropriate read.

Adam Keiper @AdamKeiper

EVERY PRESIDENTIAL THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION (because why not) George Washington, 1789: "A day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God" founders.archives.gov/documents/Wash…

November 26th 2021

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