There may not be a person in the world with whom I disagree more, on everything, than Keith Gessen.
My name is Xarissa. I'm a senior web producer at The Chronicle of Higher Education and an occasional freelance essayist.
Behind one of the houses I lived in, there was a brushy, overgrown bit of property. We called it the fox-lot because only the wild animals got any use out of it. That's sort of what I'm going for here.
• Writing
• QuestionsThe FoxLot
“All solutions come with cost. Shifting a lot of the responsibility to the individual is a very conservative approach that seeks to preserve the current system instead of reforming it. With self-tracking we end up optimising our behaviour within the existing constraints rather than changing the constraints to begin with. It places us as consumers rather than citizens. My fear is policymakers will increasingly find that it is much easier, cheaper and sexier to invite the likes of Google to engage in some of this problem-solving rather than do something that is much more ambitious and radical.”
— Evgeny Morozov, The Guardian
Vicious, invasive gallinipper mosquitoes are coming to eat you. They were brought to America by tropical storms, which deposited eggs in Florida. (Can’t wait for the headlines out of Florida this summer.)
Super-sized mosquitoes as big as quarters which can bite through clothing are headed to Florida ‘in large numbers’ this summer
Mega-mosquitoes which are the size of quarters are expected to take over areas of Florida ‘in large numbers’ this summer, scientists have warned. The hurricanes of last year brought large numbers of the insects to the Central and South Florida area which laid dormant eggs in the soil near ponds and streams. Now scientists are predicting heavy rainfall will come again and cause the eggs to hatch, releasing the super-sized bugs in large numbers.
The special breed of the nuisance bug, which can be 20 times bigger than common menacing Asian tiger mosquitoes, are described as ‘notoriously aggressive’. They were handed the perfect breeding ground by last year’s tropical storms, according to scientists at the University of Florida, so are coming to a town near you.
Psorophora ciliata, or Gallinipper mosquitoes as they are commonly known, have half inch long bodies and the same black-white color pattern of the more common Asian Tiger Mosquito with a wingspan of 6-7 millimeters.
They have a ‘Persistent biting behavior’ and their bite is much more painful. ‘The bite really hurts, I can attest to that,’ said Kaufman. They can also bite through light material, and like other mosquitoes only the females bite, the males Gallinippers feed on flower nectar. They also feed on other mosquito larvae and even tadpoles and are most active at dusk and dawn.
Because Florida isn’t already a hellhole.
“Virtually any character in the early realist novel might be said to be an orphan—including, paradoxically, many of those heroes and heroines who have a living parent (or two), or end up getting one, as Moll Flanders does. A feeling of intractable loneliness—of absolute moral or spiritual estrangement from the group—may be all that it takes. You don’t need to have been abandoned by a parent in the conventional sense, in other words, to feel psychically bereft.”
The Case for Breaking Up With Your Parents, Terry Castle
If you’ve often been the butt of political signaling (Sister Souljah, Willie Horton), and rarely the recipient, these displays of cultural affinity are powerful. And they are all the more powerful because Obama has been successful. Whole sections of America that we had assumed to be negrophobic turned out in support of him in 2008. Whatever Obama’s other triumphs, arguably his greatest has been an expansion of the black imagination to encompass this: the idea that a man can be culturally black and many other things also—biracial, Ivy League, intellectual, cosmopolitan, temperamentally conservative, presidential.
Went back to read Coates’ “Fear of a Black President” again, after enjoying his Times column today, and goddam is it good.
“Why so much devotion? After all, there are plenty of other pop stars making dancehall anthems. But where Rihanna doesn’t ask her fans to do much but buy concert tickets, Lady Gaga offers something to believe in. She’s gone on the record in favor of social acceptance of the LGBTQ community, freedom of sexual and personal expression, and the political rights of the openly gay to marry and serve in the military. Moreover, unlike other celebrities who philanthropize in their spare time, Gaga wraps her admonitions within the entertainment itself. Her act, living at the intersection of camp’s sheer excess, queer theory’s rejection of heteronormative gender roles, and Christ’s admonishment to love our neighbor and the stranger equally, goes well beyond style and stagecraft.”
Some thoughts on Lady Gaga.
The guy at that Walgreens said that if I didn’t like them, I could bring them back for a refund. But there have to be “like 3 or 4 chips left in the bag.” (Why? They’re not going to resell the leftover chips, no matter how many they are, right? You’re awfully interested in policing my honesty, Walgreens.)
Other flavors on offer include Sriracha and Cheesy Garlic Bread. I BOUGHT THEM ALL.
Like chicken bullion with a tiny bit of maple syrup, hardened into a chip texture. Onion aftertaste. To be honest, this is how I always imagined food from the replicator on Star Trek Next Generation would taste.
