Tag: Gaza

Recommended reading / viewing / listening

The joy of walking alone / NPR loses Susan Stamberg / The Pentagon press corps revolts / New levels of ICE-y aggression / Refreshing the iPhone / The Amazon’s ‘flying rivers’ / The beauty of Euclid’s ‘Elements’

This week: The joy of walking alone / NPR loses Susan Stamberg / The Pentagon press corps revolts / New levels of ICE-y aggression / Refreshing the iPhone / The Amazon’s ‘flying rivers’ / The beauty of Euclid’s ‘Elements’

Most of these items come from my social media networks. Follow me on BlueSky, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism. Learn more about my academic background here and about me here.

1. Iran is out in the cold as the Mideast unites in support of the Gaza ceasefire
By Jon Gambrell | Associated Press | October 2025
“How Tehran’s theocracy responds in the weeks and months ahead, whether that means lashing out or trying to rebuild its hobbled economy at home, will be crucial.”
Also see: This is why the story of Abraham is coming up in the push for Middle East peace

2. NPR ‘founding mother’ Susan Stamberg has died
By David Folkenflik | NPR | October 2025
“Susan Stamberg, an original National Public Radio staffer who went on to become the first U.S. woman to anchor a nightly national news program, died Thursday at the age of 87.”

3. Who will lose out when ACA health insurance subsidies expire?
By Alyssa Fowers | The Washington Post | October 2025
“About 80 percent of the people who benefit from them live in states that Donald Trump won in the 2024 presidential election. Many have no idea that their health insurance costs are on track to go up.”

4. Journalists turn in access badges, exit Pentagon rather than agree to new reporting rules
By David Bauder | Associated Press | October 2025
“News outlets were nearly unanimous in rejecting new rules imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that would leave journalists vulnerable to expulsion if they sought to report on information — classified or otherwise — that had not been approved by Hegseth for release.”

5. D’Angelo Saw His Future in the Past
By Craig Jenkins | Vulture :: New York Magazine | October 2025
“To understand the late musician’s originality, look to his covers of the greats.”

6. The feds are cutting off public money for all Planned Parenthoods, following a playbook that began in Texas
By Lindsey Byman | The Texas Tribune | October 2025
“Texas’ Planned Parenthood has lost half its clinics, but they continue to see thousands of patients a year.”

7. Warning: Our Stock Market Is Looking Like a Bubble
By Jared Bernstein and Ryan Cummings | The New York Times | October 2025
“You may remember the recession that followed the collapse of dot-com stocks in 2001. Or, worse, the housing crisis of 2008. Both times, a new idea — the internet, mortgage-backed securities and the arcane derivatives they unleashed — convinced investors to plunge so much money into the stock market that it inflated two speculative bubbles whose inevitable bursting created much economic pain. We believe it’s time to call the third bubble of our century: the A.I. bubble.”

8. Recession warning signs to watch: Goodbye lipstick, hello Hamburger Helper
By Rachel Lerman and Elena Lacey | The Washington Post | October 2025
“Everything is a ‘recession indicator’ online. Here’s what you really need to pay attention to.”

9. Why Is ICE So Aggressive Now? A Former ICE Chief Explains.
By Riya Misra | Politico Magazine | October 2025
“ICE used to arrest the ‘worst first.’ Under the new Trump administration, ‘those rules are gone,’ says a former ICE chief.”

10. ‘That Is Not What It Used to Look Like’
By Melissa Dahl | The Cut :: New York Magazine | October 2025
“Women are taking testosterone to treat menopause symptoms. An enlarged clitoris is one potential side effect.”

11. The Hunt for the World’s Oldest Story
By Manvir Singh | The New Yorker | October 2025
“From thunder gods to serpent slayers, scholars are reconstructing myths that vanished millennia ago. How much further can we go — and what might we find?”

12. The Riot Report
American Experience :: PBS | May 2024
“When Black neighborhoods in scores of cities erupted in violence during the summer of 1967, President Lyndon Johnson appointed the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders––informally known as the Kerner Commission––to answer three questions: What happened? Why did it happen? And what could be done to prevent it from happening again?”

13. Skip Apple’s new iPhone – five tips to make your old phone feel new again
By Prakhar Khanna | The Guardian | September 2025
“A few inexpensive upgrades can totally reinvigorate your old iPhone, and you can get even get the iPhone 17’s best feature completely free”

14. The Happiness of Choosing to Walk Alone
By Arthur C. Brooks | The Atlantic | October 2025
“Going along with an untruth for fear of disagreeing with others is a form of self-betrayal that will make you miserable.”

15. ‘Lee Miller was the bravest person I ever knew’: The pioneering photographer who captured the horror of World War Two
By Arwa Haider | BBC News | October 2025
“The unflinching, surreal gaze of the US artist and war photographer Lee Miller bore witness to both beauty and brutality. Now she is the subject of a major exhibition at Tate Britain.”

16. How Kevin Costner Lost Hollywood
By Peter Kieffer | The Hollywood Reporter | October 2025
“On-set brawls. Courtroom battles. Epic bombs. Why the world’s most bankable cowboy is suddenly shooting blanks”

17. As Amazon’s ‘flying rivers’ weaken with tree loss, scientists warn of worsening droughts
By Steven Grattan | Associated Press | September 2025
“Droughts have withered crops in Peru, fires have scorched the Amazon and hydroelectric dams in Ecuador have struggled to keep the lights on as rivers dry up. Scientists say the cause may lie high above the rainforest, where invisible “flying rivers” carry rain from the Atlantic Ocean across South America.”

18. Walter Cronkite signed off — and trust in the press steadily eroded
By Amaris Castillo | The Poynter 50 | August 2025
“Cronkite’s departure is seen in hindsight as one of the last moments when Americans collectively turned to a single, authoritative news source. Whether that’s true or just a convenient fable, there’s no doubt that trust is much lower now.”

19. Tootsie: One Great Dame
By Michael Sragow | The Criterion Collection | December 2014
“Tootsie isn’t merely about men and women grappling with volatile gender identities. It s about the unpredictable power that acting — taking on new roles — can have in people s lives.”

20. Sun Tzu and The Art of War
By Melvyn Bragg | In Our Time :: BBC 4 | 2016-2018
Also see: Euclid’s Elements | The Muses | Plasma | Math in the Early Islamic World

Interested in more like this? Since June 2011, Stillness of Heart‘s “Recommended” series has accumulated a magnificent collection of articles, essays, music, podcasts, historical analyses, cultural reflections, and documentaries. Scroll through the offerings here.

Recommended reading / viewing / listening

The Gaza war transformed the Middle East / The Special Forces culture / The vivid animated version of Beethoven’s ‘9th Symphony’ / Robot rabbits used to capture pythons in the Everglades / The risks and rewards of cold-water immersion

This week: The Gaza war transformed the Middle East / The Special Forces culture / The vivid animated version of Beethoven’s ‘9th Symphony’ / Robot rabbits used to capture pythons in the Everglades / The risks and rewards of cold-water immersion

Most of these items come from my social media networks. Follow me on BlueSky, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism. Learn more about my academic background here and about me here.

1. Gold futures rise above $4,000 per ounce for the first time
By Wyatte Grantham-Philips | Associated Press | October 2025
“Gold sales can rise sharply when anxious investors seek secure investments for their money. Even before the shutdown, the asset — and other metals, like silver — had seen wide gains over the last year, as President Donald Trump ’s barrage of tariffs cause uncertainty around the outlook for the global economy. More recently, the prospect of lower interest rates has also made gold a more attractive investment than interest-bearing investments.”

2. After two years, Israel’s Gaza war has reshaped the Middle East
By Ishaan Tharoor | The Washington Post | October 2025
“Israel’s hard power preeminence in the Middle East seems paramount. But the country’s leaders — and the entire region — still face an array of political challenges.”

3. The American Experiment
By Jeffrey Goldberg | The Atlantic | October 2025
“At 250, the Revolution’s goals remain noble and indispensable.”

4. What is Insurrection Act, could it help Trump deploy troops to US cities?
By Sarah Shamim | Al Jazeera | October 2025
“The threat to invoke the Insurrection Act comes amid protests in Portland and legal challenges against his anti-immigration crackdown.”

5. Cold-water immersion may offer health benefits — and also presents risks
By Stephen Wade | Associated Press | October 2025
“Claims about the benefits of cold-water immersion date back centuries. Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and the third American president, wrote toward the end of his life about using a cold foot bath daily for 60 years. He also owned a book published in 1706 on the history of cold-water bathing.”

6. America’s Vigilantes
By Matthieu Aikins | The New York Times Magazine | October 2025
“A four-part investigation of the culture of impunity in the U.S. Special Forces.”
Part 1: A Green Beret’s Confession | Part 2: Nine Bodies on a U.S. Base
Part 3: A Culture of Secrecy | Part 4: Lawlessness Comes Home

7. Doing almost anything is better with friends, research finds
By Richard Sima | The Washington Post | October 2025
“You might be leaving some happiness on the table by doing your everyday activities all by yourself.”

8. Octopuses prefer to use different arms for different tasks, scientists find
By Nicola Davis | The Guardian | September 2025
“Creatures favour front arms for most tasks, study suggests, despite fact all eight arms are capable of all actions.”

9. How Not to Get a Progressive Party off the Ground
By Arash Azizi | The Atlantic | October 2025
“The British left needs a strategy that can win elections instead of throwing them to the right.”

10. Stupidology
By William Davies | n+1 | Fall 2025
“The outsourcing of judgment.”

11. Going Beyond War’s Cliches
By Alisa Sopova | Nieman Lab | September 2025
“A collaborative project records Ukrainians’ day-to-day lives since the Russian invasion.”

12. See Beethoven’s entire ‘9th Symphony’ visualized in colorful animations
Open Culture | October 2025
“In a sense, ‘Ode to Joy’ is a natural choice for a musical representation of Europe, not just for its explicit themes, but also for the obvious ambition of the symphony that includes it to capture an entire civilization in musical form.”

13. JFK Wanted You to Watch This Movie Before He Was Assassinated
By Gordon F. Sander | Politico Magazine | February 2025
“The president had a hand in the making of a Cold War blockbuster.”

14. With ‘drug boat’ strikes, Trump leans into war on terror tactic against cartels
By Ryan Lucas | NPR | September 2025
“The administration has provided few details on the scope of its anti-cartel campaign, but it has adopted — at least in part — the blueprint of military strikes from the global war on terrorism that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.”

15. Robot rabbits the latest tool in Florida battle to control invasive Burmese pythons in Everglades
By Curt Anderson and Cody Jackson | Associated Press | August 2025
“They look, move and even smell like the kind of furry Everglades marsh rabbit a Burmese python would love to eat. But these bunnies are robots meant to lure the giant invasive snakes out of their hiding spots.”

16. The Art of the Impersonal Essay
By Zadie Smith | The New Yorker | September 2025
“In my experience, every kind of writing requires some kind of self-soothing Jedi mind trick, and, when it comes to essay composition, the rectangle is mine.”

17. When Mexico’s richest man threw ‘The New York Times’ a lifeline
By Rick Edmonds | The Poynter 50 | April 2025
“Before the bundles, the podcasts and the 10 million digital subscribers, there was a $250 million loan with a sky-high interest rate.”

18. The Book That Taught Nonna to Cook Is Coming to America
By Kim Severson | The New York Times | September 2025
“An English translation of Ada Boni’s The Talisman of Happiness, an indispensable guide for Italian home cooks since the 1920s, is finally on its way.”

19. The Fisher King: In the Kingdom of the Imperfect
By Bilge Ebiri | The Criterion Collection | June 2015
“Trauma and kindness. These are the two elements that govern The Fisher King, and they re represented by the two mythical figures that haunt the film.”

20. Augustine’s Confessions
By Melvyn Bragg | In Our Time :: BBC 4 | 2016-2018
Also see: Justinian’s Legal Code | Four Quartets | Purgatory | The Battle of Salamis

Recommended reading / viewing / listening

This week: CSS H.L. Hunley emerges / Writing: A job or a calling? / Solving a math mystery / Gaza children with PTSD / What caused her cancer?

KS33

This week: CSS H.L. Hunley emerges / Writing: A job or a calling? / Solving a math mystery / Gaza children with PTSD / What caused her cancer?

Most of these great items come from my social media networks. Follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism.

1. After 150 years, Confederate submarine’s hull again revealed
By Bruce Smith | Associated Press | Jan. 30
“What [scientists] find may finally solve the mystery of why the hand-cranked submarine sank during the Civil War.”

2. Facebook needs a ‘Sympathy’ button
By Amy-Mae Elliott | Mashable | Jan. 25
” It can mean a feeling of pity or sorrow for someone else’s misfortune, and also an understanding between people — a common feeling.”

3. Is Being a Writer a Job or a Calling?
By Benjamin Moser and Dana Stevens | Bookends :: Sunday Book Review | Jan. 27
Moser: “Even the best writing won’t have the immediate, measurable impact of a doctor’s work, or a plumber’s.”
Stevens: “Of course a writer is going to lean toward saying writing is a calling — that’s our job.”

4. The Pursuit of Beauty
By Alec Wilkinson | The New Yorker | Feb. 2
“Yitang Zhang solves a pure-math mystery.”

5. Hundreds of thousands of children shell-shocked after the war in Gaza
By Robert Tait | The Telegraph | Jan. 29
“Children who saw their siblings or parents killed, often gruesomely, have been left stricken, and around 35 per cent to 40 per cent of Gaza’s million children are suffering from shell-shock according to Hasan Zeyada, a psychologist with the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme.”

6. What Caused My Cancer?
By Shana Bernstein | Pacific Standard | Jan. 29
“Was it bad genes? Bad luck? Or was it the toxins I eat, drink, breathe, and touch on a regular basis because the United States has a policy of putting the burden of proof for product safety on the consumer?”

7. The Fire of 1910 — Why It Still Matters
By Timothy Egan | Inside American Experience | Jan. 29
“Never in recorded United States history has there been anything to match the fire of 1910. For its size, its ferocity, its impact, nothing comes close.”

8. 50 years after funeral, Churchill towers over UK politicians
By Jill Lawless | Associated Press | Jan. 30
“Modern politicians know better than to invite comparisons to the larger-than-life Churchill — a noted ‘bon vivant’ … who kept 10 Downing St. stocked with Pol Roger Champagne.”

9. Seven questions every editor should ask the writer
By Roy Peter Clark | Poynter | Jan. 30
“After asking these questions to hundreds of writers, I have confidence that the answers provided by the writer can guide a coaching editor on how best to help the writer over time.”

10. For Incarcerated Japanese-Americans, Baseball Was ‘Wearing the American Flag’
By Michael Beschloss | HistorySource :: The New York Times | June 2014
“By 1943, when some of those in the relocation camps were allowed to volunteer for war service, some of the ballplayers joined the Army’s almost all-Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which suffered grievous casualties in Europe and came to be called the most decorated military unit in American history.”

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