April 7th
Good morning!
Welcome to Issue 53.2 of Digestable, your thrice-weekly mouthful of things happening in the world, minus alarmist pandemic news.
Today’s news, fermented:
Time for a transparency moment!!
The internet is not quite out but might as well be in my apartment, and I keep getting distracted by all the new bird friends in town. The return key on my computer isn’t working well either, so when presented with the choice of ogling the loading bar and repeatedly smacking my keyboard to get a line break, or drinking coffee on the porch with the birds, the choice was obvious.
Here’s what I was going to write about:
This Washington Post article about the roots of the environmental justice movement caught my eye. It’s a pretty reverent piece that profiles some of the earliest advocates for race-conscious analysis of environmental issues, but also posits that Biden’s appointment of a Native person (Deb Haaland) and a Black person (Michael Regan) in prominent environment-related roles is sort of equivalent to victory for this movement. (Another weird thing is that they capitalize white as in white people, which is…not correct, as far as I’m concerned.)
Right alongside that article, I also spotted a piece about the Formosa Plastics Plant in Louisiana, which will test Biden’s commitment to environmental justice. It’s, um, notable how politicians love to confuse meaningful long-term action and putting a few people of color in charge of a few things while the press is present.
Last but not least, I spent a good bit of time on the High Country News landing page. This outlet is so great! All of their articles are about the west, and cover a range of topics from Indigenous issues to environmental concerns to migration and governance. Starting my news-day here instead of a more mainstream outlet was a really good choice.
Penguins were on my radar yesterday, so here’s one, many smacks of the return key later.
(via)
*Hot Goss*
Brought to you by the superb Latifah Azlan.
There's been a lot of talk in the past year about Khloé Kardashian's ever-changing face -- and when I say ever-changing, I really do mean it. The fact that no one can really tell what Khloé looks like anymore has led to a lot of speculation that she's been getting a ton of plastic surgery, although of course, Khloé has denied those rumors and says it's all fillers and filters instead.
Well, now an extremely rare picture was accidentally leaked to the public, which seems to confirm that Khloé may be telling the truth after all! The problem is the Kardashian family is spending A LOT of time, money, and energy into completely erasing the existence of this photo on the Internet -- because it was unauthorized for public consumption. Interesting... the lies we tell ourselves, eh?
Honestly, I think Khloé looks AMAZING in that unedited and unfiltered photo. But it really does expose the extent to which Khloé edits the shit out of her pictures, because these look like two completely different people. And it's sad that they're doing so much to make sure that photo doesn't exist when we've all seen it and know the truth already. Apparently, people on the Internet who have been posting the photo have been contacted by the Kardashians' team and threatened with legal action. Plus, if you search 'Khloé Kardashian' on Twitter, you'll see just how many posts that included this photo no longer have the media as part of the tweet.
Anyway, I guess I'm mostly surprised to see her face still looks like Khloé Kardashian from the early seasons of Keeping Up with the Kardashians rather than the literal chameleon we keep seeing nowadays. Here's a reminder to all of us that social media is not only not what it seems, but often downright deceitful and simply not real!