January 28th
Good morning!
Welcome to Issue 44.4 of Digestable, your daily mouthful of real things happening in the world, minus alarmist pandemic news.
Today’s news, fermented:
It’s another great day to hate Amazon, which is trying to block a racial audit requested by its shareholders. It’s also a good day to (cw: violence) hate Unilever, the massive food conglomerate that owns brands that are supposedly ethical, like Seventh Generation. Global capitalism is a nasty beast.
The Dakota Access Pipeline lost a court appeal in what is not quite a death knell, but pretty darn close. Fossil fuel infrastructure means more extraction, which means a slower transition to clean energy, which means this absolutely terrifying map of climate disaster around the world will be our new atlas.
For a lighter map experience, check out this cute interactive feature about wayfinding in Brooklyn, a place I will always be able to navigate more easily than anywhere else. Or, spend some time with these beautiful visualizations of the last year in map form.
While we’re on the subject of a path forward, we should take a moment and appreciate Zeynep Tufekci. This article by Substack (the publishing platform both she and I use) talks about her history of getting big things right and using longer-form online discourse to develop collective narrative and understanding about the state of the world.
There’s a lot of discourse about discourse. The far-right has played an outsized role in shaping said discourse (read: America loves to coddle angry dangerous white people, and one of the ways that looks is paying a lot of attention and doling out few consequences). Now, with talks of unity, everyone else (except for the middle), is raising the alarm that unity with white supremacists is actually a terrible and inexcusable proposition.
This is especially obvious given today’s news that the Proud Boys’ leader has a long history of collaborating with the police. As much of the left noted during the Capitol riots, the shared identity and butt-hurt angry white dude vibe between white supremacist ‘protestors’ and the police meant that the two crowds were taking selfies and co-enabling each other. That alliance is certainly a trash fire, but it likely doesn’t burn as hot as this Tr*mp-era erotica.
On the other hand, N.K. Jemisin, the superstar Black speculative fiction author, offers us new worlds in which to imagine a path forward.
Here’s a spinosaurus for your imaginings today.
(via)
*Hot Goss*
Brought to you by the superb Latifah Azlan.
This might come as a surprise to some of you but I actually don't follow many celebrities on social media, especially on Instagram. I don't really care to know every detail of or catch glimpses into their very wealthy lives. The very few famous folk that I do actively keep up with are usually either people who I like very, very much but use their social media mostly for promoting their work or are creatives of some sort (drag queens, fashion designers, poets, or authors). Once a celebrity starts oversharing their lives, I bounce.
Which is sort of the direction I'm starting to head towards with Michael B. Jordan. A few weeks ago, we learnt that MBJ and Lori Harvey, stepdaughter of Steve Harvey and an LA socialite in her own right, are definitely dating after the couple went Instagram-official. Since then, it's been a never-ending love fest on both their accounts and having followed MBJ on Instagram for several years now, I can honestly say I've never seen him be as open about his private life as he is currently with Lori. The man is IN LOVE, ya'll. And he will not let us forget it.
On her part, Lori's making sure we all know the deal. Take a look at the video Lori posted on her social media last Friday.
Miss Lori Harvey is here to remind us that she's got it in the bag. That smug smile of victory, knowing that MBJ is smitten over her... girl, I'd be acting the same way too if I was on that yacht. Then yesterday, MBJ posted a shirtless, oiled up photo of himself chilling on the yacht and underneath, Lori commented "Mine" with a tongue emoji. NOT the tongue emoji!!! But again, as she should. Lori's successfully gotten MBJ to do what he has not done with other people he's dated in the past: go public about them, and to this degree too! But I guess that's what happens when you're head over heels and/or dating an influencer.
Anyway, I love them together. I think they make a beautiful pair and are clearly very happy in each other's presence. But give it two more weeks and I think I might just unfollow. I'm sure the gossip sites will continue covering their every move though, so I don't even feel like I'd be missing out too much on any updates. I am, however, expecting throw-the-lifesize-cardboard-cutout-into-the-trash levels of drama if and when the break up happens though. So don't let me down Lori!