Latest Baratunde Email: Black Mirror and Trump Poop
Email From Baratunde
Issue 12,983
Things I Have Done
IRL Black Mirror
Most of us will never experience a Category 5 hurricane or a tsunami, but we should be prepared for those events or their local equivalents including fire, because that is when we will be tested. The Glass Room is the beginning of a “stop, drop, and roll” for internet-based disasters that will only increase in number...Never before in history have we had as much power to create and connect. And never before in history has the power been greater to take all that away at the press of a button. Read my full post on Medium.
The Bishop and the Bounty Hunter
I did a correspondent piece for NatGeo’s new season of the show “Explorer.” Did I get to go deep-sea diving in Antarctica or honeybee-frolicking on a hot air balloon in Xanadu? Nah? I investigated race and policing outside of New Orleans, a different kind of adventure. I wrote three (one, two, three), behind-the-scenes posts about my time down there with links to the piece online. Unfortunately, you need a cable provider account password to watch the full piece. So, you know, call your parents.
How Will Trumpism Spread?
I like playing around on the internet with comedy and commentary in unexpected places. So I used the mobile game “Plague” to see how this President Trump thing might turn out. Seems like it will lead to projectile vomiting, insanity, and public defecation. I’m not surprised. See the progression here.
One More Thing
Also, I recently returned to This Week In Tech and really enjoyed my time. For those who first met me through that show, I think you’ll dig the reprise. What a good word right?!
Things I Have Not Done
Media Worth Consuming and Things Worth Doing
Masha Gessen has written Autocracy: Rules for Survival and Trump: The Choice We Face
WNYC has produced two podcast mini-series that are super dope. There Goes The Neighborhood about gentrification and The United States of Anxiety about Trump supporters
Rebecca Lane’s music is something I am loving right now.
NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio delivered a powerful speech basically telling New Yorkers “I got you” when it comes to totalitarian Trump ideas. Meanwhile, my mayor hasn’t been as forceful in shutting down the taxpayer-funded torture facility that is Rikers Island. Please join me in calling on him to close it. Retweet from this account, and learn more.
Remember when some Black Lives Matter activists interrupted Bernie at a Seattle rally in pre-11/9 America? One of them has set up a monthly gift box filled with supportive tasks for white allies in the racial justice struggle. It's called Safety Pin Box.
Here's a bystander guide to standing up in the face of Islamophobic (or other) harassment.
And Wendy Carrillo is running for Congress in Los Angeles. Help her.
This is the End of the Email
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