Silk Road cycling, pigeon prejudice, radioactive rhinos: Weekend reads for June 29, 2024
Some links worth your time this weekend
It’s been quite a week, with the first debate now behind us, a momentous week of Supreme Court decisions potentially reshaping the way government regulation works, and the two-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision reminding us what’s at stake in American politics. We’re still processing everything, to be honest, as we expect you are, and for us, that means we’ll be doing a lot of reading, thinking, and questioning over the coming days.
In this week’s readings — the links we collect each weekend for our paid subscribers — we’ve collected some great commentary on the Court’s recent decisions and what they might mean for our lives. We’ve also found some great pieces that take an even larger-scale look at how we live: a look back at civilization and forward to the future from a cycling journey along the Silk Road, how the way we treat pigeons can teach us a lesson about how we treat one another, and why to save rhinos it might be worth making them radioactive.
As always, we hope the articles we’ve collected inspire, entertain, and remind everyone that the goals ahead are achievable, though much work remains to be done.
In case you missed it
Want to understand this week’s big Supreme Court decision on the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy case? You’ll want to check out our interview with legal scholar Melissa Jacoby about how bankruptcy law has changed to benefit corporations and oligarchs and punish regular folks — and what can be done to repair the damage.
Reproductive freedom in Idaho got a temporary respite from the Supreme Court this week, but to delve into the overall threat to abortion rights we talked to journalist Shefali Luthra, who told us about her two years surveying the damage done by the Dobbs decision’s reversal of Roe and elimination of the constitutional right to abortion.
Frustrated at the debate and anxiety about it? For insight into how the Biden administration really works, you’ll want to listen to the full audio of our conversation with Rep. Pramila Jayapal, in which she gives us some blunt advice for Biden, but also talks about how progressives have been able to work with the White House to make real progress.
A request for those who haven’t yet joined us: The interviews and essays that we share here take research and editing and much more. We work hard, and we are eager to bring on more writers, more voices. But we need your help to keep this going. Join us today to support the kind of independent media you want to exist.
Cycling diplomacy, pigeon prejudice, radioactive rhinos
Cycling the Silk Road
If you’re in a restaurant or a hotel and speak with locals, there is this sentiment that they feel they are living on borrowed time. As if the peace that they personally embody – by their mindset, by their way of life, by their spiritual inclinations – is moving away from them without their consent. So peace is no longer representative of a real place, it becomes something almost like a utopian state, it is believed to be increasingly hard to defend. You run into peaceful people and they want to talk about it, because they feel we are drifting away. [Archis.org]
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The.Ink to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.