Could Rats Be The Secret To Saving History? Tabs, Thurs., April 4, 2024

Gross! Morning news roundup.

Tabs gif by your friend Martini Glambassador!

After Israel killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers, knowing that they were World Central Kitchen aid workers, Haaretz is done with Netanyahu’s war. (Gift link editorial, Haaretz)

Jose Andres is beside himself, as you would be too. (I have only seen one person on Bluesky — the replacement twitter — upset that it’s going to be he who gets this war ended, when Andres obviously didn’t even care anyone was dying “until it affected him.” Sorry he stole their favorite band’s T-shirt, that’s a real shame.) (Reuters)

Well everybody knows that the economy does better under Democrats — everybody who isn’t a dumb liar — but looks like the Economic Policy Institute did a study again to remind everybody of the thing we all (except dumb people and liars) know is true. (Common Dreams)

Donald Trump said he spoke to the family of Ruby Garcia, a beautiful 25-year-old Michigan woman who was murdered by her friend who is here illegally. Her family said WHAT THE FUCK YOU WEIRD RACIST POS LIAR WHAT THE FUCK. (Wood TV)

John Eastman’s kids are very upset that President Joe Biden (?) oppressed their father (??) during Ramadan (!!!) because he only loves Muslims and not Christians and this is some spittle-flecked nonsense. Marcie wrote about it yestertoday, but you don’t want to miss Liz!

“President Biden declared in his statement at the start of Ramadan, this ‘sacred month is a time for reflection and renewal,’” the kids sulked. “One would hope that a government so concerned with protecting the sacred nature of the penitential season of Ramadan would be similarly respectful of Lent for devout Christians. And yet, on the Wednesday of Holy Week, the lead-up to the holiest day of the Christian calendar, Judge Yvette Roland of the California Bar Court issued her ruling, recommending that Eastman, a Roman Catholic, be disbarred.”

Man, Hillsdale College (yes, Hillsdale, no, not Chapman) really isn’t sending their best. (Our Liz at Law and Chaos)

Can you guys read this? The New York Times On Politics newsletter has three-plus correctly framed headlines! That is so many correctly framed headlines! Wow!

I hate food waste, and we do so much of it. No, not we Americans, I mean we specifically my family. And goddammit, we are going to stop, or at least reduce it a fuck of a lot. Meijer, which I love for reasons including “it keeps Detroit ‘abundantly served’ even though the city is poor, is that even legal” and “made Halloween costumes for disabled kids and I cried” — hell, even the Meijer chain’s scion, Republican former Congressman Peter Meijer, tried to be not terrible until he ran for Senate and changed his mind — is partnered up with the Flashfood app and as of last October had sold 10 million pounds of nearing its sell-by-date food to hungry people instead of hungry landfills. (Waste Today)

Meanwhile, we’ve partnered up with Martie, which has great deals on overstock and salvage pantry items you like (in addition to great snacks for the girls’ lunches, a bunch of flavored vinegars because I am a fancy lady, upscale tuna — your new a capella jazz band name — and household items, I just bought Bonne Maman jams for several bucks off in each flavor) that also would end up in a landfill. They say they’ve saved five million pounds from the landfill already, although I’m not sure they take into account tare weights on the packaging. But I also like saving money. While I was shopping, I googled prices on each item, and I absolutely saved eightyish bucks on each order so far. This is a sort of ad-like object, as we will get a commission if you order. But I really like it and I bet you will too.

Okay nerds, read your nerd transcript with David Roberts and Duncan Campbell on what we’ll need for the massive tsunami of everything everywhere electrifying all at once. (Volts)

Wait, what? Who said urban farms are bad for climate change, what even the fuck? (Civil Eats) More background, including so many pissed off Detroiters all like “YOUR STUDY WAS BAD AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD.” The doctoral student who did the study is so exasperated, “WE ARE TRYING TO HELP, OKAY.” (Business Insider)

! “‘I FOUND IT extremely honest, forthright, and moving in ways I had not expected it to be,’ Toni Morrison wrote to an aspiring novelist in 1977, ‘but it is a shuddering book and one that offers no escape for any reader whatsoever.’” The generous, deeply considered, and heartfelt rejection letters of Toni Morrison, Random House editor (!). (LA Review of Books)

BUT THEY ARE COVERED IN RAT PEE. “In the years since Colonial Williamsburg was established as a living history museum in the 1930s, about 1,000 objects of interest have been recovered from historical rat nests, and Jaworksi, the resident rat nest expert, has examined and sorted them into a well-ordered collection.” (Atlas Obscura)

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