Military exemptions in Kyoto, archives, libraries, roots work, Black history, and animated series
This week's biggest news is my new briefing book about the Pentagon's victory during the Kyoto conference! I'll also be writing about archives, libraries, genealogy, history, and other topics.
Hello everyone! I hope you are having a wonderful week. I am overjoyed to say that my newest article about the U.S. push for national security exemptions in Kyoto first by the Pentagon, and then by the State Department, has been published! It has been shared by human rights lawyer Renata Avila who said she will follow my “work with attention,” the Forum on the Arms Trade, a NGO and “network of civil society experts and a point of contact for strengthening public efforts to address…weapons use,” peace activist Wim Zwijnenburg, intelligence reporter Samuel Rubenfeld, Univision journalist Verónica Calderón, my work colleague Lauren Harper, and other Spanish-language readers joking about environmentally-friendly tanks, living bullets, and hydrogen bombs. Also, former EU policy adviser S. Walker, data scientist Ruud Steltenpool, journalist Carola Pino. Additionally, the Military Emissions Project called my article a “rich resource” while the Conflict and Environment Observatory described it as a “really important historical analysis” and peace activist Tamara Lorincz said that it shows that NATO “is a threat to the climate,” and to decarbonize, we “also need to demilitarize.” I wholeheartedly agree with those sentiments. In emails, academic Sarah E. Light said she looks forward to reading it, Ben Deimark said he can’t “wait to dig into it,” and Doug Weir said that it is “fantastic to have this documented properly” and that he is “particularly interested in the actions of Sherri Goodman…and the views of US allies and others around the time of Kyoto.” Other groups such as Maine Peace Action and research fellows such as Teklehaymanot G. Weldemichel shared the story through their networks.
Apart from that, I published a post about Mateo in Elena of Avalor and reviewed the webcomic “Sugar Moon.” With that, let me move onto the rest of my newsletter.
That brings me to archives. This week’s word of the week for the SAA Dictionary of Archives Terminology is “cellulose acetate,” a plastic which is “comprised of hydrolyzed cellulose…commonly found as a base of photographic film and other audiovisual media.” On January 18, David Ferriero shared NARA’s Guiding Principles for Reparative Description. Otherwise, /r/Archivists had posts about digitization standards for documents, deciphering telegram codes, using PBCore, preserving protest footage, and digital preservation.
There were assorted articles about archives, like the precious, precarious work of queer archiving in Pacific Northwest, a forensic analysis of EarthBound’s deepest secrets, the Suffrage Postcard Project, Indian nationalism, and refugees preserving their heritage in digital archives. There was news that the UCSF Archives & Special Collections (A&SC) was awarded a grant by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) to support its Pioneering Child Studies: Digitizing and Providing Access to Collection of Women Physicians who Spearheaded Behavioral and Developmental Pediatrics project, and NARA historian Jessie Kratz explaining the origin of the 72-year-rule on federal census records.
Related to this are stories about libraries. The Library of Congress (LOC) had posts about Norwegian-born violinist Maia Bang Hohn, the “Banking and Law” mural in San Francisco, one of the earliest depictions of snowflakes in the 1555 book Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus by Olaus Magnus, a lesson from a 17th century hospital in Barcelona in how to not apologize, LOC’s new research guide on cartoons and caricatures, the posthumous pardon of Homer Plessy, researching Nanni Helen Burroughs, and early NAACP cartographers visualizing injustice.
There are other LOC posts, like an assessment of light sensitivity of a few dozen of the selected items “using a technique called micro-fade testing to insure their safe exhibition,” specifically two items which changed how millions “think about war” (the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Trinity Test). In addition, there were older posts about how archaeologists solve puzzles, and interviews with interns Connie Chang and Nabila Buhary, working on digital resources and legal research.
Apart from this, the Washington Post had an article about librarians overwhelmed by people picking up COVID-19 tests, while others talked about library censorship defended by “neutrality” and books by Black authors pulled from school libraries. Hack Library School had related posts on topics such as vocational awe, neutrality, and being a paraprofessional. There were those, beyond this, who wrote about overdue books, data privacy in libraries for authors, and circulating non-ukulele instruments. The Nib even had an illustration criticizing little free libraries and how they are nothing like actual public libraries, and the Illinois Times had a story about a library director who was fired, supposedly for “financial” reasons.
Connected to this are stories about genealogy. Find A Grave made changes to memorials of the recently deceased. Smithsonian magazine had articles on tree DNA used to convict lumber thieves in Federal investigation, the many myths of the ahistorical word “Anglo-Saxon” which originated in Germany not England, and mysterious Middle Pleistocene skull from a Chinese well which “has inspired debate among paleoanthropologists.” Genealogy journal had articles on reading storylines of religious motherhood, a critical review of the lexicon of collective and specific terms in use in Britain, and traversing through time and space to explore identity, consciousness, positionality, and power. I remember this week an interview with The Hidden Branch about my roots work, if any of you are interested in reading that.
There are a few of history-related articles to share this week. Smithsonian magazine wrote about ancient Mesopotamian kungas, the true history behind a show on the Gilded Age, the Japanese WWII soldier who refused to surrender for 27 years, experts uncovering thousands of medieval Islamic tombs, a 3,400 year old artificial pool in Italy, and the first novel for children taught girls the power of reading. Other articles talked about the hundreds of iron age coins found in London, when tuberculosis patients quarantined inside Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave, major exhibit of female photographers (like Homai Vyarawalla, Lee Miller, Karimeh Abbud, Liselotte Grschebina, Frances McLaughlin-Gill, Ilse Bing, Tsuneko Sasamoto, Madame d’Ora, Helen Levitt, Dorothea Lange, Florestine Perrault Collins, Niu Weiyu, Lola Álvarez Bravo, Marjorie Content, and Galina Sanko), scientists saying that the Boltysh crater in Ukraine was “formed well after the impact in Mexico that caused the dinosaurs to go extinct,” and the medieval queens (Brunhild and Fredegund) whose daring, murderous reigns were quickly forgotten.
There are more than articles in the Smithsonian. The often prolific Journal of American Revolution had articles on the raid of Col. John Brown on Ticonderoga in 1777, the influence of Bolingbroke’s Dissertation upon Parties on John Adams, and the silence of slavery in Revolutionary War art. Southern Spaces had an article on public health in the US and Global South while Perspectives of History honored the Black historian, Leon F. Litwack, who wrote about Black freedom struggles. This included books like North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790–1860, Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery, Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow, and How Free Is Free? The Long Death of Jim Crow.
There are topics which don’t easily fit with other parts of the newsletter. Pop Culture and Brinkwire reported about disappointment from fans of Hazbin Hotel when several of the cast members from the show’s pilot were recast. Collider listed what they described as the best episodes of The Owl House. MSN described what they named as the 10 best Disney role models for kids, one of which was Rapunzel in Tangled (2010). Anime News Network summarized discussions by the creators of High Guardian Spice and Oynx Equinox about the low budgets of their shows. Metro Weekly reviewed the animated documentary “Flee” which traces the journey of a gay refugee. Female First noted the premiere of a new adult animated original series, Doomlands. Then there’s a Polygon review of the pilot of Supernatural Academy and a CBR article arguing that My Dress-Up Darling has characters which break “traditional gender norms.”
There were assorted articles on other subjects. For instance, Psychology Today had an articles on the rules of polyamory. Cosmopolitan wrote on kitchen table polyamory. LGBTQ Nation tried to answer questions about ethical non-monogamy. Mind Body Green provided four common signs and FAQs of polysexuality. April Hathcock outlined some of the trouble with the IRB process. CNN talked about how Americans are showing up sick to work even as the Omicron variant spreads. Other stories focused on the different types of stories, ghostwriters, definitions of aborginality, achieving sustainable remote work, stereotypes of Haiti, and Apple founder Steve Wozniak backing the right-to-repair movement. I recall, this week, when looking through old tweets, an interview I did back in 2019 about my drift into fiction writing.
For the final part of this newsletter, I’d like to note illustrations in The Nib. Some were about scams, the “new” NRA, “practicing” for the pandemic, the so-called “new normal,” the automating of truck driving, re-wilding, oil companies trying to protect themselves, and the target of messaging from the White House. There were others on canine-inspired looks, fraud in the NFT market, wiretapping and surveillance (through the eyes of illustrators), and the intriguing (and disturbing) history of the Arlington House which has a monument honoring Robert E. Lee!
That’s all for this week. Until next week!
- Burkely