link roundup: themed version

[kradeelav]

'man, this world is a little fucked up' edition

What Really Happened to Jack Ma - "We know more about the whereabouts and the condition of Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Putin’s prize prisoner, than we do about Jack Ma."  

Joe vs Elan School - via queenlua - in a nutshell, it's a autobiographical webcomic about a dude who escaped one of those "juvenile delinquent schools" that straight up applies cult and torture tactics (I should know, I've read the manuals). heavy content warning for indoctrination and psychological/physical abuse.

but other than just ... being gutted by the story for a few days, the design/comicker side of the brain is also floored at the skill and artistic talent of the technical side of things. How he applies such fucking raw emotion, raw indoctrination to the reader via simple color (red/black/white, shape, texture, composition is ... unforgettable. I almost want to study it but i literally don't think I can reread it.

The Onion Predicted America's Pullout from Bagram - this article feels very surreal on a lot of levels (as somebody who's political consciousness started at 9/11).

and one more:

“What people really want is tactile information, to be in touch with their physicality, to be able to communicate, and to grow, to touch one another and be touched. To get away from the somnambulism of contemporary life. We get all this information and there’s absolutely no way to react. You’re reading some horror in the newspaper while eating your doughnut. And if you were a natural animal you’d at least scream for fifteen minutes or chop the sofa to bits–assuming that you can’t go and change the thing that the media tells you is an outrage. So we’re trapped with all these fears of real impotence.”

— Carolee Schneemann in Youngblood’s (1970) Expanded Cinema, p.370