You should read - July 15

Just one thing

Snippets of "1 = 0 = Infinity" started showing up in my YouTube feed a few weeks ago. I was thrilled to find the full movie was released this morning. Shōhaku Okumura is a Zen teacher, writer, and translator of important Japanese Zen texts. Jundo Cohen, the teacher who performed my jukai ceremony in 2019, introduced me to Okumura's writings and translations, which have strongly shaped my Zen practice and understanding of Buddhism. Living by Vow: A Practical Introduction to Eight Essential Zen Chants and Texts is one of my favorites.

If you don't have 90 minutes for this (but you really should), try The Apophenic Thrall by Gabriel Rosenberg. It generated quite a lot of discussion w some friends this week about the reachability of voters who are wrapped up in right-wing conspiracy theories.

They are coming for you.

• Digsyby blog The Christian right is just getting warmed up
• AlterNet The right's enemies list: 'Woke heat maps' target and track progressives for crack down
• teenVogue Abortion “Bounty” Laws in States Like Texas and Oklahoma: How They Work
• MIT Technology Review The secret police: A private security group regularly sent Minnesota police misinformation about protestors
• Huffington Post Political Violence Is The New American Normal
• Feminist Giant Essay: The Handmaid's Curse
• Talking Points Memo Understanding The Reality of a Renegade High Court

These may not seem related, but imagine purportedly "private" surveillance in the hands of right-oriented police forces bent on enforcing "law and order".

• The Guardian Amazon’s Ring is the largest civilian surveillance network the US has ever seen
• Bloomberg Amazon’s Ring Camera Has an Eavesdropping Problem: Its doorbell camera can pick up neighborhood conversations at the end of a driveway by default. That needs to change.
• The Intercept Amazon Admits Giving Ring Camera Footage to Police Without a Warrant or Consent
  In the past, Amazon has attempted to contest some police requests for Alexa recordings. Apparently the Ring team is much more police-friendly.

Collected ephemera

• The Verge Netflix doesn’t want to hear it anymore: Tech workers at Netflix thought the company would always value their feedback. How naïve.
  Funny how much-vaunted corporate values go out the window when things get hard and money is at risk.
• New York Times It's time to stop living the American scam
• The Atlantic What Happened To Michael Flynn?
  This basically asks the question posed in Ron Rosenbaum's Explaining Hitler - is he a true-believer, or a disingenuous grifter? I've often asked myself the same question about The Former Guy, Cheeto Benito. (The book's on backorder. Wonder why? Here's the 1995 New Yorker article.)
• Planet Natural The History of Lawns
  I've been letting our lawn die, which is probably not the smartest move. Maybe I should replace it with native plants.
• Create Digital Music Atari, at 50, leaves a legacy of electronic imagination in visuals and sound
• Boston Consulting Group The Untapped Climate Opportunity in Alternative Proteins
  I was super skeptical of plant-based meat, but the Impossible Melt Burger is my favorite burger of any kind.

Enough talk. Act.

Prime Day, capitalism's the biggest holiday after Christmas, was this week. So, in celebration, I recommend you cancel Amazon Prime.

Eight to ten years ago, my family was probably getting one Amazon delivery every other day. After learning about the conditions in Amazon's warehouses and it's poor treatment of low-level employees, my wife and I decided to cut Amazon out of our lives as much as possible. No Prime. No Whole Foods. No Audible. No GoodReads. No Twitch. And it's been fine.

Amazon's behavior has only gotten worse in the intervening years. Cancel your Prime. You'll survive.

Once you do that, you'll need some alternatives. Fast Company has you covered. Here are some of ours:

• Target has gotten surprisingly good for most things you'd use Amazon for, with local pickup to boot.
• Etsy has become a frequent choice for unique gifts and "bootleg" stuff.
• I almost always turn to eBay for my book buying, supplemented by BookShop.org.
• I transferred all my GoodReads book tracking to LibraryThing.
• Libby puts your local library on your phone. Checkout ebooks and audiobooks using your local library card.
• Shop local. Support small business.
• And lastly, as Fast Company suggests, maybe don't buy anything? I'm part of a local Buy Nothing group for trading unused items.

Aaaaand, a palette cleanser: