Reading

“Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s remarks that autism ‘destroys’ children have prompted outrage among many autistic people, who said they had done things Mr. Kennedy claimed were impossible, like hold a job, write a poem, play baseball, and go on dates. They added that the lives of people who did need help performing daily activities were still worthy of respect.” — New York Times

I’ll say one thing for Robert Kennedy Jr.—he’s got some fucking nerve. The treatment he received at St. Eligius Hospital for his brain worm was second to none. Still, here he is out here spewing absolute garbage about autistic people, even though his life rests in a member of that community’s hands—i.e., mine.

Justice Democrats, the group that helped elect the Squad, is backing a primary against AIPAC-backed incumbent Rep. Shri Thanedar.

The post Down Two Squad Members, Progressives Come for an AIPAC Democrat appeared first on The Intercept.

What have I been watching? Well, last night I was scrolling through my favorite streaming app, Snerk, and stumbled on a great old show from the late sixties that I had never heard of before called The Dan Plingo Show. When you watch old shows like that, you’re immediately struck by the number of things they could never get away with doing today, mostly because I have no idea what they’re supposed to mean and can only assume they made sense when they first came out.

It certainly was a different time. And maybe dimension too.

Dan Plingo is the main character, and I’m not sure why they named the show after him, because I don’t think he was famous. I googled him, and his only credits are this show, and he guest-hosted The Tonight Show forty-seven times.

He played a train conductor, but for some reason, he went into an office every day and mostly did paperwork. I wasn’t sure if this was something that train conductors used to do in the sixties. To tell you the truth, I’m not really sure what the day-to-day is for train conductors now. Maybe it is mainly filling out forms and lying to your boss about why there’s a horse in your office.

- by Aeon Video

Watch at Aeon

The best analogies in poetry and science really crackle, but when do they expand our thinking and when do they constrain it?

- by Claire O’Callaghan

Read on Psyche

- by Jim Baggott

Read at Aeon

Intimations of mortality are not ours alone

The post How Animals Understand Death appeared first on Nautilus.

The Sombrero Galaxy returns in a revamped Hubble image

The post Revisiting an Iconic Space Hat appeared first on Nautilus.

Stephen S. Hall on writing his new book Slither: How Nature’s Most Maligned Creatures Illuminate Our World

The post Snakes Break All the Rules appeared first on Nautilus.

Economics is largely a worthless discipline. Its axioms, like humans being rational utility maximizers, are simply wrong and everything built on top of them is thus flawed. It reminds me of pre-Copernican astronomy, which was based on the idea that the sun and planets revolved around the Earth.