A British museum says that Roman emperor Elagabalus was trans and that the museum will use “she/her” pronouns in his displays from now on. Historians say that this is a misinterpretation and that the emperor was called a "lady" to discredit him and justify his murder. The museum consulted disgraced LGBT charity Stonewall who are not historians so they’re going with that instead of real historians because it's 2023.
MARKETS
Gold
$1,988.97
+0.38%
Silver
$23.61
+0.01%
Bitcoin
$37,368.50
+0.14%
Dow
35,151.04
+0.58%
S&P
4,454.38
+0.74%
Nasdaq
14,284.53
+1.13%
*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 5:00pm AM.
In Case You Missed It.
🐕 A dog virus is going around and I’m pretty sure our dog Grover had it. Shhhh, he's sleeping.
⚡️ Researchers say that they have developed a new sodium-ion battery that has no lithium, cobalt or nickel, which would end dependence on precious metal mining. See our piece on the horrors of cobalt mining here. Also it's worth noting sodium-ion batteries were first developed in the 1980's but lost out to Lithium-ion thanks to heavy marketing. Salt based batteries date back to the 1800's!
Let’s quickly count all the ways the U.S. is spending on war when we're supposedly at peace, shall we?
On Monday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin visited Ukraine to announce an additional $100 million weapons package. Meanwhile, Republicans asked Congress for an additional $12 billion to prep for a war with China.
All of this is in addition to the $106 billion emergency aid that the President has recently made. Must be nice to have all of this money to spend. But wait, do we? Aren't we operating inside a temporary measure to avoid a government shut down? We are.
We already know why the U.S. is supporting a war in Ukraine but a war in China? Republicans say that the U.S. needs to prepare to fight China over Taiwan. The U.S. Army is already doing that. They announced that they would deploy new medium-range missiles to the Pacific next year to “deter” China from invading Taiwan.
Your Email is Out of Control
There are a few tools that I use every day. Sanebox is one of them. If you told me that I couldn't use it anymore I'd start to cry. Seriously I'd curl up and start to cry.
SaneBox helps me take control of my email inbox so that I only see the most important emails. Everything else is filtered into what they call their SaneLater folders which I check once a day. SaneBox is so smart that it knows what I want and what I don't.
It gets smarter over time. If I find an important email in my SaneLater folder I can drag it into my main inbox and I'll always see it from now on.
Perhaps my favorite folder is the SaneBlackHole. You keep getting that Pottery Barn catalog and you're just so darn sick of it. No worries. Just drag it into your SaneBlackHole and you'll NEVER see an email from them again.
Don't take my word for it; try it for free right now and you'll thank me later. Just click here to try it out. And get a FREE credit towards your subscription.
The BRICS nations will hold an emergency meeting today in order to address the war in Gaza. Russian president Vladimir Putin sat out the BRICS meeting in August but he will attend this one via video conference.
New BRICS members from Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates were also invited to join even though Argentina’s new incoming president Javier Milei says Argentina may not join BRICS after all.
China is a founding member of BRICS and may play a large role in negotiating peace. Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister recently said that “the first stop [to negotiate peace] will be China.”
Not the U.S.? Lol.
The United States is busy playing down Israel’s reaction. White House National Security Spokesperson John Kirby said this about the Israeli response: “Yes, there are too many civilian casualties in Gaza, yes the numbers are too high, yes too many families are grieving, and yes we continue to urge the Israelis to be as careful and cautious as possible. That’s not gonna stop." Bygones, right? But, he continued “this word genocide is getting thrown around in a pretty inappropriate way by lots of different folks."
Except Israeli officials are making it hard to ignore their intention. This weekend Major General Giora Eiland, former head of the National Security Council, acknowledged that the world is warning of a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza but says that Israel “must not shy away from it.” He rejects that anyone in Gaza is innocent.
““Who are the ‘poor’ women of Gaza? They are all the mothers, sisters or wives of Hamas murderers,” he said.
“And no, this is not about cruelty for cruelty’s sake,” he wrote, ”since we don’t support the suffering of the other side as an end but as a means.”
When human killing is a means to an end, we’re all in trouble.
$349.99. That is how much the new Solo Stove by Snoop Dogg costs. The rapper recently told his social media followers that he was “giving up smoke.” By that he meant smokey outdoor fire pits. Get it!?
€7 million. That is the reported amount that Shakira will pay in a settlement with the Spanish tax authorities in order to avoid a trial and possible jail time had she lost that trial.
200. That is how many people were convicted in Italy in what was called the “largest mafia trial in decades. It ended on Monday with “former law-enforcement officials, politicians and businessmen found guilty of offenses related to organized crime, including drug smuggling, money laundering and extortion, after an almost three-year trial.”
A recent study shows that all of the talk about “mental health” may actually make mental health worse for young people.
Researchers separated teens into two groups. One group took standard health classes while the other took something called WISE Teens, which is a social-emotional skills training. It turns out that the students in the WISE group reported more depression, more anxiety, more difficulty managing their emotions and worse relationships with their parents. They felt that every negative emotion was stigmatized.
Researchers say that maybe the kids weren’t engaged enough in the class but the New York Times has a different take. They say that this could be a phenomenon called “prevalence inflation” — “when greater awareness of mental illness leads people to talk of normal life struggles in terms of 'symptoms’ and ‘diagnoses.’ These sorts of labels begin to dictate how people view themselves, in ways that can become self-fulfilling.
Teenagers, who are still developing their identities, are especially prone to take psychological labels to heart. Instead of ‘I am nervous about X,’ a teenager might say, ‘I can’t do X because I have anxiety’ — a reframing that research shows undermines resilience by encouraging people to view everyday challenges as insurmountable."
Wow. Yes, New York Times. That is an important take. Researchers have long known that mental conditions are prone to social contagion. This is not new. Given that we do not know how mental health awareness effects young people but now have some evidence that it may cause harm, isn’t this experimentation on children? Watch our piece with additional research on this here.
The White House on Monday honored Transgender Day of Remembrance and paid tribute to the 26 transgender Americans who were killed this year.
This gives the impression that transgender people are at a higher risk of being victims of homicide. They’re not. The Human Rights Campaign claims that there were 47 reported murders of transgender people in the United States between 2013 and 2022. That is a shockingly low rate, especially when you look at the 26 people that the White House is referring to. Many of them were murdered due to domestic abuse relationship issues, or rather, sexual encounters gone wrong. One of them died from a hit and run while walking home at night.
A statement from the president says that this day of remembrance is a way to counter hate and discrimination. But it would not seem that hate and discrimination is what harmed these people. If we really wanted to honor them, would we talk about the issues that actually put them at risk such as sexual deviance, the harmful effect of untested pharmaceuticals, poverty and pre-existing conditions. Or are we better served to blame other people for how they perceive transgender individuals?
Cardi B is trending for this video where she says that she’s done with Joe Biden and other politicians who support budget cuts for American cities while funding two wars.
Rich Paul is trending because singer Adele confirmed that she married him recently.
Suki Waterhouse is trending because the singer confirmed that she is having a baby with longtime boyfriend Robert Pattinson.
SUPPORT INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM!
Click here to go to our store to grab some of our exclusive Merchandise.
This newsletter is written and researched by Natali Morris. Please feel free to reach Natali at [email protected] for any editorial feedback.
