[war] The Big Baltic Bomb Cleanup… A look at the race to safely remove vast amounts of weaponry dumped in The Baltic after both World Wars. ‘…In their watery graves, the many land and naval mines, U-boat torpedoes, depth charges, artillery shells, chemical weapons, aerial bombs, and incendiary devices have corroded over almost 80 years. The Germans, like other dumping nations, long assumed that when the casings broke down, the vast ocean would simply dissolve pollutants into harmless fractions. About 25 years ago, scientists discovered that instead, the explosives remain live and are now oozing into the ecosystem and up the food chain. That flounder darting in front of the crawler’s camera from the Alkor’s dry lab? It almost certainly contains traces of TNT, the highly toxic compound used in explosives.’
[curtis] Adam Curtis: The Map No Longer Matches the Terrain … Another interview with Adam Curtis … ‘It’s interesting to observe a class that’s losing power and ask yourself where that power is going. The traditional left position is to say that it’s the bankers, but bankers say, “We do arbitrage, we spot gaps and go for it, we’re just chancers.” That’s not power. It has an effect, but it’s not power. The other left position is that we’ve returned to a sort of feudalism, but I’m not convinced by that. My theory is that the map we currently have in our heads no longer matches the territory we are in. We’re waiting for someone to draw a new map, and until then, we’re just going to witter away to each other on podcasts.’
[politics] ‘If I have a fault, it’s that I’m too honest’… – Boris Johnson’s Unleashed, digested by John Crace. ‘February 2016. I was choked. Blocked. Stuck. Unsure of which way to jump in the referendum. Some have said that I chose to back leave only because that was the best career move. But I can categorically say this is untrue. Never in my life have I taken the selfish path. My life has been one long pilgrimage of self-restraint and uxorious self-denial. The queen once told me that I was a role model for the country.’
[comics] Harvey Kurtzman: Seriously Funny … Drew Friedman fondly reminisces about Harvey Kurtzman. ‘Harvey would slowly unwind, sip beer, and reminisce about Bill Gaines and his days at EC, his continuing dislike of Al Feldstein, Will Elder’s wild practical jokes, his admiration for R. Crumb, his theories about the coke bottle design, current politics (at the time he admired Ronald Reagan) and his assistants at HELP!, Terry Gilliam and Gloria Steinem.’
[sea] The Sinking of the Estonia … The powerful, human story of the 1994 sinking of a ferry in the Baltic from William Langewiesche.
Survival that night was a very tight race, and savagely simple. People who started early and moved fast had some chance of winning. People who started late or hesitated for any reason had no chance at all. Action paid. Contemplation did not. The mere act of getting dressed was enough to condemn people to death, and although many of those who escaped to the water succumbed to the cold, most of the ultimate winners endured the ordeal completely naked or in their underwear. The survivors all seem to have grasped the nature of this race, the first stage of which involved getting outside to the Deck 7 promenade without delay. There was no God to turn to for mercy. There was no government to provide order. Civilization was ancient history, Europe a faint and faraway place. Inside the ship, as the heel increased, even the most primitive social organization, the human chain, crumbled apart. Love only slowed people down. A pitiless clock was running. The ocean was completely in control.
[london] The inside story of the Transport for London cyberattack … Great report on the impact of a recent cyberattack on TFL. ‘People turning 60 have been unable to apply for Oyster cards giving them free travel. Individuals from all age groups have been unable to apply for legitimate refunds after being charged the maximum fare because they were unable to tap out at the end of a journey. Hundreds of thousands of sixth formers and new university students have been unable to apply for their 16+ Zip Oyster card, with the official TfL guidance being that they should make a note of each full-fare journey then reclaim the difference later in an as-yet-unclear manner.’
