Side View: Gravity, sperm and Christmas carols

DEMOCRACY, A NOVEL

With more and more evidence that the Trump administration was actively planning a coup, how are Republicans planning to continue his assault on democracy? Do Americans actually care that their vaunted democracy is under existential threat? A new book details the extraordinary decline of democratic India and the emergence of a racist state. What do we need to know about how to defeat fascism before it takes over?

And here’s a thought experiment — if Trump and his enablers had succeeded in suspending the electoral college or thwarting its will while invoking a state of emergency, what would Scott Morrison’s response have been? After all, he refused to condemn Trump’s refusal to concede and antics following his loss.

GRAVITY, SPERM AND PIGEONS

I still don’t follow the logic of this (and the Boggle analogy doesn’t help), but gravity waves will permanently distort space-time. Our detection equipment is orders of magnitude insufficient to spot the distortion, but given gravity waves themselves were theoretical until a few years ago and are now routine, that’s not likely to be a problem for long. The new telescope that will create a new heat map of the cosmos — once it’s shoved into the right spot far away from earth and has a giant umbrella erected behind it. A dark — or, depending on your perspective, quite cheering — take on the decline of human sperm quality and the coming collapse in population. And just for a change of pace: how birds perceive time.

ELSEWHERE

All the cheery stuff here: Boris Johnson — the joke that’s not funny anymore, and the PM that no longer has a purpose. Bookmark this long read for the holidays — a deep dive into the downfall of Beirut. Is Christianity in the Middle East doomed? A new book makes the case. Lowy Institute’s Sam Roggeveen on AUKUS. Just because a noisy minority protests doesn’t mean Germany is divided on vaccines. The European Union takes on the gig economy. Emboldened by the Modi regime, Hindu fascist organisations are extending their tentacles to other countries. How the French intelligentsia enabled and encouraged sexual predators in plain sight.

TECHNOPHOBIA

It’s well-established that the “echo chamber” effect on social media is overstated — but does it apply more to different age groups than different voters? Don’t forget to help out a robot this Christmas if you can. Toyota charges you to open your own car. OnlyFans and sex work: Gemma Jordine talks to Rita Therese. Morag Fraser on Judith Brett’s new work Doing Politics. And (via Nicholas Gruen) who knew? Good teachers really do create permanent value.

CAROL TIME

‘Tis the season etc etc. I’m a bit of a traditional carol aficionado, so imagine my delight when I came across this cracking version of Jesus Christ The Apple Tree (its composer, Elizabeth Poston, is well worth investigating as well, despite much of her work being lost or shrouded in wartime mystery). As I do every Christmas, I’ll plug And All In The Morning as the greatest carol ever — this version has what I recall an ABC FM presenter (name long forgotten — apologies) once referred to as “that iced vodka sound” from the boy sopranos in the opening stanza.

WELL THAT ABOUT WRAPS IT UP

I’m not usually one for promoting our arbitrary calendrical divisions — who died and made Pope Gregory the king anyway? — but game over, Player 2021. You were pretty rubbish, in a way that leaves us reluctant to expect too much of 2022, anxious as we are not to repeat the mistake we made this time last year of thinking the coming 12 months would be hunky dory or, for that matter, even one of the lesser ’80s Bowie albums.

As Side View enters its traditional summer break (marked by continuing to wake up at 6am and getting fidgety by 8.30 unless six different garden projects have been completed “before it gets too hot”), it only remains for all of us here in the Side View bunker to wish you all the best for whatever festive season you choose to observe. See you on the other side.