The Monday Mix (10/01/2022)
Hi friends,
Another quiet week as I try to adapt to life post-Christmas. It’s not hard to see why January is considered the worst month of the year. As the adjustment to reality isn’t easy after such a nice break at the end of December.
The focus this month is on work and then maybe a few trips in the next few months if the Covid situation starts to ease up. Given the situation in the UK isn’t great, and we have a government that’s as useless as a chocolate teapot, I don’t have much hope things will be better soon.
I put together a list of books I recommend reading for the year ahead. An imaginative list of 22 books to read in 2022! If you’re waiting for my December reading list, I’ll send it out on Wednesday, this should tie you over until then!
Gapminder
Think you know your stuff about how the world works? Then Gapminder is a site you should check out. I came across it this week and thought I’d share it. When you first click on the site, you’re presented with the following: ‘You’re probably about…’ The site is all about challenging misconceptions and letting you know what’s really going on in the world.
I gave it a try and found I have a lot of misconceptions about a lot of topics. Give it a try yourself and see what results you get!
Xinjiang
What’s going on in Xinjiang is horrific. People imprisoned for no other reason than their ethnicity. It’s hard not to come to the conclusion that what’s happening is genocide. As foreign journalists aren’t allowed into the region it’s hard to know exactly what’s going on.
But that rule doesn’t apply to Chinese citizens. What this intrepid citizen journalist who goes by the title guanguan has done with this video is incredible. The bravery of this man to document the unbelievable number of camps in Xinjiang is incredible. It’s not an easy watch, but an important one if you want to understand the sheer scale of what the Chinese state is doing to the Uyghur people.
21 Ideas To Remake The World
I must have missed this series when it was published in 2020. I’ve been reading through them this week, and some of the proposals run counter to what you might think but they do pose important questions.
The pandemic has upended life for almost everyone on the planet. The world is going to change, it just depends in which direction it changes. For better, or worse. If you want some idea of how the world might change in the decade ahead, you’ll find plenty of direction here.
Book I’m reading - Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
I’m halfway through this engrossing read by Kafka and all I can think about is that I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to any Kafka. His stories are fantastic and this will certainly be the first of his books that I read this year!
Quote I’m pondering: “Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.” – E.O. Wilson
That’s all for this week.
Until next time,
Tom