A Note to Readers: The New Substack App, An Upcoming Article On Ukraine, and Reading Recommendations

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Hello everyone, I just want to give a quick update on some things I’m working on as well as a new way to read material on Substack.

Substack just announced a new phone app. The app features a dedicated inbox for this newsletter (Weird Catastrophe) and any other Substacks to which you subscribe. New posts won’t get lost in email filters or stuck in spam folders. Longer posts won’t be cut off by your email provider. It also looks like you can easily see other Substack writers that I’m subscribed to, as well as do your own discovering. This is all just conjecture on my part since I don’t own and have never owned a smartphone (thank Christ). But overall, it should be an upgrade for many who choose to read articles on their phones.

You can download the app here:

Currently, it’s just for Apple users, but apparently it will be rolling out for Android as well.

In regards to my work, I am in the middle of writing a detailed article on the war in Ukraine. I’ve discovered that it is difficult for me to write short articles. Whenever I’m researching a particular topic, I spend a lot of time looking at it from different angles and going down rabbit holes. And when it comes to writing it all down, I don’t want to put anything out too fast or leave any part of the story out. Plus, with emerging stories that are happening in real time, there’s always some new development to add. Hence, the pieces tend to take a while to write and they end up being longer than a typical 1-page article.

But the Ukraine piece will be coming out within the next day or so.

After that I will be releasing the final part of the serialized version of On Dessa and the Novartis Brand of Biomedical Engineering. I just recently got to see Dessa play live again in Santa Cruz a couple weeks ago. (Spoiler alert: it was great) So that will be a little addition to the story.

I will also be recording audio/video versions of the latest article on Shahid Buttar’s campaign to unseat Nancy Pelosi as well as of the Ukraine article. The plan is to offer audio/video versions of every longer article so that people have different options on how to engage the material.

I also recently submitted a couple pieces on student debt abolition to the first edition of an online zine that the Debt Collective is currently working on. I will post links once the zine is published.

And for those interested, here’s some recommendations for things I’ve been reading and watching recently:

Aaron Mate: Previously with Democracy Now!, Aaron Mate now writes for The Grayzone and The Nation. He has been a consistent voice in wading through the bullshit of official US foreign policy and then delivering sober, anti-imperialist analysis of complicated stories. His commentary, along with the on-the-ground reporting that The Grayzone does is essential:

Glenn Greenwald: Starting as a blogger, then making his way to Salon, The Gaurdian, writing a few books, breaking the Snowden story, co-founding The Intercept, breaking the Brazilian corruption scandal of “Operation Carwash,” and now back to being fully independent, Glenn' Greenwald’s acerbic, carefully crafted, and reasoned political analysis is a breath of fresh air. He certainly rubs some people the wrong way. But I credit Greenwald’s reporting and commentary for illuminating the fact that our enemy is not each other, but the people in power, and that the institutions of the United States are equally corrupted on both sides of the aisle and worthy of incredulity, derision, and contempt.

I’m also currently reading the latest book by Chris Hedges, a former war correspondent and current professor and essayist. It’s called, Our Class: Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison. It draws on Hedges’ experience teaching history and literature to inmates in the New Jersey prison system. Like all of Hedges’ books, it is a must read; filled with his deep understanding of radical literature and philosophy and his ability to humanize the people who our society treats as garbage. I credit Hedges for informing much of my own writing, and for serving as a shining example of someone who will not compromise their personal convictions, even at great cost, and who elucidates with great moral clarity the radical evils of our time.

On a lighter note, here’s one of my favorite songs from my favorite band, The Band:

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