The news at the moment is frantic, with fresh information flashed in front of us every few minutes. So much so that we can find ourselves missing the slow, thoughtful, considerate words that our brains – and souls – need. This weekly update can provide that for you. We do this by distilling the best of the web and recommending just three links every week that you absolutely must see.
No fluff, no fuss, just three exceptional reads. Here are this week’s recommendations:
I Woke Up From a Coma and Couldn’t Escape the Guy Pretending to Be My Boyfriend (Brooke Knisley / Narratively)
In the months following my coma, these memories returned to me in sporadic waves. I remembered, and then I convinced myself I must be misremembering, I must be wrong. Stanley would storm out whenever I brought up the past, only to return the following day like nothing had happened, which made things even more confusing.
But I finally called Cassie toward the end of January 2016, five months after I had moved back to San Diego. I wish I could say I had mustered the courage a month earlier, as soon as I realized there was something Stanley didn’t want me to remember, but how could I possibly tell her I remembered, that it had come back to me, and Stanley was still here?
From aardvark to woke: inside the Oxford English Dictionary (Pippa Bailey / New Statesman)
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has served as a lexical record of the world’s most widely spoken language – and its culture – since it was founded in the mid-19th century. “Post-truth”, for example, was the dictionary’s word of 2016, the year of Brexit and Trump, while in 2020 it elected not to choose one – because no single word could sum up the pandemic experience. Last year, “police brutality”, “deadname”, “cancel culture” and “anti-vaxxer” entered the dictionary for the first time; previous years gave us “fake news” (2019), “Silent Generation” (2018) and “woke” (2017).
Fonterra were consulted, but were Māori? (aotearoaliberation)
@aotearoaliberation Fonterra consulted, but were Māori? #māori #milk #dairy #māoriculture #miraka #mirakakore #cows #vegan #dairyfree #racism #aotearoa #nz #newzealand #colonisation #landback #decolonise ♬ original sound – ALL
Image: Jonny Gios