Robert Rees

  • This is how you lose the climate war

    There are some very unpalatable decisions to be made as we kick the can ever further down the road on climate change. Adaptation will be painful, some of us are already suffering, there seems little hope that this suffering is not going to be shared further.

    It feels like in coastal regions we have already made the decision to abandon land to the changing water levels. Doing so further inland or allow flood plains to once again shape towns and cities feels more controversial. But what do you do when the cost of protecting something becomes higher that its value? How practically do we pay for those defences?

    There’s a lot of conversation about Reform’s growing popularity in the South Wales valleys. It will be interesting to see what they propose to do about increasingly wild flooding there especially where they’ve denied the effects of climate change in the past. How are they going to square the demand for action with their instinct to normalise the present?

    I think the thing about adaptation is that people don’t wish to be inconvenienced today if they that it is other people’s children who will suffer the consequences. Even within nation states, someone who has the means to make good the consequences of a flood, who can afford insurance against the consequences, has a very different perception of what the future risks might be.

  • This entire article about the assassination of Brian Thompson, entitled What is a life worth?, is filled with powerful quotes and questions. Here’s just one:

    What we’re called to ask is why the murder of one man must be described as unspeakable violence, but the systemic denial of life to 100,000 people is an acceptable business practice.

    It’s worth spending some time on

  • The one where Ranma learns about consent

    I’ve been re-reading Ranma ½ recently (as well as watching the anime on streaming). In a world that is very vexed about gender and identity the comic has a new dimension to me. Ranma generally seems very relaxed about his gender fluidity and while he frequently expresses dismay at his situation and desires to find a way to fix his masculine identity as the books progress he increasingly seems at ease with his female identity, using the same name across both and eventually not even concealing the truth from his classmates or even seeming concerned about their sexual desire for him.

    Generally I find Rumiko Takahashi quite reticent on the issue of sexism and harassment, acknowledging it and expressing anger but equally often contextualising into comedy. Judgement of female beauty norms and, later, bottom pinching and underwear theft are shown as being distressing to their victims but the male perpetrators suffer no real consequences for it.

    In the chapter called “A kiss in the ring” though Ranma in his female form is kissed by Mikado Sanzenin, something that moves him to tears and then declare that he is angry for the first time in his life and that he wants to kill Sanzenin. The blaze of rage is quite unusual in a generally light-hearted comedy. Akane, Ranma’s fiancée, speculates that it is because of the same-sex nature of the kiss but Ranma’s dialogue focuses on the Mikado’s arrogance in treating Ranma as he wishes. What we would more likely frame as consent and sexual assault in our times.

    As usual Mikado is spared any serious consequences for his actions but it is striking as a point where emotions literally boil off the page and the victim is able to translate some of their emotional pain into physical revenge.

  • I lay there thinking, This is a miracle. Oh God, you’re saving me. I don’t have to do this picture any more. I was shocked by the feeling of relief that passed over me. Showing up for work every day, feeling unwanted, feeling like an underling, was an oppressive experience, and this injury could be my release from that prison.

    I’ve known this feeling but it feels very validating to know that even Al Pacino has had this feeling and while shooting the Godfather no less

  • I really enjoyed Birds of Prey: Megadeath, the plot may have got tangled towards the end and the fights repetitive but the basic concept of the heist to save found family was solid. The thing that really sold me was the art of Leonardo Romero who has a modern take on the classic Marvel style.

  • Audre Lorde by Djavan Guy

    I heard this track, Audre Lorde, on Cerys Matthews show and loved its laidback beat and mix of poetry and lyrics.

  • I’m really enjoying using Proton Docs, it really feels like a worthy competitor to Google Docs

  • Spiderpunk is set in a universe where Spiderman has unwittingly (but happily) destroyed capitalism in the United States. Quite a wild premise, who would have thought an ingrained ideological system could be brought down by punching the right guy?

  • The Interstellar Spaceship was such a fun build with a push action engine fairing, lots of cool details and printed bricks rather than stickers. #Lego

  • I’ve been using Bookmarks recently to help get a view on some titles that are in my reading backlog and I’ve been enjoying it and its book recommendation articles.

  • I tried reading *Maison Ikkoku” again recently, a comic I loved as a student. It hadn’t aged amazingly well, I’d forgotten how misogynistic it was. The characters aren’t meant to be likeable be seemed to really lack heart.

  • I went to the Cartoon Museum this week and one point it kind of draws this line between Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Dan Dare and Judge Dredd.

  • Universities and small business aren't working as intended

    A number of things seem not to be working in Britain today but these two separate articles on the effectiveness of entirely different areas government spending (universities, The Economist (£) and small-business, The Guardian) both point to the same policy remedy of allowing research and development to be incentivised by simplifying the accounting in mid to large national-based companies (but why not all?).

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