I remember those long nights in the library as an undergrad, inhaling Red Bull and speed-reading my way through the set texts on asymmetrical warfare and the Geneva Conventions.

I remember, in high school but not from my high school teachers, learning about Walter Rodney. I remember how hard it was to finish reading The Feast of the Goat. I remember where I was when Dana Seetahal died.

When I was younger I thought I would be, variously, a forensic scientist; a scholar of Shakespeare and Blake (and how they informed Caribbean literature and music); some sort of high-ranking FIFA official; an intellectual property lawyer; an international human rights lawyer; an international humanitarian lawyer; a management consultant.

Instead I live somewhere between technology and media. Instead I suppose these days I could add “writer” to my bio and not be totally wrong. Instead I hold fast to the belief that the people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press.

On we go.

Housekeeping:

$ subscribers will receive a second edition this week, containing some riffs on how to get through this never ending drumbeat of breaking news without falling too hard for misinformation.

Attribution:

Listen.
Hear the darkness blow like wind?
I watch this prosperity through alien eyes.
I am addicted to my despair.
Listen.
Hear the darkness blow?

This minute, inside this night,
something’s coming to pass. The moon
is troubled and red; clouds
are a procession of mourners waiting
to release tears upon this rooftop,
this rooftop about to crumble, to give way.

—from “The Wind Will Blow Us Away” by Forugh Farrokhzad / Translated by Sholeh Wolpé