It’s been horrifically cold in Canberra this week - two nights ago, it was -5C. Today it isn’t so cold; just rainy. I’m going out for dumplings with a friend today. By the time you read this, I will be full of chilli oil soup dumplings and spring onion pancakes.
As always, if you’re enjoying Solidaritas, paid subscriptions are available for US$5/month or much much cheaper at US$40/year. Have a lovely weekend!
-Kate
Read
Young people of colour are becoming birdwatchers in London:
Amber, a 24-year-old who works in a creative agency, is here for the first time. “I wasn’t sure what to expect,” she says. “And I had some anxiety about coming this morning, as I didn’t know anyone. Plus, I had no idea what to wear.”
Esmerelda Bermudez on the jobs our parents did to help us get where we are today.
COVID-19 has swept along the Amazon River with devastating consequences:
The virus swept through the region like past plagues that have traveled the river with colonizers and corporations.
Australia’s Coalition government is using the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to cut funding for almost everything in sight: the public service, the national broadcaster (the ABC), tertiary education, and the arts.
Megan Stack on Kurdish-Iranian asylum seeker Behrouz Boochani finally making it out of Australian detention in PNG.
Ed Yong’s latest piece on how coronavirus is destroying America and how the Trump government has failed to protect the American people.
Watch and listen
I binge watched I’ll Be Gone in the Dark over the weekend. I devoured the book when it came out and found Michelle McNamara’s voice just insanely good. The TV show is a bit different in that it looks at McNamara’s investigative process from the perspective of others, rather than from her own perspective as in the book. It’s quite haunting as a result.
Listen to Isabel Wilkerson on NPR’s Fresh Air talk about her new book, Caste. I loved her last book, The Warmth of Other Suns, when I read it a few years ago, and I’m positive her new one will also be fantastic. Wilkerson is a truly excellent non-fiction writer.
Cook
I don’t think I cooked anything new in the last week, but I sure did use a lot of chilli oil. I add it to a dipping sauce for a quick dumpling lunch (currently into the Diana Chan frozen beef or pork ones; don’t get the vegetable ones though, they’re mushy) or mix it into some egg noodles with vegetables and fried tofu.