Conch shell in French museum found to be 17,000-year-old wind instrument Guardian

Inside the Gently Competitive World of Giant Vegetable Growing Atlas Obscura

Airbus Wants to Seize the Skies From Boeing Bloomberg. With smaller planes.

Sneakerheads Have Turned Jordans and Yeezys Into a Bona Fide Asset Class Bloomberg

Nevada lithium mine kicks off a new era of Western extraction High Country Vrewws

Can Auditing Eliminate Bias from Algorithms? The Markup

E-mail Is Making Us Miserable The New Yorker

Crossword politics Tempest

#COVID19

U.S. authorizes J&J’s COVID-19 vaccine, making it third available Reuters

Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine rollout marred by production problems FT

* * *

SARS-CoV-2: eye protection might be the missing key The Lancet (Furzy Mouse).

Ventilation ‘the biggest risk’ after Perth hotel quarantine report finds virus likely airborne WA Today

Window fans may be Philly’s fix for schools with poor ventilation. But teachers and parents are saying no way. Philadelphia Inquirer (via Atrios).

Cobb parents question schools spending $12M on UV lights, hand-rinsing machines Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Tracking coronavirus variants through sewage Axios (dk). Handy map.

Risk for Fomite-Mediated Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in Child Daycares, Schools, Nursing Homes, and Offices Emerging Infectious Diseases, CDC. Modeling.

* * *

5 Pandemic Mistakes We Keep Repeating Zeynep Tufecki, The Atlantic. Well worth a read; here is an open thread about the article on Tufecki’s substack.

Emerging Lessons From COVID-19 for the US Clinical Research Enterprise JAMA

Life on the Line: D.C. Cooks Confront COVID-19 Risks, Lack of Job Security Washington City Paper

From the first stitch to the final zip: The global journey of a COVID-19 body bag LA TImes. Grim. But good.

How to Remember a Disaster Without Being Shattered by It Wired

China?

Drop by drop, China’s Yangtze River is drying up South China Morning Postr

China’s Covid vaccination programme beset by delay and reluctance FT

Myanmar

At least seven dead on bloodiest day of Myanmar protests against coup Reuters

Myanmar Workers and Unions on the Front Lines in Fight Against Coup Labor Notes

Exclusive: Bangladesh under ‘no obligation’ to accept stranded Rohingya refugees, says minister Reuters

India

Modi Government’s Strategy On Farmers Appears To Be Working NDTV

From the hinterland to Hollywood: how Indian farmers galvanised a protest movement Reuters

India: BJP’s rise in former communist bastion has Muslims worried Al Jazeera

Drought Is Not Simply a Natural Calamity, It Is Also Driven by Commercial Greed The Wire

UK/EU

Kingspan used BRE report on failed test as basis for 29 desktop studies, Grenfell Tower Inquiry reveals Inside Housing

French Village Says ‘Non’ to Elon Musk’s Space-Age Internet Euro News (Furzy Mouse).

Syraqistan

Israel Is Heading to Its Most Dangerous Election Ever Haaretz

What Were the Legal (and Strategic) Grounds for Biden’s Syria Airstrikes? New York Magazine

Biden Comforts Families Of Syrian Airstrike Victims With Eloquent Speech On Living With Heartbreaking Loss The Onion

The Other Carter Doctrine Foreign Affairs

Capitol Seizure

‘Blame Trump’ defense in Capitol riot looks like a long shot AP

The Ohkrana at work?

Proud Boys chairman is here outside of #CPAC. I asked him about him about reports that he was a government informant. “There’s some truth to it,” he said. “I refuse to apologize for that.” pic.twitter.com/DFJrT3LXMx

— William Turton (@WilliamTurton) February 27, 2021

New Cold War

Reuters, BBC, and Bellingcat participated in covert UK Foreign Office-funded programs to “weaken Russia,” leaked docs reveal The Gray Zone. “These materials may have been obtained through hacking.” For some reason, Twitter seems to think this is a bad thing.

Biden Administration

Stimulus And The Tyranny Of ‘Practicality’ Heisenberg Report (Re Silc).

White House imposes COVID-19 testing fee on reporters in latest step limiting press access NY Post. In egregiously coincidental fashion, hits small outlets hardest.

Democrats en deshabille

Unity Proves Elusive in Democrats’ Fight for $15 NYT. Lucy and the Football:

AOC: “There would have been a lost more resistance over other measures” had progressives known $15/hr wage would fall out

“These negotiations … were predicated” on the $15/wage. “I think that’s what really smoothed over the negotiations”

Per pool via @lindsaywise @mmcauliff pic.twitter.com/smkVXhK9i2

— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) February 26, 2021

The party of betrayal does what it’s best at…

Rep. Omar Calls For The Firing Of Senate Official Who Tanked Democrat’s Minimum Wage Increase Plans Blavity. And abolish the filibuster.

What the Neera Tanden affair reveals about the Washington DC swamp David Sirota, Guardian (Re Silc).

Resign, Andrew Cuomo Ryan Cooper, The Week

New Cold War

Visions of “A New Political Nationalism” Denis Lavinski (MA). Navalny.

Our Famously Free Press

Nonprofit newsroom dissolves over allegations directed at founder Current

Groves of Academe

NYU’s ‘Disruption’ Commissars The American Conservative

Imperial Collapse Watch

Keeping hegemon-addicted Americans in their proper place Responsible Statecraft

America: Where It’s Much Easier to Kill People Than Help Them Discourse Blog

Black Injustice Tipping Point

Elijah McClain’s mother relieved he ‘is no longer labeled a suspect’ after investigation into officers’ actions CNN. The cops injected McClain with ketamine?! That’s what the Thai cave boys were sedated with, to prevent them from panicking when rescuers dragged them through a mile-and-a-half of underground tunnels! After a street stop? Really?

Black Lives Matter: Where are the Black clergy? Al Jazeera

Slay! This Private Prison is Woman-Owned Reductress

Amazon VP Abruptly Resigns From Board of Liberal Legal Organization The Interept

Practical Tips for Dealing with Woke Mobbing Eric Rasmusen’s Home Page. News you can use!

Class Warfare

Police: Albany landlord tied up, ‘evicted’ sleeping tenants, dumping them in cemetery Times-Union. Innovative.

The Deep South Has a Rich History of Resistance, as Amazon Is Learning Jamelle Boie, New York Times

Say it’s not so, Trader Joe’s!

trader joe’s just fired me for sending this letter to the ceo, saying i don’t share the company values. i guess advocating for a safer workplace isn’t a company value? pic.twitter.com/3TKi5B8HSJ

— Ben Bonnema (@BenBonnema) February 26, 2021

Trends in Income From 1975 to 2018 Rand Corporation

Tanker trucks, National Guard dispatched to Jackson, Mississippi, water crisis ABC

Mars Is a Hellhole The Atlantic

Lewisham, we have a problem: How a NASA professor is controlling Mars rover Perseverance from a flat above a hairdresser’s in a SOUTH LONDON high street Daily Mail

Antidote du jour (Chuck L):

Chuck L writes:

One year ago on February 28 we said goodbye to our beloved dachshund Jolie. She’d been with us going on 15 years and life was no longer much fun for her. It had been several months since she’d walk any distance outside, and more recently the fun of playing hide and seek behind the couch no longer appealed. As the severity of the pandemic was becoming apparent and the certainty but unknown scope of lock downs were on the near horizon, we decided the time had come. Here’s how we’ll best remember her – the day she joined us in August, 2005. Playful, but a bit uncertain of these two people whose family she’d joined. Was this guy with the camera going to take her new toy away?

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.