Monica Marks

The battle for Antarctic krill is about to get uglier | The Spectator Australia Krill – the small, shrimp-like crustacean – is a keystone species. It underpins the marine ecosystem of the Southern Ocean,…

And if you have time then this might interest you: www.spectator.com.au/2025/12/the-...

No nausea so far, thank goodness! Loving the tempestuousness of it—it’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced! Simply standing upright is often a challenge!Downloaded so much of your work to keep me company 🌸🙏

Travelling to a new place always motivates me to tear into the journalism & scholarship on it.

For Antarctica, I am especially loving Eric Paglia’s “Polar Geopolitics” podcast & the scholarship of British professor @klausdodds.bsky.social. Their insights are lighting up whole new parts of my brain!

Can’t believe it, but I’m en route to Antarctica.

Seeing this continent—whose fast-shifting geopolitical significance & massive climate change vulnerabilities must concern us all—feels like the journey of a lifetime.

Buenos Aires’ idea of Kentucky food bears absolutely ZERO relationship to the fast food & dry Bible Belt country counties of my childhood… And I love it! 😂

Merry Xmas from Argentina, where this Kentucky woman tango danced her heart out today! 💃🏻🇦🇷🎄😍

Worth reading this ….

How Peter Beinart's capitulation to the BDS movement harms the Palestinian cause | Opinion ***

Peter Beinart declared he wanted to 'challenge Jewish supremacy' by speaking at Tel Aviv University. Twelve hours later, he executed a whiplash-inducing apology, conceding to the BDS movement's purity tests, @monicamarks.bsky.social writes.

Gift Link:

www.haaretz.com/opinion/2025...

Very sad to hear of this terrorism (bombing attacks) plot by a far left group in Southern California, but glad it was foiled. Respect to Palestinians like @hamzahowidy.bsky.social who publicly reiterate “not in our name.”

AP, PBS & local media have reported on this: abc7.com/post/souther...

Palestinians tell BBC they were sexually abused in Israeli prisons Two men say they experienced the kind of abuse highlighted in recent reports on Israel's treatment of prisoners, which Israel denies.

Two Palestinian men have told the BBC they personally experienced the kind of beatings and sexual abuse highlighted in recent reports into the treatment of prisoners in Israeli detention. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Ahmed el Ahmed, a 43 yr-old Muslim father of two, risked his life to tackle the terrorist who killed 12 at a Sydney Hanukkah celebration, disarming him in that incredible video.

He is in hospital with two gunshot wounds to the arm & hand.

Thank you, dear Ahmed. You are a hero!

The death toll has risen to 12. Tonight’s Hanukkah attack is one of the deadliest massacres (not counting colonial massacres of aboriginal Australians) in modern Australian history.

PM Albanese calls out the antisemitism for what it is. Good on him.

Incredible footage out of Bondi Beach, Sydney.

Attacks on Jewish communities keep happening globally. Ten people were killed in Sydney tonight.

Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah, a celebration of light, love & Jewish survival. No one’s Hanukkah should be spent this way.

YouTube video by Al Qatiba TV أمين محفوظ: اتهام كمال لطيف بالتآمر كان بناء على تقرير لمخابرات أجنبية

Amine Mahfoudh & Sadok Belaid were the only Tunisian legal scholars to support President Kais Saied’s replacement of Tunisia’s sole democratic constitution (the 2014 one) w/ his own error-laden pro-autocracy draft in 2022.

Now Mahfoudh is talking about a post-Saied transition.

People need to be keeping eyes on Tunisia. A range of frail & elderly political prisoners—including famous politicians like Rached Ghannouchi—are hunger striking & could die any day now, god forbid.

Meanwhile, Saied is undertaking yet another crackdown & discontent is growing.

Excellent piece. True to his typical form, Joel does not shy away from the contradictions & knotty bits, but looks them head-on.

America’s Unraveling on Screen Recent movies depict a future where anti-politics has triumphed, defined by vigilantism, insurgencies and violence

“In American cinema, as in American life, the siren song of anti-politics is sounding.”

@MonicaMarks.bsky.social reflects on recent films depicting a future U.S. defined by vigilantism, insurgencies and violence, for @newlinesmag.bsky.social

America’s Unraveling on Screen Recent movies depict a future where anti-politics has triumphed, defined by vigilantism, insurgencies and violence

Several recent movies depict an American future defined by vigilantism, insurgencies and violence. @MonicaMarks.bsky.social reflects on what these films — and the polarized responses to them — reveal about the current crossroads of U.S. politics.

Kidnapped and Freed, Elizabeth Tsurkov Continues Ph.D. Research

At night, to stop replaying torture sessions in her mind, Elizabeth Tsurkov recited whole chapters of her PhD that she wrote in her head in captivity.

Like Deborah Amos, I was elated that Tsurkov not only survived, but that she remains herself—as fiercely intelligent as ever.

A must-read:

In DC for a conference. Walked up to the White House for the first time in a few years. The accompanying soundtrack here was about as American as it gets 😂

You can’t make my country up sometimes.

In DC for a conference. Walked up to the White House for the first time in a few years. The accompanying soundtrack here was about as American as it gets 😂

You can’t make my country up sometimes.

What makes this review-essay by @monicamarks.bsky.social so illuminating — beyond her rich insights on Civil War, The Order, Eddington and One Battle After Another — is her reading of various left-wing and right-wing responses to these films, and what they reveal about our ideological condition ⤵️

America’s Unraveling on Screen Recent movies depict a future where anti-politics has triumphed, defined by vigilantism, insurgencies and violence

“In American cinema, as in American life, the siren song of anti-politics is sounding.”

@MonicaMarks.bsky.social reflects on recent films depicting a future U.S. defined by vigilantism, insurgencies and violence, for @newlinesmag.bsky.social

Trump is now engaging on Sudan. He likewise has the power to mitigate enormous carnage there, as he did in Gaza, by pressuring external elites—something Biden never did.

A good question to ponder--why are we imagining a future of fragmentation and violence as our only possibility?

My latest piece.

Films are increasingly depicting an American future defined by vigilantism, insurgencies & violence. For @newlinesmag.bsky.social, I explored what these films & polarized responses to them reveal about current U.S. politics.

Feedback is appreciated!
newlinesmag.com/review/ameri...

America’s Unraveling on Screen Recent movies depict a future where anti-politics has triumphed, defined by vigilantism, insurgencies and violence

NEW: Several recent movies depict an American future defined by vigilantism, insurgencies and violence. @monicamarks.bsky.social reflects on what these films and the polarized responses to them reveal about the current crossroads of U.S. politics

newlinesmag.com/review/ameri...

I think it’s incontrovertible that MBS, ironically, comported himself far better than Trump in the face of critical Qs from American reporters in that Oval Office presser.

How sad that was to see. Far from modelling press freedom there, Trump modelled silencing of the press.

How stomach-churning it was to see an American journalist treated worse by Trump than by Saudi’s MBS, a man who actually gave orders to murder a columnist affiliated w/ US media, right in the Oval Office.

Mary Bruce displayed calm bearing & bravery. Press freedom is essential.

The lowest moment:

ABC’s Bruce asked a second Q: why won’t Trump release the Epstein files?

“I think you’re a terrible reporter,” Trump retorted. “You ask a man who’s hughly respected [Saudi’s MBS] an insubordinate & terrible Q. You’re a terrible person & a terrible reporter… No more Qs from you.”

“Israel’s aware, and they’re gonna be very happy,” Trump claimed, about Saudi getting F-35s.

“This is really a great ally.”

Saudi, Trump said, has actually strengthened US national security by investing in the US to create jobs. “That creates a lot of power for the United States.”