Recent headlines (magma plume tree, 30k years of human history revision, US and RO top news)

Recent headlines that attracted my attention:

1. Massive subterranean magma plume tree  under Africa and Indian Ocean (Quanta).


2. David Graeber's (of famous "bullshit jobs" phrase) post-humous book on revision of human history is reviewed in The Atlantic. Paragraph that caught my eye: 

The Indigenous critique, as articulated by these figures in conversation with their French interlocutors, amounted to a wholesale condemnation of French—and, by extension, European—society: its incessant competition, its paucity of kindness and mutual care, its religious dogmatism and irrationalism, and most of all, its horrific inequality and lack of freedom. The authors persuasively argue that Indigenous ideas, carried back and publicized in Europe, went on to inspire the Enlightenment (the ideals of freedom, equality, and democracy, they note, had theretofore been all but absent from the Western philosophical tradition). They go further, making the case that the conventional account of human history as a saga of material progress was developed in reaction to the Indigenous critique in order to salvage the honor of the West.

1. US: the investigation into the Jan 6 capitol storming is intensifying (e.g. Bannon might be found in contempt by the House, DiJiT is suing to block release of executive docs from NARA, GOP is about to filibuster the VRA vote).


2. Romania: Recorder's investigation into BOR corruption, COVID-19 running rampant, new cabinet soap opera. Found out about recorder's 2019 30 de ani de democrație.