Just like it says, Popcorn Shorts is about the kind of things we think are really interesting, but don’t really need a large article to explain them. From the sublime to the ridiculous, check in here for crunchy bits of info you’ll love to munch. By the way, much (but not necessarily all) of our delicious Popcorn comes from articles we’ve posted on our Facebook page. 
If you’re on Facebook, please stop by and “Like” us and we’ll keep a fairly-constant-but-not-frequent-enough-to-be-annoying stream of these coming to your virtual door!
Here’s what you’re missing at the Olympics
Amid controversy and ceremony, the Tokyo Olympics opened this week. The Olympics are a showcase of the best of human potential and achievement, and though they’re popular around the world, we have to admit our Your Car Matters staff probably won’t be watching. Still, one Olympics piece caught our eye; a magnificent article in the NY Times about Brooke Raboutou, a 20-year-old competing in the first-year Olympic sport of rock climbing. It’s an amazing look into the sport, but even more amazing is the Times breakdown of Raboutou’s skill and challenges in each of the three events. AMAZING video, well worth the watch even if you won’t be watching the rest of the Olympics.
It’s Never Too Late Too Remember Donald Rumsfeld
June 29, 2021, was a big day in American Politics as Donald Henry Rumsfeld shuffled off his mortal coil. We didn’t take the time to properly mark his passing then, but he’s still dead so it’s not too late. Partisans may prefer he be remembered for his charming “knowns unknowns” speech, but would prefer he be less-remembered for his less-charming shaping of American policy for over 40 years. It may be a rule not to speak ill of the dead, but that’s a hard rule to follow when there’s so much ill to speak of. You rightly skipped over the platitudes when he died, but slow down for these remembrances of the real Donald Rumsfeld, a guy who sent tens of thousands to the grave before him…
Donald Rumsfeld obituary, Harold Jackson in The Guardian, Jun 2021
Donald Rumsfeld Apparently Forgot the Times He Said the Iraq War Was Good for Democracy, Miles Johnson on Mother Jones, Jun 2015
The Night Of The Generals, David Margolick in Vanity Fair, Sep 2013
Donald Rumsfeld, Killer of 400,000 People, Dies Peacefully, Spencer Ackerman on The Daily Beast, Jul 2021
Why do people hate Donald Rumsfeld?, Quora.com
Rumsfeld’s much-vaunted ‘courage’ was a smokescreen for lies, crime and death, Richard Wolffe in The Guardian, Jul 2021
‘Iron-ass’ Cheney and ‘arrogant’ Rumsfeld damaged America, says George Bush Sr, Claire Phipps on The Guardian, Nov 2015
Donald Rumsfeld Was a Monster Only Washington Could Create, Branko Marcetic in Jacobin, Jul 2, 2021
World’s First Rechargeable Concrete Battery
(from the ThomasNet article…) “Researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have created the first rechargeable cement battery. One day, the work could lead to large concrete buildings that store and deliver energy like giant municipal batteries. The cement batteries have an iron-coated carbon fiber mesh that acts as the anode layer on top of a conductive cement-based mixture sandwiched by a nickel-coated carbon-fiber mesh cathode layer. The team added a small amount of short, electroplated carbon fibers to the cement mix to make it conductive.
Research of concrete batteries is rare. The few previous efforts to make cement-based batteries weren’t rechargeable, and the output was meager. The applications are many, including powering LEDs, providing 4G connectivity in remote areas, and even supporting infrastructure monitoring systems. For example, they could use solar panels to power sensors used to detect cracking or corrosion…”
Happy 50th Anniversary of the Drug War
Depending on where you start from, the War on Drugs started about 50-ish years ago. Sparked by nightmarish heroin addiction in our returning Vietnam veterans, the Drug War expanded to destroy lives, communities, futures, and respect for the rule of law across people of all races for decades. While most people can see some legitimate governmental interest in reducing drug dependence among its citizenry, few know (though many suspected all along) what a shallow, deceitful, and self-serving fig leaf for fascism the US Drug War actually was. John Erlichman laid it out in the clearest and most offensive terms possible, but others had something to say on it too. Let’s take a brief look at the 50th Anniversary of the Drug War; America’s longest war no matter what those amateurs in Afghanistan say!
“You want to know what this [war on drugs] was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.” John Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Nixon
The failed legacy of the 50-year War on Drugs started with a lie, Alfred McCoy on TomDispatch, Jul 2021
Was Nixon’s war on drugs a racially motivated crusade? It’s a bit more complicated, German Lopez on VOX, Mar 2016
Fifty failed years later — it’s time to end and dismantle the war on drugs, Emma Andersson and Grey Gardner in The Hill, Jun 17, 2021
On 50th Anniversary of “War on Drugs,” New Poll Shows Majority of Voters Support Ending Criminal Penalties for Drug Possession, Think Drug War is a Failure, Matt Sutton on DrugPolicy.org, Jun 2021
After 50 Years Of The War On Drugs, ‘What Good Is It Doing For Us?’, Brian Mann on NPR, Jun 2021
War on Drugs, History.com editors on History.com, May 2017
The war on drugs destroys communities of color – it’s time for it to end, Adriana Vazquez in Rare, Jan 2018
