April '24
The Fourteenth Side
Hi! Welcome to the fourteenth issue of The Good Side of the Internet! Super glad to have you here. For a brief run-down on what all the hullabaloo is about, please visit the About page for this publication.
This newsletter has been split into two sections. The first is external links that I truly adored, sometimes with my own little endorsements. The second is similar, but within Substack. There once was a third, compiling all the recommended readings on
over the last month, but I’ve discontinued the mini-TGSotI, so all links can be found in one place, right here.The ones with the little asterisk next to them come Highly Recommended (by me). Please do heed the trigger warnings if they’re present. For access to paywalled essays, feel free to reach out. I’m always open to discuss/debate/listen to your opinions about any of these links and would probably ascend to a higher plane of joy.
Happy reading!
TGSotI Reviewed
India’s Poor Will Not Be Wished Away* | Ashoka Mody, Project Syndicate
While the publication of India’s first consumption figures in over a decade has generated much excitement, the official data appear to have been chosen to align with the government’s preferred narrative. In reality, poverty remains deeply entrenched in India and appears to have increased significantly.
The Hacker | Maddy Crowell, Columbia Journalism Review
Runa Sandvik has made it her life’s work to protect journalists against cyberattacks. Authoritarian regimes are keeping her in business.
The Slow Pleasures of Analog | Vivek Muthuramalingam, Dark ‘n’ Light
In March 2013, within a few days of arriving in Goa, I stumbled upon an old, traditional bakery in a corner of Calangute that produced the Goan staple bread, poee. I spent the following nights in the heat of the bakery, talking to the poders (bakers), sharing chai with them, and photographing activity around the ovens and places they rested in between shifts. I even followed a few of them while they went about delivering the poees.
In the mornings, I returned to the darkroom to ponder how I could use my chosen medium of printing—salted paper prints—to bring in the element of Goa into my work.
Stumbling Can Be Lovely* | Devin Kelly, Longreads
On the many ways we fall—and the beauty of getting back up.
The Opus Dei Diaries | Antonia Cundy, Financial Times
Antonia Cundy explores the women whose labor has supported the Opus Dei organization for decades. In theory, Opus Dei was designed to help ordinary Catholics become holy through everyday work, in practice, women gave their lives to the organization as domestic workers. Weaving together three women’s stories, Cundy creates a compelling investigation into a dubious history.
The costs of Reliance’s wildlife ambitions | M Rajshekar, Himal Southasian
Led by Anant Ambani and supported by the Indian government, Reliance’s effort to shelter abused elephants has transmuted into an enormous wildlife centre – raising concerns over the sourcing of some animals as well as over India’s wildlife management
Memento Mori | Tamara Kneese, The Baffler
Making kin with AI at the end of the world
BONUS 1 - What is your biggest regret?
BONUS 2 - ‘Visible Mending,’ on Love, Death, and Knitting
In-house Links
This section contains links to pieces from different Substack publications. Again, the ones with the asterisk are personal favourites.
The Edge You Carry With You from
*When Beauty Becomes Background Noise from
- *
Desire, Dopamine, and the Internet from
A Dance To Today from
*
That’s a wrap for April ‘24! Feel free to make me the happiest person alive by reaching out to discuss any of it. For weekly poetry and song recommendations, plus a sometimes-nonsensical-sometimes-profound-sometimes-toopersonal article, we’d be happy to have you over at
.If you’d like, please share this with your friends. Or your mother. Or on your Instagram story that you share a Spotify link on once in six months. Or anybody who you think would enjoy it. I am deeply passionate about telling people what to read.
Thanks for reading, and see you next month!