[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

[rfmcdonald]

• Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber considers democracy as an information system.


• The Crux shares what we have learned from our studies of the tusks of the mammoths.


• D-Brief notes another landmark of the InSight mission: It brought two CubeSats with it to Mars.


• JSTOR Daily takes a look at the odaliques of Matisse, paintings of North African women in intimate positions, in the contexts of colonialism and #metoo. What untold stories are there with these images?


• Anakana Schofield writes at the LRB Blog about her problems finding CBD oil post-marijuana legalization in greater Vancouver.


• The Map Room Blog notes the support of Popular Mechanics for paper maps, even in the digital age.


• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution praises Toby Green's new history of West Africa, A Fistful of Shells, a book that emphasizes the influence of West Africa in the Americas and the wider Atlantic world.


• The NYR Daily carries a Tim Parks essay questioning whether it is worthwhile for an author to consciously seek out literary glory.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel reports on the possibility that rocky planets might get large moons only if they suffer large impacts.


• Window on Eurasia reports on the insulting remarks of Russian liberal Oleg Kashin towards Ukrainians, and Tatars too, suggesting even liberal Russians might well be inclined to be anti-Ukrainian.


• Arnold Zwicky notes a remarkable word error in noting the 40th anniversary of the deaths of George Moscone and Harvey Milk, changing "assassination" into "assignation".