PicoBlog

Hycroft Mining (NASDAQ: HYMC - $83 million) is a company that is engaged in the exploration, mining, and development of the Hycroft Mine in Nevada. They also have a history of failure including bankruptcy, a SPAC merger where the CEO and CFO resigned within two months, a complaint with the SEC that they did not honor obligations to warrant-holders, a required royalty payment to a major shareholder and creditor, and have discontinued mining operations due to the inability to control costs, meet gold recovery rates, and properly deploy leach pads.

I’ve become more cynical of late, but even I was taken aback by this morning’s story in the NYT: A U.S. resolution calling for “an immediate and sustained cease-fire” as part of a deal in Gaza failed in the United Nations Security Council on Friday, after Russia and China vetoed the measure, which had included some of Washington’s strongest language since the start of the war. The U.S.-backed resolution reflected the Biden administration’s growing frustration with Israel’s conduct in the war, and had been intended to put pressure on Israel not to attack the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of civilians are sheltering.

I had a friend ask me if Twitter user Nick Adams (@NickAdamsinUSA) was serious, or if he was a parody account. And it’s a slightly more complicated question than yes or no.  Nick Adams tweets are a constant stream of his “alpha male” world. Loving Hooters and Kid Rock, hating Fortnite and Rihanna. His subject matter is basic post-Trump conservative worldview, culture war embroiled reactionary hating M&Ms going woke or whatever else is the problem of the day, but he’s a remarkably successful Twitter poster because of the form of his tweets.

Hi, welcome back to Mixed Messages! This week I’m speaking to author Hafsa Zayyan, who is of Nigerian and Pakistani heritage. Hafsa was one of the inaugural winners of the Merky Books prize with her transporting debut novel, We Are All Birds of Uganda. The story is split between 1960s Uganda, where South Asian Hasan struggles with a new regime, and present-day London, where Sameer is drawn back to his family home by unexpected tragedy.

For the last few years, I’ve called myself a Christian Agnostic. When I say that to people, I get one of two responses. Either they look at me with wide eyes and say… “Me too. That’s how I feel too.” Or they recoil and say something like “You can’t be both a Christian and an agnostic!” To be honest, I get both responses. When I was an evangelical Christian, I understood “agnostic” to be nothing more than atheism light.

Molly McGhee is from a cluster of unincorporated towns outside of Nashville, Tennessee. She completed her M.F.A. in fiction at Columbia University, where, in addition to receiving a Chair’s Fellowship, she taught in the undergraduate creative writing department. Her debut novel, Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind, was recently released. You can find her on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and on her website. As long as I’ve been sentient. I answered this question, but it was a little too dark to share and I think the general vibe of this newsletter is supposed to be more hopeful.

Mona Susan Power is a Yanktonnai Dakota writer (enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, though born and raised in Chicago). Mona has had four works of fiction published so far, The Grass Dancer (which was awarded the PEN/Hemingway Prize), Roofwalker, Sacred Wilderness, and A Council of Dolls. She has been fortunate to receive the support of several fellowships over the years, including a Radcliffe Bunting Institute Fellowship, Princeton Hodder Fellowship, United States Artists Fellowship, McKnight Fellowship, and Native Arts & Cultures Foundation Fellowship.

A new term has been popping up a lot in the self-care lexicon lately: soft life. Oddly enough, as much as I critique the archetype of the StrongBlackWoman, there’s something about this “soft life” idea that made me bristle from the moment I encountered it. Maybe it’s because I usually encountered it in the form of social media posts about financial privilege, marrying for money, and toxic femininity. In one post, a Black man suggested books for women to help them access “soft life femininity,” including Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique.

Spotify Unwrapped: a wonderful reminder of our music preferences and repeatedly one of the best marketing campaigns there is. IMO. Unsurprisingly Taylor Swift was my winner of my top artist, for the 7th year running, I am a loudly and proudly in my ‘Swiftie’ era. Last year my top listened to song was Shakira’s belting ‘Try Everything’ from the Zootopia soundtrack (don’t knock it until you’ve tried it) and up there this year alongside Taylor, obvs, is Helen Reddy’s 1971 empowerment anthem, ‘I Am Woman’, an absolute banger.