Sign in Subscribe
4 min read 03

UofWinds 429, Week 03 2026: Human Intelligence, Everything is Gender, Bird by Bird


Good morning. I'm sitting on the sofa, gingerly using my laptop to write you Good Morning, as for the past two weeks, I have been nursing an aggravated upper back.

[Spoiler for the movie Wicked in the next paragraph. Click here to skip]

My shoulder pain is slowly improving and to pass the time in a way that keeps me still (and off my laptop), I've been taking to watching movies that I've been meaning to see. This week I watched Wicked and Wicked For Good, which [spoiler] reframes the Wizard of Oz as a force who uses propaganda (backed up by abduction) to scapegoat goats (and other magical animals) as a means to justify his singular, over-reaching powers over the Land of Oz.

So much for escapism.

Yet The Wizard of Oz also brings a mantra for the manifestation of a brighter future for these dark days.

Ohhhhh, what a world, what a world.
Who would have thought that
some little girl like you could
destroy my beautiful wickedness.

Human Intelligence


While music programming from BBC radio is now geoblocked to everyone outside of Great Britain, it is still possible to listen to the spoken word programming of BBC Radio 4. This means everyone can hear Naomi Alderman's series of 15 minute profiles called Human Intelligence that is now in its second season.

I only learned of the series recently through Naomi Alderman's newsletter:

first, a little horn-tooting
The Week magazine chose us as a 2025 podcast of the year, The Observer said: “each 15-minute episode drops like a vitamin shot for the brain in the murk of a midwinter afternoon”. The Telegraph called it “an epic romp” through the history of ideas and “one of last year’s radio highlights”. And on the best Substack in the world, India Knight said it: “will come to be viewed as one of the great radio programmes… It is written and presented with such fizzing cleverness, wit and originality that it feels really fresh.” Which was so lovely I almost fell over.

Alderman has grouped her profiles of historical thinkers in the categories of Disruptors, Teachers, Collectors, Travellers, and those involved with the Manhattan Project for Series 1. In Series 2, she's been sharing profiles of Recluses, Exiles, and Perfectionists.

I've found many of these profiles both humbling and inspiring and I've been introduced to many people that I had not known of before. Listening through the episodes has been a great reminder that while idea generation has been made cheap, ideas are made valuable because of the lives that have been dedicated to them.

Everything is Gender


If I had to choose a thinker of this moment who has been very helpful to me in understanding the particular context of the America that is unravelling before us, I would happily nominate New York Times columnist, Jamelle Bouie.

In that imaginary application form, I would tout Bouie's work in providing an essential historical context for American politics. I would also credit his work in sharing his written commentary along with versions made as both short-form video on TikTok and Instagram, and in the format of the long-form YouTube essay, because that is where the people are.

Last week, Bouie published a 14 minute video on YouTube called Everything is Gender which is "a look at the gender politics of, and gender anxieties behind, MAGA foreign policy in the second Trump term." It is very good and you should watch it.

You might blanch at the idea that having an understanding of gender politics is critical to better understand both historical politics and this present moment, but consider that reaction is also (likely) gender politics.

Here's another example: an excerpt from an article published yesterday titled, I’m a Minneapolis sociologist who studies violence. Here’s how ICE observers are helping.

Simply put, ICE Watch does not spur violence; it reduces it. It’s based on de-escalation tactics that have long historical roots in American antiviolence and civil rights movements, as well as a strong theoretical foundation in countless scientific studies about why violence happens and how it can be prevented.
Researchers have known for decades that there are two primary types of people who perpetrate violence. The first is the small fraction who are independently motivated to commit violent acts. The second, and much larger group, are those who commit violence to seek approval and status from others. This is especially true among men who use violence to affirm their masculinity.
Research on gender is particularly relevant for understanding ICE, which has an overwhelmingly male workforce and uses messages of masculinity and domination in its recruitment materials. A lot of men may be joining ICE because they think it will allow them to bond with other men and gain power in our society.

As Bouie said on Bluesky some days ago,

kind of darkly funny that "gender studies" is the stereotypical "useless degree" because gender studies will help you understand a large and important chunk of the current psychosis in american life

Bird by Bird


I finished my first book of 2026 which was a gift from my mother: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott.

I've come across many a recommendation to read this now 30-year old book, and now I will pass on my recommendation to you. Anne emphatically tells us, the reader, that writing for the joy of it and for finding the personal meaning from it, is what makes the weird work of writing absolutely worth it, even if your work is never distributed by a publisher. Many of think that we are not writers, but if we are asked to write a letter to a loved one about something dear to us, we will find that the words that we may have wished we had said, can come to us like a spell.

What I didn't realize until I read this book, is that Anne Lamott is very funny.

Member discussion