Karen & Lough Hyne

Featured Articles

Working Black Friday in the Rich Part of Town

Electric Literature • 21 Nov 2024 • ~6700 words

To be a service worker is to be in constant deference to Karens, but in retail, a Karen can be anyone.

The richer you were, the more you wanted from us, the thinking went. But what I quickly noticed was that I acted the same no matter who the customer was. As long as they were buying something, they were also buying me. To be a service worker is to be in constant deference to Karens, yes. But in retail, a Karen can be anyone**.** Karen is a mindset born less of class, gender, or skin color than of the relationship between employee and customer, which is not unlike the relationship between product and customer.

For the Love of a Little Sea

Hakai Magazine • 21 Nov 2024 • ~6000 words

The birthplace of experimental marine biology is in decline. Will Ireland rally to save it?

Once, though, the lough was so flush with living things that renowned Irish naturalist Robert Lloyd Praeger described it as “a gigantic marine aquarium”—an ocean within the ocean. Created 4,000 years ago when the Atlantic breached a freshwater lake, the lough remains connected to the wider ocean through a narrow, roaring channel called “the rapids,” and contains a surprising array of habitats in its less than one-square-kilometer area. Among these are tidal marshes, rocky shores, seagrass meadows, beaches, and steep underwater cliffs. These have supported a huge variety of species, some rare in Irish waters, including a red-mouthed goby fish; sponges painted in a dizzying array of saffron, terracotta, and tangerine hues; and a cup coral, in vibrant peach, found nowhere else in Ireland. More common life forms, including three-quarters of the marine algae species recorded in Ireland, have also been found here.

Recommended Articles (6 Articles Today)

What is decolonisation?

Aeon • 21 Nov 2024 • ~3500 words

There’s more talk of decolonisation than ever, while true independence for former colonies has faded from view. Why?

In contrast to the seeming clarity of colonialism (however much it elides that process’s own complications), current discussions of decolonisation can seem amorphous and slippery. This is not surprising since so many different people and groups are using the concept, at times at cross purposes. There are many forms of decolonisation talk drawn from the realms of culture, education, economics, politics, ideology, psychology, business, religion and more. They include postimperial (related to places that used to be empires or to institutions that used to facilitate empire) and postcolonial (related to places that used to be colonies, or to dependent power relationships created by colonialism) institutions and nations.