My weekly collection of the provocative, intriguing, or curious, in a world where the house is falling down. The contextual, the cultural, and other things that catch my eye.

First up: happy New Year, despite everything.

Fire crews in south-west Sydney. By Helitak430. CC BY-SA 4.0.

“A burning nation led by cowards”. From Australia, of course.

There are suddely protests everywhere. Martin Gurri offers optimistic and pessimistic interpretations: the pessimistic version is that loss of control of information is systemically fatal to governments. Related: Learning from Hong Kong about resilient social movements.

Ten things that help us understand China. Foreign Policy rounds up five of its own pieces, and five from elsewhere, that maybe help us look below the surface.

How Silicon Valley has failed. Yes, the online world is increasingly toxic. But its real failure is that all “the smartest minds in the world’s richest country” have produced is a bit more consumer convenience.

The new nature writing is a way to imagine other futures. Ian Christie and Kate Oakley reflect on the nature writing boom and announce a new writing competition

Cats always land on their feet. The physics of this is complicated.

We need satire more than ever. The Art Newspaper podcast from earlier in 2019 on the collages of Christopher Spencer, aka Cold War Steve. (25 minutes) His Twitter account:@coldwar_steve.

“The whole world’s at sixes and sevens, and why the house hasn’t fallen down about our ears long ago is a miracle to me.” (Thornton Wilder)