The latest installment in the Mad Max franchise is a more urgent warning about the perils of climate change and megalomania than ever before.

In a piece on Common Edge, Josh Stephens writes, “It goes without saying that speculative fiction, no matter how outlandish, is meant to reflect the present at the same time that it anticipates the future, or at least a future. Director George Miller has imagined and reimagined ecological devastation and a resource-constrained hellscape ever since the original Mad Max, starring Mel Gibson, premiered in 1979. Forty-five years later, he returns to the same desert, dry and brutal as ever, with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.”
“No one is pushing us toward it more gleefully than our greatest industrialist-adolescent and would-be warlord: Elon Musk.”
“Musk’s juvenilia could be disregarded were it not accompanied by his inconceivable wealth and an almost orgasmic fatalism. Musk talks big game about his electric cars, battery packs, and renewable rockets. But he shows his true self in chilling ways: his assault on the marketplace of ideas; his sociopathic hatred of cities and, particularly, public transit; and, most of all, his fantasies of Martian colonization.”
“Oil, guns, megalomania, and trucks already have ruined much of our world. But, they haven’t ruined everything yet. The more furious the rest of us become, the better chance we have of winning the war.”
FULL STORY: Warlords in Our Midst

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

Chicago’s Ghost Rails
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Amtrak Cutting Jobs, Funding to High-Speed Rail
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Ohio Forces Data Centers to Prepay for Power
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MARTA CEO Steps Down Amid Citizenship Concerns
MARTA’s board announced Thursday that its chief, who is from Canada, is resigning due to questions about his immigration status.

Silicon Valley ‘Bike Superhighway’ Awarded $14M State Grant
A Caltrans grant brings the 10-mile Central Bikeway project connecting Santa Clara and East San Jose closer to fruition.
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