- We're Here
- Posts
- Bad Dogs and Bingo Bans
Bad Dogs and Bingo Bans
Payton Mitchell & John Green
April 04, 2025
Hello!
Greetings from vacation, where I'm taking a few days with family before reuniting with the many TB Fighters I met on tour to visit Capitol Hill and encourage our congressional representatives to restore the TB (and other) funding devastated by the dismantling of USAID. We'll have TB Fighters from every state in the union at Capitol Hill next week, and I'll be visiting my reps as well.
In other news, Everything Is Tuberculosis is out in the world and the tour is in the books. I'm so grateful the book has been received so generously with great reviews, and thrilled that EITB has debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. I am a smidge tired from the nonstop touring of the last few weeks (I have no idea how musicians do those grueling multimonth tours!), but also energized from having met so many of you on the road. In a moment where I'm vulnerable to despair, being with like-minded folk reminded me that there is cause for hope, as I said in this interview with the great Rachel Martin.
I hope you're finding hope in your neck of the woods; in the meantime, thanks for being awesome.
John
You can always email us at [email protected]
This Week in Stuff
WeRateDogs dedicated a video to the top 10 worst dogs on April Fool’s Day.
Howtown explained how we mapped ancient Earth.
Artist Andrew Scott has taken the internet by storm with his frame experiments.
BrightView Senior Living pranked its residents with a bingo ban.
Have you ever wondered which planet has the strongest quakes? MinuteEarth has you covered.
Please send us stuff you think we should feature to [email protected]
Four countries that have successfully reversed democratic decline in recent years
Bastian Herre
Several countries have recently managed to stop and even reverse the erosion of their democratic institutions.
The chart illustrates these turnarounds using the liberal democracy index from the Varieties of Democracy project. This index measures key aspects of democracy, such as the fairness of elections and checks on government power. It ranges from 0 (highly autocratic) to 1 (highly democratic).
The four countries in the chart all saw serious declines in democracy over the past 20 years—these declines are shown in red. In Thailand, democracy eroded quickly, while in Zambia, it happened more slowly.
Still, in each case, people resisted growing authoritarianism. As a result, these countries were able to partially or fully restore previous levels of liberal democracy.
These examples show that when democracy deteriorates, its fate is not sealed, and democratic institutions can be reclaimed.
Our World in Data is a UK-based non-profit organization that publishes research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems. You can find more of their data insights here.
This Week at Complexly
One fun fact about elephants is that they're a lot less likely to get cancer than other animals (including us). Another fun fact is that, unlike most warm-blooded animals, their testes are deep inside their bodies. SciShow explained how these two facts may be related.
In the latest episode of Crash Course Sex Ed, we uncovered the differences between sex and gender, and explored what it looks like when the gender assigned to a person doesn’t match who they really are.
Some Games to Play!
Battleships (by Luke Rissacher)
SpellCheck.xyc (by Answer in Progress)
This Gubbins postcard was made by Evie. Send yours to [email protected]
If you post your results on social media, we’d love it if you post a link for folks to subscribe to “We’re Here” (https://werehere.beehiiv.com/subscribe)
Our Year in Review
Last week marked one year of We’re Here. We asked if you have been introduced to anything new from the newsletter (or to tell us your favorite parts of We’re Here). Thanks to everyone who emailed us!
This newsletter got me to finally pick up The Thursday Murder Club. It was very fun, and I bought the 2nd book a couple weeks ago.
Negin’s vegan banana bread, from a breakfast recipe share, is my go to banana bread now. I love it.
I have become OBSESSED with Answer in Progress due to this newsletter! Big fans of Sabrina, Taha, and Melissa. I appreciate their ability to explore their curiosities while reminding us that even though it’s hard, learning something new can also be exciting!
The newsletter reminded me to check out Study Hall...which linked me to the interview Hank did with Brennan Lee Mulligan...which led to Dimension 20.
I have a serious career—the type with suits and accreditations. So it was very unfortunate to have the line "Speak not of the Night Yorb" stuck in my head for three days straight.
We're Here introduced me to Now I Know, which I have really been enjoying!
I love the nerdy connections, it’s my favorite reoccurring thing in the newsletter.
In honor of the year anniversary of We're Here, I have to let you know that I have been playing Battleships by Luke Rissacher basically non-stop since it was featured in a newsletter back in February. I love it!! Thanks for recommending it, and thanks for a wonderful year of newsletters every week :)
I’ve loved getting to see names and submissions from nerdfighter friends I’ve only ever “met” through the internet!
I’ve learned lots of great things from this newsletter, but I’d especially like to thank Becca for recommending Educated by Tara Westover. That book was fascinating!
I think one of the best things is the games y'all share. I love the land soduku from one of the first editions and more recently Orbits has been so fun to play. Always look forward to finding We're Here in my inbox.
I was introduced to Metazooa from this email, and I now have won 112 games of it since then :)! As a young biology major it has helped me idly learn taxonomy better than any textbook ever could. Thanks so much for introducing me to it!!!
That’s all, folks!
Do you have any made-up words or expressions you use with family/friends? Tell us about them!
Send your secret language to [email protected]
Reply