All of this first came to attention during an interview with the late Mike Davis on the Dig in March 2020. It remains the most clear-eyed engagement with the pandemic in the five years since. Highly recommend people find the episode and give it a listen.

In the reflections on Covid five years on, much has been said about the way it shaped our politics and our public health. Far too little has been said about the fact that livestock have been a major source of disease in humans since we began domesticating animals.

One is a mystery story about incompetent or evil members of the professional managerial class. The other is about global capitalism and its unending demand for animal products and the natural resources, especially land and labor, necessary to meet that demand.

So perhaps the Left needs a Project 2050, with goal #1 ensuring that the earth is still hospitable by then.

One of the structural challenges for the politics of the Left vs the Right is that the latter often wants to get rid of institutions and give money to people. Both of those things can happen fast. The Left needs to strengthen and build resilient institutions with many stakeholders, which takes time.

Any version would:
Build new public housing
Move toward Medicare for All (e.g., lowering the age over time)
Increase support for and lower costs of community college and universities
Accelerating a just transition to a generative economy.

I hope not only the Times but also American Theatre and other publications are following this. There will be a lot to unpack once the dust has cleared.

To compare with the WGA strike, like that one, the employer's sector (in this case, nonprofit theater and performance) is in something like a structural decline, which typically puts the workers at a disadvantage. From the outside, however, IATSE seems better organized and more militant than the WGA

The cut of “Mama, You’ve Been on My Mind” on the legacy edition of this album is incredible.

Thrilled to see 1800-3592-113592 on here! Maybe this will help inspire another run in a bigger theater

The Velvet Underground