I haven’t written in the past week-plus due mostly to getting sick, something that wasn’t COVID-19 but might as well have been for this stupid cough I’ve still got. I did get to a couple of HS games in the Boras Classic in Orange County this week and will write that up after I get to another HS game on Wednesday.
My own podcast returned this week with guest Ozan Varol, author of How to Think Like a Rocket Scientist and the new book Awaken Your Genius. You can listen and subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I did appear on two other podcasts this week – Sports Sometimes, with my friend Chris Crawford; and the board game podcast Meeple Town, with Dean Dunning. (Not Dane Dunning. That’s Calcaterra’s bit.)
You can also get more of my words by signing up for my free email newsletter, which went out again on this past Monday.
And now, the links…
- Longreads first: This New Yorker profile of Pinky Cole and her fast-growing vegan burger chain Slutty Vegan probably isn’t as complimentary as the subject hoped it would be; if anything, it makes it sound like the quality of the food there is entirely secondary to the owner’s ambitions. It also highlights some of the challenges in bringing a broader audience to vegan food, given the latter’s reputation.
- WIRED has a great look at how Bookshop has thrived against the behemoth of Amazon and stayed largely true to its original mission.
- Brandy Zadrozny tracked down and interviewed the “Tennessee nurse” who became the target of anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories in late 2020. Tiffany Dover was one of the first people to receive the COVID-19 vaccine but fainted on camera – a common side effect of all sorts of injections, including vaccines – leading anti-vax nut jobs to claim she’d died and harass her workplace and her family. She’s alive and well, although no longer at that job.
- Russian troops have kidnapped at least 19,000, and perhaps as many as 150,000, Ukrainian children and put them in Russian schools, indoctrinating them with pro-Russian propaganda and in some cases adopting them out to Russian families. The New York Times found several women who traveled thousands of miles to get their children back.
- That same lunatic judge in Texas who decided he could overrule the FDA on drug safety is now going to hear an even more unhinged case around press freedom, as several anti-vax groups are claiming four major media outlets conspired with tech companies to suppress their “business” of spreading bullshit. There’s new evidence that their misinformation campaigns are working, too, as a new survey found an increased percentage of women think the flu and COVID-19 vaccines aren’t safe during pregnancy. Meanwhile, the dubious ruling on mifepristone has galvanized the pharmaceutical industry, who realized the leopards might eat their faces, too.
- The declining constituencies of these cultural conservatives, with religiosity experiencing an inexorable decline in the United States and across the west, is leading more and more Republicans to pursue autocratic policies and even espouse political violence.
- Brandon Johnson won last week’s mayoral election in Chicago; one core part of his platform was a public health model for improving safety, rather than the standard police-centric model (more cops, more funding for cops, more prisons). There’s good evidence the public health model can work, and a lot of evidence that the police-centric model does not. When people say “defund the police,” this is what they mean – and what they should be saying instead.
- Chicha is a fermented drink of indigenous peoples in South America, and is making a comeback in Colombia even though it’s still officially illegal there.
- Texas Rep. Bryan Slaton (guess) introduced a bill to ban kids from attending drag shows and has ranted about LGBTQ+ people “grooming children,” so it was no surprise at all to learn that an intern filed a complaint against him, saying that they had an inappropriate relationship and he served them alcohol even though they were younger than 21. Slaton, who likes to post Bible passages on his Twitter account, also proposed a bill to give property tax cuts to straight, married couples who’d never been divorced. To their credit, two Republican lawmakers in Texas have already called for Slaton to step down.
- Former federal prosecutor Barb McQuade explains why white-collar crimes like those for which Trump has been indicted can’t just be ignored.
- Crimes like those for which Rishi Shah and other executives of Outcome Health, accused of a billion-dollar fraud, were just convicted. The New York Times’ Erin Griffith looks at just how many startup execs are facing or have faced criminal charges and asks if this is the end of “fake it till you make it” in Silicon Valley. (I doubt it.)
- Justice Clarence Thomas doesn’t have to take an actual bribe for his relationship with Nazi memorabilia collector Harlan Crow to compromise both himself and the institution of the Supreme Court.
- All those conservative commentators rushing to defend Thomas and Crow? Yeah, a lot of them rely on Crow for their paychecks in one way or another, Ilya Shapiro, Jonah Goldberg, David French, and Charles Murray among them. Whatever you may think of the first three, if Charles Murray comes to your defense, you may want to ask him to pipe down.
- Speaking of Goldberg, I did appreciate his longish essay in his Dispatch newsletter on how the rising generation of Republicans are becoming, in his words, jerks, taking their cues from Trumpism and the old-conservative God complex model of government (government should enact God’s will, and only we know what God’s will is). He argues that it’s not just bad for the Republican party, but bad for these kids as humans.
- The Campaign Legal Center has asked DoJ to launch an investigation into Thomas’s free trips. And that was before ProPublica revealed that Crow also bought property from Justice Thomas, who didn’t disclose the transaction.
- A unanimous vote by the Nashville Council has returned Tennessee Rep. Justin Jones (D) to his seat in the state legislature after he was expelled for
protesting while blacka supposed violation of ‘decorum’ rules. Rep. Justin Pearson (D) has also been restored to his duly-elected position.
- Llano County in Texas was going to close its libraries, but the heavily Republican government there backed down after public pressure amplified by national media attention. They’re counting on us to stop paying attention.
- Cosmic background radiation left over from the Big Bang is helping scientists map out dark and otherwise undetectable matter across the universe.
- The city of Asheville promised to spend a bunch of taxpayer money to fix up the stadium where the privately-owned Tourists ballclub plays. Now they’re taking money away from a previously promised improvement to pedestrian areas in the South Slope neighborhood to help pay for the stadium fixes. Asheville already has two L’s in it. I think they’re taking another one.
- Board game news: There’s a deluxe and co-op edition of the great abstract, two-player game Santorini up on Kickstarter.
Fully agree with the article on Brandon Johnson/public health, and with your overall sentiment on the matter, but I think this part misses the mark a bit:
“When people say “defund the police,” this is what they mean – and what they should be saying instead.”
First, we absolutely do mean “defund/abolish the police” (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html) so it’s good to say what we mean. Second, it’s not just good but *important* to say that because police, in their role as the footsoldiers of capital, are *diametrically opposed* to all of the things that constitute a “public health” approach, and as such must be named as the enemy. Third, (and I could be wrong on this so apologies if I am) but this reads like the standard liberal line blaming “the left” for republican backlash in 2020, which is at best a very incomplete understanding of the dynamics present in that election (or how republican backlash is generated, for that matter…see the latest bud light nothingburger for a good example).
There were a whole lot of people saying “defund the police” was not going to work as anything beyond a marching slogan as soon as it made its way into the general discourse. Moreover, historically at-risk communities don’t support it. So, mean it all you want, but some things are just crystal clear from the outset.
“Moreover, historically at-risk communities don’t support it.”
This claim is not supported by reality. Hell, there’s plenty of evidence that “at-risk communities” actively support these policies, judging by who actually voted for Johnson and what they had to say about it:
Survey results: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ym0pCcFiogvvkMz1E5-oxbhablETSeMH/view
Analysis of the election: https://newrepublic.com/post/171654/chicago-voters-do-care-about-crime-brandon-johnson
You equated “defund” with “abolish”, and that’s what they don’t support.
that is because defund/abolish/public health/etc are all different names for the same thing
They’re not. We have an example of abolishment — the CHOP in Seattle in 2020, a few blocks from where I used to live. Crime increased by 525% in the area over the same period the prior year, and the non-demonstrating residents demanded the return of the police. Because as bad as the cops can be, the absence of public law enforcement is demonstrably worse to most of the people living through it. Where ya from, Mike?
Look I have no idea what your specific angle is here, and want to believe you are engaging in good faith, but sharing a common right-wing talking point (of an entity that was almost certainly infiltrated by the feds, btw) is not gonna encourage me to engage with you any further
Great, Godspeed.
People were saying the Chicago mayoral race was a true litmus test for the ‘24 elections. A Democrat *ALWAYS* wins… but Johnson is a true liberal. As a Chicagoan, I view the city as more “Democrat” than an actual liberal city. So this might actually mean something.
Hi Keith,
Thanks for sharing the opinion article on Chicago. As a longtime reader I know you often post interesting articles pieces for us, even if you don’t agree with every detail. There are certainly valid arguments to moving towards a public health model.
I do wonder why the second citation chosen by the author of the opinion piece is three years old, prior to which the author must know has been a large scale reduction in the number of police officers due to attrition and resignations. Here is a more recent local news report on the number of officers: https://wgntv.com/news/wgn-investigates/officer-exodus-1000-chicago-cops-left-the-job-last-year/
The author may or may not know that some of the increase in police spending during the chosen timeframe has also been significant increases in the costs of funding (or more accurately underfunding) pensions, which increases the costs without adding police to the streets. The author’s accurate description of the police union is also a contributor to increased costs without additional service.
There is no single best practice for funding or investing in a police department. In Chicago, the demographics, particularly the poverty and segregation, does require a higher cost to respond to emergency calls than cities without those demographics.
I know that by sharing this opinion piece you may just be looking to share the benefits of gradually moving to a public health model. There are too many people like the commentator ‘Mike’ above, and hopefully not Brandon Johnson, who intend to move to this model indiscriminately. If you were one of the 42 calls to 911 that weren’t being responded to last night in Chicago, you might not be one of those people.
Always appreciate these posts – thanks for letting me provide my two cents.
Not replying to everything here but I want to point out two things to get you to think about this:
1. That article you shared is largely sourced from the words of one retired police lieutenant. Considering how often cops lie and how motivated this particular person would be to lie, I wouldn’t trust it at all.
2. Do you honestly think that the same police department that operates a black site to illegally detain people should be trusted to help people? Do you think dispatching more police from this department to the scenes of petty crime would make the situation better?
Hello Mike,
1. The article cited by the original opinion was a widely circulated local news article. I provided a more recent widely circulated local news article to argue this point. Here is more official data: https://informationportal.igchicago.org/cpd-sworn-officer-unit-assignments-over-time/
If you would like to provide better information to dispute that information I am open to see it.
2. I am not asking you to trust the police department. I have many of the same trust issues with a department with significant credibility issues. I also am not sure how you concluded these 911 calls were for petty crime, but would be interested to see that data as well if it is real and not an assumption on your part. I do think that individuals who call 911 should have someone show up to determine if it is petty crime or a significant problem.
I don’t doubt the numbers, as I am able to access publicly-available information as well as you are. What I doubt is the narrative the article is presenting, i.e.: “Garrido attributes to the increase in resignations to what he labels as a toxic work environment in which officers don’t feel supported by police leaders, the mayor or the county’s top prosecutor.” This is total BS, and yet every credulous news source takes them at their word and prints it without contesting it.
Most calls to 911 that involve police are for small disturbances and/or petty crime. If there’s a bunch of murders/assaults/rapes that police aren’t responding to (which I doubt), feel free to share examples.
I shared the article to demonstrate the opinion author’s failure to use updated information in his article as it is likely inconvenient for his argument. I provided additional information on why the data in the opinion article listed might not be useful. I then provided you source documentation to show why the numbers cited in the article were correct. I said nothing about the opinion of the police lieutenant, yet this is quote you chose to use as a strawman.
I agree that most 911 calls are not for your chosen categories of murder/assault/rapes. That does not mean Chicago should not respond to 911 calls in a timely manner. The district the officers did not respond to on the evening referenced is one of the poorest areas of Chicago. Here is an article from the Chicago Crusader, a weekly African-American newspaper serving Chicago. It describes a poor police response time to a non-priority call that ended in tragedy last year, and discusses the differences in response time between poor and wealthy districts in Chicago: https://chicagocrusader.com/thousands-of-911-calls-in-south-shore-woodlawn-took-over-an-hour-for-police-to-respond/ I could spend time sending you other incidents, but you can use Google as easily as me.
The point of the article is not the statistics, which could be conveyed in one sentence. It is to launder the narrative put forth by the retired cop. It’s fairly disingenuous to share an article and then claim its a “strawman” for me to assume that you agree with the main point of the article! To this same end, your OP mentions calls that weren’t responded to, but the only example you can dredge up is one where the call was responded to! I will end my contributions to this thread on the hopefully constructive note that if this is the best you can do to justify the part of your brain that may think “cops are good” or “cops help people,” then it is a wonderful opportunity for you to call that part of your brain into question.
Reread my original response. I said “Here is a more local recent news report on the number of officers.” You said, “The point of the article is not the statistics”. I cited the article for the number of statistics, then later shared source data. You decided to argue a different section of the article which I did not reference. You want to argue about the merits of the article, to which I did not provide a comment.
My OP commented on the number of 911 calls that were not responded to the previous night. I used that as a convenient anecdotal proxy for some specific problems in Chicago. I followed that up with an article at your request that shows disparities in responses and an article on a specific instance where it went wrong. I notice there was no engagement with the topic at hand, but just a dismissal of data that does not appear to confirm your worldview.
If there is any part of your brain that takes that response as pro-police then it is a wonderful opportunity to call your reading comprehension into question. Why would I spend additional time sending you additional sources when you just spend time picking apart unrelated quotes in a different part of the article? I have provided you several useful sources which you summarily dismiss and can be easily identified through a simple google search.
TLDR from my original post; ‘There are too many people like the commentator ‘Mike’ above, and hopefully not Brandon Johnson, who intend to move to this model indiscriminately.’
I am going to Atlanta shortly and Slutty Vegan is top of the list. There is a trend of non-family restaurants with another notable example of coffee dose in so cal. People tell me that place bangs but my experiences have been awful. Weirdly it’s always busy. They’ve also changed a lot trying to solidify a business model that works.
Slutty vegan is interesting but I can’t take my kids there for obv reasons. I think the New Yorker article is somewhat off as restaurateurs are often self absorbed egomaniacs. To run a successful restaurant with easily repeatable food concepts takes a niche beyond what others will do. That irreverence and an out front personality makes or breaks the restaurant.
If you want Slutty Vegan but don’t want the atmosphere, they have a food stand at the baseball stadium in Cobb County. But for what its worth, both my 84 year old father-in-law and 22 year old daughter find the ‘slutty’ stuff at both the original Old 4th Ward and the satellite restaurant in Gwinnett to be pretty mild.
Me? The food is fine, but I prefer the O4W distillery tasting room directly across the street from the original Slutty location. Solid, but not spectacular whiskey.