Zero Tux Given

Obscene Dinner Theater, Feel Good Friday

During our last time going out to lunch before the pandemic, my dad (who was the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust and spent years living in the Polish forest and fighting the Nazis) expressed his dismay that Americans weren’t taking the threat to our country seriously enough. I suggested that while most Americans were concerned, they didn’t see the Trump era as being that ominous because they assumed the kinds of things that happened in his life could never happen here. My dad stopped walking, looked at me, and asked, "You think vhen I vas a kid any of us thought it could happen there?" He wouldn't have been the least bit surprised by last night's Al Smith Catholic charity dinner. The annual event usually features a night of good humor led by the presidential candidates from each party. It used to be a nice tradition. This year, for obvious reasons, Kamala Harris declined to attend (she sent a video instead). But the show went on. All the wealthy power-players got dressed up in their tuxes, went to the dinner, and giggled or groaned at the jokes of a treacherous, felonious, Putin-loving monster, who repeatedly tried to overthrow an election, led a violent insurrection on our Capitol, and is described by his own top general as "fascist to the core." The evening's hosts and attendees went on with their version of the norms even though the keynote speaker had blown up America’s. The event was a metaphor for the way so much of our society—from power-hungry billionaires to both-sidesing journalists—has normalized a unique threat to our democracy. If my dad had been around to see this pathetic dinner theater, he would have looked over at me and said, "You thought it couldn’t happen here? This is exactly what it look likes."

+ NYT: Trump Among New York’s Elites at a Charity Dinner: It Got Awkward. Yeah, when you sell-out your democracy for a fancy dinner, things can definitely get awkward.

+ Don't want to hear criticism of a conservative Catholic charity event from a Norcal liberal Jew? Fair enough. Here's an editorial from the National Catholic Reporter: "The record on Trump's part is extensive, but besmirched by actions such as inciting an insurrection, paying off a porn star for her silence and placing children in cages at the border and separating them from their parents ... The real scandal is that the good Catholic cardinal of the great city of New York would not have the courage to say, this year, that the current Republican candidate is a walking example of so much the Catholic Church finds repugnant in today's politics that he would suspend the normal invitations."

+ While we're on the topic of things my dad warned about... In 2015, during the early days of the Trump campaign, he said, "You know, this guy sounds a lot like Hitler vhen I vas a kid. Everyone laughed at him too." Cut to Anne Applebaum today in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Trump Is Speaking Like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini. "This language isn’t merely ugly or repellant: These words belong to a particular tradition. Adolf Hitler used these kinds of terms often ... Stalin used the same kind of language at about the same time. He called his opponents the 'enemies of the people,' implying that they were not citizens and that they enjoyed no rights ... In each of these very different societies, the purpose of this kind of rhetoric was the same. If you connect your opponents with disease, illness, and poisoned blood, if you dehumanize them as insects or animals, if you speak of squashing them or cleansing them as if they were pests or bacteria, then you can much more easily arrest them, deprive them of rights, exclude them, or even kill them." Is Anne Applebaum arguing that we're headed for another Holocaust. No. Neither was my dad. But when people who have stared fascism in the face tell you exactly what you're looking at, it pays to listen. And it sure as hell isn't something to yuck it up about at a black tie dinner.

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Ya'll Making a Difference

This week, I asked our NextDraft community to come together to help Kamala win North Carolina. A great friend of mine from North Carolina has been singing the praises of a group called Mecklenburg Democrats. They have built an amazing organization working to squeeze every last vote out of their Dem heavy region. I said I'd match whatever you gave up to $5000. Ya'll blew past that initial goal. And then you kept going. And going. In two days, we've raised more than $53,000 to help get out the blue vote in North Carolina. Amazing.

+ Donate to MeckDems and Unleash the Power of Mecklenburg County’s Untapped Democratic Votes.

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Wire Less

"Just a few years back, he could dead lift 660 pounds. After an injury while training to be a professional dirt-bike rider, he opened a motorcycle shop just north of Buffalo. When he wasn’t working, he would cleanse his mind through rigorous meditation. In 2019, he began getting sick. And then sicker. Brain fog. Memory issues. Difficulty focusing. Depression. Anxiety. Fatigue. Brandon was pretty sure he knew why: the cell tower a quarter-mile behind his shop and all the electromagnetic radiation it produces, that cellphones produce, that WiFi routers produce, that Bluetooth produces, that the whole damn world produces. He thought about the invisible waves that zip through our airspace — maybe they pollute our bodies, somehow? In summer 2023, when his ears began to leak what looked like bloody fluid, Brandon noticed there were new rows of panels on the cell tower. He would head to more rural areas for a bit and feel better. Not good, but better. He would return to civilization and feel worse." So, like a few dozen people before him, Brandon moved to where the signal isn't. WaPo (Gift Article): This town has no cell service, so the ‘electrosensitive’ have made it home. (In my family, we have a different definition of being electrosensitive. If our highspeed WiFi signal is decreased by even a single bar, all of us freak and start blaming each other...)

4

Weekend Whats

What to Watch: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline, and Sacha Baron Cohen star in Alfonso Cuaron's AppleTV series Disclaimer. Very, very good so far.

+ What to Hear: "Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of Hamilton, and playwright Eisa Davis, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, have created a new Broadway musical — which is not actually on Broadway. Instead, it's a concept album, meant to be listened to in one sitting. That idea came about because Miranda wanted to write something about The Warriors, the 1979 cult-classic movie about members of a Coney Island street gang who are trying to get back home to Brooklyn after they're accused of assassinating a leader advocating for peace." NPR: Lin-Manuel Miranda's new musical is based on a cult movie — and is for your ears only. And, surprise, it's great. Check out Warriors on Spotify. And maybe go back and watch the movie, too. Can you dig it!?

5

Extra, Extra

If, And, or But: "It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the death of the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. It creates the possibility not only of ending the Gaza war, returning Israeli hostages and bringing relief to the people of Gaza. It creates the possibility for the biggest step toward a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians since Oslo, as well as normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia — which means pretty much the entire Muslim world. It’s that big. But, but, but." I'm not as optimistic as Tom Friedman. But we can hope. NYT(Gift Article): How the Biden Team Plans to Build Peace From Sinwar’s Death. An here's an excellent piece from David Remnick who brings Sinwar's death back full circle to the Israeli doctor who saved him. The New Yorker: The Killing of Yahya Sinwar. Here's the latest from CNN.

+ Shaken Confidence: How a stunning 11th-hour race to save a Texas death row inmate from execution in ‘shaken baby’ case unfolded. "Texas death row inmate Robert Roberson sat praying in a cell Thursday night, just feet from the execution chamber where he was set to die by lethal injection for the 'shaken baby' death of his toddler."

+ A Vision in Time: Why Surgeons Are Wearing The Apple Vision Pro In Operating Rooms. (That would be a scary sight for a patient!)

+ Snap Decision: "People have a strong tendency to believe that they always have enough data to make an informed decision—regardless of what information they actually have." A new study confirms that people think they already know everything they need to make decisions.

+ Be Alarmed: A blaze burns down a brand-new fire station in Germany that lacked fire alarms.

+ A Pigskin, Hold the Pork: "There may be, quite simply, no place in America less Jewish than Brigham Young University’s football stadium on Yom Kippur. In a typical year, few of the roughly 63,000 fans who streamed into LaVell Edwards Stadium in Provo, Utah, for the annual homecoming game would even be aware that Saturday was the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. But this is no typical year: The star quarterback for BYU, Jake Retzlaff, is Jewish." Great stuff from McKay Coppins in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Jewish Quarterback at a Mormon College.

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Feel Good Friday

Alert: We have a sure thing Feel Good Friday item. Check out Cabel Sasser's excellent and uplifting presentation at the XOXO Festival. Trust me.

+ Son’s Hilarious Obituary for Dad Who ‘Broke the Mold’ Goes Viral: ‘He Is God’s Problem Now.’

+ He found her old trophies at Goodwill. Millions followed his search for her.

+ "Traditionally, only men were invited to the scariest and most lucrative event in mountain biking. This year, women shared equally in the adrenaline and the prizes." Female Mountain Bikers Backflip Their Way to Equality.

+ This dog sat in a road until a car stopped, then led man into woods to save injured human.

+ Copy of US Constitution found in filing cabinet sells for $9 million. (Yes! People still value the Constitution!)