On the Shoulders of Giants

Feel Good Friday, Weekend Whats

Last night when my viewing of the SF Giants game was interrupted by reports about Israel's retaliatory strikes in Iran, I texted my sister: "Aside from WWIII starting, this is a pretty good game." So take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt, and understand my full disclosure that this feeling could be fleeting. But consider this: Israel delivered a carefully calibrated attack in Iran and Iran seems to be standing down. With a full jury panel in place, Trump is at long last standing trial. Speaker Mike Johnson is finally standing up to the crazies and pushing (bipartisan!) Ukraine aid through the House. And Taylor's new album dropped. For the first time in a long time, I think we may have just had a pretty good week. Oh, and the Giants won the game.

+ "In an extraordinary move, more Democrats (165) supported the measure than Republicans (151). The Democratic votes were necessary to overcome opposition from Speaker Mike Johnson’s right flank, who will likely only increase their calls to oust him." House takes key step forward on foreign aid bills with Democratic support, setting up final vote Saturday.

+ Susan Glasser in The New Yorker: Did Mike Johnson Just Get Religion on Ukraine? "On Wednesday, Johnson sounded like Republicans used to sound. Before Trump. Before Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Trump favorite who talks of 'Jewish space lasers' and echoes Russian propaganda about 'Ukrainian Nazis,' became a force in the House. A Republican like the ones who once bashed Democrats for not being tough enough on Putin. Listening to Johnson brought to mind the scene in 'The Lord of the Rings' when the evil spell possessing the good King Théoden is broken and he suddenly returns to himself—an accommodationist no more, revivified, ready to fight."

+ "'I think he’s made some hard choices and he’s putting his job in peril as a result,' said Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.). 'I don’t think I agree with him politically on anything, but I do think he has integrity. And I do think he’s acting like a leader.'" How Johnson and Biden locked arms on Ukraine.

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Tik Tok Toehold

"Unlike Instagram, Facebook or Snapchat, TikTok didn’t build itself around social connections. Its goal is pure, uncut entertainment. The algorithm ingested every data point it could from what users skipped, liked or shared — and spat it directly into the maddeningly habit-forming For You Page. Fans whispered reverently that it knew them better than they knew themselves." Sapna Maheshwari wonders: "Has there ever been an app more American seeming than TikTok, with its messy democratic creativity, exhibitionism, utter lack of limits and vast variety of hustlers. And yet, of course, TikTok is not American..." NYT(Gift Article): Love, Hate or Fear It, TikTok Has Changed America. "Here are 19 ways of understanding how TikTok became part of American life ... Even if you’ve never opened the app, you’ve lived in a culture that exists downstream of what happens there."

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April Tools

Sometime in the 1990s, I smoked some pot. Unlike Bill Clinton, I inhaled. And I didn't exhale until about 45 minutes ago. So I'm pro pot. And 4-20 was invented at my high school. But I must say, I find the current iteration of the holiday to be pretty ridiculous considering the ubiquity of the behavior it celebrates. Who knows, maybe I'm just burned out. "The prevailing explanation is that it started in the 1970s with a group of bell-bottomed buddies from San Rafael High School, in California’s Marin County north of San Francisco, who called themselves 'the Waldos.' A friend’s brother was afraid of getting busted for a patch of cannabis he was growing in the woods at nearby Point Reyes, so he drew a map and gave the teens permission to harvest the crop, the story goes." 4-20 grew from humble roots to marijuana’s high holiday.

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Weekend Whats

What to Hear: I asked my daughter to write a review of the latest Taylor Swift album. She offered: "It's the greatest album I've ever heard." Honestly, that's pretty mild compared to most of her Taylor takes. But she won the aux battle during our school commute today, and what I've heard so far sounds good. Enjoy The Tortured Poets Department. (I'll leave it to my daughter to fill you in on who all the songs refer to.) Once I dropped her off at school, it was Dad's turn. Pearl Jam's newest album Dark Matter is out, and it's excellent and as Pearl Jammy as a Pearl Jam fan could want.

+ What to Watch: With two teens and two parents, it's not easy to find a show that we'll all watch. But the well-reviewed Fallout on Prime is doing the trick.

+ What to Watch/Hear: CBS/Paramount could have produced this so much better. There should have been more backstories, more documentary elements, and the inclusion of the encore songs. But Billy Joel and his band are as incredible as his song catalog as they mark their 100th show of the Madison Square Garden residency. On Paramount Plus, catch Billy Joel: The 100th - Live at Madison Square Garden.

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Extra, Extra

And So It Roes: "One woman miscarried in the lobby restroom of a Texas emergency room as front desk staff refused to admit her. Another woman learned that her fetus had no heartbeat at a Florida hospital, the day after a security guard turned her away from the facility. And in North Carolina, a woman gave birth in a car after an emergency room couldn’t offer an ultrasound. The baby later died. Complaints that pregnant women were turned away from U.S. emergency rooms spiked in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade."

+ Fire Outside Courtroom: "Three law enforcement sources told NBC News that the man appears to have been a follower of some conspiracy theories and may have had emotional issues. He may have posted his intention to set himself on fire in advance, the sources said." Man sets himself on fire outside courthouse where Trump trial is being held.

+ Not College Material? "New York City police officers in riot gear began making dozens of arrests at Columbia University Thursday afternoon, after school president Minouche Shafik asked for help clearing protesters from a pro-Palestinian encampment."

+ A Little Diddy About Puff: "'I felt like I disappointed the hip-hop community,' Combs told MTV’s Kurt Loder in 1999, after allegedly beating Nas’s former manager Steve Stoute with a Champagne bottle and a telephone. He continued, 'Because everything I do I’m trying to be a team player in taking hip-hop to the next level.'" Vulture: Diddy’s Open Secrets. The rap mogul shook off decades of rumored bad behavior with wholesome PR revamps.

+ This Hacks Me Off: "Chinese government-linked hackers have burrowed into U.S. critical infrastructure and are waiting 'for just the right moment to deal a devastating blow,' FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Thursday."

+ Yuck Truck Stuck: "Tesla has issued a recall for effectively every Cybertruck it’s delivered to customers due to a fault that’s causing the vehicle’s accelerator pedal to get stuck." (No word on how they'll compensate the rest of us who have had to suffer seeing one of these monstrosities on the road.)

+ Keep Your Thoughts to Yourself: No data mining in Colorado minds as state passes U.S.’s first brainwave privacy law.

+ Ant, Man: "As their population grows and their reach expands, the animals lay claim to more territories, reshaping the relationships in each new landscape by eliminating some species and nurturing others ... This might sound like our story: the story of a hominin species, living in tropical Africa a few million years ago, becoming global. Instead, it is the story of a group of ant species." Ant geopolitics.

+ Punctuated Equilibrium: "I’d like to think of the tortured poets collectively hanging out together in a department of their own, a space to feel their feelings and write about them in a supportive environment." NYT (Gift Article): Tortured Poets’ or Poets? Taylor Swift Meets the Apostrophe Police.

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Feel Good Friday

There may be no greater joy than witnessing 300 children erupt into simultaneous delirium upon learning they will be receiving free reading buddy teddy bears. See for yourself.

+ A one-shot vaccine for COVID, flu and future viruses? Researchers say it's coming.

+ She secretly educated herself to escape Afghanistan. Now, she's working to help women still there.

+ A baby had no home after a stay in the NICU. Her nurses adopted her.

+ "DonnaJean Wilde planks while she’s reading. She planks while she’s checking her phone and emails, too. The 59-year-old from Alberta, Canada has mastered planking so much that she broke the women's Guinness World Record for the longest time in an abdominal plank position." Grandmother of 12 breaks Guinness World Record by planking for 4.5 hours.

+ Got tinnitus? A device that tickles the tongue helps this musician find relief.

+ WaPo: Biden limits oil drilling across 13 million acres of Alaskan Arctic.

+ NYT (Gift Article): "Elaine Hall and Roland Passaro, both 88, met in junior high school in 1950 but lost touch before acting on their connection. They finally did, five decades later." A High School Reunion Reignites a 50-Year Crush. I had a crush on my wife in high school. But it only took me 10 years after graduation to make a move.