What I highlighted the week of February 8, 2021

Articles

• Among the many takes on the GameStonk news story, this one about the role of speculation in protest was interesting to me.

• Ross Douthat's column on Mitt Romney's family tax credit proposal seems like a rare instance of something there may be bipartisan progress on at the federal level while much else remains gridlocked into atrophy.

• Glen Greenwald's write-up on "hall monitor journalism" was a novel way of considering a strand of journalism, and perhaps a central tendency in how journalism is practiced in the modern age, that has always felt icky to me.

• This paper which brings the Wall Street Consensus into conversation with climate change and finds that it (1) won't do much to help the global south and (2) won't do much to help climate change is, um, scary.

Movies

• I watched, and really did not like, The January Man

• I rewatched and loved-loved-loved Love and Basketball

• I watched and was bowled over by Taste of Cherry

TV Shows

• I watched more Search Party. Season 3 is much more enjoyable than I expected.

• And continued our rewatch of Mad Men

Youtube

• Cal Newport's talk on Deep Work had some great strategies about training, supporting and managing deep work habits.

Podcasts

• Tara Brach's Sacred Presence meditation was, like most of her ~20 minute meditations, very useful in guiding you through a body scan and encouraging coming back to the present.

• A24's podcast recently featured a conversation between Kelly Reichardt and Kenneth Lonergan. They brought up interesting themes about Reichardt's work, which is often set in the 1800s and Lonergan's interest in doing somethign like that.