Still free to subscribe to this nearly daily newsletter! Greg Mitchell is author of fourteen books and director of five films for PBS since 2022. His latest film “Woody Guthrie and The Ghost of Tom Joad Today” is now streaming via PBS.
NY Times:
Trump Floats Renaming New Mexico as ‘New America,’ Prompting Pushback
Axios:
The war with Iran has now cost U.S. consumers $100 billion in higher energy prices. The bill is rising another $1 million about every two minutes.
🤑 By the numbers: The Iran War Energy Cost Tracker from Brown’s Watson School says higher gasoline and diesel prices have cost the average U.S. household more than $760 since the war began Feb. 28. (Latest numbers.)
Paul Krugman opens his newsletter today citing the hero of one of my books (“The Campaign of the Century”) and PBS film (“The First Attack Ads”), muckraking socialist Upton Sinclair:
“Mary had a little lamb, but when she saw it sicken, she sent it off to Packingtown, and now it’s labeled chicken.” That’s a little ditty that was circulating, I can’t find any original source, around 1905, when Upton Sinclair published “The Jungle” — about the meatpacking industry, one of the sort of founding documents of the progressive movement.
The topic today is Donald Trump and beef, because here we are back in Upton Sinclair territory….
There has been a substantial uproar over these imports of ground beef because of concerns about safety. You know, if he won’t even say where it’s coming from or whether the countries involved are going to be practicing food safety, that is kind of an issue….
So it’s quite a story. It’s in a way captures all in one place everything that is going wrong, how quickly the United States is descending into kind of pre-modern, pre-development status. We’re just giving up all of the things that make an advanced society and advanced economy work.
No Space Like Holmes
Biggest movie shock of the weekend, apparently, was the unannounced premiere at the Telluride Film Festival of a new 3-hour Nathan Fielder doc about the disgraced Elizabeth Holmes, “You Can See Everything.” I’ve become disenchanted with Fielder myself over the years, and bloody Holmes draws no interest from me these days (although the TV drama series was fine), but here is the creepy trailer:
Music Pick
The great Nick (“High Fidelity” etc.) Hornby with a lengthy newsletter take today on Jackson Browne. Nick recalls how he rejected most of Browne’s early music as a teen in UK while naturally favoring The Clash, Elvis Costello, etc. Now he hails this recent version of “These Days,” written by Jackson at about age 16, by Margaret Glaspy.
The point is that it’s a song for everyone, at any age, and it’s very much alive….Someone has been singing it somewhere ever since it was born. It’s quite something, writing a song as soulful and as sturdy as ‘These Days’ when you’re not old enough to drink.
From Tunes to Toons
Wexler:
Brodner:
Sheneman:
Jonik:
Nardi:
Gargalo:
Photo Finish
Yesterday, a final view of one of our hummers this year? She may be heading south by tomorrow.
Grim cartoons, lovely photo and music.
Loved the cartoons today!