Reading List: Picking Poisons Via Weirdly Immovable Social Vice Preferences, And Other Awful Cocktail Party Talking Points
Darlings! It’s Friday, the North American Continent is in various states of deep freeze and you’ve almost made it through the week! Well done! So let’s get to some long reads, why don’t we?
Olga Khazan, America’s Favorite Poison (The Atlantic) - I joked at work the other day that my personality is meeting dogs, going to yoga, and not drinking. And in my day-to-day life, I have to avoid the “have a hammer, everything’s a nail syndrome,” in that not everyone on this planet has an issue with alcohol the way I do. That being said, I’ve also seen how, despite the ravages that alcohol can wreck on bodies, families, and our society, the liquid escapes the moral and existential judgement put on other vices like cannabis. And when you voice that observation? You get looked at sideways. As this piece points out, “Pushing for, say, higher alcohol taxes gets you treated like an uptight school marm. Or worse, a neo-prohibitionist.” So whether you’re a normal who can have one glass of champagne and call it a day, or like me and needing to leave the drinking to the normals so that I can, you know, have a full, complete and fulfilling life, this examination of alcohol’s curiously elevated status is worth a read. (H/t to the numerous readers who sent this in.)
Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker, ‘You’re a bunch of dopes and babies’: Inside Trump’s stunning tirade against generals (The Washington Post) - Need a good ol’ fashioned panic attack? Read this excerpt from the upcoming A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America.
Natasha Bertrand and Darren Samuelsohn, Here’s what the Parnas revelations mean for Trump (POLITICO) - If you saw the bat-poop insane Maddow interview and wondered if you’d stealthily micro-dosed your own tea, you’ll want to get this backgrounder STAT. All I’m going to say is that we are truly in the most ridiculous timeline, and that I’m just so tired.
Dana Goldstein, Two States. Eight Textbooks. Two American Stories. (The New York Times) - This piece shows how there’s no such thing as one American history, a reminder that it's the little differences in how history is taught state-to-state that starts digging the ideological trenches this country finds itself hunkered down in. And when we compare how that differs from California to Texas, our seemingly-immovable polarization starts to make more sense.
I adore you all, no matter what state you’re in. Have a great weekend, and be kind to each other, mmmkay?
Xoxo Amy