Murray Crimbus // What's Good: Dec. 22, 2023
Childcare, monuments, and a grounded flight.
Hello, good evening, happy Friday. People were working entirely too long today. The work will still be there on Tuesday. Or even next year! Oh well. I hope you all have had a lovely holiday season so far and that you have a very merry Christmas if you’re into that whole thing.
Should have learned from Icarus
Flying no longer:
Even amid the wild summer boating scene known in Chicago as the “Playpen,” real estate agent David Izsak’s yacht stood out.
Adorned with a pink stripper pole attached to the afterdeck, the 58-foot powerboat dubbed Flying Lady was a regular in the often raucous party spot just off the downtown shore, serving essentially as a floating nightclub, complete with tipsy guests dancing to pulsating DJ music and bikini-clad women performing acrobatic pole moves to the cheers of sun-drenched crowds.
Now, though, it appears the party is over.
Incentives
You may be thinking to yourself, “another article about Clarence Thomas? How many could there possibly be?” I am amazed too, and yet:
In early January 2000, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was at a five-star beach resort in Sea Island, Georgia, hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.
After almost a decade on the court, Thomas had grown frustrated with his financial situation, according to friends. He had recently started raising his young grandnephew, and Thomas’ wife was soliciting advice on how to handle the new expenses. The month before, the justice had borrowed $267,000 from a friend to buy a high-end RV.
For the children
A massive social policy experiment is unfolding in Canada to provide families throughout the country with child care for an average of $10 a day. The plan, which was introduced in 2021 amid the turmoil of the pandemic, aims to spend up to $30 billion Canadian by 2026 to bring down child care costs for parents and to create 250,000 new slots.
The federally backed effort brings Canada’s safety net closer to that of other Western democracies that have stepped up on child care, including Finland, Sweden, France, Germany, and Australia, and it could prove an inspiration to other countries whose systems still lag, like the United States.
Lots of folks talk about doing things “for the kids,” but few actually put their money where their mouth is. We ought to give less attention to conservative talking points and more public funding to education and childcare programs.
The last great American dynasty
They had a marvelous time ruining everything:
Egyptian pharaohs left the pyramids. Donald E. Stephens left a Museum of Hummels. These are porcelain dolls, based initially on paintings by Maria Hummel, a German nun. Stephens was, until his death in 2007, the mayor of Rosemont, Illinois. His collection of Hummels, which is on display in a strip mall, is apparently the world’s largest. It includes rare figurines of soldiers at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. The museum is a monument to kitsch, and to a dynasty.
Politics in Rosemont is a family affair. Stephens and his son, Brad (pictured below), have run the city for almost 70 years. It is perhaps America’s last true political machine. It reminds your correspondent, who has spent years reporting in Africa, of Gabon, a petrostate that was ruled by the same family for 56 years. The parallels between these two very different places reveal much about power, not as a civics textbook describes it, but as canny, charming men actually wield it.
Please don’t suck
I will be cautiously optimistic:
Men are so back: Mel magazine, an audacious digital media site for the guys, will get a new lease on life next year after its unceremonious dissolution in 2022.
Literally Media, which owns Know Your Meme, Cracked and other brands, announced Friday that it acquired Mel magazine for an undisclosed amount. Originally a content site for the Dollar Shave Club, Mel was once described by The New York Times as “the rare men’s magazine that has taken upon itself to investigate masculinity, not enforce it.”
Oren Katzeff, CEO of Literally Media, told HuffPost that he wanted to acquire Mel for its unique voice and a loyal audience.
Praise be to the Khan
Pritzker might be the Khan of the midwest, but Lina also fucking rules:
BRISBANE, California — Kirk Vartan, owner of the Bay Area pizza shop A Slice of New York, sat in the break room of a wholesale warehouse and started venting about how hard it is for him to buy 7-Up.
He can only stock a few cans at a time, he said, while grocery stores nearby have pallets of newly delivered soda. “It’s like, ‘what the hell guys, you just told me you don’t have it.’ I go down the street and it’s on sale,” he said.
Sitting about eight feet away, intently listening and taking copious notes in a small black book, was Lina Khan, chair of the Federal Trade Commission.
You deserve some good animal content
https://twitter.com/CAPYBARA_MAN/status/1738322930721779801
https://twitter.com/RedPandaEveryHr/status/1738312135174705215
https://twitter.com/twaniimals/status/1738309648585744512
https://twitter.com/whyhavecat/status/1738286653393789370
https://twitter.com/ContextBirds/status/1738260294181191967
https://twitter.com/contextanimalss/status/1738288032308920823
https://twitter.com/GoldretrieverUS/status/1737930587434856785
Have a good weekend.
Addendums
The NYPD Spent $150 Million to Catch Farebeaters Who Cost the MTA $104,000. The catastrophe of the Insomniac hack goes way beyond leaked games. NFTs died a slow, painful death in 2023 as most are now worthless. The Free-Speech Debate Is a Trap. The Voyeuristic Obsession With One Binge-Drinking TikToker. Union-Friendly Gifts for the Pro-Labor Person In Your Life.