Hello, good afternoon, happy Friday. Last week I went to my first omakase at Aji, and it was incredible. Chef Rick was wonderful, the food was delightful, and I had the absolute best time with the friends I went with. You should go - it’s definitely going to be popular.
The rest of the week was less good. So it goes.
Solidarity forever
You need to read this story about John Deere:
It’s an October Saturday in Iowa and the farmers ride green machines. Some wear headphones as they tend the land between the towns of What Cheer and Ottumwa. The Hawkeyes are playing the Badgers, a game that can’t be missed, but, still, there’s work to be done and only so much daylight. I’m on State Route 21, the sun is shining, and a gentle autumn wind blows through my open window. It is hard not to be sentimental about America the beautiful.
…
But this is America in 2021. Fairness is weakness. Kindness is gauche. In October, Deere proposed a contract with a 5% raise and but no pension plan for new hires. With inflation, the workers would still be making less in real dollars than their predecessors. The company argued they would still provide decent medical benefits, an alleged perk in the only country of its kind without universal healthcare.
So 10,000 Deere hourly workers went on strike. Here in Ottumwa, men and women mill about in hoodies and Carhartt jackets preparing to hit the picket lines. It’s Day 17 of a walkout that has the not-humble dream of redressing two generations of worker humiliation. Oh, and one other thing: their strike has become a cause celebre, a sort of Lexington and Concord for all American working people tired of getting the short and sharp end of the stick.
A vacuum demands to be filled
A bunch of right-wing shock jocks died recently - of covid, of course. And so new voices are rising to take their places - grifters gotta grift:
hen Georgia gubernatorial candidate Vernon Jones appeared last month on an internet show hosted by right-wing personality Stew Peters, Jones could have reasonably expected a softball interview.
Jones, a former Democratic state representative, became a darling on the right after he endorsed Donald Trump’s re-election bid. Now he’s the leading primary challenger to Gov. Brian Kemp (R), with endorsements from Michael Flynn and Rudy Giuliani.
But Peters tore into Jones, citing a 2010 discrimination judgment against a Georgia county Jones once ran to accuse the candidate, who is Black, of discriminating against white employees. The interview grew heated. After Peters muted Jones, Jones quit the call.
“That’s what bullies do,” Peters thundered to his audience. “They gaslight, shout you down, lie incessantly, to avoid the light of truth from being shined on their dark corruption.”
Arizona state Rep. Wendy Rogers (R), a leading backer of the controversial Arizona “audit,” withdrew her endorsement of Jones after the Peters interview. Jones has been dogged by questions about the lawsuit on the campaign trail. But Peters wasn’t done. He followed up on the confrontation with a segment on a 2005 rape allegation against Jones, in which charges weren’t filed after the alleged victim decided she couldn’t withstand the publicity a trial would bring. The Jones campaign did not return a request for comment.
Connected
There is just a lot going on here:
This story contains graphic descriptions of self-harm.
When Chae first saw Angela Vandusen, a.k.a. @angelatheegoddess, on her TikTok For You page last year, she was instantly smitten. A 27-year-old based in Michigan, Vandusen was a home health care aide and an aspiring natural-oils entrepreneur, but she had amassed many devoted adherents by posting thirst traps on the platform, most of which followed a specific template: She’d turn her steely blue gaze on the camera, usually while biting her lower lip and lip-synching provocative lyrics, or simulating strap-on sex while winking to the camera. She’d built a following of about 50,000 followers based on those videos, as well as videos documenting her dramatic weight-loss journey.
Career misogynist
Dave Portnoy is a bad man (cw sexual assault):
In the summer of 2020, Madison sent Barstool Sports' founder, Dave Portnoy, a direct message on Instagram complimenting his famous "one bite" pizza reviews.
"Sick pizza reviews," she wrote. "Thanks fly bitch," Portnoy responded. She was a 20-year-old college student at the time, Portnoy a 43-year-old multimillionaire. The conversation soon moved to Snapchat and text, where it quickly turned to the topic of sex. He sent her graphic videos of other women he'd slept with, according to Madison, and in messages reviewed by Insider, he pressed her to tell him about her sexual fantasies.
High
I don’t know, that’s how I felt reading this story, anyway:
Something happened to Tucker Carlson Monday morning that caused him to get emergency back surgery later in the week. It was, he said, according to a recording obtained by Motherboard, “one of the most traumatic things that’s ever happened to me in my whole life, ever.”
What exactly was so traumatic isn’t clear. A Fox News spokesperson said, “Tucker Carlson had emergency back surgery yesterday and did the show anyway. He thanks all those who tuned in and watched closely.” But before Wednesday night’s broadcast of his Tucker Carlson Tonight program, Carlson—who by all accounts doesn’t drink or use drugs—spoke in detail on set to his production team about what he experienced, and said that because he was treated with intravenous fentanyl and other powerful painkillers, he now understands America's opioid crisis in a deeper way.
Queen
Kristen Stewart rules and I love to hear about her success:
The casting of Kristen Stewart as the late Princess Diana is a stroke of genius. Who better to capture the abject misery of life in a gilded cage than a former child actress callously pilloried by the tabloid media and gossip-huffing public at the age of 22?
When we first meet her Diana in Pablo Larraín’s Spencer, a companion piece of sorts to his Jackie, she’s already nine years into a tortured relationship with Prince Charles, the unfaithful and unfeeling man-who-would-be-king, and has been stripped of any and all agency. Her appointments, outfits, and meals are chosen for her, and the queen has assigned her equerry (Timothy Spall), a former soldier, to track her every move. The isolation and alienation have become so acute that she’s resorted to binging and purging food, cutting herself, and contemplating suicide. Over the course of three days—from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day, 1990—Stewart and Larraín artfully choreograph Diana’s growing desperation, her performance in lockstep with his roaming camera.
You deserve some good animal content
Have a good weekend.
Addendums
5 Florida police officers spend an hour chasing a runaway pig. Scenes from the picket line: Kellogg workers are still on strike. Americans are ready to tax the rich. Why Facebook Shutting Down Its Old Facial Recognition System Doesn’t Matter. Good morning, bad news.1 Every Metroid game, ranked. After a Two-Week-Long Hunger Strike, Scenes of Celebration and Relief Among NYC Taxi Drivers. Reddit and TikTok are fueling the new labor movement.
I am personally feeling the effects of this one lately and it fucking sucks.