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Celerity
Celerity's Journal
Celerity's Journal
July 21, 2022
Winston Churchill claimed democracy was the worst form of government, except for all the others. But it can be improved.
https://socialeurope.eu/is-deliberative-democracy-a-hopeless-ideal
A few decades ago, a change of paradigm occurred within political science and political theory. While political studies tended to focus attention on power dynamics and electoral results, theorists such as Jürgen Habermas, Jane Mansbridge, Bernard Manin, Jon Elster and Joshua Cohen invited us to pay more attention to the formation of political opinion through discussions. Unsatisfied with the prevailing minimalist and elitist understanding of democracy, they thought that democratic procedures acquired legitimacy by allowing for the inclusion and confrontation of a diversity of perspectives before collective decisions were made.
As Habermas emphasised, we talk about politics because we believe that some political options are more desirable than others and because we believe that our fellow citizens could accept our arguments—otherwise, we wouldn’t bother. This easily leads to the conclusion that, ideally, we should all exchange arguments before we reach the best collective decision, and that ideal lies at the heart of the deliberative conception of democracy. Is it, as some critics have argued, a hopeless ideal, founded on a naïve and unappealing understanding of politics, in which people do not have strong political convictions and would prefer consensual decisions over conflict?
Not necessarily. There is clearly a strong idealist impulse behind the deliberative project. Recognising however that ideally citizens should listen to each other does not entail any form of naïveté, precisely because most theorists can easily distinguish the ideal from the actual. And there is something undeniable in the deliberative ideal: a world in which individuals are not merely concerned with their private interests and can recognise others’ good arguments is preferable to the opposite world. Similarly, a world in which democratic decisions would be based on the best arguments heard after an inclusive and egalitarian discussion would be preferable to the kind of political dynamics with which we are familiar.
Believing this is fully compatible with the observation that actual politics is often more about interests and power than the strength of arguments—at state level at least (Mansbridge highlighted in her seminal Beyond Adversary Democracy that the deliberative approach has a basis in democratic practices at a lower scale, as in New England town meetings). And it is compatible with believing that political conflict is healthier than hegemony-hiding consensus.
snip
Is deliberative democracy a hopeless ideal?
Winston Churchill claimed democracy was the worst form of government, except for all the others. But it can be improved.
https://socialeurope.eu/is-deliberative-democracy-a-hopeless-ideal
Le tournant délibératif de la démocratie, Loïc Blondiaux and Bernard Manin (eds), Sciences Po, 2021
Deliberative Democracy, Ian O’Flynn, Polity Press, 2021
Deliberative Mini-Publics, Nicole Curato et al, Bristol University Press, 2021
Deliberative Democracy, Ian O’Flynn, Polity Press, 2021
Deliberative Mini-Publics, Nicole Curato et al, Bristol University Press, 2021
A few decades ago, a change of paradigm occurred within political science and political theory. While political studies tended to focus attention on power dynamics and electoral results, theorists such as Jürgen Habermas, Jane Mansbridge, Bernard Manin, Jon Elster and Joshua Cohen invited us to pay more attention to the formation of political opinion through discussions. Unsatisfied with the prevailing minimalist and elitist understanding of democracy, they thought that democratic procedures acquired legitimacy by allowing for the inclusion and confrontation of a diversity of perspectives before collective decisions were made.
As Habermas emphasised, we talk about politics because we believe that some political options are more desirable than others and because we believe that our fellow citizens could accept our arguments—otherwise, we wouldn’t bother. This easily leads to the conclusion that, ideally, we should all exchange arguments before we reach the best collective decision, and that ideal lies at the heart of the deliberative conception of democracy. Is it, as some critics have argued, a hopeless ideal, founded on a naïve and unappealing understanding of politics, in which people do not have strong political convictions and would prefer consensual decisions over conflict?
Not necessarily. There is clearly a strong idealist impulse behind the deliberative project. Recognising however that ideally citizens should listen to each other does not entail any form of naïveté, precisely because most theorists can easily distinguish the ideal from the actual. And there is something undeniable in the deliberative ideal: a world in which individuals are not merely concerned with their private interests and can recognise others’ good arguments is preferable to the opposite world. Similarly, a world in which democratic decisions would be based on the best arguments heard after an inclusive and egalitarian discussion would be preferable to the kind of political dynamics with which we are familiar.
Believing this is fully compatible with the observation that actual politics is often more about interests and power than the strength of arguments—at state level at least (Mansbridge highlighted in her seminal Beyond Adversary Democracy that the deliberative approach has a basis in democratic practices at a lower scale, as in New England town meetings). And it is compatible with believing that political conflict is healthier than hegemony-hiding consensus.
snip
July 21, 2022
A glass-walled living space overlooking a patio and swimming pool sits at the centre of K House, a minimalist home in Tel Aviv, Israel, designed by local practice Pitsou Kedem. The crisp white walls and simple finishes of the home were guided by the concept of a "search for silence" for a family who wanted a place of shelter away from the city centre. The breathable lime plaster that covers the home's walls was informed by the finish common to many modernist buildings in Tel Aviv's UNESCO-listed White City.
"Our starting point was to strip away the unnecessary. We wanted to design a house with a coherent architectural language that would wear its age elegantly," said the practice. "[It is] a series of spaces providing respite from the external visual and audial chaos of design, passing fads, and the endless intrusion of media and social networks," it continued. Surrounded by gardens that shield it from overlooking from the outside, the L-shaped home looks inwards towards a paved patio and pool, accessed via a path that runs along the site's northern side.
While the central living area is more exposed, the rest of the home is surrounded by a "double envelope" of glass and white walls to help create a cooler microclimate around the home, with a series of internal courtyards between. The main bedroom sits on the ground floor to the west of the living space with its own private courtyard, while on the first floor, three further bedrooms have access to balconies and a rooftop terrace sheltered by high walls.
Deep, chamfered cut-outs provide views through the white-plastered outer envelope, creating varying conditions of light and shade for the home's interiors and external terraces. "We created double envelopes to enclose intermediately shaded and airy spaces, [where] the family can comfortably spend time even on days when the most extreme weather blows in from the desert," said the practice. "The architectural volumes set the mood through an abstract almost sculptural envelope that adds to the sense of mystery as shadow and light move through the spaces," it continued.
snip
Pitsou Kedem's minimalist K House in Tel Aviv is a "search for silence"
https://www.dezeen.com/2022/07/19/pitsou-kedem-k-house-tel-aviv-residential-architecture/A glass-walled living space overlooking a patio and swimming pool sits at the centre of K House, a minimalist home in Tel Aviv, Israel, designed by local practice Pitsou Kedem. The crisp white walls and simple finishes of the home were guided by the concept of a "search for silence" for a family who wanted a place of shelter away from the city centre. The breathable lime plaster that covers the home's walls was informed by the finish common to many modernist buildings in Tel Aviv's UNESCO-listed White City.
"Our starting point was to strip away the unnecessary. We wanted to design a house with a coherent architectural language that would wear its age elegantly," said the practice. "[It is] a series of spaces providing respite from the external visual and audial chaos of design, passing fads, and the endless intrusion of media and social networks," it continued. Surrounded by gardens that shield it from overlooking from the outside, the L-shaped home looks inwards towards a paved patio and pool, accessed via a path that runs along the site's northern side.
While the central living area is more exposed, the rest of the home is surrounded by a "double envelope" of glass and white walls to help create a cooler microclimate around the home, with a series of internal courtyards between. The main bedroom sits on the ground floor to the west of the living space with its own private courtyard, while on the first floor, three further bedrooms have access to balconies and a rooftop terrace sheltered by high walls.
Deep, chamfered cut-outs provide views through the white-plastered outer envelope, creating varying conditions of light and shade for the home's interiors and external terraces. "We created double envelopes to enclose intermediately shaded and airy spaces, [where] the family can comfortably spend time even on days when the most extreme weather blows in from the desert," said the practice. "The architectural volumes set the mood through an abstract almost sculptural envelope that adds to the sense of mystery as shadow and light move through the spaces," it continued.
snip
July 21, 2022
https://twitter.com/DKThomp/status/1549769240340832256
What happened is scientists discovered chlorofluorocarbons were bad for the ozone countries believed
them, the Montreal Protocol was signed, and CFC use fell by 99.7%, leading to the stabilization of the ozone layer, perhaps the greatest example of global cooperation in history.https://twitter.com/DKThomp/status/1549769240340832256
July 20, 2022
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/19/dining/oklahoma-onion-burger-recipe.html
https://archive.ph/T1kew
Humans have been cooking meat with onions for at least as long as recipes have been recorded, but I’d argue that the combination was simplified to its primal core during the Great Depression, when Homer Davis and his son Ross invented what they called the Depression burger at the Hamburger Inn in El Reno, Okla.
By smashing shaved onion — a half-onion’s worth per burger — into a few ounces of ground beef, they not only offered his customers a better value in their five-cent hamburger. They also inadvertently created a sandwich that, like pizza margherita or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I consider a culinary endpoint: a creation so perfect in its simplicity that it cannot be improved upon, only tweaked.
“De Re Coquinaria,” the oldest known cookbook, includes numerous dishes for meat stewed or simmered with onions and spices. Likewise, onions have been a part of hamburgers since before the modern hamburger as we know it — a patty of beef sandwiched in a soft bun — was invented. Recipes for proto-hamburgers, like the Hamburg steak listed on an 1837 menu from Delmonico’s restaurant in New York, included onions or garlic blended into the meat patties. In his book “The Hamburger: A History,” Josh Ozersky credits Walter Anderson, a founder of White Castle, the world’s oldest fast-food hamburger chain, with first thinking to place onions directly on the griddle with the beef to “bathe in the juices of the still-cooking meat.” Those sliders are still cooked on a bed of onions today. But what makes the Oklahoma onion burger (as the Depression burger has come to be called) different? The volume of onions is certainly part of the equation, but it’s also how they’re cooked.
Even in El Reno, the exact cooking process varies from diner to diner, but the basics are the same: A small ball of ground beef is placed atop a griddle, then topped with a confusingly large haystack of very thinly sliced onions. The cook then aggressively smashes the beef into the griddle, spreading it into a rough patty large enough to overhang the edges of a bun, while simultaneously embedding the onions into the meat. When juices start to collect on top of the patty, it’s scraped up and flipped, onion side down, and seasoned with salt and pepper. It’s topped with a slice of cheese, if requested, followed by a soft, untoasted bun — heel stacked on crown stacked on burger — which warms and softens in the onion-scented vapors rising through the beef. A few moments later, the entire stack is lifted with the spatula, the heel of the bun is removed from the top and placed underneath. Then, with a light squeeze and pull, the spatula is removed, and the burger is placed on a plate.
snip
Oklahoma Onion Burgers
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1023331-oklahoma-onion-burgers
https://archive.ph/Fuh6I
Homer Davis and his son Ross invented what he called the Depression burger at the Hamburger Inn in El Reno, Okla., as a means to add inexpensive bulk to their burgers. Rather than toasting, the buns are steamed in onion-scented vapor. That the technique — cooking the patties smashed-style with a huge amount of thinly shaved onions and steaming the buns — and restaurant remain popular to this day is a testament to the burgers’ deliciousness. If you prefer, you can take the cooking (and the accompanying lingering onion aroma) completely out of the house by heating the skillet or griddle directly over a very hot grill and cooking outdoors (see Tip).
snip
Oklahoma Onion Burgers: The Burger J. Kenji Lopez-Alt Can't Improve (Only Tweak)
Oklahoma onion burgers, which cook in moments, are so perfect in their simplicity that they can’t be better, he writes.https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/19/dining/oklahoma-onion-burger-recipe.html
https://archive.ph/T1kew
Humans have been cooking meat with onions for at least as long as recipes have been recorded, but I’d argue that the combination was simplified to its primal core during the Great Depression, when Homer Davis and his son Ross invented what they called the Depression burger at the Hamburger Inn in El Reno, Okla.
By smashing shaved onion — a half-onion’s worth per burger — into a few ounces of ground beef, they not only offered his customers a better value in their five-cent hamburger. They also inadvertently created a sandwich that, like pizza margherita or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I consider a culinary endpoint: a creation so perfect in its simplicity that it cannot be improved upon, only tweaked.
“De Re Coquinaria,” the oldest known cookbook, includes numerous dishes for meat stewed or simmered with onions and spices. Likewise, onions have been a part of hamburgers since before the modern hamburger as we know it — a patty of beef sandwiched in a soft bun — was invented. Recipes for proto-hamburgers, like the Hamburg steak listed on an 1837 menu from Delmonico’s restaurant in New York, included onions or garlic blended into the meat patties. In his book “The Hamburger: A History,” Josh Ozersky credits Walter Anderson, a founder of White Castle, the world’s oldest fast-food hamburger chain, with first thinking to place onions directly on the griddle with the beef to “bathe in the juices of the still-cooking meat.” Those sliders are still cooked on a bed of onions today. But what makes the Oklahoma onion burger (as the Depression burger has come to be called) different? The volume of onions is certainly part of the equation, but it’s also how they’re cooked.
Even in El Reno, the exact cooking process varies from diner to diner, but the basics are the same: A small ball of ground beef is placed atop a griddle, then topped with a confusingly large haystack of very thinly sliced onions. The cook then aggressively smashes the beef into the griddle, spreading it into a rough patty large enough to overhang the edges of a bun, while simultaneously embedding the onions into the meat. When juices start to collect on top of the patty, it’s scraped up and flipped, onion side down, and seasoned with salt and pepper. It’s topped with a slice of cheese, if requested, followed by a soft, untoasted bun — heel stacked on crown stacked on burger — which warms and softens in the onion-scented vapors rising through the beef. A few moments later, the entire stack is lifted with the spatula, the heel of the bun is removed from the top and placed underneath. Then, with a light squeeze and pull, the spatula is removed, and the burger is placed on a plate.
snip
Oklahoma Onion Burgers
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1023331-oklahoma-onion-burgers
https://archive.ph/Fuh6I
Homer Davis and his son Ross invented what he called the Depression burger at the Hamburger Inn in El Reno, Okla., as a means to add inexpensive bulk to their burgers. Rather than toasting, the buns are steamed in onion-scented vapor. That the technique — cooking the patties smashed-style with a huge amount of thinly shaved onions and steaming the buns — and restaurant remain popular to this day is a testament to the burgers’ deliciousness. If you prefer, you can take the cooking (and the accompanying lingering onion aroma) completely out of the house by heating the skillet or griddle directly over a very hot grill and cooking outdoors (see Tip).
snip
July 20, 2022
https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/07/us-messaging-on-monkeypox-is-deeply-flawed/670573/
https://archive.ph/7kKZc
Risk Assessment
In the parts of the world where monkeypox is newly spreading, like the United States and Europe, the people currently most at risk of getting the disease are gay and bisexual men. A recent update from the World Health Organization noted that cases in newly afflicted countries have mainly been among “men who have had recent sexual contact with a new or multiple male partners.” In Europe, just 0.2 percent of the men who have gotten the disease identify as heterosexual. Reports from the center of the U.S. outbreak—New York City—show that “the number of monkeypox cases has nearly tripled in the last week, nearly all of them among men who have sex with men.” The infectious-disease and LGBTQ-health journalist Benjamin Ryan notes that though the U.S. is, frustratingly, not collecting demographic details on monkeypox patients, Britain is, and the numbers there are clear: “Half of men screened for monkeypox tested positive; women, by contrast, tested positive only 0.6 percent of the time.”
And yet, despite this barrage of data, an American following the public-health messaging on monkeypox might come away with the idea that all populations are similarly at risk of contracting the disease. U.S. officials are taking action to specifically protect men who have sex with other men (MSM) from monkeypox—importantly, supplies of the vaccine have largely been reserved for that community. And yet, many public-health officials—and some media outlets—have scrambled to combat the idea that monkeypox is a “gay disease.” (Both the CDC and WHO websites bury mentions of MSM risk.) These authorities, Ryan has argued, have spread a message “so egregiously misleading it amounts to misinformation.” That message? Anyone can get monkeypox.
This is not the first time American public-health officials have pushed a confusing communications strategy about the transmissibility of a dangerous virus. Smithsonian magazine has documented how some AIDS organizations criticized the federal government for its “everyone is at risk” message in the late 1980s and early ’90s. These organizations “saw the campaign as diverting money and attention away from the communities that needed it the most” and instead focusing resources on much lower-risk populations. Yesterday, The New York Times reported on a battle within New York City’s health department. The story revealed a widespread discomfort within the agency with acknowledging and highlighting the primary route of monkeypox transmission: sex between men:
snip
Gay men deserve the unvarnished truth about monkeypox
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/18/monkeypox-gay-men-deserve-unvarnished-truth/
https://archive.ph/JQOcc
“Anyone can get monkeypox.” Countless public health experts have uttered statements such as this in the past two months. Members of the media and politicians have parroted the message ad nauseam without stopping to dissect what it implies or obscures. This broad-strokes maxim — that everyone on Earth is susceptible to this troubling viral infection — might be factual on its surface. But it is so egregiously misleading it amounts to misinformation.
Those who make such statements don’t intend harm. On the contrary, leaders at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization and elsewhere repeat them because they commendably want to combat the societal stigma faced by gay and bisexual men, who have been disproportionately impacted by monkeypox. They know that stigma harms public health, including by discouraging infectious-disease testing. And they don’t want the rest of the public to be complacent in the face of a potential new pandemic.
But as these public health experts know well, epidemiology is less concerned with whether someone could contract an infection; instead, the much more vital questions focus on which groups of people are most likely to be exposed to a pathogen, to contract it and why. In public health statistics, this is the study of relative risk. By reducing monkeypox risk to a simplistic binary equation, public health leaders are prioritizing fighting stigma over their duty to directly inform the public about the true contours and drivers of this global outbreak. In particular, they are failing to properly convey the seriousness of this burgeoning crisis to gay and bisexual men.
Here is what we can discern from data collected about monkeypox so far: This viral outbreak isn’t just mostly occurring among men who have sex with men. The confirmed cases, at least to date, have consistently almost entirely occurred among this demographic, which accounts for 96 percent or more of diagnoses where data are available. Per capita, the few monkeypox cases in women and children remain minuscule compared with the rate among gay and bisexual men. Of course, substantial transmission could always occur among such other groups. But researchers at the WHO and elsewhere have speculated that the monkeypox reproduction rate will likely remain significantly lower in such demographics — meaning the virus will more likely hit transmission dead ends among them than among gay and bisexual men.
snip
U.S. Messaging on Monkeypox Is Deeply Flawed
Officials seem unwilling to be direct about who is most at risk of the disease. As monkeypox cases rise in the U.S., public officials are scrambling to balance concerns about stigmatization with the fact that the disease is largely affecting gay and bisexual men.https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/07/us-messaging-on-monkeypox-is-deeply-flawed/670573/
https://archive.ph/7kKZc
Risk Assessment
In the parts of the world where monkeypox is newly spreading, like the United States and Europe, the people currently most at risk of getting the disease are gay and bisexual men. A recent update from the World Health Organization noted that cases in newly afflicted countries have mainly been among “men who have had recent sexual contact with a new or multiple male partners.” In Europe, just 0.2 percent of the men who have gotten the disease identify as heterosexual. Reports from the center of the U.S. outbreak—New York City—show that “the number of monkeypox cases has nearly tripled in the last week, nearly all of them among men who have sex with men.” The infectious-disease and LGBTQ-health journalist Benjamin Ryan notes that though the U.S. is, frustratingly, not collecting demographic details on monkeypox patients, Britain is, and the numbers there are clear: “Half of men screened for monkeypox tested positive; women, by contrast, tested positive only 0.6 percent of the time.”
And yet, despite this barrage of data, an American following the public-health messaging on monkeypox might come away with the idea that all populations are similarly at risk of contracting the disease. U.S. officials are taking action to specifically protect men who have sex with other men (MSM) from monkeypox—importantly, supplies of the vaccine have largely been reserved for that community. And yet, many public-health officials—and some media outlets—have scrambled to combat the idea that monkeypox is a “gay disease.” (Both the CDC and WHO websites bury mentions of MSM risk.) These authorities, Ryan has argued, have spread a message “so egregiously misleading it amounts to misinformation.” That message? Anyone can get monkeypox.
This is not the first time American public-health officials have pushed a confusing communications strategy about the transmissibility of a dangerous virus. Smithsonian magazine has documented how some AIDS organizations criticized the federal government for its “everyone is at risk” message in the late 1980s and early ’90s. These organizations “saw the campaign as diverting money and attention away from the communities that needed it the most” and instead focusing resources on much lower-risk populations. Yesterday, The New York Times reported on a battle within New York City’s health department. The story revealed a widespread discomfort within the agency with acknowledging and highlighting the primary route of monkeypox transmission: sex between men:
The Health Department’s guidance to the public has often highlighted nonsexual routes of potential transmission, such as hugging or contact with bedding. While those are certainly possible routes of transmission, the result — Dr. Weiss [a doctor at the department] said — was to make people overly concerned about casual physical contact and not sufficiently aware that most monkeypox infections in New York appeared to be transmitted through sex.
snip
Gay men deserve the unvarnished truth about monkeypox
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/18/monkeypox-gay-men-deserve-unvarnished-truth/
https://archive.ph/JQOcc
“Anyone can get monkeypox.” Countless public health experts have uttered statements such as this in the past two months. Members of the media and politicians have parroted the message ad nauseam without stopping to dissect what it implies or obscures. This broad-strokes maxim — that everyone on Earth is susceptible to this troubling viral infection — might be factual on its surface. But it is so egregiously misleading it amounts to misinformation.
Those who make such statements don’t intend harm. On the contrary, leaders at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization and elsewhere repeat them because they commendably want to combat the societal stigma faced by gay and bisexual men, who have been disproportionately impacted by monkeypox. They know that stigma harms public health, including by discouraging infectious-disease testing. And they don’t want the rest of the public to be complacent in the face of a potential new pandemic.
But as these public health experts know well, epidemiology is less concerned with whether someone could contract an infection; instead, the much more vital questions focus on which groups of people are most likely to be exposed to a pathogen, to contract it and why. In public health statistics, this is the study of relative risk. By reducing monkeypox risk to a simplistic binary equation, public health leaders are prioritizing fighting stigma over their duty to directly inform the public about the true contours and drivers of this global outbreak. In particular, they are failing to properly convey the seriousness of this burgeoning crisis to gay and bisexual men.
Here is what we can discern from data collected about monkeypox so far: This viral outbreak isn’t just mostly occurring among men who have sex with men. The confirmed cases, at least to date, have consistently almost entirely occurred among this demographic, which accounts for 96 percent or more of diagnoses where data are available. Per capita, the few monkeypox cases in women and children remain minuscule compared with the rate among gay and bisexual men. Of course, substantial transmission could always occur among such other groups. But researchers at the WHO and elsewhere have speculated that the monkeypox reproduction rate will likely remain significantly lower in such demographics — meaning the virus will more likely hit transmission dead ends among them than among gay and bisexual men.
snip
July 19, 2022
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-supreme-court-may-have-just-killed-porns-creampie
Say goodbye to creampies. Yes, thanks to the Supreme Court’s archaic rollback of women’s reproductive rights, these types of scenes—when a man finishes inside of a woman—just became some of the riskiest to perform. And America’s really going to miss them, as the term “creampie” consistently ranks among the top ten Pornhub searches in the United States.
Sure, porn stars have always faced a certain amount of risk. STIs are an occupational hazard on any given day despite safety protocols and self-mandated industry testing every two weeks. But no one’s thinking about pregnancy. Until now. Without the constitutional right to an abortion, a right that has been upheld for nearly half a century, what happens if birth control fails? Adult actresses are uniquely positioned to confront this sudden lack of bodily autonomy.
Adult entertainment is a legally regulated business in California, though many of its stars reside outside the state in places where abortion is now illegal or severely restricted. If a performer did get pregnant on set, Attorney Corey D. Silverstein, who represents some of the largest content creators in the adult business, says it’s unlikely to be considered a workplace accident. These are independent contractor relationships, with producers using a release of liability along with standard releases on set, and as Silverstein points out, “Proper releases already have protections in place, so they are not liable for this type of incident.”
This puts the onus of accidental conception on the adult actress, no matter what state she lives in. “If a woman wants to go and get an abortion in a state where it’s legal there is nothing that the state she resides in can do to stop her. It’s unconstitutional,” says Silverstein. “The right to travel is protected under the privileges and immunities clause in the Fourteenth Amendment, and I don’t think the Supreme Court would take away the privileges and immunities clause. Is it possible a state passes a law like this? Sure, but I don’t think it would be enforceable.” Nonetheless, adult actresses are terrified, since in their line of work it’s possible to get pregnant on the job.
snip
The Supreme Court May Have Just Killed Porn's 'Creampie'
With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, porn’s women are now refusing to participate in “creampie” scenes, and many are doing girl/girl scenes only to reduce the risk of pregnancy.https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-supreme-court-may-have-just-killed-porns-creampie
Say goodbye to creampies. Yes, thanks to the Supreme Court’s archaic rollback of women’s reproductive rights, these types of scenes—when a man finishes inside of a woman—just became some of the riskiest to perform. And America’s really going to miss them, as the term “creampie” consistently ranks among the top ten Pornhub searches in the United States.
Sure, porn stars have always faced a certain amount of risk. STIs are an occupational hazard on any given day despite safety protocols and self-mandated industry testing every two weeks. But no one’s thinking about pregnancy. Until now. Without the constitutional right to an abortion, a right that has been upheld for nearly half a century, what happens if birth control fails? Adult actresses are uniquely positioned to confront this sudden lack of bodily autonomy.
Adult entertainment is a legally regulated business in California, though many of its stars reside outside the state in places where abortion is now illegal or severely restricted. If a performer did get pregnant on set, Attorney Corey D. Silverstein, who represents some of the largest content creators in the adult business, says it’s unlikely to be considered a workplace accident. These are independent contractor relationships, with producers using a release of liability along with standard releases on set, and as Silverstein points out, “Proper releases already have protections in place, so they are not liable for this type of incident.”
This puts the onus of accidental conception on the adult actress, no matter what state she lives in. “If a woman wants to go and get an abortion in a state where it’s legal there is nothing that the state she resides in can do to stop her. It’s unconstitutional,” says Silverstein. “The right to travel is protected under the privileges and immunities clause in the Fourteenth Amendment, and I don’t think the Supreme Court would take away the privileges and immunities clause. Is it possible a state passes a law like this? Sure, but I don’t think it would be enforceable.” Nonetheless, adult actresses are terrified, since in their line of work it’s possible to get pregnant on the job.
snip
July 19, 2022
Democrats have to decide: Are they about change or the status quo?
(Same author (Perry Bacon Jr) as this article: How media coverage drove Biden’s political plunge https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216944768 )
Democrats have to decide: Are they about change or the status quo?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/19/democratic-party-path-forward-centrist-or-progressive/
https://archive.ph/PiJfp
The Democratic Party is divided, with the Biden administration frequently stuck in the middle, on a wide range of electoral and policy issues. But these tensions often come down to a single question: With the GOP becoming more radical, should Democrats position themselves largely as the “normal” party? Or should they push an aggressive vision, as Republicans are doing, but from a liberal point of view? Right now, there’s a big opening for Democrats to run as the status-quo party because the Republicans have abandoned that space.
Traditionally, in countries around the world, there exists a conservative party whose political program is generally aimed at, well, conserving traditional norms, policies and hierarchies. This kind of conservatism is defined less by new policies than by a lack of them — the primary goal is to leave things in place, to oppose dramatic change. George H.W. Bush was arguably the last Republican president to clearly fit this mould. Other modern Republican presidents, particularly Ronald Reagan, weren’t trying to maintain the status quo but instead seeking to aggressively move the nation to the right — to not only stop liberal advances but reverse those that had already happened. Donald Trump’s aggressively right-wing campaign and presidency were the culmination of this approach. Trump was not looking to conserve anything.
This kind of disruptive Republicanism has unsettled many wealthy individuals, major industries and political figures who might otherwise either back the GOP or stay on the political sidelines. So a long list of prominent Republican officials, such as former Ohio governor John R. Kasich, backed Hillary Clinton in 2016, Joe Biden in 2020 or both. Employees at Wall Street firms, which donated more to Mitt Romney than to Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential race, contributed significantly more to Clinton and Biden than to Trump. Donations from people at Facebook and other Big Tech companies went overwhelmingly to Democrats. Moderate and conservative figures, such as billionaire and onetime Republican Mike Bloomberg, spent millions backing Clinton, Biden or both, as did other ultrawealthy people, like LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, who previously weren’t that involved in politics.
And seeing this opening in the political center, many Democratic candidates, such as Rep. Abigail Spanberger (Va.) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), ran in the 2018 and 2020 cycles effectively as nonpartisan figures. They emphasized their government experience and willingness to work with people in both parties more than their commitment to liberal policy priorities. Of course, it wasn’t just Trumpism that made the Democratic Party seem more hospitable to billionaires, former GOP officials and moderates. Under Bill Clinton and Obama, Democrats gradually shifted to become a business-friendly party that in many ways reinforced the United States’ economic status quo. That posture left the party conservative enough to win the votes of Republicans turned off by Trump. At the same time, many industries and wealthy individuals had shifted toward more multicultural stands, such as embracing same-sex marriage and more racially diverse workforces, that aligned them with the Democratic Party.
snip
July 19, 2022
https://punchbowl.news/newsletter/
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Which leads us to reconciliation. As Schumer and other top Senate Democrats try to move the CHIPS bill, they’re also working on a reconciliation package on a parallel path. The Senate parliamentarian is expected to hold a key meeting on Thursday with GOP and Democratic staff to review the Democrats’ Medicare prescription drug pricing proposal. The other big Democratic provision would provide two more years of premium support for Obamacare enrolees.
We reported in the PM edition last night that there’s a push in the Capitol to include Covid funding in the reconciliation package. This may be tricky. The Democratic leadership has to get buy-in from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) for anything they want to do. Manchin hasn’t signalled where he is on the issue yet.
The White House has been demanding for months that Congress approve billions of dollars in additional funding for Covid tests, therapeutics and vaccines. However, after saying these efforts would run out of money, administration officials reprogrammed existing Covid relief funding to cover the shortfall. That’s going to make it impossible to get any GOP support, so Democrats must approve this on their own.
This reconciliation package is one of the last legislative trains out of the station between now and Election Day. So we anticipate Democratic leadership to try to squeeze in as many priorities as possible.
snip
USICA Lite and Build Back Manchin
https://punchbowl.news/newsletter/
snip
Which leads us to reconciliation. As Schumer and other top Senate Democrats try to move the CHIPS bill, they’re also working on a reconciliation package on a parallel path. The Senate parliamentarian is expected to hold a key meeting on Thursday with GOP and Democratic staff to review the Democrats’ Medicare prescription drug pricing proposal. The other big Democratic provision would provide two more years of premium support for Obamacare enrolees.
We reported in the PM edition last night that there’s a push in the Capitol to include Covid funding in the reconciliation package. This may be tricky. The Democratic leadership has to get buy-in from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) for anything they want to do. Manchin hasn’t signalled where he is on the issue yet.
The White House has been demanding for months that Congress approve billions of dollars in additional funding for Covid tests, therapeutics and vaccines. However, after saying these efforts would run out of money, administration officials reprogrammed existing Covid relief funding to cover the shortfall. That’s going to make it impossible to get any GOP support, so Democrats must approve this on their own.
This reconciliation package is one of the last legislative trains out of the station between now and Election Day. So we anticipate Democratic leadership to try to squeeze in as many priorities as possible.
snip
July 19, 2022
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1863/10/our-domestic-relations-or-how-to-treat-the-rebel-states/628803/
AT this moment our Domestic Relations all hinge upon one question: How to treat the Rebel States ? No patriot citizen doubts the triumph of our arms in the suppression of the Rebellion. Early or late, this triumph is inevitable. It may be by a sudden collapse of the bloody imposture, or it may be by a slower and more gradual surrender. For ourselves, we are prepared for either alternative, and shall not be disappointed, if we are constrained to wait yet a little longer. But when the day of triumph comes, political duties will take the place of military. The victory won by our soldiers must be assured by wise counsels, so that its hard-earned fruits may not be lost.
The relations of the States to the National Government must be carefully considered, —not too boldly, not too timidly, — in order to see in what way, or by what process, the transition from Rebel forms may be most surely accomplished. If I do not greatly err, it will be found that the powers of Congress, which have thus far been so effective in raising armies and in supplying moneys, will be important, if not essential, in fixing the conditions of perpetual peace. But there is one point on which there can be no question. The dogma and delusion of State Rights, which did so much for the Rebellion, must not be allowed to neutralize all that our arms have gained.
Already, in a remarkable instance, the President has treated the pretension of State Rights with proper indifference. Quietly and without much discussion, he has constituted military governments in the Rebel States, with governors nominated by himself, — all of which testifies against the old pretension. Strange will it be, if this extraordinary power, amply conceded to the President, is denied to Congress. Practically the whole question with which I began is opened here. Therefore to this aspect of it I ask your first attention.
CONGRESSIONAL GOVERNMENT VS. MILITARY GOVERNMENT.
FOUR, military governors have been already appointed: one for Tennessee, one for South Carolina, one for North Carolina, and the other for Louisiana. So far as is known, the appointment of each was by a simple letter from the Secretary of War. But if this can be done in four States, where is the limit? It may be done in every Rebel State, and if not in every other State of the Union, it will be simply because the existence of a valid State government excludes the exercise of this extraordinary power. But assuming, that, as our arms prevail, it will be done in every Rebel State, we shall then have eleven military governors, all deriving their authority from one source, ruling a population amounting to upwards of nine millions. And this imperatorial dominion, indefinite in extent, will also be indefinite in duration; for if, under the Constitution and laws, it be proper to constitute such governors, it is clear that they may be continued without regard to time, — for years, if you please, as well as for weeks, — and the whole region which they are called to sway will be a military empire, with all powers, executive, legislative, and even judicial, derived from one man in Washington. Talk of the “ one-man power.” Here it is with a vengeance. Talk of military rule. Here it is, in the name of a republic.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sumner
Charles Sumner (January 6, 1811 – March 11, 1874) was an American statesman and United States Senator from Massachusetts. As an academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the anti-slavery forces in the state and a leader of the Radical Republicans in the U.S. Senate during the American Civil War. During Reconstruction, he fought to minimize the power of the ex-Confederates and guarantee equal rights to the freedmen. He fell into a dispute with President Ulysses Grant, a fellow Republican, over the control of Santo Domingo, leading to the stripping of his power in the Senate and his subsequent effort to defeat Grant's re-election.
Sumner changed his political party several times as anti-slavery coalitions rose and fell in the 1830s and 1840s before coalescing in the 1850s as the Republican Party, the affiliation with which he became best known. He devoted his enormous energies to the destruction of what Republicans called the Slave Power, that is, to the ending of the influence over the federal government of Southern slave owners who sought to continue slavery and to expand it into the territories. On May 22, 1856, South Carolina Democratic congressman Preston Brooks beat Sumner nearly to death with a cane on the Senate floor after Sumner delivered an anti-slavery speech, "The Crime Against Kansas." In the speech, Sumner characterized the attacker's first cousin once removed, South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, as a "Don Quixote" who had chosen "the harlot, slavery" as his mistress. The widely reported episode left Sumner severely injured and both men famous. It was several years before he could return to the Senate; Massachusetts not only did not replace him, it re-elected him, leaving his empty desk in the Senate as a reminder of the incident. The episode contributed significantly to the polarization of the country leading up to the Civil War, with the event symbolizing the increasingly vitriolic and violent socio-political atmosphere of the time.
During the war, he was a leader of the Radical Republican faction that criticized President Lincoln for being too moderate on the South. Sumner specialized in foreign affairs and worked closely with Lincoln to ensure that the British and the French refrained from intervening on the side of the Confederacy during the Civil War. As the chief Radical leader in the Senate during Reconstruction, Sumner fought hard to provide equal civil and voting rights for the freedmen on the grounds that "consent of the governed" was a basic principle of American republicanism, and to block ex-Confederates from power so they would not reverse the gains derived from the Union's victory in the Civil War. Sumner, teaming with House leader Thaddeus Stevens, battled Andrew Johnson's reconstruction plans and sought to impose a Radical Republican program on the South. Although Sumner forcefully advocated the annexation of Alaska in the Senate, he was against the annexation of the Dominican Republic, then known by the name of its capital, Santo Domingo. After leading senators to defeat President Ulysses S. Grant's Santo Domingo Treaty in 1870, Sumner broke with Grant and denounced him in such terms that reconciliation was impossible. In 1871, President Grant and his Secretary of State Hamilton Fish retaliated; through Grant's supporters in the Senate, Sumner was deposed as head of the Foreign Relations Committee. Sumner had become convinced that Grant was a corrupt despot and that the success of Reconstruction policies called for new national leadership. Sumner bitterly opposed Grant's re-election by supporting the Liberal Republican candidate Horace Greeley in 1872 and lost his power inside the Republican Party. Less than two years later, he died in office. Sumner was controversial in his time; even the 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Sumner by David Herbert Donald described him as an arrogant egoist. Sumner was known for being an ineffective political leader in contrast to his more pragmatic colleague Henry Wilson. Ultimately, Sumner has been remembered positively, with biographer Donald noting his extensive contributions to anti-racism during the Reconstruction era. Many places are named for him.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of Sumner:
Mr. Sumner's position is exceptional in its honor…. In Congress, he did not rush into party position. He sat long silent and studious. His friends, I remember, were told that they would find Sumner a man of the world like the rest; "it is quite impossible to be at Washington and not bend; he will bend as the rest have done." Well, he did not bend. He took his position and kept it…. I think I may borrow the language which Bishop Burnet applied to Sir Isaac Newton, and say that Charles Sumner "has the whitest soul I ever knew."… Let him hear that every man of worth in New England loves his virtues.
Our Domestic Relations; Or, How to Treat the Rebel States, By Charles Sumner, October 1863 Issue
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1863/10/our-domestic-relations-or-how-to-treat-the-rebel-states/628803/
AT this moment our Domestic Relations all hinge upon one question: How to treat the Rebel States ? No patriot citizen doubts the triumph of our arms in the suppression of the Rebellion. Early or late, this triumph is inevitable. It may be by a sudden collapse of the bloody imposture, or it may be by a slower and more gradual surrender. For ourselves, we are prepared for either alternative, and shall not be disappointed, if we are constrained to wait yet a little longer. But when the day of triumph comes, political duties will take the place of military. The victory won by our soldiers must be assured by wise counsels, so that its hard-earned fruits may not be lost.
The relations of the States to the National Government must be carefully considered, —not too boldly, not too timidly, — in order to see in what way, or by what process, the transition from Rebel forms may be most surely accomplished. If I do not greatly err, it will be found that the powers of Congress, which have thus far been so effective in raising armies and in supplying moneys, will be important, if not essential, in fixing the conditions of perpetual peace. But there is one point on which there can be no question. The dogma and delusion of State Rights, which did so much for the Rebellion, must not be allowed to neutralize all that our arms have gained.
Already, in a remarkable instance, the President has treated the pretension of State Rights with proper indifference. Quietly and without much discussion, he has constituted military governments in the Rebel States, with governors nominated by himself, — all of which testifies against the old pretension. Strange will it be, if this extraordinary power, amply conceded to the President, is denied to Congress. Practically the whole question with which I began is opened here. Therefore to this aspect of it I ask your first attention.
CONGRESSIONAL GOVERNMENT VS. MILITARY GOVERNMENT.
FOUR, military governors have been already appointed: one for Tennessee, one for South Carolina, one for North Carolina, and the other for Louisiana. So far as is known, the appointment of each was by a simple letter from the Secretary of War. But if this can be done in four States, where is the limit? It may be done in every Rebel State, and if not in every other State of the Union, it will be simply because the existence of a valid State government excludes the exercise of this extraordinary power. But assuming, that, as our arms prevail, it will be done in every Rebel State, we shall then have eleven military governors, all deriving their authority from one source, ruling a population amounting to upwards of nine millions. And this imperatorial dominion, indefinite in extent, will also be indefinite in duration; for if, under the Constitution and laws, it be proper to constitute such governors, it is clear that they may be continued without regard to time, — for years, if you please, as well as for weeks, — and the whole region which they are called to sway will be a military empire, with all powers, executive, legislative, and even judicial, derived from one man in Washington. Talk of the “ one-man power.” Here it is with a vengeance. Talk of military rule. Here it is, in the name of a republic.
snip
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sumner
Charles Sumner (January 6, 1811 – March 11, 1874) was an American statesman and United States Senator from Massachusetts. As an academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the anti-slavery forces in the state and a leader of the Radical Republicans in the U.S. Senate during the American Civil War. During Reconstruction, he fought to minimize the power of the ex-Confederates and guarantee equal rights to the freedmen. He fell into a dispute with President Ulysses Grant, a fellow Republican, over the control of Santo Domingo, leading to the stripping of his power in the Senate and his subsequent effort to defeat Grant's re-election.
Sumner changed his political party several times as anti-slavery coalitions rose and fell in the 1830s and 1840s before coalescing in the 1850s as the Republican Party, the affiliation with which he became best known. He devoted his enormous energies to the destruction of what Republicans called the Slave Power, that is, to the ending of the influence over the federal government of Southern slave owners who sought to continue slavery and to expand it into the territories. On May 22, 1856, South Carolina Democratic congressman Preston Brooks beat Sumner nearly to death with a cane on the Senate floor after Sumner delivered an anti-slavery speech, "The Crime Against Kansas." In the speech, Sumner characterized the attacker's first cousin once removed, South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, as a "Don Quixote" who had chosen "the harlot, slavery" as his mistress. The widely reported episode left Sumner severely injured and both men famous. It was several years before he could return to the Senate; Massachusetts not only did not replace him, it re-elected him, leaving his empty desk in the Senate as a reminder of the incident. The episode contributed significantly to the polarization of the country leading up to the Civil War, with the event symbolizing the increasingly vitriolic and violent socio-political atmosphere of the time.
During the war, he was a leader of the Radical Republican faction that criticized President Lincoln for being too moderate on the South. Sumner specialized in foreign affairs and worked closely with Lincoln to ensure that the British and the French refrained from intervening on the side of the Confederacy during the Civil War. As the chief Radical leader in the Senate during Reconstruction, Sumner fought hard to provide equal civil and voting rights for the freedmen on the grounds that "consent of the governed" was a basic principle of American republicanism, and to block ex-Confederates from power so they would not reverse the gains derived from the Union's victory in the Civil War. Sumner, teaming with House leader Thaddeus Stevens, battled Andrew Johnson's reconstruction plans and sought to impose a Radical Republican program on the South. Although Sumner forcefully advocated the annexation of Alaska in the Senate, he was against the annexation of the Dominican Republic, then known by the name of its capital, Santo Domingo. After leading senators to defeat President Ulysses S. Grant's Santo Domingo Treaty in 1870, Sumner broke with Grant and denounced him in such terms that reconciliation was impossible. In 1871, President Grant and his Secretary of State Hamilton Fish retaliated; through Grant's supporters in the Senate, Sumner was deposed as head of the Foreign Relations Committee. Sumner had become convinced that Grant was a corrupt despot and that the success of Reconstruction policies called for new national leadership. Sumner bitterly opposed Grant's re-election by supporting the Liberal Republican candidate Horace Greeley in 1872 and lost his power inside the Republican Party. Less than two years later, he died in office. Sumner was controversial in his time; even the 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Sumner by David Herbert Donald described him as an arrogant egoist. Sumner was known for being an ineffective political leader in contrast to his more pragmatic colleague Henry Wilson. Ultimately, Sumner has been remembered positively, with biographer Donald noting his extensive contributions to anti-racism during the Reconstruction era. Many places are named for him.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of Sumner:
Mr. Sumner's position is exceptional in its honor…. In Congress, he did not rush into party position. He sat long silent and studious. His friends, I remember, were told that they would find Sumner a man of the world like the rest; "it is quite impossible to be at Washington and not bend; he will bend as the rest have done." Well, he did not bend. He took his position and kept it…. I think I may borrow the language which Bishop Burnet applied to Sir Isaac Newton, and say that Charles Sumner "has the whitest soul I ever knew."… Let him hear that every man of worth in New England loves his virtues.
July 19, 2022
https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/galaxy-brain/62d5fc32bcbd490021ad105b/quit-social-media-twitter-tiktok/
https://archive.ph/4iGeE
This is one of my favorite conversations that I’ve had about social media in a very long time. I write a lot—in this newsletter and elsewhere—about Twitter. The focus is disproportionate to how many people use it and is very clearly colored by my own tortured experience on the platform. But I also write about it because I think that what happens on Twitter has a very outsize effect on the people who both make and are the subjects of the news. Still, very often when I’m writing about social media, a lot of its subtle, warping dynamics don’t come through as I’d like. Twitter is reduced to some kind of shorthand—we call it a “hellsite” or something like that. What I love about the following interview is that we talk a bit about what it’s like to have to live on some of these platforms professionally and the less obvious ways that social networks (not just Twitter) shape our behavior. What follows is a very honest discussion about a Very Online existence that is intended not to elicit any sympathy, but to show the ways that many people participate in deeply dysfunctional systems.
Kate Lindsay is my colleague at The Atlantic, where she works on the newsletter team. A keen writer and observer of internet culture, she also co-writes the great newsletter Embedded (which I’ve been a fan of from well before we worked together). We were chatting on Slack one day about her decision to stop scrolling on Twitter and Instagram and spending most of her social-media time on TikTok. We decided to talk about her reasons for leaving the platforms for a short newsletter, and it sprawled out into this long discussion about the internet. As soon as we hung up, I knew I wanted to share the whole thing. So here it is.
snip
How to Leave an Internet That's Always in Crisis
Kate Lindsay on TikTok, the influencer trickle-down, and what social media breaks in our brainshttps://newsletters.theatlantic.com/galaxy-brain/62d5fc32bcbd490021ad105b/quit-social-media-twitter-tiktok/
https://archive.ph/4iGeE
This is one of my favorite conversations that I’ve had about social media in a very long time. I write a lot—in this newsletter and elsewhere—about Twitter. The focus is disproportionate to how many people use it and is very clearly colored by my own tortured experience on the platform. But I also write about it because I think that what happens on Twitter has a very outsize effect on the people who both make and are the subjects of the news. Still, very often when I’m writing about social media, a lot of its subtle, warping dynamics don’t come through as I’d like. Twitter is reduced to some kind of shorthand—we call it a “hellsite” or something like that. What I love about the following interview is that we talk a bit about what it’s like to have to live on some of these platforms professionally and the less obvious ways that social networks (not just Twitter) shape our behavior. What follows is a very honest discussion about a Very Online existence that is intended not to elicit any sympathy, but to show the ways that many people participate in deeply dysfunctional systems.
Kate Lindsay is my colleague at The Atlantic, where she works on the newsletter team. A keen writer and observer of internet culture, she also co-writes the great newsletter Embedded (which I’ve been a fan of from well before we worked together). We were chatting on Slack one day about her decision to stop scrolling on Twitter and Instagram and spending most of her social-media time on TikTok. We decided to talk about her reasons for leaving the platforms for a short newsletter, and it sprawled out into this long discussion about the internet. As soon as we hung up, I knew I wanted to share the whole thing. So here it is.
Warzel: Let’s get right into it. You write about the internet and social media and yet you’ve left all social media but TikTok. Tell me everything.
Lindsay: This has been a years-long journey that I started around when I started going to therapy. One thing I really needed the therapist to understand was Twitter. It’s [a source of] a lot of my social anxiety, and it was, very unfortunately, a huge part of my life and how I feel about my work. I felt like I couldn't leave it because of my job—that leaving it was committing career suicide. But being on it actively made me feel bad. The way I was able to get off of it was less about social media and more about changing my attitude toward work. And coming to the—it doesn’t sound revolutionary—conclusion that my happiness is more important than my career. And that having a career that feels impressive doesn’t matter if I’m not enjoying myself. I always knew this but never committed. I’d take a month off Twitter or Instagram, but always thinking I’d come back. I always remember how quiet my brain felt. How nice it was. But then somehow convinced myself this wouldn’t work for me.
Lindsay: This has been a years-long journey that I started around when I started going to therapy. One thing I really needed the therapist to understand was Twitter. It’s [a source of] a lot of my social anxiety, and it was, very unfortunately, a huge part of my life and how I feel about my work. I felt like I couldn't leave it because of my job—that leaving it was committing career suicide. But being on it actively made me feel bad. The way I was able to get off of it was less about social media and more about changing my attitude toward work. And coming to the—it doesn’t sound revolutionary—conclusion that my happiness is more important than my career. And that having a career that feels impressive doesn’t matter if I’m not enjoying myself. I always knew this but never committed. I’d take a month off Twitter or Instagram, but always thinking I’d come back. I always remember how quiet my brain felt. How nice it was. But then somehow convinced myself this wouldn’t work for me.
snip
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