Midrange Weekly March 29
Your Weekly round up on what’s got the midrange Staff’s attention
Midrange Staff @midrangeyvr
Welcome back to Midrange Weekly, your source for various events and amusements that have animated the discourse through the week with the team. Speaking of the team, that handsome fella in the picture above is Mickey, our sound engineer and host of not one, but three different podcasts. His beard tends to range between Kurt Russell in The Thing to Harrison Ford in The Fugitive. Mickey enjoys a wide selection of tea and playing video games that pre date the internet. Perhaps next week we’ll share more about other members of the team, but first- a lot to go over in what was once again a wild and often infuriating week. If you haven’t pulled your hair out in indignation by the time you’re done reading, we’ve at least got some fun stuff at the end. Here we go.
America Can’t break its cycle of endless gun violence
Huffington Post
Last week I shared my thoughts, that are no doubt ubiquitous among many of us, regarding the mass shootings in Atlanta, Georgia that killed 8 people. Shortly after we published that piece, there was another mass shooting in Boulder, Colorado that killed 10 more. In fact over the period of seven days in America, there were seven documented mass shootings. The frequency in which these mass shootings have reinserted themselves into common every day occurrences in America is staggering. Teachers don’t know if they should keep classroom doors open for ventilation in hopes of staving off the spread of COVID, or keep them locked in case their school is the site of the next inevitable attack. To say this is getting out of hand is an understatement of ruinous proportions.
The visceral trauma of so many incidents of domestic terrorism in such claustrophobic proximity is disorienting, as if the country is wilfully within the throes of self-immolation. That trauma is matched only by the embittered, hardened cynicism that of course nothing will change. If Sandy Hook, Aurora, Pulse Night Club, Charleston, and so many others couldn’t compel the US legislature to take even the most modest of action to curb this literal slaughter within their own borders, the notion that anything will be different this time has been understandably met with incredulous derision. And yet the ecosystem of DC punditry still has the gall and audacity to post articles like this one in Politico, stating how a sea change in gun legislation may truly be at hand this time. We currently live in a climate where even after the NRA has filed for bankruptcy and is well on their way to the remote provinces of irrelevance and obsolescence, their lobby still bullies the typical republican blow hard legislators into decrying anything gun control related.
Indeed the rhetoric from them has been frustratingly typical as ever, even in the face of the overwhelming inundation of these mass shootings surging through the country. As calls for sensible gun control laws- not even new ones, simply reinstating ones from the 90s that expired and caused a proven reduction in mass shootings- once again reach their strained apotheosis, Senators such as Ted Cruz called these pleas nothing more than political theater. Cruz then attempted to bolster his own alternative legislative offerings on the matter, which included prison time for those that would try to illegally buy guns. Such tactics are marred by loopholes the size of an air field however, when the current laws allow for astonishingly broad ease in which to obtain one legally. Even the most felonious of individuals can circumvent the current anaemic restrictions to legally acquire a gun, so more severe punishments for conduct in the obscure fringes of legality don’t really address much.
Not addressing much is sub-textually the plan all along for most republicans when it comes to gun control. They always accuse progressive politicians of ‘politicizing’ the deaths of those who perished in these attacks, suggesting that their rival colleagues are opportunistically and cravenly capitalizing on a tragedy to enact an agenda. Such dispersions however actually tacitly reveal much more about how they themselves view their own role as representatives in the national assembly. They automatically assume immoral or profiteering mendacity by others because those are the only fundamental vectors in which they interpret their own positions. A politician exists to be opportunistic, back handed, propagandistic, and self interested as they understand it; this is standard operating procedure but only they have the decency to suspend such morally onerous conduct when people are dead. Their egotistical and myopic view point obscures them from the reality their job is precisely to politicize things for the betterment of their constituents. As they observe problems in their state or nation, their role is to highlight them and through the process of politics and legislation- as in their specific vocation- try to address them.
That the republicans not only refuse this responsibility but also accuse the democrats’ ambition to do something as partisan demagogy is endemic of the Trump era GOP. Once again, as they decry a lack of bipartisanship and accuse Biden of attempting to ram through one-sided legislation (even before any such legislation is formerly announced, further underscoring their down right hysterical opposition to such progress), they ignore the broadly bipartisan support for at least modest reforms such as universal background checks across both parties of voters. This highlights the growing dissonance between republican representatives, increasingly obsessed with culture wars and white grievance, and their constituents that rely on them. For all of the accusations across the isle of political theater, it’s often the republicans that rely on dramatic and hyperbolic oration. Their most common go to is always something analogous to, “now is not the time to talk policy, now is a time to grieve”. It’s an explicit and insincere stall tactic. Shut down any talk of gun law reform in the wake of an attack out of bad faith, masquerading respect for the dead, and wait for the news cycle and thusly politicians to move on. It’s never the right time to talk about gun control. Not when it keeps happening, over and over to the point where we cannot fully process the enormity and grief we feel over an attack before the next one happens, and it’s then ‘too early to discuss such things’ all over again. It’s always too early, then it’s too late; we must wait for the appropriate time. The shooter who murdered 10 people in Colorado last week was born three days before Columbine. We have all waited his entire life for the ‘right’ time to talk about this. If not now, when? Never? -Tristan
Let’s Talk About What’s Happening In Georgia (Again)
Credit: Alyssa Pointer / Alyssa.Pointer@ajc.com
It seems like just a few months ago we had all eyes on Georgia as the nexus of US democracy’s potential salvation or precipitous decline into oblivion. What is likely in spite of the serendipitous outcome of the Georgia run off elections in January that barely handed democrats the senate, the state is now being punished by its state legislature in ways that are both gratuitously byzantine and down right petty. Georgia, as of last Thursday has enacted some of the most draconian and punitive election laws in the union- a ploy by republican law makers there to ensure that the twin democratic senate wins are that much harder to ever pull off in the state again. This is highly distressing along several different dimensions. By dismantling and drastically reconfiguring an elections apparatus that they themselves previously designed, simply because it didn’t yield results in their favour, it reveals the extent to which the Republican Party has become not just hostile to or contemptuous of representative democracy, but antithetical to it. Furthermore it underscores that Georgia truly is trending more and more progressive, and rules like this will only ensure it becomes increasingly voter supressed. The granular details of the law are also rife with racial animus and designed to be only selectively enforced against certain demographics within the state.
Some of the contents of the law, signed behind closed doors by Governor Brian Kemp, range from ominous to absurd. Voter ID and registration restrictions make it harder for those living below the poverty line to vote. Ballet drop boxes or mobile polling sites will be severely curtailed if not outright eliminated under the directives of the new law. This is ostensibly to ensure only the most secure of voting methods are held in place but, make no mistake, this is nothing more than explicit voter suppression of Georgia’s black and impoverished communities that can’t rely on an adequate number of fixed voting centers being in or near their neighbourhoods. This has been done under the guise of election integrity or security, but such claims would imply that there is an issue in this regard when their absolutely isn’t. The US Justice Department (under Trump no less), over 60 federal judges that heard various cases (again, many Trump appointees), and mountains of back logs, digital and physical evidence by Dominion Voting Machines affirmed again and again that the 2020 election and the January Georgia runoffs were as secure as any modern election in the nation ever. Kemp and his supplicants are searching for solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, motivated in part to adroitly entrench their own power infrastructure and too appease the wounded ego of their narcissistic master Donald Trump.
By reducing the avenues in which the majority of Georgians can vote, the insipid aim is to increase voting lines, making the practice too untenable or too much of a slog for many to be able to accommodate into their lives. Pair this with the provision in the new law that states it is now illegal to hand out water or food to anyone waiting in line to vote and it is clear that they are trying to make voting as uncomfortable as possible, obscured by a veritable obstacle course of deterrents. This is where that partisan or racial selectivity will no doubt come into play in future elections. Expect to see this aspect of the law heavily and punitively enforced in majority black neighbourhoods, while it goes relatively unenforced in white or conservative ones. The law was almost more severe than even this, nearly outlawing voting on Sunday to make it even harder for working class citizens to find time to vote. The alleged rationale, astonishingly, for this is merely that the lord dictates that Sunday is a day of rest. Putting aside the supposed separation of church and state that is intended to bifurcate US law and religion, what the fuck about Sunday afternoon football then? This also callously ignores the fundamental joy and catharsis that so many often disenfranchised citizens feel on those rare occasions where they can actually exercise their right to vote.
While not as glaringly ludicrous as the no water amendment to the law, there are more sub-textual aspects of the law that are far more insidious and portentous. Chiefly is the provision that the state legislature will now exercise to the right to over rule and circumvent the rulings of the county election officials. This means that in any county that records election results the ruling state party doesn’t like, they will have the procedural means to dismiss that particular county board, and install an interim goon that will rule in the state party’s favour. Remember when Trump famously got caught on the phone asking Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to simply ‘find’ 11780 votes for him in January? Under the new law such duplicitous conduct will be that much easier to enact. Like other aspects of the law, this element can be specifically targeted at parts of Georgia that are predominantly black like Fulton County.
It’s important to remember that when a political party anywhere starts attacking voting rights to egregious extremes such as in Georgia, it’s already a party that has slipped far too deeply into autocracy. These are not the opening salvos in a contentious fight as to how democracy should function; this is where antagonism and malice have reached a boiling point of no return. These are the actions of institutionalized extremists. This is not how a functional democracy operates; this is how nations on the precipice of being a failed state operate. The fact that Kemp signed the bill into law while surrounded by goons in his office, shielded from the scrutiny of the press or the full state assembly speaks volumes about the nature of this conduct. Even a democratic lawmaker that wished to be present for the ceremony was arrested under the ridiculous pretences of obstruction of justice. I don’t think any more parallels need to be drawn when members of the opposing party start getting arrested. The new law is already subject to multiple lawsuits and will hopefully get struck down in court. Biden and congress can also override all of this with an update to the voting rights act. But the fact that it has gotten this far and that other states will try to replicate this model shows just how much damage has been and can be done to a supposedly functioning democracy. -Tristan
Planning a 2022 trip to the richest, whitest precinct in the Atlanta suburbs, handing out water and food to all the Republicans waiting to vote, and making videos of me being the absolute opposite of arrested.
— Ken Tremendous (@KenTremendous) March 26, 2021
Facebook And Twitter Are Coming For Substack
This is a follow-up to my Substack And Medium: The Difficult Battle For A Future In Journalism essay from this weekend.
“After the better part of a decade chasing audiences from platform to platform, I set out to build a strong, direct connection to an audience that wants to hear from me, and that I can reliably reach no matter how many likes, upvotes, or retweets any individual post happens to get.”
— Casey Newton, The Verge
I wrote my column on Thursday night not knowing that The Ringer would be publishing a feature with a similar theme. Actually, several others have as well. For me, the idea had more to do with where I stood currently with regards to both media platforms and how they aimed to help journalists such as myself and why their best intentions left me wanting more. My conclusion in that story was that both are flawed, Medium more so than Substack and that a new system for journalism needed to be built. Governments have to step in and view media as an integral part of helping to inform society at large. Will this happen? I doubt it. The arts are always neglected or they’re controlled by massive media conglomerations whose sole purpose is to bend information how they see fit. Rupert Murdoch anyone? Post Media here in Canada isn’t much better. In the hands of a few, we’re left with minimal opportunity and way too much manipulation.
All this leads me to Justin Charity’s column.
From The Ringer:
For more than a decade, Facebook and Twitter have hosted a series of revolutions in mass media. The former wrecked the old business model for newsroom journalism and stoked global panic about political misinformation in the process. The latter corralled journalists, activists, and consumers onto a raucous liveblogging platform which has, for better or worse, laid bare the biases, processes, and pressures which drive so much editorial judgment at media institutions beholden to the favor of an algorithm.
These tech companies helped turn reporters into personalities, and they’ve empowered those personalities to challenge those institutions both internally (as employees who command audiences beyond the employer’s own pages) and externally (as independent writers who now compete with full-staff publications for paid subscriptions). Facebook and Twitter spent the past few years swearing (before Congress!) that they’re platforms, not publishers; they don’t want to micromanage political speech. But now — despite their better judgment — they’re getting into the web newsletter business.
Newsletters may seem somewhat niche, not worth the attention of multibillion dollar corporations. But the business has been buzzing for the past year or so, with Silicon Valley company Substack leading the most successful — and controversial — enterprise. Substack has raised more than $17 million in venture capital and signed several high-profile journalists to high-dollar contracts in order to further popularize the platform, which nets its most successful writers hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
So there are a couple things to process here. Most notably is the reality that both Facebook and Twitter are coming for Substack. This is good and bad. The good is that writers such as myself will have another platform to grow their brand and audience, even if it means dealing with the devil who killed news media these past 16 years.
Facebook has over 2.5 billion users. Its reach is staggering. A newsletter run by them could be enormous, especially if it employs a similar interface of discovery that Medium is currently built on. Even still, opportunity or not, it’s not as if Facebook woke up one day and decided to grow angel wings and help the journalism industry. And it’s not as if Substack is a huge money maker. Only a select few are profitable on its platform. So it begs asking, why even offer newsletters at all?
It’s easy. Similar to Substack and Medium, Facebook is looking to prey on the desperation of journalists. Get them on board, analyze all the content they’ll generate and then sell it to companies for ad dollars.
Compared to Instagram or TikTok, Facebook could use a jolt of energy. Having a new reason for writers to use the platform, one I suspect won’t cost them much to set up is a total no brainer. Similar to how they stole Stories from Snapchat, why not pilfer from a small startup like Substack and offer the same service for free? It costs writers 10% of their earnings to use Substack. Facebook not making money off of this won’t matter. The data they’ll gain will easily pay for itself. Substack should be worried.
Then there’s Twitter buying the newsletter app Revue back in late January. Definitely nowhere near as dominant as Facebook, Jack Dorsey’s neglected child (he loves Square so much more) has jumped into this fray for many of the same reasons. They have the audience, albeit smaller. Twitter needs this bump, probably more so than Facebook really. I doubt it will do much to grow their active user base, but again, similar to Facebook, what’s the harm in trying? There is none.
How both iterations play out here will be fascinating. Will they take cuts of subscription revenue? Will writers have full control over their content and promotion? Will both lose interest in newsletters over time?
It’s still too early to know and I have my doubts. But again, if writers have more opportunity to grow their careers, even if it’s with these two, then I’m all for it.
From The Verge:
The historian Heather Cox Richardson is the most successful individual authors on Substack, on track to earn more than $1 million in subscription revenue this year. Many of her subscribers come from her Facebook page, which has 1.4 million followers. For most of us on Substack, newsletters offer a way to monetize our Twitter followings. But if you’re a Facebook executive, you look at Richardson and wonder whether you couldn’t help more people monetize their Facebook pages.
The carrot in front of the horse. Optimism lies in wake. - Jamie
FLUX FIVE
This Week:
Postal Service “Natural Anthem” 2003 Give Up
New Orleans Rhythm Kings ”Tiger Rag” 1922 single
Lucinda Williams “Overtime” 2003 World Without Tears
Stacy Kent “C’est Le Printemps” 2007 Breakfast On The Morning Tram
Courtney John “Miss You” 2009 Made In Jamaica
Enjoy! - Mick
Things From The Internet We Liked
Losing Something By Lost Girls Is Sonic Witchcraft
Lost Girls is the project of Norwegian folk/electronica mystic Jenny Hval and instrumentalist Håvard Holden. From their brand new EP is the single Losing Something and it’s just oozing with arcane atmospherics and ominous edge. The moody and penetrating guitars heightens the occult drama of the whole thing even further. Check it out.
Four Vaccines Apply For The Same Job
Seth Myers writer Jeff Wright takes us along with him as he interviews for the job of America’s preferred vaccine.
President Dana Carvey
Over on Colbert, the ever legendary Dana Carvey does his best Biden impersonation, and we really do mean best.
Dana Carvey gets very detailed with his President Biden impression. #LSSC https://t.co/tELJigQJsx pic.twitter.com/f1skS1zdrN
— A Late Show (@colbertlateshow) March 24, 2021