I’m going stop being the top (and only) employee at NextDraft unless readers promote the newsletter enough that I reach one trillion subscribers by the end of the year. If you fail to reach this target, I will summarily end NextDraft and transition to my alternate newsletter: An exhaustively detailed, blow by blow, graphics-heavy review of the gastrointestinal impacts of my news headline induced IBS. The working title: The Spastic SemiColon. (Thankfully, Imodium has agreed to be the sponsor no matter which of the two newsletters survives.) This might sound a little draconian, but threats like these seem to be working these days. Tesla shareholders just approved Elon Musk’s trillion-dollar pay package, for his part-time gig as Tesla CEO. In fairness, the deal requires Musk to hit some monumental milestones and move beyond the reality distortion field (and, if he keeps up his current pace, a trillion will barely cover his childcare costs). Of course, there’s the very obvious American splitscreen of Musk shareholder/fans approving a trillion dollar deal during the same week that the poorest Americans were set to be stripped of SNAP benefits. But there’s a global splitscreen as well. Musk’s chainsaw-weilding efforts to shutter USAID isn’t just leaving people hungry, it’s leaving people dead. Atul Gawande in The New Yorker: The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands. Earlier this decade, USAID had an average budget of $23 billion a year. (Multiply that by 43.4 and you’re talking Tesla CEO money...) 2Boat Manifest Destiny“Most of the nine men were crewing such craft for the first or second time, making at least $500 per trip, residents and relatives said. They were laborers, a fisherman, a motorcycle taxi driver. Two were low-level career criminals. One was a well-known local crime boss who contracted out his smuggling services to traffickers.” Trump has accused boat crews of being narco-terrorists. The truth, AP found, is more nuanced. “As part of hired crews, the father of four spent his days fishing for snapper, kingfish and dogfish. The fisherman wanted to save enough money to buy a 75-horsepower boat engine so he could operate his own boat and not work for others. It was a dream Sánchez knew he was likely to never realize, relatives said: Most of his income — about $100 a month — went to feed his children.” 3Your Kind of Place?“Silverwood advertises itself as a ‘community of kindness’ with members obliged to sign a pledge when they purchase a home. ‘There will be homes, community centers, schools, parks, but most importantly, there will be kindness,’ says project general manager John Ohanian, of DMB Development. ‘A culture of kindness is being designed into the fabric of the community to create an enclave where residents can overcome external chaos and thrive by working together.’” This Master-Planned Community Comes With a Catch—Don’t Be a Jerk. (Why do I have the feeling I wouldn’t even be able to attend an open house in this neighborhood?) 4Weekend WhatsWhat to Watch: The Asset on Netflix is a binge-able Danish drama about a rookie police informant who goes undercover to befriend a drug smuggler’s wife but the closer she gets to her target, the more complicated her mission becomes. 5Extra, ExtraSame Time Next Year: “Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Friday that Democrats would agree to end the shutdown in exchange for one more year of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies – an attempt to further pressure the GOP to make a deal.” Democrats present offer to end shutdown as air travel situation gets worse. (One wonders if the air travel situation is getting worse to pressure them to make a deal... In other news, we have a pretty important election in a year.) |