"While some [2nd home refugees] might miss the culture & socializing of their past lives, others have developed reverse snobbery, celebrating their inner hicks, switching up Porsches for Ford Broncos & expressing pity for wretches who breathe fouler air." wsj.com/articles/for-t…
"Mr. Gasby first bought the modern 7-bedroom, 6½-bath property, now valued at over $5 million, in 2017. After the pandemic he moved there full time. He likes to roam the 10 acres, on which he has created a dog run for his three Italian mastiffs and a mile-long jogging path..."
“...I had two penthouses in Manhattan but I don’t miss it. The last time I went back the only thing I could see were ambulances and people walking around like the living dead. It made me realize how lucky I am to be living in a place where I get to see deer, hawks and rabbits.”
For all the attention paid to the Georgia Senate races, don't think it's fully sunk in how wild it is that the candidates for the party that *is* becoming more working-class in orientation are the former CEO of Dollar General and wife of the billionaire head of NY Stock Exchange.
Like so much else this past year, if you wrote that into the script, it would be thrown out of the writers room.
Amidst the terrible nationwide homicide surge, it's worth keeping in mind that those providing the initial first aid to shooting victims are often cops. Compelling @DanRodricks account of one recent rescue: baltimoresun.com/opinion/column…
"Coursey arrived and found Torres with his hand on the victim’s chest and a finger in a bullet hole. Coursey pulled the scissors from the first aid kit strapped to his leg and started cutting the victim’s shirt away. 'Get a chest seal,' Torres said, telling Coursey to pull..."
"...from his kit a round plastic sticker to close the victim’s sucking chest wound. Torres pressed the seal against the man’s chest, but there was a lot of blood, too much for the seal’s adhesive to take hold..."
"The industry has always found a way of circumventing calamity. The threat posed by streaming is on another order of magnitude: the internet changed everything, including how people watch entertainment. The rest is history, and another couple of gazillion bucks for Jeff Bezos."
This is key, following from @aoscott Q, "What about the small and midsize movies that depend on the theatrical system to find their audiences?"
Just stunningly awful numbers here. Chicago gets so much attention, but look at Philadelphia, up more than a third to 469, Memphis up more than half to more than 300, and St Louis, up more than a third to 261, which is jaw-dropping for a city whose population is down to 300,000.
Must be said, has national media coverage this year (and I count myself as culpable as anyone) reflected the scale of what's been happening on this front, that many cities are returning to late-1990s levels of violence?
I don't normally tweet on Christmas, but there were several lovely stories in today's papers deserving of note.
One, @crampell's column about her 6th grade English teacher, who's still imparting lessons at 88 and champing to get back into the classroom: washingtonpost.com/opinions/price…
"Once we mastered Mr. Greco’s rules—learned who from whom, and whatnot—they were liberating. He taught us the masonry of language. Now we could build whatever we liked. I remember realizing, at age 12, how awesome it was that words and sentences could do my bidding." Such a gift.
"Writing well requires more than understanding proper sentence structure. It also takes moral courage. 'If you are a critical thinker,' he reminded me, 'you are going to find you are sometimes at odds and disagreement with your peers...You must be brave enough to stand apart.'"