I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to talk about debt cancellation in a way that might get through to the "I worked my way through college/I made better choices" crowd.

Wealth is the missing piece:

annehelen.substack.com/p/wealth-is-th… We’re accustomed to talking about stories about need/absence of student loans as stories of privilege. But a better way of thinking of them, particularly in the context of student loan forgiveness, is as stories of *wealth.*

10k-20k in debt cancellation isn't enough. But it is the beginning — and sharing stories of how it is dramatically changing people's lives helps garner the support to push the movement further.

Here are just some of those stories:

annehelen.substack.com/p/the-beginnin… "For my family, an enormous financial and trauma burden is lifted today. I can't stop crying."

For @Bloomberg, I spent a lot of time talking to women about the realities of their WFH/flex arrangements — which most people are pretty happy with! — but that society is still set up in a way that forces them to become one-woman safety nets:

bloomberg.com/news/features/… When women get flex, they get space. But that space is is quickly filled with responsibilities that were once more equally distributed: between partners in a relationship, but also between citizens and the society of which they are a part

Watching the reaction to this cartoon was so wild — people out there disbelieving the stubborn 65/35 unpaid labor split in cis-het marriages, yes even ostensibly "progressive" ones

https://twitter.com/doree/status/1557102368272945152

Just some very simple stats from the OECD re: division of labor of additional unpaid labor during the pandemic:

- 61.5% of mothers of children under age 12 say they took on the majority or entirety of the extra care work, vs. 22.4% of fathers

oecd.org/coronavirus/po…

I process by writing. And right now, it feels like the sorrow is unending. There is nothing we can do, with our country as is, from stopping it from happening tomorrow.

This is what happens when you live under minority rule:

annehelen.substack.com/p/this-is-what… To suggest someone channel their rage into voting feels like a laughable insult. I don’t mean we shouldn’t vote — of course we should. But voting will not, at least for the foreseeable future, effect substantive national change.

The last two months I've watched something curious happen: very Covid-conscientious people, people with paid time off, people who can work from home.....testing positive for Covid and then, unless they're hospitalized, insisting on working through it:

annehelen.substack.com/p/the-normaliz… This is a group that has the most privilege in terms of the ability to take paid time off to truly recover from Covid — and, in many cases, the least willingness to actually do so

I wrote about a phenomenon I think of as “the expanding job”: when one person is effectively doing work previously performed by 2 or 3 others:

annehelen.substack.com/p/the-expandin… I started thinking about this years ago during the recurrent academic conversation that went something like "I'd do my work so much faster, if only I had a wife"

But older generations of academics had more than just wives.

Difficult to overstate Entertainment Weekly's effect on me. Writing about its rise and slow-motion decline for The Awl, back in 2014, is still a highlight of my journalistic career

theawl.com/2014/06/the-tr…

https://twitter.com/LouisPeitzman/status/1491455988905701377

I had *so much* knowledge of what happened, industrially, during its launch — it had been part of my dissertation — but had no idea what actually happened inside & also no idea how to report & the longtime EW journalists who spoke with me were very patient, I was so bumbling

The anecdote at the beginning of this story describes the way I learned to ski in Idaho — and I'd love to hear from people with more knowledge of this about what happened to that model of cheap lift ticket, limited amenity, low pressure skiing

nytimes.com/2022/02/05/sty… Is it conglomeration of resorts, as mentioned in the piece? Raised expectations of what skiing should be? Difficulty of sustaining the community ski hills that serve as feeders, in part because cost of living in these towns just goes up and up?

A few days before Christmas, I downloaded Candy Crush (again) in a haze of exhaustion and tooth pain and travel. And you know what, this game — which is legitimately marketing itself as a "mindfulness" escape — sucks There is no past or future in Candy Crush — just micro-wins that ultimately feel flat and meaningless. Again: it doesn’t alleviate the feeling of burnout; it matches its temperature, like one of those sensory deprivation float pools

.@louise_seamster & @AlanAAja1 making the very convincing case against those "student loan forgiveness is regressive" arguments:

brookings.edu/blog/how-we-ri… This is so crucial: the racial wealth gap is *EXPANDING,* in large part due to student debt:

THE KAPPA HOUSE IS FOR SALE (in Missoula, Montana)

🎶🎶Kappas wear the colors of the Kotex Box, Light Blue, Dark Blue 🎶🎶

zillow.com/homedetails/10…? Who is going to buy this 18 bedroom home

My 4 yr-old friend, Little Charlie, has a rainbow stuffed bear named Teddy. This bear came with a pin that said "Happy Birthday" so in Little Charlie's world, every day is Teddy's birthday. 1/ Yesterday, he convinced his mom (my friend) that they should make a birthday cake for Teddy's birthday. Okay, okay, his mom says, let's make a cake. She starts putting together the ingredients, and realizes she needs to go check if they have extra butter in downstairs fridge 2/

There's a very real (if very quiet, because of NDAs and dynamic of the industry) crisis going on in TV journalism right now:

nytimes.com/2022/01/20/us/… Look at these unconscionable pay stats (made possible by deregulation + lack of labor protections + 'passion job' bullshit)

I wrote about the vague, amorphous blob that is Fall Regression: feeling like you'd maybe figured some part of your life out but nope, jk jk, not at all

annehelen.substack.com/p/whats-that-f… A teacher recently told me that there’s a rule in her department: no major life decisions in October. The same holds true, she said, for March. But March is well-known for its cruelty. I didn’t realize it was the same for October, even though it makes perfect sense

"What we’re seeing now is strike activity beginning to rise from a decades long trough as the “essential” worker — a new category of worker born of the coronavirus pandemic — challenges the boss to make good on that designation."

theintercept.com/2021/10/17/joh… "The same forces making work intolerable for so many — not enough workers and too much work — are simultaneously preparing workers to fight back."

"The real question—that may very well determine whether or not universal free lunch becomes a permanent part of the American education system—is: Will Nice White Parents let our kids eat school food?"

virginiasolesmith.substack.com/p/please-stop-… "Just over half of this group of parents are paying for a meal—and investing time and labor in preparing said meal—that their children could be eating for free."

virginiasolesmith.substack.com/p/please-stop-…

Pretty compelled by the connection between workism + "revenge bedtime procrastination"

medicalnewstoday.com/articles/reven… "This means that the less enjoyable things a person could do during the day, the likelier it was that they would try to reclaim that time at night and engage in the more pleasurable activities they had not been able to do during the day."

Oh no Instagram is targeting me for very nice and very expensive Norwegian sweaters, I'm done for OH NO OH NO I'M ON THE WEBSITE

I wrote about the myth of the productive commute — and how the unwritten norms of your industry have been continuously rewritten to benefit your employer:

annehelen.substack.com/p/the-myth-of-… Over the last year, I've found myself frustrated with people pushing for a full return to the office & citing the usefulness of the commute as one of the reasons. Mind-clearing! Productive! Great bumpers to your day! Short and lovely! THIS IS A FANTASY COMMUTE FOR 97% OF PEOPLE

Against Kids’ Sports:

annehelen.substack.com/p/against-kids… I purposefully wrote this as a polemic — the overarching intention isn’t to make anyone feel like shit, but to just think more about the entire situation. Also w/the hope that instead of starting it looking for exceptions, consider sitting with why we're so quick to look for them