Mike’s Blog Round-up

In 2024, podcasts eclipsed traditional media outlets in their influence over the U. S. election as certain shows with massive audiences managed to score interviews with sought-after subjects trying to widen their reach. Just look at Vice President Kamala Harris’ decision to talk to Alexander Cooper on Call Her Daddy, a popular podcast known mostly for raunchy sex jokes that crucially attracts young women.

For many Americans at the end of a(nother) brutal presidential election, the search for a historical precedent that represents an alternative to Donald Trump’s crude notion of presidential power is appealing. And no one is more appealing than George Washington. Tom Nichols in The Atlantic was only the latest in a long line of writers seeking and finding in Washington a vision of moral rectitude and patriotic duty.

Today marks the second and final week of COP29—the annual U. N. climate change summit, which seeks solutions to the world’s top existential problem. The host? An oil-rich country that, according to the CIA World Factbook, is home to the Absheron peninsula in the Caspian Sea that local scientists say is “the ecologically most devastated area in the world.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Being a petro-state is not a crime.

A Jewish man wearing a yarmulke was shot multiple times on his way to synagogue in Chicago. A rabbi in Maryland was attacked by a man wielding a wooden stake. In Manhattan, a man wearing a yarmulke was called “dirty Jew” before being punched in the face. Each of these assaults occurred within a two-week span last month. One year ago, such scenes would have been unimaginable; few American Jews thought twice about publicly identifying as Jewish.

It can be easy to go a day without talking to another human, especially if you work remotely. But increasingly, people are avoiding talking to one another when they leave the house, too, thanks to businesses and activities that allow them to request quiet time. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “It’s just the concept of the individual in the chair not having to engage,” says Andrew Edwards, the co-founder of Sunday Salon, a hair studio in Cary, N.

NEW YORK — An outbreak of E. coli has infected dozens of people who ate bagged organic carrots, and one person died from the infection. Altogether, 39 people were infected and 15 were hospitalized in 18 states after eating organic whole and baby carrots sold by Grimmway Farms, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Sunday. Grimmway Farms, based in Bakersfiled, California, has recalled the carrots, which included whole and baby organic carrots sold in bags under multiple brand names including 365, Cal-Organic, Nature’s Promise, O-Organics, Trader Joe’s and Wegmans, among others. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The carrots are no longer in stores, but the CDC is warning consumers to not eat recalled bag carrots and to check their refrigerators or freezers and throw away any carrots that fit the description.