Just Live, Baby

The Raiders vs Covid, Plus, escaping Afghanistan

Wednesday, August 18, 2021 - The Day's Most Fascinating News from Dave Pell

Subscribe Store Current Share Archives Wednesday, August 18, 2021 1 JUST LIVE, BABY Just win, baby was the famous motto repeated by former Raider's owner and general manager Al Davis. Today, it's being applied to the fight against Covid. The Raiders have announced that proof of vaccination will be required to attend their home games in Las Vegas (in other words, you can gamble with anything but our lives). It's a start, but we need more. It's time to keep matriculating the ball down the field, boys. Howie Long do we have to wait? As NY Mag's Will Leitch explains, The NFL Should Require Fans to Get Vaccinated. So should every sport. So should every entertainment venue. So should every government employer and private corporation. Want a Frappuccino? Show me the vaccine. Want to Netflix and Chill? First I need to see your clean bill. Want to take a couple shots? Then get a couple shots. In the early days of the pandemic, The Atlantic's Yascha Mounk famously advised us to Cancel Everything. It's time to vaccinate everything. We need more sane corporate and government leaders to step up. How many more headlines like this one from WaPo do we need before our efforts become more urgent? A mom of 4 who died of covid days after her husband makes one final wish: ‘Make sure my kids get vaccinated.' + Greg Abbott's state loves the adage, "Don't mess with Texas!" But Covid doesn't give a shit where you are, who you are, or how transparently craven your politics are. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tests positive for COVID-19. Meanwhile, "a North Texas school district has made masks a part of its dress code for the academic year, hoping to exploit a possible loophole in Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's statewide ban on mandates regarding face coverings." Before his postive test, Abbott attended a series of public, indoor, crowded, maskless events. He was spreading the virus while banning caution. + For Americans interested in defeating the virus, the vaccine boosters will engage Sept 20.     2 EARLY SETTLERS "We need a release that's sufficient to get our goals accomplished. If the release fails to do that, we will not support it." The Sackler family won't settle unless they're off the hook from opioid suits. (Cool, don't settle. Let's do criminal charges instead.)     3 THIS TIME, IT'S PERSONAL The Afghanistan story is complicated and overwhelming. So let's narrow it down to some personal accounts. First, David Rhode (a journalist who was kidnapped by the Taliban) in The New Yorker: Trying—and Failing—to Save the Family of the Afghan Who Saved Me. And from George Packer in The Atlantic: We Have One Last Chance to Save Our Allies. "A former U.S. ambassador is getting anxious messages from workers in the embassy cafeteria. Army veterans are hearing from Afghan troops, including women, who face special retaliation. Taliban fighters are going from house to house, searching for 'infidels' and 'traitors' to be punished. Their official promise to show mercy and forgo reprisals is daily betrayed by brutal murders now happening all around the country." + Can we please stop with all the headlines questioning whether the Taliban will really be kinder and gentler? They are beyond ridiculous and it's the same imbecility in the name of being supposedly unbiased we saw during 4 years of Trumpism. Graeme Wood: This Is Not the Taliban 2.0. + "It's just constant." Clarissa Ward describes gunshots fired in Taliban- controlled streets. And here's Ward courageously reporting on what she's seeing on the ground in Afghanistan now. + There are a lot of organizations trying to help Afghans. Let's focus our NextDraft community efforts in one area to have an impact. Support Women Journalists in Afghanistan. I've donated. Please do so too if you can.     4 CAMP? FIRE. Ahead of their return to masked school, a few Bay Area kids I know just got sent home after one night at sleep away camp because of the latest NorCal fire. It looks bad. Caldor fire levels northern California town as dry weather fuels blazes.     5 PETE BOG "For some time, Chasten and I have wanted to grow our family. We're overjoyed to share that we've become parents!" Pete Buttigieg and husband Chasten have become parents. Good thing he has experience as transportation secretary. He's gonna be driving someone around for the next 16 years.     6 CAVITY SEARCH FOR ANSWERS "Increasingly, scientists are thinking of cavities as a microbiome problem. The advice you got as a kid — brush your teeth, floss, eat less candy — is still important. But it's becoming more clear that the types of bacteria inhabiting your mouth matter, too." Why People Who Brush Still Get Cavities. (I find that the unwanted bacteria can be killed by chewing a handful of SweeTARTS.)     7 SCARLETT BETTOR The streaming thing has been big for a long time. But Disney's successful entry into the space has accelerated everything, including the changing ways actors, writers, and other employees will get paid, since their salaries have traditionally been connected to box office numbers. What Scarlett Johansson's ‘Black Widow' Legal Battle Means for the Future of Hollywood.     8 PRECIOUS METAL "But from the inside, metal feels nerdy and warmhearted. Metal gigs have always, to me, had the sort of vibe of a classic car meet or a real-ale festival: a place for slightly socially awkward people to find a social group outside the mainstream. The aggressive image it projects is at odds with the rather gentle souls you actually meet doing it." The beautiful world of heavy metal. + I found this to be the case when I attended a metal festival a few years ago. The excursion resulted in this McSweeney's piece: An Open Letter to the Guy Who Puked Next to Me at the Heavy Metal Festival. A guy next to me explained the joy of metal: "Think about it, Man. Every time that dude with the guitar hits his strings the sound goes through my ears right into my f--king head."     9 BERLIN WALLETS "When a rash of sensational museum robberies stunned Europe, police zeroed in on a fearsome crime family—and a flashy new generation of young outlaws. Joshua Hammer unravels the case of a billion-dollar jewel heist and the race to catch a brutally audacious band of thieves." GQ: The Dresden Job. The Sopranos of Berlin.     10 BOTTOM OF THE NEWS "No matter where you live, so long as there is a basketball game happening somewhere in the vicinity, there's a nonzero chance that Adam Sandler will show up. And unlike other celebrities who might call ahead to reserve the courts for themselves or make a PR event out of the appearance, Sandler, by all accounts, respects the hallowed, universal rules of pickup basketball. He just shows up, hoops and dips." An Oral History of Adam Sandler, Pickup Basketball Legend. + For a year, I was living one month of 2020 while reliving and writing about an earlier month of 2020. For that reason alone, you should immediately order your copy of Please Scream Inside Your Heart. (It's also pretty good :-)     Thanks, Dave Pell Managing Editor, Internet Subscribe Store Current Share Archives NextDraft 600 Harrison Street, San Francisco, CA 94107 You are receiving this because you signed up for Dave Pell's Next Draft newsletter. If you'd like to stop receiving these emails, simply unsubscribe. No hard feelings. If this email isn't looking quite right, you can view it in your browser. Did some awesome person forward this issue to you? 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View this email in your browser Verb Energy bars are your daily energy essential. The bars are infused with organic green tea, giving you the same amount of caffeine as an espresso without the jitters. They're gluten free, dairy free and vegan. Get 4 Verb bars for free before your next workout! You just cover shipping for $0.95. Act: don't space out Estimated reading time: 3 minutes August Topic: Space Trash (thanks Alicia for the suggestion) This week's module: 1. READ | 2. LISTEN | 3. ACT | 4. REFLECT Welcome back to Changeletter by Soapbox Project. I'm the author, Nivi Achanta, and I make it easy for you to fight climate change in 3 minutes every week.   What's up this week SOAPBOXFEST Day 1 was amazing! I slept for 12.5 hours last night so I'm scrambling writing today's changeletter. If you catch any mistakes, you can point fingers and laugh at me, but I'll be too delirious to mind. 😉   The opening day of the fest seriously surpassed all my hopes and dreams. I'll be posting the recap and recording in our membership community later this week, so if you can't attend live, I've got you.   Today at 5pm PST, we start Day 2! So I've gotta keep today's changeletter quick and get back to confirming logistics. 🥳   This week, we're on our ACT module for Space Trash. If you've missed the first two, catch up here on READ and LISTEN.   Space Trash is a HARD topic to act on, as I'm sure you've assumed. A lot of it is out of our control, but I want to focus on the things we CAN control. Today's actions are less traditional than our usual changeletters, but they are critical to preserving our future, instead of trashing it. Let's go! 🚀❌ (P.S. The answer to the subject line, naturally, is space trash.) Arlan Hamilton's Secret Agenda   Founder and Managing Partner of Backstage Capital, Arlan Hamilton, recently announced her (not so secret) "Secret Agenda '' stating, "I want to be wealthy. I want to help other people gain wealth. I want us all to spend our wealth on ourselves and catalyzing others." Do you want in? Let Arlan show you how she went from homeless to making millions in under five years - totally free, here.   From the Soapbox   EVENT | 8/25 @ 9-9:30am PST -  Natalie Lavery from Climate People will walk you through a framework on how to get a job fighting climate change on our biweekly fireside chat series. This is a members-only event. Join our community for weekly events and more!   Your bite-sized actions Pick an action from the list below. You can take a minute out of your day to make a meaningful difference; I believe in you! As the saying goes, always classy, never trashy...   1 minute super important action: If you live in the United States, take 1 minute to ask your reps to pass the Clean Electricity Standard. If you want to learn more, regardless of where in the world you live, check out Climate Changemakers' Issue Briefing. We learned about this at the fest yesterday! We can't yet change the whims of Jeff and Richard, but we CAN clean up our future.   20 seconds to pledge for tech accountability: This is a global action! It's geared towards people who work in tech, which is most of our changeletter readers. I just signed it — one of the things I pledged is "to always put humans before business, and to stand up against pressure to do otherwise, even at my own risk", which I love because it's is pretty much the opposite of "exploiting my workers to use profits to go to space" 😜   Stop Line 3. This is one of THE most environmental justice battles going on today. The actions of billionaires and wealthy corporations are directly correlated to health impacts in marginalized communities. Line 3 is slated to cost $7.5 billion, would carry up to 915,000 barrels per day of one of the dirtiest fuels on earth (tar sands crude), and impose severe risks to tribal communities in the area. If you're in the Minnesota area, you can check out some of the (fun!) events below. If not, PLEASE choose your own set of actions from this Line 3 page. Upcoming Next week's REFLECT: We're going to talk more about environmental justice.   September's topic will be sustainable finance! I'm telling you early this time because I'll be on vacation and the emails will be scheduled, so if you have questions, please send them in. Copyright © 2021 Soapbox Project, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you signed up for our free action plans via social media, Tech Ethics Coalition, a meeting with Nivi, or our website! Our mailing address is: Soapbox Project 415 Mission St. San Francisco, California 94105 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.