Next Draft - From Ragless to Riches
In the past, losing one's shirt referred to losing all of one's possessions. These days, losing your shirt could be the first step towards making it big. As long as you lose your pants, too. (You might as well knock your socks off while you're at it.) We're talking about one of those social networks that people don't really like to talk about (or explain how a related bill showed up on their credit card statement). For more, we should probably start ... where else? ... somewhere in Florida. "In the mornings, the workers of Bryce Adams’s OnlyFans empire buzz in through a camera-wired security gate, roll up the winding driveway that cost $120,000 to pave and park outside Adams’s $2.5 million home-office-studio complex. A large American flag waves from a pole above their office door. So does a banner depicting Adams, in tight shorts, from behind." Drew Harwell in WaPo(Gift Article): Inside an OnlyFans empire: Sex, influence and the new American Dream. "America’s social media giants for years have held up online virality as the ultimate goal, doling out measurements of followers, reactions and hearts with an unspoken promise: that internet love can translate into sponsorships and endorsement deals. But OnlyFans represents the creator economy at its most blatantly transactional — a place where viewers pay upfront for creators’ labor, and intimacy is just another unit of content to monetize." (All these years I've been failing to monetize my newsletter when I should have been trying to monetize my unit.) 2The Scarlet Letter A"Given Trump’s increasingly explicit rhetoric about shifting the chief executive position toward authoritarianism, it seems difficult to understand how he’s still running even with President Biden in early polling — or, in some cases, leading him. A bevy of possibilities emerges: Is the media failing to inform voters? Are Trump-supportive voters tuning out media that’s reporting on his intentions? Is he simply seen as the lesser of two evils?" Or is it a worse possibility that seems more and more likely to be the case? WaPo (Gift Article): A lot of Americans embrace Trump’s authoritarianism. 3War of WordsAfter the attack of October 7, Israel had every right to defend itself and to work towards eradicating the threat posed by the increasingly ISIS-like Hamas. And over the past few days, we've gotten reports of many Hamas bases and military outposts being destroyed. But on the way to getting to the right people, Israel killed way too many of the wrong people; innocent civilians who themselves have long been victims of Hamas' rule. That's my take as an American Jewish son of Holocaust survivors with relatives in Israel. And that's the take of Israel's most steadfast ally. From Antony Blinken: "Far too many Palestinians have been killed. Far too many who suffered these past weeks, and we want to do everything possible to prevent harm to them and to maximise the assistance that gets to them." Yes, it's true that the barbaric massacre of October 7th would have baited any democracy into a fierce response, and yes, Hamas' heinous use of civilians as human shields plays a key role in the death numbers, but there's still a problem. Omer Bartov, a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, lays out the case in the NYT (Gift Article): What I Believe as a Historian of Genocide. Regardless of the way it's thrown around, genocide is the wrong word for what's taking place. But Israeli leaders are using a lot of wrong words to describe what's happening as well. 4Weekend WhatsWhat to Doc: In some circles, Yogi Berra is mostly remembered for being a colorful character with a lot of memorable Yogisms. And he was that. But he was also one of the best and most winning baseball players of all time. He also has one hell of a supportive granddaughter. Need a feel good doc? Check out, It Ain't Over. 5Extra, ExtraSticks and Loans: Hacks are so common these days that even massive ones can fail to get our attention. Consider this one on the world's biggest bank. From Bloomberg (Gift Article): "On Thursday, trades handled by the world’s largest bank in the globe’s biggest market traversed Manhattan on a USB stick. Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd.’s US unit had been hit by a cyberattack, rendering it unable to clear swathes of US Treasury trades after entities responsible for settling the transactions swiftly disconnected from the stricken systems. That forced ICBC to send the required settlement details to those parties by a messenger carrying a thumb drive as the state-owned lender raced to limit the damage." 6Feel Good FridayPartners in Fate - Arab citizens heroic rescue of Jews from the Be'eri Massacre. (Trust me.) Get a copy of my 📕, Please Scream Inside Your Heart, or grab a 👕 in the Store. |
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Lights, Camera, Back in Action
Thursday, November 9, 2023
Actors Strike Ends, Tracy Chapman's Country Music Award
People's Choice Awards
Wednesday, November 8, 2023
Dems Win Big, No Right on Red, YouTube Summer Camp
Let's Go Au Naturel
Tuesday, November 7, 2023
Don't Trust the Process, WeWork: WeQuit
Strip Mall
Monday, November 6, 2023
AI Fakes, Trump's Fraud, and Looking to the West (Bank)
This is Africa
Friday, November 3, 2023
Africa's Youth Movement, Weekend Whats, Feel Good Friday
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