In addition to copies of my passport and other vital documents, my go-bag has a spare AppleTV, individual Metamucil packets (they don't call it a go-bag for nothing), a Ziploc baggie of artisanally roasted free trade coffee beans, and enough prescription anti-anxiety pills to tranquilize an elephant for a decade. I was pretty sure I was under-prepared before reading about people taking wilderness-based survival and evasion courses. Now I'm really sure. Though, after a few weeks in dystopia, I imagine I'll be able to trade a couple teaspoonfuls of the Metamucil for anything from gold bars to heavy weapons. NYT(Gift Article): Getting Ready for the Worst. Just in Case. "In the chilly dusk on a recent Saturday, nine people were creeping through the California hills. Their faces were painted in shades of green, yellow, brown and black, so that they blended into their surroundings. Moving uphill through thickets of trees, they tried to be silent, as if not to draw the attention of some unseen enemy. They were conscious of every breath, every dry leaf that crunched underfoot, every snapped twig. These people were not military personnel. They were just civilians — biotech workers, a masseuse, an entrepreneur — who had decided to spend a weekend preparing themselves for a war, societal collapse or some other calamity." (With an outlook that bleak, I have to assume they're NextDraft subscribers). 2The Aud Squad"A new treatment approach for tinnitus is called bimodal neuromodulation, which targets the brain by stimulating two sensory systems. In a device called Lenire, patients wear headphones and a mouth device every day for an hour for at least six weeks." A very interesting look at what tinnitus is and how it might be fixed. WaPo(Gift Article): Scientists may have the key to treating tinnitus: Retrain the brain. 3Buying the Farm"Residents worried it could be a front for foreign spies looking to surveil a nearby Air Force base. One theory held the company was acquiring land for a new Disneyland. Now the truth was standing in front of them. And somehow it was weirder than the rumors. The truth was that Mr. Sramek wanted to build a city from the ground up, in an agricultural region whose defining feature was how little it had changed. The idea would have been treated as a joke if it weren’t backed by a group of Silicon Valley billionaires." But not everyone wanted to sell. We can't be sure if there will ever be a new city in Solano County. But we can definitely be sure that this part of the story will be made into a limited series for Netflix. NYT (Gift Article): The Farmers Had What the Billionaires Wanted. (Usually, the opposite is true.) 4Weekend WhatsWhat to Watch: There's a very common type of TV shows these days. You could call them murder comedies. They're light murder mysteries that always have an investigator that happens to be on hand to find the killer among a group of people confined to a particular area. Sometimes it's an island. Sometimes it's a mansion. In the case of Death and Other Details on Hulu, it's a boat. 5Extra, ExtraMe, Myself and (Bib)I: "Although Israel has been at war with Hamas for over 100 days and still has over 100 hostages to recover, Netanyahu’s No. 1 focus is Netanyahu." And that focus is bad for peace, bad for Biden, and potentially good for Trump. Thomas Friedman in the NYT (Gift Article): Netanyahu Is Turning Against Biden. 6Feel Good Friday"The Los Angeles school district runs a shop that maintains and repairs the 80,000 musical instruments used by students in the district. Kris Bowers and Ben Proudfoot made this short documentary about the shop and the people who work there, some of whom have been broken and repaired themselves." The Last Repair Shop. Get a copy of my 📕, Please Scream Inside Your Heart, or grab a 👕 in the Store.
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