If you wanted to score concert tickets when I was a kid, you lined up outside your local record store first thing Sunday morning and hoped the teenager working the Bass Ticket terminal was a fast typer. Things seemed more fair back then. Bass stood for Bay Area Seating Service. Ticketing was local. You were competing against other wannabee concert goers. You had to do the actual work to get there first. These days, your concert ticketing adventures pit you against thousands of other people (and a lot more bots) refreshing a website. And increasingly, those tickets are being sold by the same company, one that often promoted the concert, owns the venue, and manages the artist. Is LiveNation too big? The Justice Department thinks so. WaPo (Gift Article): U.S., states sue to ‘break up’ Ticketmaster parent Live Nation. "The landmark case — joined by 30 state and district attorneys general — could dramatically reshape an ecosystem that has long sparked outrage from artists and fans alike, whose frustrations erupted in 2022 when high fees and site outages disrupted early sales for Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tour. Live Nation is an entertainment titan: It is a concert promoter, artist manager, venue owner and ticket seller and reseller, constituting a sprawling empire that its executives publicly herald as the 'largest live entertainment company in the world.' Last year alone, Live Nation produced more than 50,000 concerts and other musical events, and it sold more than 620 million tickets globally." Maybe it would be better if we had to line up outside our record store again. But the record store is gone. 2Fly Your Freak FlagLast week, we learned that Samuel Alito flew a stop the steal upside-down flag at his home. This week comes news of another flag displayed above his vacation house. "This time, it was the 'Appeal to Heaven' flag, which, like the inverted U.S. flag, was carried by rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Also known as the Pine Tree flag, it dates back to the Revolutionary War, but largely fell into obscurity until recent years and is now a symbol of support for former President Donald J. Trump, for a religious strand of the 'Stop the Steal' campaign and for a push to remake American government in Christian terms." (There's a religious war in America, and SCOTUS is ground zero.) NYT (Gift Article): Another Provocative Flag Was Flown at Another Alito Home. 3A Churn of EventsWhy is butter so popular these days? That seems like a question with a very simple answer: Butter is awesome. But when it comes to food, trends (even those related to butter) rarely trend naturally. Grist: Behind the ‘butter board’: How the dairy industry took over your feed. 4An Attention Grabbing Stat"The study’s lead author, Melissa Danielson, a statistician at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said there are two main reasons for the trend. First, doctors, parents, teachers and kids are becoming more aware of ADHD symptoms, making cases easier to identify. Second, because more treatments are available these days, doctors have more reason to test and diagnose children." A new study shows that as of 2022, 1 in 9 children had received ADHD diagnoses at some point in their lifetimes. 5Extra, ExtraBaltimore Harm Than Good: "Across Baltimore, the death toll has mounted. Fatal drug overdoses have occurred on a third of the city’s blocks. Bodies have been found in motels and vacant houses, at parks and the football stadium, around the corner from City Hall and outside the Health Department. In one grim month alone, 114 people succumbed." NYT (Gift Article): Almost 6,000 Dead in 6 Years: How Baltimore Became the U.S. Overdose Capital. "The city was once hailed for its response to addiction. But as fentanyl flooded the streets and officials shifted priorities, deaths hit unprecedented heights." (This is such a massive issue, yet it's rarely discussed in national politics.) Plus: Baltimore’s unprecedented overdose crisis: 5 takeaways. 6Bottom of the News"The first $500 is our gift to you. The second $500 is for you to give to somebody else or another organization who could use it more than you." The graduation speaker at UMass Dartmouth surprised students with envelopes stuffed with hundreds of dollars in cash. (The young people were probably confused by the non-digital money.)
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