Your Mid-Week Experiment

You know who likes "woke corporations"? Woke workers and customers.

Thanks for the reception you gave to my weekend essay on shareholder capitalism and the misguided backlash against woke corporations. Turns out, corporations still like making money, and it’s awfully hard to do that these days without customers and employees, two groups that overwhelmingly believe companies “have a responsibility to play a role in addressing societal problems.”

Also, welcome to all the new subscribers who joined after the previous essay about the Ten Commandments debate and the latest one. You’ll pick up what we’re laying down after a while. On weekends, I dig into something that I’ve been thinking about. On Wednesdays, you get the mid-weeker with loads of things to read, listen to, cook, and watch. Hope you like it.

Let’s get to it:

Are you ever annoyed that seemingly anodyne advice such as “Be thankful for what you have. Don’t worry about what you don’t” is handy and practical for your mental well-being? Great bit of writing from my friend Simran here. (more of this, please)

Meanwhile, Frank Spring over here doing Frank Spring things. (Disorder Up)

Here’s the poem about parenting that Mae referenced in the latest episode of Ted Lasso. (Philip Larkin)

All the songs we put here in the mid-weeker get added to The Experiment’s Spotify playlist, which is ridiculously long by this point at 472 songs.

In which The Ethicist talks me through the advantages and disadvantages of mixing and matching casting and lays waste to the concept of cultural appropriation (New York Times)

This analysis of the generative benefits of time limitations on television is so smart I’m mad at myself for not getting here first. (Austin Kleon)

What religious group in the United States is most likely to get politically involved? Nope, not that one. Jews were a good guess, but no. (Ryan Burge)

I’m Gen X. If you’re older than I am, your support for abortion for any reason has been dropping steadily since 2014. If you’re younger than I am, it’s been increasing since then. The most interesting shift is among Gen Z Republican women. (Ryan Burge)

On the anniversary of Uvalde, this is an especially well done profile of a mother who had to learn to grieve in public. (The New York Times)

This is an especially thoughtful review of Josh Hawley’s Manhood. (Washington Post)

The reason I haven’t written about the Trumpian opposition to fixing up Zilker Park in Austin is that I’d be trespassing on someone else’s beat. (Ranz by Neenz)

This show seemed like it started in the middle of the story and only got good when Michael Shannon was in damn near every shot.

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We set up a merch table in the back where you can get T-shirts, coffee mugs, and even tote bags now. Show the world that you’re part of The Experiment. 

We’ve also got a tip jar, and I promise to waste every cent you give me on having fun, because writing this newsletter for you is how I have fun.

Buy the book Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick banned from the Bullock Texas History Museum: Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of the American Myth by Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson, and myself is out from Penguin Random House. The New York Times bestseller is 44% off and the same price as a paperback now!