Your Mid-Week Experiment
Welcome to my velvet Elvis rabbit hole
Thanks to everyone for sharing and donating in support of my essay on the post-Roe reality. Getting a lot of emails, in particular, and I wanted to quote from one response to my confession about how useless I feel speaking out against the Supreme Court’s decision. Wrote reader J.C., “Without a chorus of voices of support, it feels like abandonment. “ Message received. I’ll join the chorus with gusto.
As for the rest, let’s get to it.
More C-suite executives are thinking about quitting their jobs than employees are. (Deloitte)
Credit where credit’s due: “I think most people will not allow any outside group to veto good public policy.” (Washington Post)
This week in DUH magazine: “…new market-rate housing development puts downward pressure on rents…” (Noapinion)
Is Steve Clemons the Evan Smith of Washington, DC? (The New York Times)
“…it is difficult not to notice that, often these days, what is touted as proper terminology is only thought of that way by a small minority of a group, usually those who have had a particular formal education or who are politically active.” (John McWhorter)
“Terminology will, of course, evolve over time for various reasons. But broadly speaking, thought leaders and activists of past eras put their emphasis on what people did and said — not on ever-finer gradations of how they might have said it.” (John McWhorter, again)
“…there is no evidence that IAT [Implicit Association Test] scores reflect some form of unconscious or implicit bias.” (2019 study)
Did you know saying “I’ve got a thing” to refer to a meeting or gathering is an archaic, Old English use of “thing”? (OED)
“Even if a tyrant could seize power in a coup, no country so fractious and ornery would remain under his or her thumb for long. The far more plausible future is an ungovernable America.” (Janan Ganesh)
“When a [non-Hispanic] white liberal activist thinks about South Texas, they see people of color; they don’t see swing voters,” said me. (Texas Monthly)
Baz Luhrman’s Elvis is a bad biopic but a good fable narrated by the villain.
That sent me a down an Elvis rabbit hole. Here’s my current progress:
And now of course I’m on an Elvis kick. Here’s his take on “Oh Solo Mio.”
Never heard “Never Been to Spain” before. It’s so loungy.
Thanks to Noom, I lost 40 pounds over 2020-21 and have kept it off since then. Click on the blue box to get 20% off. Seriously, this works. No, this isn’t an ad. Yes, I really lost all that weight with Noom.
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 some
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. Out in paperback now!