For the Good of the Public | The Morning Five

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Wear is the Love, Episode 24

This week, we discuss the first primetime, live hearing of the January 6th select committee investigating the January 6, 2021 insurrection. It’s a brief episode, but we see some glimmers of hope for competence and professionalism in this first hearing, and discuss what comes next from the committee.

What were your thoughts?

Episode notes:

“After dramatic first night, Jan. 6 panel plans several more high-profile hearings” (WaPo)

“The Jan. 6 Hearing Put a True-Crime Drama on Prime-Time TV” (NYT)

The Top 5 articles for your week:

“Permanent Pandemic” (Harper’s Magazine)

Because this essay is particularly thought-provoking. “The new regime is as much a technological regime as it is a pandemic regime. It has as much to do with apps and trackers, and governmental and corporate interests in controlling them, as it does with viruses and aerosols and nasal swabs. Fluids and microbes combined with touchscreens and lithium batteries to form a vast apparatus of control, which will almost certainly survive beyond the end date of any epidemiological rationale for the state of exception that began in early 2020.

The last great regime change happened after September 11, 2001, when terrorism and the pretext of its prevention began to reshape the contours of our public life.”

“400 Years Ago, They Would Be Witches. Today, They Can Be Your Coach.” (NYT)

Because Molly Worthen writes with great care here, while not avoiding critical questions: “Spiritual coaches provoke a raised eyebrow, in part, because secular people still believe in the ghosts of Christendom — including the idea that religion should be hard and not particularly democratic. It shouldn’t be something that a frustrated woman can just assemble for herself; it should require submission to some venerable institution with ancient traditions. I’m not sure those ghosts are entirely make-believe. Self-made liberation can turn into an existential hamster wheel: Manifest one accolade, and then you’re breathlessly onto the next. What’s the point? Perhaps true freedom “is not the absence of limitations and constraints but it is finding the right ones, those that fit our nature and liberate us,” the Protestant theologian Timothy Keller wrote in his book The Reason for God.”

“The Art of the Pump” (Washington Monthly)

Because “PredictIt, it must be said, is a strange place—an eclectic virtual clubhouse teeming with cliques and crazies, conspiracy theories and camaraderie. But amid the madness, a powerful force is at work. Here, those with a sixth sense for distinguishing news from noise get paid. Here, in a game where information is money, expertise is measured not with blue checkmarks or column inches, bu

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Wear is the Love, Episode 23

This week it’s all about gun safety legislation, which is being voted on in the House. The Senate will also have its chance to have its say, but potentially not until next week. We discuss the possibilities, plus our views on President Biden’s surprise speech on the issue last Thursday. Let us know your thoughts!

Episode notes

President Biden’s speech transcript

The Top 5 articles for your week:

“Waiting at a Texas hospital for children who never arrive” (New Yorker)

Because this shorter essay from a doctor at one of the receiving hospitals near Uvalde is heart-wrenching. This line got to me, “At 12:17, my phone rang. It was Dr. Veronica Armijo-Garcia from the pediatric I.C.U. ‘This call just came in, and I don’t think it’s hit the news yet. We need to get ready for a pediatric mass casualty.’”

“What the Racist Massacre in Buffalo Stole From One Family” (NYT)

Because this is another heart-wrenching essay about the life of Celestine Chaney in Buffalo, someone who was at Tops Friendly Markets for small dessert cups that she needed for her beloved strawberry shortcake. “Memories, however, refuse to be buried. Her light pinches and offers of peppermints to win silence during church services. Her two-step and arm bob whenever “Uptown Funk” played. Just her voice.”

“The Uvalde Police Chose Dishonor” (The Atlantic)

Because another week, another recommendation for Liz Bruenig on Uvalde, this time on the failure of police to act during the shooting and the refusal of some of their leadership to cooperate since. “Society cannot demand courageous self-sacrifice; we can only ask for it. Most of us know we ourselves would be too frightened to face an armed gunman in a direct confrontation, and we accordingly choose to seek work that doesn’t put us in such positions—or shouldn’t. But perhaps even some of those who do volunteer for danger now lack the fortitude, the relevant virtues of courage, honor, and selflessness, to take up the task.” Phewwwww.

“Imaginology” (Aeon Magazine)

Because Stephen T. Asma, a professor of philosophy, is calling for a new way to organize how we learn, and it’s a daunting proposal — combining how we teach and learn science with how we teach and learn humanities. “Imagination Studies, or imaginology, also promises to reunite the body and the mind, reintegrate emotion and reason, and tesselate facts and values.”

“The Woes of Being Addicted to Streaming Services” (Pitchfork)

Because we’ve shared a lot over the years about the attention economy, and this article on the streaming service Spotify (a service where this podcast is listed!) and what it’s done to listeners (rather than artists) is an angle I haven’t heard before. “Four years ago, while the app’s algorithmic autoplay feature was on, I was served the Pavement song “Harness Your Hopes,” a wordy and melodic—and by all accounts obscure—B-side from the beloved indie band. As of this writing, the song has over 72 million streams, more than twice as much as their actual college rock hit from the ’90s, “Cut Your Hair,” the one Pavement song your a

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