Afternoon Tea 1.25.21 - Reality Check

The people of Russia stand with Navalny exposing Putin’s grift, slow realization of of Brexit as the absolute cock-up it is comes for the UK, direct action gets the goods in the Bronx, TikTok sneaks past Facebook as the most used social network, and Cuomo is up to his usual dirty tricks when it comes to legalizing it. It’s Monday, January 25th 2021, and this is the Tea.

Russia: Police detain thousands at pro-Navalny protests (DW) Navalny’s team calls new protests in Russia for his release (Associated Press) & Putin’s palace. History of world’s largest bribe (YouTube & Navalny) Many asked why Navalny would go back to Russia after being poisoned. The largest investigation of Putin lining his pockets to the tune of an entire palace-state-within-a-state, exhaustively documented by Navalny, amplified by his willingness to put his and his own in the line of fire. These people, the protesters, the organizers, everyone willing to stand against Putin…heroes the lot of them, may they see the best of luck and fortunes in their fight.

Leave-voting fish merchant says Brexit is ‘absolute nightmare’ as industry is ‘destroyed’ (The London Economic) & Rotting fish, lost business and piles of red tape. The reality of Brexit hits Britain (CNN Business) & Brexit leader to head Mississippi public policy center (Yahoo! News) Remember Brexit? That thing still happened, and they didn’t really work all those kinks out like Boris “Fortress of Planning & Execution” Johnson predicted. Who’da thunk it?

Hunts Point Produce Market Workers End Strike with a Raise (TheCity) & AOC Skipped Inauguration to Support a Teamsters Union Strike in the Bronx (TeenVogue) Bringing visibility and advocacy to this strike is probably what put them over the line. So instead of looking cute at the Inauguration, she was running around with hand warmers at one of the central produce distributor hubs for the city.

Coronavirus is an Occupational Disease That Spreads at Work (Jacobin) We really need to stop blaming restaurants & parties when no one has sick leave and everyone is probably transmitting it at work. Meatpacking plants, farms, offices, even just regular service jobs, are not being given any relief. So how can we expect the spread to slow?

In LA, more homeless people die from the cold than in SF & NYC, combined (LA Taco) Hypothermia in LA. Reality is very rarely intuitive, especially when it comes to the complexities of survival and public health.

Total eclipse: How falling costs will secure solar’s dominance in power (Wood Mackenzie) Costs fell 90%, and they are still dropping. This isn’t from some hippie site, this is a fee-for-research market analytics and intelligence firm.

Facebook spent more on lobbying than any other Big Tech company in 2020 (CNBC) & TikTok Beats Facebook in Time Spent Per User (SearchEngineJournal) These seem connected. With Tiktok up past 20hrs per month, and FB dropping, the crown might be up for grabs. With sub-25 year olds who largely conceptualize of FB as the place your racist aunt & uncle hang out, the landscape might shift very quickly.

Cumo Seems Intent on Screwing up New York’s Marijuana Legalization (Reason) Why you can always miss me with Cuomosexual stuff. He will always find a way to either swagger over something he didn’t do, doesn’t deserve, or then immediately walks back. What is this, year 3 of him saying he’s gonna legalize, then only proposing the griftiest, stupidest system possible? Remember when he made a literal foam mountain to represent our “accomplishments” about COVID-19 to crow next to? Peep that Aggro-Crag now:

Nobody - And We Mean Nobody - Was Consistently Great Like Hank Aaron (FiveThirtyEight) & The Woman Who Read Hank Aaron’s Hate Mail (Slate) The Black man who beat Babe Ruth’s record got 900,000 letters in 1973 alone. They were, not purely positive, shall we say. Hank Aaron died on Friday and his career is a love letter to consistency. Doing something great for three to five years is the stuff of baseball legend. He did it for 15-20.

The Muppet Great Gatsby exists - in script form (The Verge) Now that The Great Gatsby is in the public domain, calls have intensified for a Muppet version. Seems someone already went ahead and wrote a script. Let’s get going on this Disney+. I can only survive for so long on Jon Oliver & Cookie Monster outtakes from 2014.

Oh? Brady again?

Song of the Tea: 8min of finely chopped up UK Garage, old school rave, breakbeat, and some yawning, haunting murky neurofunk. Because Monday

This is your annual “Valentine’s Day is coming up, go order a thing” reminder, people who forget that stuff.

Yours,T

P.S. Folks, the Diet Coke button was actually real.