Afternoon Tea 4.14.2021- Bobbing & Weaving

Trump was the largest driver of misinformation, tech hubs have a huge advantage coming out of COVID, Yang has 3 PACs behind his mayoral run, horse racing gets billions in public subsidies, the internet refuses to let us forget our worst memories, and we were right when we said suicides were going down last year. It’s Wednesday, April 14th 2021, and this is the Tea. (Source for spectacular comic by Matt Lubchansky is The Nib)

US suicides dropped last year, defying pandemic expectations (Associated Press - Study Full Text) The fake news talking point that “deaths of despair” and pandemic related suicides spiking was pushed by the Right, GOP, Trump, and your racist friends for months last year. Not only were they lying when they said they care about suicide, drug overdoses, and alcoholism as a ploy to weaken pandemic related protections, they were just making the numbers up. Our suicide rate peaked in 2018, but fewer than 45,000 people killed themselves last year. If this comes up again, I’m not going to be nice about it.

Study Finds ‘Single Largest Driver’ of Coronavirus Misinformation: Trump (NY Times) It's almost as if I didn't link to him, quote him, follow him, or even invoke his name, because “Flood the zone with shit” works. This is how misinformation works.

Why New York May Emerge From Covid Richer Than Ever (Bloomberg) & A policy manifesto for paying, protecting, and empowering essential workers (Brookings) Know someone who thinks that capital flight from NYC and urban cores would cause the same issues as the 80s, where parts of NYC became a wasteland? Remind them that by 2015 alone, there was $7.3 billion in invested VC funds for tech companies. Same with tech hubs like Austin. This policy manifesto from Brookings is a great way to move forward treating essential workers as actually essential, not disposable.

Pro-Yang PACs take shape as New York mayor’s race enters prime time (Politico) & I Was Andrew Yang’s First ‘Freedom Dividend’ Recipient - When He Fired Me (Gotham Gazette) I’m confused as to how we got here, especially given NY mayors or governors rarely make it to the national stage. There are now three PACs pushing Yang into the Mayor’s Office. Three. I really can’t wait to see the mayor race of my city turn into a social reach + opaque PAC finance beauty pageant.

A secretive Home Office unit has hoarded data on millions of people (Wired UK) This obscure unit in UK intelligence, named “Data Services & Analytics,” has a magna-database with info on 650 million people, grabbing info from 30 different data providers. As a sanity check, the population of the Eurozone clocks in around 342 million. But it’s about immigration or drug stuff they say, so it’s probably fine.

Is Horse Racing Still Too Big To Fail? (Defector) Stunning, comprehensive read on the history of race track betting going from the only gambling in town to a public subsidy. I’m not kidding. It looks like $1 billion in public funds goes to subsidize horse racing & gambling annually.

The Long, Sweaty History of Working Out (Mel Magazine) Amazing and surprisingly humorous narrative of how humans have gotten swole for fun and profit over our development into both Homo Sapiens and the more modern version you’re more likely to encounter in the gym, No Homo Sapiens.

NOT a donkey being carried across a minefield (Fake History Hunter) A year ago, we were part of the wave of people who shared a picture purported to be a donkey being carried across a minefield in WWII. The picture is actually of a foal found in Algeria in 1958. Gotta be honest when we screw up here at Factual Dispatch.

I Called Off My Wedding. The Internet Will Never Forget (Wired) Miscarriages, family insanity, hospitalization of loved ones, happy photos of dinners before screaming fights…there are so many things we try to forget, and social platforms refuse to let us.

What Will Happen to Friendships When We Crawl Out of Our Pandemic Hidey Holes? (Vanity Fair) & For One Glorious Summer, Americans Will Vacation Like the French (The Atlantic) Apparently American workers are actually booking travel and PTO this summer, so we might find out that we like time off. I wonder how awkward we’re all going to be when we come together on days off in some semblance of how we connected en masse in the before times.

Song of the Tea: Do you remember t.A.T.u? If not, this track is going to flip you out. If you do remember them, it still might light you off. It’s the bassy, hard synthy track that I wanted to hear but could never describe to producers, so they could go back and make it.

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Keep moving like a hummingbird, so you can sting like a fire ant. If you slow down after they get one good shot in, they’ll clobber you.

Yours,