Our weekly roundup of the news, some trends, and our thoughts — plus a reading list for the weekend.
Elections Pt. 1: Every state but two, Nebraska and Maine, practices a winner-take-all approach to the electoral college. Meaning, whoever wins the popular vote in a state, gets all of its electoral college votes. Maine and Nebraska, however, use a method that allots one electoral vote to the popular vote winner in each congressional district (2 in Maine, 3 in Nebraska). In Nebraska, the district surrounding Omaha tends to swing blue (they voted for Obama in 2008 and Biden in 2020) — but perhaps not for long. Lindsey Graham met with Nebraska state senators earlier this week, pushing them to hold a special session to shift the state to a winner-takes-all approach. The electeds have signaled a willingness to change, which could give Trump a significant advantage in what promises to be a tight race. As Vox reporter Andrew Prokop tweeted: Namely, WI-MI-PA would no longer be enough to get Harris to 270. She’d need at least one more swing state (NV, GA, AZ, or NC) to get over the line. Notably, it is too late for Democratic-leaning Maine to do the same.
Elections Pt. 2: Mexico's judicial reform, which will allow voters to elect judges, officially took effect. Judges across the local, state, federal, and Supreme Court levels (over 7,000 people) will be affected. New elections will need to be implemented for all of these seats, starting next year. The BBC reports, “Its supporters say the changes will make judges more accountable to the Mexican people but critics argue it undermines the country's system of checks and balances and will strengthen the power of the governing Morena party.” And the New York Times notes, “Relatively few democracies rely on popular elections for selecting judges; the United States may be the most prominent example, with many states allowing voters to choose judges. Still, the election of judges in the United States also does not apply to the entire federal judiciary, where judges are still appointed by the U.S. president.”
AI and Movies… again: Lionsgate has struck a deal to give a fast-growing AI start up, Runway, access to its library. In exchange, they will receive a new, custom AI model that the studio can use "to develop cutting-edge, capital-efficient content creation opportunities." The vice chairman of Lionsgate Studio said that he expects the model to save the company “millions and millions of dollars.” Other companies, like Disney and Paramount, have also had discussions about partnering with generative AI providers, The Wall Street Journal has reported. We were reminded of an interview we read earlier in the week with Maya Cade who founded the Black Film Archive, an exhaustive online database of Black cinema titles. She said, “AI leaves out the essence of truth. For example, through summary, it assumes who you are and what you want to know…” All of this — investment in AI, extracting every possible dollar from existing IP, etc — comes from the same, boring risk-averse philosophy that prioritizes profit and nothing else. As Guillermo Del Toro put it: “AI has demonstrated that it can do semi-compelling screensavers. That’s essentially that. The value of art is not how much it costs and how little effort it requires, it’s how much would you risk to be in its presence. How much would people pay for those screensavers? Are they gonna make them cry because they lost a son? A mother? Because they misspent their youth? Fuck no.”
Israel and Lebanon: Early this week, Israel infiltrated Hezbollah’s communications networks and blew up pagers and other wireless devices, killing at least 11 people, including children, and injuring thousands. The tactic surprised much of the world, and broke with international law. As NPR reports, “One particular focus is Article 7(2) of the Amended Protocol II of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, which was added to an international law focused on the use of conventional weapons in 1996. Both Israel and Lebanon have agreed to it. It prohibits the use of booby traps, which Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, defines as ‘objects that civilians are likely to be attracted to or are associated with normal civilian daily use.’” Israel also carried out an airstrike today, killing top Hezbollah officials, sharply escalating the year long conflict, and cementing the war’s expansion to the northern border. The UN urged all actors to “exercise restraint.”
Reading Recs:
An essay on Red Lobster’s bankruptcy (and its private equity + monopoly, not endless shrimp, origins): “Because of Red Lobster’s high costs and declining profits, the company’s owner Darden sold it off in 2014 for $1.2 billion to Golden Gate Capital, which believed it could make the chain leaner and more efficient. That was also Golden Gate’s promise when it took over the iconic shoe retailer Payless in 2012, before selling it off to a separate private equity firm, Alden Global Capital, just a few years later, in worse shape than when it first took over the company.” And one on the ‘metaphysics of Waffle House’: “The energy at the restaurant at this time teems like crickets on a Southern summer night. You are reminded just how alive things are out there during the stillness of when you are typically asleep. A rebel yell so many have learned to tune out.”
A relevant 1973 essay on car-dependancy by André Gorz, shared by Uneven Earth: “And yet there are plenty of politicians who insist that every family has the right to at least one car and that it’s up to the ‘government’ to make it possible for everyone to park conveniently, drive easily in the city, and go on holiday at the same time as everyone else, going 70 mph on the roads to vacation spots. The monstrousness of this demagogic nonsense is immediately apparent, and yet even the left doesn’t disdain resorting to it. Why is the car treated like a sacred cow? Why, unlike other ‘privative’ goods, isn’t it recognized as an antisocial luxury?”
A profile in the New Yorker on director Todd Solondz’s unfulfilled desires: “For me, all writing in fictional terms is an expression of desire. That’s the motor,” Solondz told me, of both his characters’ striving and his own.”
An interview with Sally Rooney, ahead of her new book’s release, in the Guardian: “I’ve given my life to writing novels. I don’t know whether they are good, but even if they’re really good they’re not going to save the planet,” she argues. “There’s the idea that maybe artists have a role, which is to give people a reason to go on in a time when those reasons sometimes feel like they’re running low.” But, as always, she is ready with the case against: “That’s a nice thing to believe. I don’t know if it is a true thing to believe. Maybe I ought to be spending my time doing something more productive. And that is very, very possibly the case.”