Things I'm Reading & Watching: Katie Hill's Amazing Parting Words | Looking For Alaska | Wired | CityLab

I only knew about The Testaments, Margaret Atwood's long awaited sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, about a week before its release, but the second I heard about it, I reserved any format I could on every library I could (San Diego, Chula Vista, San Diego County) and within a week or so of release, I already had the book from one library and the audio CDs from another. Unfortunately, I couldn't get to the book at all...it was the same time the Casbah was transitioning from Ticketfly to Eventbrite and I was buried in work, but I've now got the audio recording and am listening as I work, as I clean, as I lay around being sick. Darren is listening, too. So today, I was watching this amazing speech by Katie Hill, and he walks into the room. And granted, he couldn't really make sense of what was being said but says, "Oh, you must've caught up to me and passed me, I haven't heard that part yet." I don't know if I should laugh or cry. That he could hear the words of Katie Hill, and mix them with The Testaments says so much about where we are. Yesterday he asked me if Nova was too young to experience "toxic masculinity" and I said it's something females experience from the time we're born, then proceeded to give examples. Listen to Katie. It's 8 minutes long. Take the time. And let's at least celebrate today's Impeachment vote victory. Still such a long way to go.


more watching and reading after the jump:


I've been sick at home all week, so I decided to get another reading & watching post out.

First of all, I totally lied about not bingeing anything lately. How could I forget?? I totally binged Looking For Alaska on HULU. I didn't read the book; I've not read any of the books by John Green that so often end up on screen, and I hadn't heard about the show prior to watching, but deep into the first episode, the soundtrack was so good and feeling so familiar that I Googled and realized Josh Schwartz was behind the whole thing. He's the guy that did a little show back in the day called "The O.C."!!?!! The show is definitely worth the watch for adults through nostalgic eyes, but lots of triggers and explicit stuff goes on that I wouldn't exactly recommend for tweens or young teens, unless you're cool with kids watching a step by step on how to give a beej. Then by  all mean, you do you.

Some other things I've read this week:

Why Are Rich People So Mean? - Wired
“What we’ve been finding across dozens of studies and thousands of participants across this country,” said Piff, “is that as a person’s levels of wealth increase, their feelings of compassion and empathy go down, and their feelings of entitlement, of deservingness, and their ideology of self-interest increases.”


Hey Mara Elliott, stop shutting down all ages venues: "Don’t Underestimate the Power of Your Local Music Scene"
At CityLab DC, Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl described how playing in bands changed his life—and what cities can do to cultivate their scenes. - CityLab


Elephants Under Attack Have An Unlikely Ally: Artificial Intelligence - Wired

Airbnb and short term rentals are going to be a big deal in our next San Diego election. I've definitely wavered on both sides, but have landed on the "shut-em-all-down" side of things because I feel like the lack of rules have made it a scammer's paradise, and investment properties have completely ravaged the rental housing market in San Diego (and in major cities all over the country.) I was thinking about what short-term memory we have. Remember when JMI---John Moores Inc--was able to force eminent domain on downtown property owners for pennies on the dollar, then build luxury condos on those very spaces, around his brand new ballpark (back when he was still owner of the Pads)? Meanwhile affordable housing and SROs were completely wiped out? And now JMI is the consulting company telling the City to take the SDSU offer because it's a good deal? We can't take developer's word at 10% "affordable housing" anymore. Restrict to actual home buyers and renters. Prohibit buyers from being LLCs. Housing units can't be used as investment properties (aka legal money laundering). Units may never be short term rentals. Why should we trust them? But back to airbnb...
Company turns several San Diego apartments into vacation rentals -10News
and related: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb - Vice

on to the weekend...