Adam Zemel

Election Week My understanding of the country I live in has collapsed in the past 12 hours. What now?

Published this election week “diary” last week. From exhaustion to resistance:

“We must build our own story of America in the 21st Century, and the progressive politics that goes with it, and it must be new and meaningful and welcoming and motivating and loving and hopeful.”

Donald Trump Selects His Wingman | Defector First things first: Donald Trump’s selection of Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his vice presidential candidate on Monday evening is insignificant. The office itself is insignificant by its nature and doub...

I don't want to give anything away but I really do not care for this dude. (This is a gift link) defector.com/donald-trump...

JD Vance casting the tie-breaking senate vote on the 2027 They Were Nonconsecutive So Our Big Strong Boy Can Have Another Term Act

“The Judeo-Christian tradition compels Jews to observe the Sabbath on the Christian date” is a pretty neat encapsulation of “Judeo-Christian.”

My one contribution to the Current National Debate is to point out that the brokered-convention episode of The West Wing took place AFTER Aaron Sorkin left the show

I’d read a whole book on paragraphs.

New York, often called New York City[b] or simply NYC, is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. Originally founded in the early 17th century as a subsidized parking program for police officers,

My screening ended a few hours ago and I’m so glad I watched this in a theater

Meanwhile, the Hacks season 3 finale. I hesitate to use the word "perfect," but...yeah. I can't come up with new ways to explain how brilliant Jean Smart is, but man, Hannah Einbinder MVP'd this one.

Unhappy that well-meaning folks are playing around with the "republic"/"democracy" thing. Best to use and treat them as synonyms, not separate things.

No really, it is. "Democratic republic" is basically redundant.

A broken binding is the expression of a different kind of reverence I think.

"It's more of a comment than a question"

When we talk about the movie business and risk, and media and risk, and even academic institutions and risk, I always come back to the same fundamental problem: Get To Friday leadership. (1/2)

Media outrage and info for groups like Canary Mission, I should say, though that’s part of the same ecosystem.

Point is, there was a multi-decade effort to change minds on campus and it crashed into the reality that Israel’s settlement/war strategy is phenomenally unpopular w young people.

Christian Zionism is deeply anti-Semitic and increasingly popular in the Evangelical culture I grew up in. Yet I see people who don’t understand it claiming these right wingers are allies to Jewish people. They are not. They view Jewish people as means to the fulfillment of an Evangelical narrative

Inside me there are two wolves. This is not enough to control the deer population inside me, which is degrading the river ecology inside me. I’m attempting to release more
wolves inside me to address this, but the ranchers inside me object, and

I will leave the analysis of Cowboy Carter to the professionals, but between this and “Fast Car,” I can get behind any phenomenon that inspires people to talk about how fuzzy/arbitrary definitions of “genre” are, which is more interesting than 99% of Culture Discourse topics IMHO!

as it stands, no one obsessed with campus speech actually cares about the education of regular-ass kids out in the provinces

The list of people who are angrier at Jonathan Glazer than at Benjamin Netanyahu is, if nothing else, instructive.

Over 450 Jewish Creatives and Professionals Denounce Jonathan Glazer’s ‘Zone of Interest’ Oscars Speech in Open Letter (EXCLUSIVE) More than 450 Jewish creatives, executives and Hollywood professionals have signed an open letter denouncing the Oscars speech from "The Zone of Interest" director.

This is an ugly and dishonest attempt to suggest that what Jonathan Glazer said is extremist or marginal or minimizes the Holocaust, and I'd gladly cast my lot with the thousands of Jewish creatives/industry professionals who didn't or wouldn't sign it over those who did. variety.com/2024/film/ne...

The Shai-Hulud implies the existence of the Extrovert-Hulud.

The funny thing about being told, “Nobody’s asked about that before,” is that it usually means you’re ahead of the curve or way behind.

Hiding And Seeking With The New York Times | Defector A story changes simply by dint of The New York Times covering it, and how the Times covers it will go a decently long way in deciding what kind of story it will become. That is something that the peop...

this @davidjroth.bsky.social take on the NYT's personal Benghazi, The Harvard Story™, is so good.

Those Hot-Pink Antisemitism Billboards Think They’re Bringing Jews Together. About That. The blaring messages come from an organization plagued with contradictions.

Wrote about JewBelong

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/01/jewbelong-billboards-genocide-israel-hamas-archie-gottesman.html

Not surprising, but obnoxious to see Stefanik call Gay "antisemitic" on the way out. She wasn't accused of any antisemitism! She just dished out word salad when asked about what would be done with people "calling for genocide of Jews," a thing not happening on her campus.

Listening to “A Long December” by Counting Crows

One of the best songs

‎Art of Power: Rosalind Wiseman Breaks Her Silence On ‘Mean Girls’ on Apple Podcasts ‎Show Art of Power, Ep Rosalind Wiseman Breaks Her Silence On ‘Mean Girls’ - Apr 15, 2021

Make sure you protect your interest

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/r...

If you have a certain level of financial freedom - private equity guys definitely do, but a DINK couple with $350k does too - you simply never wait outside in the heat or cold. You fail to imagine what it's like for people to line up for hours on a curb.