Author: Time To Say Goodbye

This week, we’re joined by Amjad Iraqi, a senior editor at +972 Magazine and a policy analyst at the think tank Al-Shabaka. Since Hamas’s brutal attack and Israel’s declaration of war, thousands of people in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel have been killed. More than a million people have been ordered to leave the northern Gaza Strip; more than two million Gazans are being denied food, water, electricity, and fuel. [3:10] Amjad, a Palestinian citizen of Israel based in London, explains what’s different about this moment for both Palestinians and Israeli Jews. [32:30] He also untangles the international context in which Hamas operates, both in relation to its Arab neighbors and global powers like the United States—the only country, he believes, with the power to stop Israel from committing genocide. [47:20] Finally, Amjad highlights the need to reject colonial and statist frameworks in fighting for Palestinian liberation. 

In this episode, we ask: 

How was Israel able to manufacture a forgetting of occupied Palestinians by Israeli Jews?

How has the politics in Israel shifted following Hamas’s attack? 

How should we understand this latest wave of violence, given the violence required to maintain Israel’s “status quo”? 

What are the freedom dreams of Palestinian people?

For more, see: 

* Amjad’s writing in the wake of Hamas’s attack in southern Israel—‘Get out of there now’—and an older piece he wrote about “the worn-out aphorism of a ‘cycle of violence’” in Israel-Palestine

* A useful conversation with Tareq Baconi, Amjad’s colleague at Al-Shabaka

* Our previous TTSG conversations on Israel-Palestine: 

* Embracing U.F.O.s and rejecting Zionism, with Arielle Angel (August 2023)

* Loving Palestine, with Esmat Elhalaby (May 2021)   

* Sheikh Jarrah and What Feels Different This Time about Israel/Palestine, with Josh Leifer (May 2021) 

Subscribe on Patreon or Substack to join our Discord community. You can also follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and X (Twitter), and email us at timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com. 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from yet another devastating news week! 

[0:30] We begin by addressing Hamas’s recent attack on Israel, to which Netanyahu responded with a declaration of war. (We’ll have an area expert on the show next week to talk about all this at greater length.) [12:10] In the second half of the episode, we discuss the new U.S. Senator from California, Laphonza Butler, and how her appointment by Gavin Newsom (following Dianne Feinstein’s death) factors into next year’s race for that seat. We explore the organizer-to-politician career path and ponder how labor-y a labor candidate has to be. 

In this episode, we ask: 

What would unbiased media coverage of Israel/Palestine actually look like? 

Has the (online) left overcorrected on identity politics and started to judge “diverse” figures too harshly? 

For more, see: 

* More on where Laphonza Butler fits into the California Senate race and her labor-world connections 

* An excerpt from Regarding the Pain of Others, by Susan Sontag

* Manufacturing Consent, by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman

Subscribe on Patreon or Substack to join our Discord community. You can also follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and X (Twitter), and email us at timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com. 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from the Condé cafeteria! 

This week, our guest is Samhita Mukhopadhyay, a writer and editor and the former executive editor at Teen Vogue. [5:30] Samhita’s personal essay in The Cut explores how being prescribed the new weight-loss drug Mounjaro, not long after her father died of complications from diabetes, challenged her thinking around health and body image. [36:00] We also discuss the decline(?) of the girlboss—Samhita is writing a book on women and work culture—and the enduring power of individualistic corporate feminism. Plus, we hear about Samhita’s tenure at Teen Vogue as the outlet expanded its political coverage and tried to change the culture of fashion magazines. (Apologies for the slightly worse-than-usual audio quality on this ep.)

In this episode, we ask: 

Has the body image discourse around Ozempic and Mounjaro limited the drugs’ real, life-changing possibilities? 

What does it mean for both weight-loss culture and health access that these are pricey prescription medications? 

When is hating on girlboss culture classist and racist? 

For more, see: 

* Samhita’s essays on the weight-loss drug Mounjaro and The Demise of the Girlboss

* Jia Tolentino’s take: Will the Ozempic Era Change How We Think About Being Fat and Being Thin? 

Subscribe on Patreon or Substack to join our Discord community and to hear about IRL hangouts with Jay, Tammy, and other listeners! You can also follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and X (Twitter), and email us at timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com. 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from the negotiating table! 

This week, it’s just us, talking more hot labor summer and a bit about poetry (Tammy recommends the work of Mai Der Vang!). [9:00] After 146 days on strike, the Writers Guild of America, which represents about 11,000 screenwriters, announced on Sunday that they’d reached a tentative agreement with the AMPTP studio group. (Forgive the timing of this ep: the WGA released details of the tentative agreement on Tuesday night, after we had recorded; members will still have to vote on the deal.) [23:00] Meanwhile, as one strike (maybe) ends, another expands! Nearly 20,000 United Auto Workers members across 40 states have walked off the job to demand a fairer share of record profits from the Big 3 automakers, seeking to reverse Great Recession-era losses and prove the might of a new and improved UAW. 

In this episode, we ask: 

Why does so much of the public support the WGA strike, a white-collar union whose ranks include very highly paid (less sympathetic?) members? 

How sturdy is the very new, seemingly democratic operation of the UAW under Shawn Fain?

Can this union wave bring back American manufacturing, or are we just buying time before another big offshoring push? 

What’s with EVs and the enviro dimensions of car-making? 

For more, see: 

* Tammy’s dispatch on the WGA strike and animation labor for the New York Review of Books

* An In These Times podcast that touches on UAW’s unionization push within higher ed 

* Previous TTSG convos we reference in this ep, about the WGA, UAW, Labor Notes unionism, deaths of despair, and more: 

* Listener Qs: Barbenheimer, hot labor summer, & white-Asian relationships in film (July 2023) 

* A.I. scab-bot$, with Max Read (June 2022) 

* Is it finally Strikevember?! (November 2022) 

* Inflaaaation, cool unions, and "We Own This City" (June 2022) 

* SCOTUS trouble, working-class white people, and Taiwan's military (October 2020) 

* Some background on Walter Reuther’s UAW, from 2009

Subscribe on Patreon or Substack to join our Discord community and meet us IRL. You can also follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and X (Twitter), and email us at timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com. And if you’re a freelancer, consider organizing with Tammy & the Freelance Solidarity Project! 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from karaoke! 

This week, we bring you more Olivia Rodrigo content–with Karen Tongson, USC professor, podcast co-host, and lover of all singable musics! [28:50] Jay and Tammy* go deep with Karen on her childhood with musician parents, AzNs in California’s Inland Empire, overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), transpacific music circuits, and why it’s racist to pile on a twenty-year-old Pinay pop star. [3:25] But first, some takes on Hasan Minhaj’s “emotionally true” standup act. (*Sorry for Tammy’s absence partway, then fully halfway, through the ep… and all the water noise, lol. NY apartment life, what can you do?)

In this episode, we ask: 

* Why are Filipinos so often accused of copycat artistry? 

* How does Filipino music resist the long tail of American colonization?

* What makes Olivia’s music so delectable (and so suburban Asian American?!)? 

* When is race comedy funny?

For more, see: 

* A 2021 TTSG episode about the Inland Empire (Environmental justice, Amazon logistics, and immigrant workers, with Andrea Vidaurre) 

* Bruno Mars doing Pandora on SNL (at 23:50)

* Jay’s review of “GUTS” on behalf of Gen X dads 

* Karen’s newest book, out this November, Normporn: Queer Viewers and the TV That Soothes Us, and an earlier exploration of her namesake in Why Karen Carpenter Matters [excerpt here]

* More on Filipino performance and colonial histories in Puro Arte: Filipinos on the Stages of Empire, by Lucy Mae San Pablo Burns

* Clare Malone’s story on Minhaj and his slippery “emotional truths” 

Subscribe on Patreon or Substack to join our Discord community. You can also follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and X (Twitter), and email us at timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from British Columbia! 

This week, [4:15] we start with the latest concerning video of Mitch McConnell and whether the conversation around fitness for office can (and should) cut across party lines. [21:45] Next, we talk about the Korean fine-dining wave in NYC, the effect of soft power, and why you won’t see us at Naro anytime soon. [45:05] In our final segment, we discuss the Serial podcast “The Retrievals,” which explores questions of gendered pain and corrupt healthcare through the true stories of women deprived of pain medication during IVF. Jay takes us BTS of this caliber of narrative podcast. 

In this episode, we ask: 

Is it reasonable to expect basic verbal competency from our elected officials?

If you’re a leftist, are there some luxuries (like dining at $$$$$ restaurants) that should be off-limits? Or is that a needlessly moralistic stance? 

Why is women’s pain continually dismissed, and what’s the right punishment for the infliction of non-lethal harm? 

For more, see: 

* The older and more recent videos of Mitch McConnell, and some doctors’ hypotheses about the cause

* Pete Wells’s article about How Korean Restaurants Remade Fine Dining in New York 

* The Times investigation into A Deadly Epidural, Delivered by a Doctor With a History of Mistakes 

* Books on pain and how it’s addressed: Sick: A Memoir, by Porochista Khakpour, and The Body in Pain, by Elaine Scarry

* Past TTSG episodes we refer to: 

* A recent discussion on Asian food trends in the U.S., from June

* Lux magazine and lockdowns with Sarah Leonard, from December 2020

We’ll be off next week as our hosts attend to other business (their full-time jobs), but watch out for a non-audio note! 

Subscribe on Patreon or Substack to join our Discord community to chat about “authentic” Asian food, and to see footage of the noraebang you heard at the end of today’s episode! You can also follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and X (Twitter), and email us at timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from three far-flung cities! 

This week, we’re joined by our pal Vinson Cunningham, staff writer and theatre critic for The New Yorker. 

After briefly interrogating Jay’s recent pivot to dad-hiker fashion (pic for subscribers only), we hear Vinson’s take on the Trump mugshot. [4:05] The image gets us talking about aesthetic self-perception, the celebrity accused in popular culture, and the lack of a good analysis of Trump’s true appeal. [41:45] Next, we discuss last week’s G.O.P. primary debate, which causes Jay to confront what fascinates him about Vivek Ramaswamy, Tammy to question her EMILYs List impulses, and Vinson to call b******t on right-wing claims of populism. 

In this episode, we ask: 

How does the Trump mugshot, a visual anomaly in the history of presidential imagery, reflect on our political system? What’s the value of similar pix in countries where former leaders are regularly imprisoned? 

Is there any ceiling on this Trump thing? 

Why didn’t the G.O.P. primary debate feature more culture-war talk? 

For more, see: 

* Vinson’s recent piece about the Trump mugshot, plus older ruminations on presidential imagery: 

* From 2017: Pete Souza and the Politics of Looking at Barack Obama

* From 2018: The Politics of Race and the Photo That Might Have Derailed Obama

* Jay’s recent articles about integration in Shaker Heights, Ohio and Vivek Ramaswamy’s debate performance 

* A Q&A by Isaac Chotiner (apols for the New Yorker plugs) about the constitutional case for barring Trump from the presidency

* Previous TTSG episodes featuring Vinson: 

* “Tár,” a film for the chattering class (February 2023) 

* "Mare of Easttown" special impromptu episode! (May 2021)  

* Vinson Cunningham on the NBA, Yang, and IRL theatre (May 2021) 

And pre-order Vinson’s forthcoming novel! 

* Out of respect for our many repeat guests, we note that this episode marks Vinson’s fourth TTSG appearance, which ties him with Hua Hsu and Jenny Wang Medina. 

Subscribe on Patreon or Substack to join our Discord community (and see photo evidence of Jay’s newfound style). You can also follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, and email us at timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com. 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from a Cessna! 

This week, it’s just us, on a grab-bag anthropological journey. [2:55] First, Jay unpacks his recent trip to Martha’s Vineyard and what he learned about the academic elite on a panel about affirmative action. [23:35] Next, we discuss Season 4 of “Love After Divorce”, in which Korean-American divorcees shack up and speak subpar Korean. [42:30] Then we catch up on the sad saga of former NFL player Michael Oher, who has claimed that the film purportedly based on his life, “The Blind Side,” misrepresented his story and unethically enriched his white "adoptive" family. [55:10] Last, we talk about the U.S. soldier who crossed into North Korea, allegedly because he was “disillusioned at the unequal American society,” and the trilateral summit at Camp David.  

On this episode, we ask: 

Is it wrong to eliminate legacy admissions just as Black students and other students of color stand to benefit? 

Are people becoming more tolerant of gyopos and their (our) broken Korean?! 

Will the Michael Oher claims force writers to be more critical of savior stories? 

What do we make of the U.S. perspective on Asia as a theater of war and deterrence? 

For more, see: 

* The panel Jay participated in last Thursday: ‘The Rise and Fall of Affirmative Action’ - The 2023 Hutchins Forum 

* Michael Oher’s claims against the Touhy family, and Blind Side author Michael Lewis’s subsequent comments defending the family

* Coverage of Travis King, the U.S. soldier who crossed over into North Korea, and the recent U.S.-Japan-Korea summit at Camp David 

* The latest TTSG appearance by K-drama expert Jenny Wang Medina, from July: K-content spectacular 

Subscribe on Patreon or Substack to support the show and join our Discord community. You can also follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter (RIP), and email us at timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com. 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello again from the ongoing climate crisis! 

Kaniela Ing is a Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) organizer and former state legislator who now works as the national director of the Green New Deal Network. Kaniela joins us just days after a fire ripped through the island of Maui, decimating the town of Lāhainā and killing a yet unknown number of people. (10:40) Kaniela tells us about his relationship to the affected area and community; (13:55) the systemic causes of this tragedy, including aging infrastructure, theft of land and water, and climate change; and (24:25) what needs to happen to both support people in acute crisis and put those same people at the center of our fight for a better world. 

In this episode, we ask: 

Is this a climate turning point in Hawaiʻi? 

Why is a narrative of resistance, not resilience, more appropriate to this moment? What is the role of Native people in this resistance? 

For more: 

* Donate to the Maui Fire Relief + Recovery Fundraiser 

* Watch Kaniela’s interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!

* Listen to a parallel TTSG discussion about Guam with writer Julian Aguon, from March 2021: Loving Guam, fighting empire

Subscribe on Patreon or Substack to support the show and join our Discord community. You can also follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, and email us at timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com. 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from an East Bay movie theatre! 

This week, it’s just us, trying to dodge yet another COVID surge. (A note from our producer, Mai: Lots of people are getting sick, and testing is hard to come by and not always accurate. It’s never too late to mask up again—if not for yourself, then for your more vulnerable neighbors!) 

(3:25) Jay went to see “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” with his daughter, Frankie. We talk about the film’s pleasing animation style and nostalgia-packed soundtrack. (24:45) Next, we address a recent New York Times investigation into lefty tech millionaire Neville Roy Singham’s ties to China and consider, yet again, how a good leftist should avoid both McCarthyism and Tankieism.

In this episode, we ask: 

Has Madeline (of the Madeline children’s books) been canceled yet?!

Should Jay spend hours systematically indoctrinating his kids into musical connoisseurship? 

Is it possible to critique U.S. hegemony without being called a brainwashed propagandist? 

For more, see: 

* CoComelon, or the stuff of every parent’s nightmares 

* Why Neil Diamond is cool Dad Rock, by Tammy

* Previous episodes on the tankie problem, from June 2020 (Tankies! with Brian Hioe, New Bloom Magazine) and November 2020 (Vaccine apartheid, tankies redux, and the TTSG manifesto) 

Thanks to everyone who’s come out to recent meet-ups in NYC and Chengdu! Check out the Discord for upcoming events in Texas and other IRL hotspots. 

Subscribe on Patreon or Substack to join our Discord community, and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. You can email us at timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com. 

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe