Category: 3-SometimeCommentary

Hello from the John Deere picket line!

This week is, um, eclectic and slightly technologically challenged. Thanks for bearing with us.

4:15 – Jay’s book is out! Thursday evening, Oct. 21, Jay will be doing a Discord AMA about The Loneliest Americans. It’s for subscribers only, so if you want to ask Jay any burning questions about the book, sign up now via Patreon or Substack!

7:13 – MSG—we all love it, even though it’s bad for us. Or is it? We discuss a recent piece (short and fun) about the history of the seasoning, the veracity of “Chinese restaurant syndrome,” and MSG’s rebranding as umami.

27:49 – TTSG labor reporter Tammy Kim updates us on “Striketober.” From John Deere to Hollywood to healthcare, we are seeing record unemployment (quitting! switching sectors!) and labor militancy. Tammy is here to break it all down for us.

56:40 – Joe Manchin is holding up the Biden infrastructure bill and gutting our hopes for a livable climate. WTF?!?!

Thanks for listening and supporting the pod. Please stay in touch via Patreon and Substack, email (timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com) and Twitter!

Ross Douthat is a New York Times columnist, a father of four, an author . . . and also someone who lives with a tremendous amount of pain. Ross has been battling chronic Lyme disease since 2015. It's a disease that doesn’t officially exist, but it managed to bring this otherwise healthy man to his knees.

This is a conversation about something we all have or will experience: pain. How pain can distort, but also how it can clarify and humanize. In Ross's telling, pain has proven a deeply powerful teacher. 

Ross is one of my favorite thinkers and writers, so we also covered some of his core topics: Catholicism, populism, the future of the political right and left, the internet, and, of course, decadence.

You can buy his new book, "The Deep Places," here:

https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Places-Memoir-Illness-Discovery-ebook/dp/B08Y1BFFWC

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Paris Marx is joined by Yaseen Aslam to discuss the UK Supreme Court ruling that Uber drivers are not self-employed, the long fight to reach that point, and the next steps in the push for gig workers’ rights in the UK.

Yaseen Aslam is the president of the App Drivers and Couriers Union and a lead claimant in the Aslam v Uber case. Follow Yaseen on Twitter at @Yaseenaslam381 and the ADCU at @ADCUnion.

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Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• In February, the UK Supreme Court upheld a previous ruling the Uber drivers were not self-employed, but were covered by a “worker” status. The following month, Uber reclassified workers, but didn’t observe the Court’s definition of what it meant to be a worker.
• On September 28, Uber drivers in 8 UK cities went on strike, demanding better hourly rates and the full implementation of the Supreme Court ruling/
• The ADCU sued Uber in the Netherlands over automated dismissal and not providing drivers their data under the GDPR. In April, the court made Uber reinstate 5 drivers.
• In October, the ADCU announced it was suing Uber over its racially biased facial recognition algorithms.
• Find out more about the ADCU.

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In his new book, Rationality, the experimental psychologist Steven Pinker argues that human beings have the power to think, act and behave rationally, if given the right tools to do so. He asks why rationality so often plays second fiddle to opinion, bias and prejudice. And he believes that in order to ensure our survival as a species we need to learn how to apply rational thought to our daily lives.

Our attitudes towards sexual desire may not always be regarded as rational. Amia Srinivasan is Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at Oxford University and in ‘The Right to Sex’ she considers this universal topic from a modern feminist perspective – a collision of pleasure, ethics and gender politics.

If physical relationships are often the result of irrational decisions, then the belief in ghosts takes the human scope for irrationality to a whole new level. In The First Ghosts: Most Ancient of Legacies, British Museum curator Irving Finkel goes right back to the beginning and shows how the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians believed in the spirit world and considers why this enduring belief in ghosts is something that spans diverse cultures and historical periods.

Producer: Natalia Fernandez

Testing remains one of the most confusing elements of the pandemic for many people. In this Toolkit, Andy talks to diagnostics expert Mara Aspinall and immunologist Gigi Gronvall to answer your questions about rapid antigen tests – when people should get tested, how accurate they are, why they're in short supply, and much more.

Keep up with Andy on Twitter @ASlavitt and Instagram @andyslavitt. 

Follow Mara @MaraAspinall and Gigi @ggronvall on Twitter.

Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our show and get bonus content. Subscribe today at bit.ly/lemonadapremium. 

Support the show by checking out our sponsors!

• Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this show and all Lemonada shows: https://lemonadamedia.com/sponsors/ 
• Throughout the pandemic, CVS Health has been there, bringing quality, affordable health care closer to home—so it’s never out of reach for anyone. 

Learn more at cvshealth.com.

Check out these resources from today’s episode: 

• Check out the CDC’s Interim Guidance for Antigen Testing for SARS-CoV-2: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/lab/resources/antigen-tests-guidelines.html
• Read Gigi’s Clinical Chemistry article titled “COVID-19 Testing and a Path out of the Pandemic”: https://academic.oup.com/clinchem/advance-article/doi/10.1093/clinchem/hvab226/6382305?guestAccessKey=42b74d06-49a8-4972-9183-7583cd3edbc1
• Watch a video of how to take an at-home test, as Gigi suggests, before administering one on yourself: https://www.webmd.com/coronavirus-in-context/video/covid-home-testing
• Find a COVID-19 vaccine site near you: https://www.vaccines.gov/ 
• Order Andy’s book, Preventable: The Inside Story of How Leadership Failures, Politics, and Selfishness Doomed the U.S. Coronavirus Response: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250770165 

Stay up to date with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia. 

For additional resources, information, and a transcript of the episode, visit lemonadamedia.com/show/inthebubble.

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