The most prominent recent victory for organized musicians was 2018’s Music Modernization Act, which, among other things, established mechanical royalties for streaming, based on a “grand bargain” offering streaming services indemnity from infringement lawsuits in exchange for royalties. The MMA was sponsored by conservative Republicans Bob... See more
In a stunning rebuke of traditional GOP deregulatory instincts, the Senate voted 99–1 to kill the measure. For the first time in decades, conservative priorities placed local cultural guardianship over the absolute freedom to innovate. That vote showed just how unsteady the old coalitions have become, and how powerful the populist realignment... See more
The young would-be feminists flocking to “WitchTok” for advice on how to conjure love and manifest success are hardly atheists. Neither are the young men of the right who, if not crowding back into traditionalist churches, grope for a spirituality of strength, vitality, and meaning among the aesthetic ruins of ancient warrior cults. These are... See more
By mistaking language as merely a tool that’s a means to an end—little different from a spatula—too many people have lost sight of the fact that understanding language provides the basis of smart thinking.
To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then, by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others may experience the same feeling, this is the activity of Art.
Though their advocates and spokespeople have a tendency to use the word union loosely, they’re better understood as advocacy and lobbying groups than labor unions in the traditional or legal sense. Despite UMAW’s robust social media presence, their numbers and structural leverage are fractions of those of the AFM.
We also discuss, among other things: decapitated ostriches, fatal rose petals, and Mary’s robust reappraisal of Marcus Aurelius’s ‘sub-Stoic’ maundering.