Instant revision. I found a set of great lectures on Moby Dick and stayed on to watch more of the series. Cyrus Patell does a great job of explaining how we got here. This lecture is from 2009 and makes references to the Obama campaign but the core of the lecture, explaining the Puritan way of thinking and how it set a certain path for that continues into the present.

"Shining city on the hill", "virgin land", order vs "barbarians" is all there. As is the Puritan idea that "good works" will not influence God's decision about who goes to heaven because that decision is already made.

Early Puritan writers forced event in the "new world" into biblical interpretation. They took whatever happened and instantly revised it to mean something biblical. They believed they were the chosen people and that that choice was immutable. 400 years later we have groups fighting "CRT", fighting against truth and diversity. And their strongest fear seems to be the same one the Puritans had: that they are nothing special and that God has not given them free reign to smite others and strip the earth.

If we are going to counter CRT narratives we would do well to understand where the VA school board thing comes from.

The fear they harnessed in Virginia in 2021 was put there 400 years ago. Gets good around 17:50

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What's more American than a drive-thru?



https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8102529/Colorado-Indiana-set-drive-coronavirus-testing-centers.html

I'm writing a mini-series set in 1922 to 1928 which focuses mostly on two untold (or under-told) and overlapping stories -- the role of women behind the camera in early Hollywood and how the rapid adoption of radio threatened early Hollywood so much that they finally spent the money to transition all of the theaters and production to sync sound.

Half of all films written before 1925 were written by women. The highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood from 1915 to 1935 was a woman. She was the go-to writer when there was a big budget, Frances Marion. Lois Weber, Anita Loos, Mary Pickford.... many great characters that will speak to modern audiences.

I'm very good on the film side of the research but the birth of broadcast radio has been harder to get at. I need to learn more about the period of rapid growth for radio, especially HOW the business grew and any conflicts and battles it had directly with movie theaters. TIA for any good sources on this period of American radio.

There is a saying in stock trading that goes 'you know nothing about a stock until you own some.' A similar idea exists in polling science -- you can get unreliable answers by asking people about something they have no vested interest in.

OTOH, people who put money at risk come up with very different rankings. The question is different so the answer is different. The question for gamblers is not 'who would you support/prefer?' but rather 'who do expect to win?'

Warren (pays) 7/4
Biden 10/3
Buttigieg 9/2
Sanders 6/1
Bloomberg 8/1
Hillary 14/1

Bettors believe that Hillary is about three times more likely to receive the DNC’s nod than Klobuchar (50/1), Gabbard (50/1) or Harris (40/1)

https://www.oddschecker.com/politics/us-politics/us-presidential-election-2020/democrat-candidate