#5SmartReads - January 13, 2023

Hitha on food waste, "day in the life" videos, and Break Point

January 13, 2023

Do I think President Biden’s possession of classified documents warrants an investigation? Absolutely.

Do elected officials need help in managing and properly returning classified documents during their term and immediately when their term ends? Evidently.

Are there clear differences between Trump and Biden’s cooperation with Justice Department officials in the return of said documents and investigation of this possession? Yes - and that needs to be as loud and clear as the “Biden did it too!” noise we keep hearing.

False equivalences are reductive and dangerous, but the way they engage readers and viewers mean that many media companies will lead with them in their reporting - and often make it the entire report. Case in point - this is a rare piece of reporting that clearly points out the differences from a major media outlet, versus the “BIDEN TOOK CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS HOME TOO!” headlines we’ve seen in the first search results:

I’ve been feeling that the business of media (and what’s profitable) and the public’s need for a fair and independent press is drifting further and further apart, with little attention being paid to the impact of this drift.

Bridging this drift is a significant goal of mine with #5SmartReads, and I’m happy to have you be a part of it.

“Over one-third of the food produced in the United States is never eaten, and food waste is the single most common material landfilled and incinerated across the nation, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).”

In a country where so many people still go hungry, this is a tragedy (both in terms of hunger and climate change).

The article has some excellent advice (many which we already know, but a reminder never hurt) on how to reduce your own personal food waste. Here are some tips that have helped me:

  • Frozen vegetables and fruits are mainstays in my weekly grocery shopping. Unless I know I’m making a specific recipe in the next couple of days, I avoid buying perishables until the day I need them (and then I’ll pop into the grocery store that day after drop-off or before I pick up the kids from school).

  • I store my compost in the freezer (we use these bags and this bin) and drop it off every Friday morning at the farmer’s market.

  • I eat dinner leftovers for breakfast. I prefer them, honestly, and this ensures all our leftovers get eaten instead of tossed.

Also props to our desi parents for recycling plastic Ziploc baggies, pasta sauce jars, and yogurt containers until they ripped/cracked - you are the OGs of unaesthetic sustainability and I confess that I still do all of these things.

My friend Priyanka is a vegan chef and writes an excellent sustainability column for the Washington Post - go follow her for more easy sustainability tips!

“He came to believe that companies such as Uber and Ola were exploiting him and his co-workers by setting unrealistic targets, without considering the repercussions. He realized then that gig workers across the country were fighting for their rights in isolation, and they needed to come together to make a difference. So, he started working towards unionizing.”

One of the first Uber drivers in Hyderabad, Shaik Salauddin is now leading the fight for better working conditions and protections for gig economy workers in India.

Workers would not need to unionize if their employers gave them dignified wages and safe working conditions. To see Salauddin do this on behalf of Indian gig economy workers - and succeeding - is incredibly inspiring.

As an avid vlog watcher (and fledgling creator), I couldn’t get enough of this very smart piece on why we love watching “day in the life” videos and their wider impact on our society and culture.

“For me and many others I’ve talked to, “day in my life” videos are opportunities for voyeurism, sure, but they are also satisfying on a more basic human level: By watching other people be productive, we get to feel productive ourselves. In the span of a few minutes or even less, we’ve seen a person get up, get dressed, clean their home, beautify themselves, prepare meals, send emails, take an exercise class, grab a glass of wine with a friend, and cuddle with their cat before lights out.”

For me, these videos make me feel less lonely. The more mundane and detailed a vlog is, the more engaged I am with it. I want to know the breakfast someone threw together, the workout someone does with their toddler climbing all over them, and what they managed to do in a day.

“Perhaps that’s the reason why so many “day in the life” videos, no matter how aspirational or ostentatious, share a quiet melancholy. Here is a person who just wants to be seen when they are by themselves, when nobody else is around. Maybe they’re looking for some kind of meaning, maybe their lives feel small, or maybe they feel so big that they can’t help but want to share it. It’s why I think the best “day in my life” videos are the ones that give voice to all the anxieties and self-consciousness that come with being a person who spends a lot of time thinking about how they present to the world.”

My dad and I are wrapping up the workday early today to start watching Break Point, and I CANNOT WAIT.

I have my Serena GOAT shirt ready, am going to pop up some masala popcorn (popcorn made over the stove and tossed with Brightland chili oil and garam masala) and open a can of Athletic Brewing Co.

Tennis was the sport my whole family watched together, especially Grand Slam tournament finals. I remember the “who’s better, Agassi or Sampras?” debate with my father, watching the rise and dominance of the Williams sisters, and being captivated by the Federer-Nadal-Djokavic competition these past 10 years.

With these greats either retired or nearing retirement, the “who’s next?” question is a commonly asked one. Enter Break Point - a docuseries produced by the same team behind Drive To Survive - that follows the next generation of professional tennis players fighting to become number 1.

The professional tennis circuit has key differences from the F1 tour, and the relevance of the players Break Point follows is far from guaranteed:

“In focusing on a clutch of twentysomething tennis stars, the show’s creators might have reasonably assumed that they were recording a changing of the guard, witnessing the moment these princes grew up to be kings. Except that sport is unpredictable, which is what makes it so compelling, and the best-laid plans have a habit of going awry. This, with the benefit of hindsight, appears to be what has happened to Break Point’s graduating class of 2022. History records that the Australian Open was eventually won by an ageing Nadal. The teenager Carlos Alcaraz has since been crowned as the new world No 1. So the “next generation” was leapfrogged. Its birthright has been denied. It is lost and lonely and the tour has already moved on.”

My favorite moments from Drive To Survive weren’t centered on the top drivers, but the middle and bottom of the grid. What can I say? I love an underdog.

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