5SR - February 20, 2024

Hitha on a real life One Day love story, soup, and the enduring obsession with Evita

Author

Hitha Palepu
February 20, 2024

Today’s curator is the founder of #5SmartReads, Hitha Palepu. She’s a consummate multihyphenate - CEO of Rhoshan Pharmaceuticals, author of WE’RE SPEAKING: The Life Lessons of Kamala Harris and How to Pack: Travel Smart for Any Trip, and professional speaker. Hitha is an unabashed fan of Taco Bell, Philadelphia sports teams & F1, romance novels, and is a mediocre crafter. She lives in NYC with her husband and two sons.

I confess that my first education of Eva Perón came from Madonna (as did my learning about Wallis Simpson). Evita simply scratches the surface of Eva Peron’s story and her complicated legacy, which continues to endure as a person and as Peronism in Argentina.

“That movement [Peronism] is currently the biggest opposition force in Argentina. And some political observers attribute the recent vote to elect President Javier Milei as a means to defeat Peronism and its previous hold on the presidency.

“For us, she is the spiritual reservoir of the people,” said Julio Piumato, human rights director at the largest union in Argentina. He signed a 2019 document requesting Evita’s beatification.

“No other figure has a deeper significance,” Piumato said. “The humble sectors are synthesized in Evita.””

There’s a lot I didn’t know about Eva and Juan Domingo Perón that I learned in this article, and I appreciate that it reports on the positive and negative parts of the Peróns’ legacy.

The 'real' One Day (Things Worth Knowing)

Like the rest of the Internet, I am obsessed with One Day (if I’m not watching the show, I’m watching interviews with Ambika Mor and Leo Woodhall on YouTube because their chemistry is just magical).

Farrah Storr’s own love story is One Day come to life, and so beautifully written in this essay. Come for Farrah’s own love story, and stay for her keen observations on love, friendship, and the need for little love stories fortified through friendship, conversation, and care.

I’ll leave you with my favorite quote from her essay:

“I remember being so grateful that a book had finally acknowledged the role great friendship can play in a love story, rather than silly notions of ‘instant connections made across a crowded room’ that had populated culture when I was growing up. (And thus wrongly informed my ideas about relationships.) It seemed so obvious to me that friendship should be the foundation for every great love story, and yet it rarely makes it into songs or films or great literature about love.”

It’s not just access to abortion medication and services that’s being banned or restricted. Even accessing accurate, evidence-based reproductive healthcare is increasingly difficult.

For many pregnant people in states that have restricted or banned abortion, their only option are crisis pregnancy centers that deliver inaccurate information and emotionally dissuade patients from making a decision that’s best for them.

That’s not even the worst part. There are over 2,500 crisis pregnancy centers in the country - and most of them receive state funding.

That an employer can deny your contraception coverage on the basis of religious views and your taxes go towards funding these centers is $#&%$*#($*#(*#%$*&.

It’s still soup season and this primer on turning anything into soup is just an excellent, informative, cozy read.

And one that will make you hungry - just a warning.

I’ve struggled to understand the appeal of RFK Jr. Perhaps that’s the point - I’m not the voter he’s trying to court.

His focus is on the “manosphere” - and it’s a terrifyingly significant voting bloc.

Now, I will be the first to highlight that polling in 2024 is flawed at best (poll lists are largely comprised of landlines and our generation is likely to ignore calls from unknown numbers). But Kennedy’s appeal to the “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” men is fueling his strong polling numbers by echoing the message that his base has been hearing from the podcasts they listen to and the books they read.

A simple message, repeated over and over again, will influence even the most strongly held opinions. This was Trump’s 2016 playbook, and it’s one Kennedy is deploying quite effectively, and he benefits from his amplification of his manosphere surrogates.

2016 has shown me that anything can happen in an election. While the press is focused on the 2020 rematch between Biden and Trump, I would encourage you to pay some attention to what Kennedy is saying - and who’s listening to him.

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