5SR - July 25, 2023

Hitha on space junk, the reality of filming Real Housewives, and bloody revenge

Author

Hitha Palepu
July 25, 2023

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.

Along with the electric grid and carbon sequestration, one of my nerdy fixations is space junk.

Because there is a LOT of it (as there is with Earth junk), and I feel like we’re inching closer to a WALL-E-esque future where the planet and our atmosphere is nothing but a graveyard to our consumer-obsessed lifestyle.

I digress. Let’s refocus on space junk, and the problems we’re facing in our atmosphere right now.

Both Earth’s oceans and atmosphere are global commons - they’re shared and accessible by all, but there’s no governing body protecting and regulating either. Limited governance = limited protection.

We see how that’s affecting the ocean, with pollution and coral reef bleaching and the destruction of habitats (and the subsequent rebellion of orcas - can’t say I blame them). Space junk - the debris from crewed and uncrewed launches and satellites - is similarly littering our atmosphere, making it difficult to plan future launches (given that this debris travels around 17,000 mph and can damage weather and GPS satellites in orbit).

There’s about 12,000 tons of space junk in our atmosphere - it’s a big problem that few are talking about. And while NASA and some other bodies have rules about launch sponsors needing to clean their space debris within 25 years, I wonder if taking more aggressive action now will help us have a better spacefaring future (and a more collaborative one).

One can hope.

I just finished Amy Odell’s excellent book ANNA yesterday. It is a phenomenal biography - nuanced, detailed, and impeccably reported and written. It’s a weird thing to write about a living person - especially one that wields so much power. I think everyone should pick up this book, and this excerpt was the first that grabbed my eye and had me clicking “purchase.”

Some of my specific takeaways from ANNA:

  • Making decisions quickly and decisively is an underrated quality of a leader, and it’s one of Wintour’s strengths. I’ve been reflecting the areas where I’m doing it well and where I could improve, and it’s helped me think through how I make decisions both at home and work, and what they have in common (which is usually a gut check and confirmation from someone I trust)

  • Cultivating a specific style (in appearance, voice, brand, and your representatives) can be a powerful filter in your decision making and staying true to your brand, both personally and professionally.

  • Fully unplugging on the weekends is not a luxury but a necessity. I need to do a better job of this.

  • One side of Anna that we’ve rarely seen is how ambitious she is in her family life (an unexpected Mother Untitled, if you will).

Speaking of books I purchased immediately because of a smart read, I give you Brooding Over Bloody Revenge: Enslaved Women’s Lethal Resistance.

I talk a lot about how history is written by the winners, and the indelible mark of slavery is one that continues to be rewritten to sanitize and diminish the horrors of this colonial practice that endures today (ahem, Florida and the modern prison industrial complex). Reading and sharing works like Brooding allows us to strengthen our scholarly “is this accurate or is this written to not make the ruling class feel bad about themselves?” filter.

Take the time to read The 19th’s excellent interview with Nikki M. Taylor, and I hope you pick up this book (and if you do, DM me on Instagram so we can chat about it!).

“For me as a Black feminist scholar, one of the main overarching stereotypes that I was fighting against is the angry Black woman stereotype. Or the violent angry Black woman. And so I asked myself, “Am I falling into that? Am I giving people more fodder for their stereotypes?”

But I decided that I am not. This is the story of resistance. You don’t have this type of violent response without the violence used to keep the institution of slavery intact. So slavery was the violent thing here — not these Black women. Some people forget about the violence of slavery or just don’t even talk about it.

It was an extremely exceedingly violent institution, and it was violent every day. And so these women were acting in a context in which violence was all anybody knew, and it was the only way to deal with injustice for them, because they had no other avenues of redress.”

- Nikki M. Taylor

Real Housewives is one of my mental release valves:

When my kids are asleep and the house is quiet, I love to prepare a cup of tea, pick up my needlepoint, and let the drama wash over me and release the pressure that builds up in my head and body from the day.

I’m equally a sucker for books and works that show how this franchise is made and evolves, and I couldn’t get enough of Thomas Kelly’s experiences as a producer for several franchises of this iconic show (he’s now at Southern Charm, another one of my release valve shows).

If you’ve ever wondered how someone is cast or the show is filmed or what it was like to be with Kim and Rinna in Amsterdam, you’ll want to read this.

Protests have been increasing over the past 6 months in opposition to Netanyahu’s proposed judicial overhaul - which has just been passed by the Israel Knesset.

“It is impossible to reach any understanding that will preserve Israeli democracy with this government. They want to dismantle the state. We have no way of continuing the dialogue with them. This is the most irresponsible government in the history of Israel."

- Yair Lapid, opposition leader

The vote had significant consequences:

  • A weakening of the shekel (Israel’s currency) and the Tel Aviv stock market plunging

  • Military and intelligence briefings that warned leaders of increasing protests and reservists pledging to not serve, affecting the military’s preparedness

  • An announced strike by the Histadrut, Israel’s main workers’ union

  • An appeal already filed at the Supreme Court against the new judicial overhaul

While Netanyahu may claim this as a victory, it’s far from over - and his bill’s future far from a certainty.

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