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Hi.
-I’m sorry you didn’t hear from me when it seemed like Trump won, and then Rudy Giuliani debased himself on TV for a few weeks, and then it seemed like Biden had won but the Republicans had won the Senate so nothing was going to happen, and then the Democrats won the Senate after all, but in terms of things happening it’s uh still not looking all that great.
-I’m sorry you didn’t hear from me when the MAGA people did whatever it was they did at the Capitol.
-I’m sorry you didn’t hear from me when it became Actually Good to be a stock market guy because you could hurt hedge funds and help normal people, and then it became Actually Not Good again.
-I’m sorry you didn’t hear from me when we got a new president who claims to care about climate change to distract us all from the fact that he clearly does not care about climate change.
-I’m sorry you didn’t hear from me when Elon Musk became the richest person in the world, and then stopped being the richest person in the world, and then became the richest person in the world again, and then stopped being the richest person in the world again.
-I’m sorry you didn’t hear from me when the ship carrying the global supply of garden gnomes got stuck in the Suez Canal, and exposed the fact that the security of our supply of stuff that will be landfill waste in under a year (a.k.a. consumer goods) hangs from a gossamer thread.
In October of last year this mailing list went silent. That was my way of not really dealing with the fact that I was about to become a father, something I couldn’t bring myself to say publicly in a world where outcomes are uncertain. Fortunately that baby has now happened, and I am now a father (And in related news: my wife is a mother).
The only thing that interested me during my luxurious five-month paternity leave was my new baby. I plan to write very little about babies and parenting (Here’s a piece I wrote about why), so I hope that explains why you didn’t get any bleak emails about the world’s horrors for a while. But I’m back now.
There will be a real post tomorrow. First, a few quick housekeeping notes:
New Posting Schedule
I’m hoping to go back to the once-a-week schedule I was keeping in the summer and fall. At minimum I’ll be sending these out every two weeks. I still want to introduce a paid tier and post more often, but I’m not Matt Taibbi, so like most of the small fish on this platform, my Substack is not an actual source of income for the time being and may never be, but I like doing it.
Will I be leaving Substack?
My time is precious now, and I don’t know how to migrate my mailing list, so probably not in the near future. I like the sound of Ghost, and I might switch over to that, so stay tuned.
But I did quit Twitter.
After years of letting it slowly sous vide my brain because it was a convenient way to read breaking news and stay in touch with a handful of microcelebrities who made me feel important, I finally realized I needed to stop griping about the hellsite and simply leave the hellsite. I don’t post on Twitter anymore. I also don’t read Twitter unless it’s research-related.
Twitter was my primary way of marketing this newsletter, so if you still use it (particularly if you’re a microcelebrity, or, better yet, a real celebrity) and you’d like to help me out, feel free to post about this newsletter on the hellsite.
But speaking of marketing this newsletter…
I’m an OptOut partner
OptOut describes itself as “a forthcoming nonprofit news app where you can completely bypass the corporate media and read, listen to, and watch exclusively independent content.” That sounded very cool to me when I first heard about it last year. So I quickly partnered with them, and then disappeared and never mentioned it, which was a little rude of me.
Fortunately they’ve been cool about that, and haven’t dropped me as a partner. OptOut is going to be awesome, and I look forward to them featuring this newsletter when and if it’s good.
Feel free to email me
I am the editor-in-chief of this newsletter, but to be honest I’m much more focused on writing it. So if I get something wrong, or if you just want to say hi, or if you want to buy a copy of my book from me directly, I’m at mikeleepearl@gmail.com.