#6 - We're catching everything in here
Influenza B in the house, Dems bone labor again, Everything Everywhere All At Once
I’ve spent the greater part of the past two months sick, first getting sick at my brother’s wedding, carrying a cough from about October 10th until November 13th, when I landed in Los Angeles for work. After a week in LA, I flew to Memphis and met up with the wife’s family, who were en route to New Orleans.
Fast forward to driving back on Saturday, and I’d gotten the same persistent violent cough and sore throat. My dad had the same symptoms twice also (he was part of the crew that got me sick the first time) and just saw a doctor. Apparently it’s Influenza B.
Cool.
The cough has eased up some for me, but Jack is still coughing a ton and sounds like a smokier Kim Richards (sadly from after she left RHOBH, not from when she was lighting up the silver screen in Tuff Turf).
I just want to know, who was making out with a seal?
New Orleans was a blast as always, and I got to see my dear friend, the inimitable Russell Reeves, who I hadn’t seen since 2015. Our AirBNB was about eight blocks from Buffa’s, so I made it there a couple of times and replaced my Buffa’s shirt that I’ve worn out. We ate other food, too, but damn if that Buffa’s burger wasn’t the best burger I’d had since before the pandemic. Did plenty of drinking and ate my fair share of New Orleans staples. It felt good to be back in my favorite city in the country.
Dems hang labor out to dry once again
In the wake of the Senate passing the bill to avert the railway workers’ strike, it feels like a lot of the coverage is really missing the point that the technocrats in the Democratic Party are ensuring that the Dems continue to leave labor holding the bag, further abandoning what was once a central column of support for the party. If you want to understand what’s going on here, Rachel Premack at FreightWaves does a pretty good breakdown of what’s been going on this week and in the months leading up to the apparent detente and this Eric Levitz article at the Intelligencer does a good job of explaining why a handful of the corporations in the heavily consolidated railroad industry are so dead-set against a humane amount of sick leave.
Wanna guess why?
Maximum efficiency at all costs.
Never mind that the industry is making obscene amounts of money, spending billions this year on stock buybacks and dividend bumps while in extended labor negotiations with workers who can’t get sick without having to worry about whether they’ll get fired if they’re too sick to work. Nope, can’t up the bottom line to allow for your employees to be able to call out when sick.
And make no mistake, Biden and Buttigieg made sure that the paid sick leave was broken out of the primary bill because the Biden Administration wanted to be able to try to claim a small victory while still giving the donor class exactly what they wanted. If seven days of Paid Sick Leave had killed the bill, negotiations would have just reverted back to the railways and the unions but with the unions holding a ton of power with the deadline nearing, so pulling sick leave out as a separate bill just eviscerated any negotiating power the unions had on that front while Our Fearless Leader and Mayo Pete knew full well they’d never get the 60 votes required to pass that second bill.
The Administration kneecapped every sick railway worker in the country, though it shouldn’t be surprising that the Dems abandoned yet another union. They’ve been doing it for decades.
Gotta be honest. Kinda hope the railway unions wildcat strike anyway. The self-proclaimed “most pro-union President” we’ve ever had showed his stripes as soon as he had a chance, and such swift comeuppance would be funny.
Royals hire a Manager and Pitching Coach from Good Orgs?
I don’t know that I spoke about the St. Petersburg Devil Rays bench coach Matt Quatraro’s getting hired out from behind the Iron Curtain to serve as the Royals’ manager, but they just lured away Cleveland’s bullpen coach, Brian Sweeney, to be their pitching coach. On the surface, it’s hard to complain about where they’re coming from, but obviously none of us really know how a new manager or new pitching coach is going to work out. Exhibit A: Trey Hillman.
It’s easy to see where these hirings look good on the surface. It’s also clear that the org’s issue is with player development—mostly as pertains to pitching, but I’m not even remotely convinced that hitting dev is totally on track. The pitching coach isn’t going to fix everything all on his own, but I do have a modicum of confidence that Brian Sweeney has at least seen pitchers developed well from his years in Cleveland.
I’d say it can’t be worse than what we’ve seen, but we all know what Buddy Bell said…
Everything Everywhere All At Once
What a wild ride that movie was. Finally saw it. Can’t recommend it highly enough. Streaming with a Showtime add-on. Michelle Yeoh is phenomenal, and what a trip it was to see Ke Huy Quan after all these years. Don’t read about it. Just watch it and let the weird wash over you.
Haven’t really done much podcast promotion here, but last week’s episode was really great, and we had a special guest Summer on to try to make it so two cishet white guys weren’t talking about a transgender-centric episode. This week’s episode was a truly insane SVU with one of the most convoluted schemes we’ve yet to come across.
I’ve been trying to find time to read this Nic Cage/John Carpenter convo all week, but have failed thus far. Oh, Mandy is still streaming free on Tubi and it’s on PlutoTV, bee-tee-dubs. Watch it.
RIP to my favorite member of Fleetwood Mac, Christine McVie.
Raccacoonie!