The Dive, 8/1/24
Your monthly compilation of what's what on global politics, American society, and an assortment of odds and ends
Quote of the Month
"What may perhaps seem incredible to some is that evil men must be unhappier when their aspirations are fulfilled than when they cannot achieve them; for if it is wretched to desire to do evil things, it is still more wretched to have acquired the power to do so, for without that power their wretched aspiration would lack the strength to succeed." - Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, IV.4.3-5
What I’m Reading:
1. What country should design America’s industrial policy?
Why you should read it: At the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, finance professor Michael Pettis argues that if the United States fails to adopt an industrial policy of its own other countries—most notably China—will design it themselves through their own trade and industrial policies.
“But under current circumstances, to argue whether or not the United States should subject its economy to trade and industrial policy mostly misses the point. Like it or not, the U.S. economy is already subject to aggressive trade and industrial policies, and has been for decades, only these policies have been designed at least as much abroad as they have been in the United States… When one country boosts its manufacturing sector relative to domestic demand, for example, as long as that country can freely export its excess production, its trading partners must reduce their manufacturing sectors relative to their own domestic demand. Supply and demand must balance globally, and that is the only way this can happen… This is especially true of the United States because of the special role the U.S. economy plays as absorber of last resort of global excess savings or, to say the same thing in another way, as global consumer of last resort. This role emerges from the fact that the United States takes on by far the dominant role globally in accommodating global trade and capital distortions. It does so mainly because, since the 1970s and early 1980s, the United States has chosen for geopolitical and ideological reasons to eliminate most restrictions on its capital account, letting foreign investors have unfettered access to open U.S. financial markets… because U.S. trade and savings imbalances are partly, or even mostly, driven by industrial policies implemented abroad, this means that U.S. unemployment, debt levels, interest rates, the competitiveness of the U.S. manufacturing sector, and many other aspects of the U.S. economy are also affected by these policies implemented abroad. The idea that the United States controls these and other major aspects of its economy, in other words, is just a fantasy. In a hyperglobalized world, no country can control its domestic economy unless it controls its trade and capital accounts.”
“The point is that trade and industrial policies implemented in surplus-running countries have just as much of an impact on the manufacturing sectors of deficit-running countries as they have on the manufacturing sectors of the surplus-running countries, only that the impact on the former is the obverse of the impact on the latter. That is why if one group of large economies aggressively implements trade and industrial policies that affect domestic manufacturing competitiveness, domestic employment, or the relationship between domestic savings and investment, its trade partners are also affected by the same policies—albeit in the opposite direction—to the extent that they do not implement policies to control the impact of the surplus-running countries’ policies on the deficit-running countries’ own trade and capital accounts. Policy intervention in one set of economies becomes policy intervention in other economies through the channel of trade and capital flows… Washington could choose to opt out of its accommodating role in absorbing global trade and capital imbalances. This would allow it to protect American manufacturing in general, but not necessarily in strategically important sectors in which other countries have already obtained a comparative advantage—like China’s prowess with electric vehicles, solar panels, and batteries. The most likely way the United States might opt out of its outsized role in absorbing global imbalances would be by imposing across-the-board tariffs on U.S. imports or—more effectively—by restraining the unfettered access foreigners have to U.S. financial markets, which it could do by imposing taxes on financial inflows. As these tariffs or financial taxes were gradually raised until the U.S. trade and capital accounts were in balance, the United States would increasingly escape its role of balancing trade and industrial policies implemented abroad.
Why it matters: “Whatever it decides, in a hyperglobalized system of trade and capital flows, in which many major economies choose to implement policies designed to alter their trading and manufacturing advantages, the United States cannot simply choose to disassociate its economy from industrial policy… The real U.S. choice is to determine whether those policies are designed in the United States or designed abroad. Either the United States will decide which industrial sectors are strategically important to its future, or its major trading partners will do so, leaving the U.S. economy to specialize in whatever the rest of the world chooses not to.”
2. Why Europe will (probably) revert to its illiberal past if America leaves the continent
Why you should read it: For Foreign Policy, American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Hal Brands observes that a second Trump presidency would turn the clock back to Europe’s illiberal, autocratic pre-World War II past.
“Which is the real Europe? The mostly peaceful, democratic, and united continent of the past few decades? Or the fragmented, volatile, and conflict-ridden Europe that existed for centuries before that? If Donald Trump wins the U.S. presidential election in November, we may soon find out… Optimists hope that Europe can keep on thriving—even if it loses the U.S. security umbrella that NATO leaders will celebrate at the alliance’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington in July… More likely, however, a post-American Europe would struggle to meet the threats it faces—and might even revert, eventually, to the darker, more anarchic, more illiberal patterns of its past. ‘Our Europe today is mortal. It can die,’ French President Emmanuel Macron warned in late April. In an America First world, it just might.”
“Europe has changed so dramatically since World War II that many people—Americans especially—have forgotten how hopeless the continent once seemed. Old Europe produced some of history’s greatest aggressors and most ambitious tyrants; its imperial ambitions and internal rivalries touched off conflicts that pulled in countries around the world… The fundamental issue was a geography that cramped too many powerful contenders into a single space. The only way to survive in this environment was to expand at the expense of others; this dynamic condemned Europe to cycles of catastrophic conflict. After 1870, the emergence of a unified Germany as the industrial and military juggernaut at the region’s center turned this brew even more toxic. The continent’s politics were as volatile as its geopolitics: From the French Revolution onward, Europe experienced wild swings between liberalism and some of history’s most grotesque forms of tyranny… The birth of a new Europe was hardly inevitable: It took a radical, unprecedented intervention by the same country that had long sought to avoid the continent’s quarrels. That intervention was caused by the Cold War, which threatened to make another collapse of the European equilibrium unbearable even for a distant superpower. It came together gradually, in often chaotic circumstances, in the late 1940s and early 1950s. And it featured a set of interlocking commitments with revolutionary effects… This was a uniquely U.S. solution to Europe’s problems. Only the United States was powerful enough to protect Europe from its enemies—yet distant enough that it posed no real threat of conquering and permanently subordinating the region. Only the United States had the resources to help rebuild a devastated region and bring it into a thriving free-world economy. Only the United States could smother Europe’s rivalries while protecting, and even strengthening, its democratic liberties. Indeed, the U.S. project in Western Europe proved so mind-blowingly successful that, once the Cold War ended, it was simply extended eastward.”
Why it matters: “A fractured Europe gripped by its ancient demons is a nightmare scenario, and nightmares usually don’t come true. But what is crucial to understand is that a post-American Europe would be fundamentally unlike the Europe we have come to know. The geopolitical shock absorbers provided by U.S. power and its umbrella over Europe will be gone. The destabilizing uncertainty over status and security will return. Countries will no longer feel so confident that they can ensure their survival without resorting to the behavior—the military buildups, the intense rivalries—that characterized earlier eras. Today’s Europe is the product of a historically unique, unprecedented configuration of power and influence created by the United States. Can we really be so sure that the bad old ways won’t reassert themselves once the very safeguards that have suppressed them for 75 years are withdrawn?”
3. How Trump signals weakness to China
Why you should read it: The Atlantic China correspondent Michael Schuman contends that former president Donald Trump has made the world much more dangerous by saying the United States might not defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion.
“Words matter in international diplomacy, and Donald Trump has spewed out some that are especially dangerous. He signaled that he might not defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion. ‘Taiwan should pay us for defense,’ he told Bloomberg Businessweek in an interview released on Tuesday… The comment typifies Trump’s view of foreign policy as a business transaction, and likely appeals to a political base weary of Washington’s superpower responsibilities. But although such talk may be good domestic politics, it makes for atrocious geopolitical strategy. The Chinese dictator Xi Jinping is listening for clues about American intentions in Asia, and factoring them into his calculations for promoting Chinese influence. Trump’s Taiwan remarks play right into his hands by undermining the most fundamental, yet fragile, source of U.S. global power: confidence in American leadership.”
“And that’s risky business. Xi [Jinping, China’s dictator,] has turned to promoting nationalist causes to build support for his dictatorship amid economic malaise and heavier repression. This has elevated the importance of what the Communists call ‘reunification’ with Taiwan in Xi’s domestic political messaging. If he is indeed considering military action to make that happen, he will base that potentially fateful decision, in part, on whether he believes that the U.S. will oppose him. By creating greater uncertainty about the U.S. position, Trump is raising the possibility of a destructive war in East Asia… Trump’s latest ill-considered comments are part of a pattern suggesting that he and his party will not stand with Taiwan. He has falsely accused Taiwan of undercutting the U.S. microchip industry—a claim he repeated in his recent interview. This year’s Republican Party platform broke tradition and omitted mention of Taiwan… Perhaps even more damaging, however, is what Trump is signaling to American partners in Asia. China’s leaders seem to believe that U.S. support is enabling many governments in Asia to resist Chinese regional dominance. If those allies’ faith in American commitments in Asia wavers—or even if Xi believes it is wavering—that could persuade China to be even more aggressive in pursuing its controversial territorial claims in the South China Sea, among other interests. Asian leaders, not only in Taipei, but in Tokyo, Seoul, Manila, New Delhi, and elsewhere, could struggle to hold their ground against Xi’s pressure if they are unsure of U.S. support.”
Why it matters: “Xi’s goals to remake the world order and assert Chinese global leadership have not changed, but Biden’s revitalization of the American alliance system has set back progress on those goals. The Chinese leader was forced to alter his strategy by partnering with Putin and seeking to build a coalition within the developing world to counter U.S. influence. Trump’s Taiwan comments are a reminder that his return to the White House would bring uncertainty and instability to U.S. foreign policy, which could once again open opportunities for Xi to demonstrate Chinese leadership.”
4. Why we need to deal with the trade-offs inherent in climate policy
Why you should read it: The Breakthrough Institute’s Seaver Wang and Ted Nordhaus note in Foreign Policy that, contrary to the assertions of some green activists, climate policy does entail trade-offs between competing goals and values.
“Critical minerals are not scarce. There are ample amounts of cobalt, lithium, uranium, and other minerals in the Earth’s crust to power an energy transition and much else. All else equal, a world powered by clean energy technologies will almost certainly involve less total mining than one powered by fossil fuels. But extracting critical minerals at the scale necessary to power the global economy with clean energy will nonetheless require a massive expansion of new mining, often in places where it is not presently occurring and almost always with environmental impacts that many environmentalists oppose… Insofar as the United States and other Western countries are serious about scaling up global critical mineral production without deepening dependence on Chinese production and the environmental and human rights consequences that come with it, there will need to be a lot more mining in places like Nevada, Sweden, and Greenland… Without many more mines in the West, production will be outsourced to exactly the places that it comes from today: China and various developing countries where government enforcement of and civil society advocacy for environmental, human rights, and labor standards are deplorably weak. Already, leading climate advocates are fretting that growing U.S.-China tensions could undermine climate action and have criticized the Biden administration for raising tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, solar panels, and other clean technology… China’s domination of virtually all clean energy supply chains means that going fast requires accepting human rights and environmental abuses on a vast scale. Weaning the world—or at least the West—off Chinese clean energy technologies means either going slower or accepting some level of environmental destruction associated with mining in places like the United States and Europe, and probably both.”
“When pressed, many environmental leaders insist that there is no necessary trade-off between better mining practices and a rapid energy transition. But most would be hard pressed to name any mining project on any continent that they would actually endorse… Many climate and clean energy advocates have been quick to praise China for industrial policies that have substantially cut the cost of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, and electric vehicles. But they mostly ignore the extent to which cheap Chinese clean energy products are inextricably tied up with an economic system built on authoritarian rule, forced labor camps, and other human rights abuses, powered by some of the dirtiest coal plants in the world, and tied to ecologically devastating mining practices in China, Africa, and beyond… When all is said and done, the raw materials to build a global clean energy economy must come from somewhere. And whenever and wherever the environmental movement has been forced to choose, it has effectively chosen the status quo, opposing efforts to expand critical mineral production in the developed, democratic world and embracing empty promises by China, developing countries, and the mining companies that do business with them to clean up their supply chains—the same sorts of promises that have repeatedly failed to produce better social or environmental outcomes.”
Why it matters: “While there is no way to fully avoid the trade-offs between the speed and cost of a clean energy transition and the geopolitical, human rights, and environmental impacts of critical mineral production, there are ways to reduce them. But almost all challenge foundational green ideological commitments… Absent some combination of less material intensive clean energy technology, better mining technology, and better regulated mining and processing, the trade-offs between human rights, protecting local environments, and accelerating the energy transition are likely to become increasingly difficult to resolve. Whatever environmentalists say about their commitment to environmental, human rights, and labor standards, their insistence that the world is already in the midst of a climate emergency that trumps all other social, economic, and political concerns suggests that when push comes to shove, most will continue to look the other way, prioritizing cheap technology and raw materials over a just, equitable, and sustainable energy transition.”
5. Why Silicon Valley’s massive investment in artificial intelligence amounts to a leap of faith
Why you should read it: The Atlantic tech writer Matteo Wong looks at Silicon Valley’s massive, multi-trillion-dollar bet on the transformative potential of artificial intelligence and finds there’s less to it than AI evangelists claim.
“Silicon Valley has already triggered tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars of spending on AI, and companies only want to spend more. Their reasoning is straightforward: These companies have decided that the best way to make generative AI better is to build bigger AI models. And that is really, really expensive, requiring resources on the scale of moon missions and the interstate-highway system to fund the data centers and related infrastructure that generative AI depends on. For a product as important as fire, they say, any spending is worth it…Now a number of voices in the finance world are beginning to ask whether all of this investment can pay off. OpenAI, for its part, may lose up to $5 billion this year, almost 10 times more than what the company lost in 2022, according to The Information. Over the past few weeks, analysts and investors at some of the world’s most influential financial institutions—including Goldman Sachs, Sequoia Capital, Moody’s, and Barclays—have issued reports that raise doubts about whether the enormous investments in generative AI will be profitable. As Jim Covello, Goldman Sachs’s head of global equity research, told me, ‘If we’re going to justify a trillion or more dollars of investment, [AI] needs to solve complex problems and enable us to do things we haven’t been able to do before.’ Today’s flagship AI models, he said, largely cannot.”
“When judged by almost any standard other than the revolutions caused by electricity or the internet, generative AI has already done extraordinary things, of course—advancing drug development, solving challenging math problems, generating stunning video clips. But exactly what uses of the technology can actually make money remains unclear. At present, AI is generally good at doing existing tasks—writing blog posts, coding, translating—faster and cheaper than humans can. But efficiency gains can provide only so much value, boosting the current economy but not creating a new one. Right now, Silicon Valley might just functionally be replacing some jobs, such as customer service and form-processing work, with historically expensive software, which is not a recipe for widespread economic transformation…The tech industry has long walked a precarious line between grand vision and grand delusion; frequently, the only difference between the two has been what pays off in the long run. But in the AI era in particular, a lack of clear evidence for a healthy return on investment may not even matter. Unlike the companies that went bust in the dot-com bubble in the early 2000s, Big Tech can spend exorbitant sums of money and be largely fine. At some point, however, the enormous bank accounts of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta could begin to thin, especially if the economy worsens. If their balance sheets ever get shaky, shareholders and investors might lose some of their enthusiasm, Raj Joshi, a senior vice president at Moody’s Ratings who analyzes the technology sector, told me.”
Why it matters: “For all the talk of generative AI as a truly epoch-shifting technology, it may well be more akin to blockchain, a very expensive tool destined to fall short of promises to fundamentally transform society and the economy.”
6. How think tanks fuel polarization
Why you should read it: In his Niskanen Center podcast, Matt Grossmann interviews academic E.J. Fagan about his research into the role think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and Center for American Progress play in polarizing America’s politics.
“…for the main findings of this book, I’m looking at partisan think tanks. I’m looking specifically at four of the most insider-y of partisan think tanks. These are the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Center for American Progress, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. And the main finding is that they increase polarization, or at least they are a key part of the process that created polarization among elites in the United States that began in the late-1970s. I think when we talk about polarization of the public today, there’s other mechanisms that they’re not as involved in, but that process I think does not start, if not for partisan think tanks.”
“…I compare how often think tanks testify before Congress and polarization in Congress. And they are as close of a fit with a one-year lag. So they testify more. One Congress before polarization increases as close of a fit as any two time series lines I’ve ever seen. The correlation is incredibly high. And if you took that naively, if you looked at that, you would say the only reason polarization increased between 1973 and 2017 was think tanks. And that’s obviously not true. But what’s clear is that there’s a process going on that think tanks are integral to it… I think that’s what’s led to this rise in polarization that you have the actualization of conservatism and progressivism that didn’t exist before the think tanks.”
Why it matters: “…there’s a pretty clear trend, that is the issues that have more think tank attention are more polarized. There are some exceptions, and the question is, why are the think tanks working on issues, right? When I say they want to polarize, that’s what they want: they want to make Democrats more progressive and Republicans more conservative. That’s part of their mission.”
7. How the Supreme Court became “the most dangerous branch”
Why you should read it: University of Kentucky law professor Joshua A. Douglas writes in The Washington Monthly that the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority has arrogated more and more power to itself with its recent decisions.
“Once again, at the end of its term, the Supreme Court issued major decisions that will have significant ramifications for how government functions and for society at large. A common thread connects the rulings: the justices handed more power to themselves.”
“The justices in the majority might say that the Court is apolitical, but the lengthy delay in deciding the Trump immunity case and the likely appeals that will follow the complicated ruling mean that Americans will not have the knowledge they need—whether Trump is guilty of election subversion—before they vote in four months… The Court’s major ruling on administrative law is also a power grab by the justices. The conservative majority threw out a 40-year-old precedent that said federal courts should defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute. ‘Chevron deference,’ named after 1984’s Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, allowed agencies to rely on their expertise. But thanks to the Roberts Court, the federal judiciary can now second guess the experts and insert their own judgment about environmental rules, immigration policies, or any other matter within an agency’s realm—with the Supreme Court having the final say… Indeed, many of the Court’s recent voting rights decisions have given the justices untoward power. Instead of robustly protecting the constitutional right to vote, the Court has created a test that balances a state’s interest in running an election with the voters’ interest in easy ballot access. The application of that test, which fails to protect the constitutional right to vote adequately, results in the Court usually deferring to state legislatures—except when it feels like scrutinizing an election law, such as a limit on the amount of money in politics.”
Why it matters: “In a democracy, the people should reign supreme. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court’s power grab has made the justices, not the people, the most powerful actors in our nation.”
8. How the truncated Harris campaign might show that America doesn’t need presidential campaign death marches
Why you should read it: The shortened presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris might just show that America’s campaign season doesn’t need to be as long and torturous as it has come to be, historian Julian Zelizer posits in Foreign Policy.
“U.S. President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 election and Vice President Kamala Harris’s rapid ascent have raised concerns as to whether Democrats can run a successful campaign in only three months…. But the unusual circumstances of 2024 give the nation an opportunity to test the status quo and see whether a shorter, more targeted campaign might actually be a more effective path toward victory—and simultaneously healthier for the democracy.”
“The duration of the presidential campaign cycle has vastly expanded since the early 1970s. Political reform following the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago was an important factor behind the change… Rather than allowing party operatives to keep picking the nominees in smoke-filled rooms, Sen. George McGovern and Rep. Donald Fraser successfully proposed reforms that made primaries, as well as caucuses, the contests in which voters would determine who sat atop the ticket. And when former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter figured out in 1976 how to use the Iowa caucus as a way to build the perception of being a front-runner, the official kick-off for presidential campaigns became January of election year. Republicans embraced the McGovern-Fraser reforms and moved away from party machines as well. Very quickly, candidates started to prepare even earlier as they wanted to make sure to do well in Iowa as well as the New Hampshire primary so as to receive the boost of an early victory… There have been significant consequences, many detrimental. Perhaps most important is the creation of an endless money cycle. Candidates start campaigns earlier to raise money, while the longer a campaign takes the more money needs to be spent. The permanent campaign likewise ensures that electoral pressures will place constant and intense pressure on every deliberation that takes place in Washington. There are no moments when electoral pressures ebb to create more space for sober policymaking. Elected officials and their challengers can never afford to take their eyes off the hustings.”
Why it matters: “This is why Harris’s campaign is so interesting. Should Harris be able to put together an effective campaign in a few months and defeat former President Donald Trump, she has the potential to demonstrate in practice that a shorter campaign is not only possible but perhaps more effective in our current age… Regardless, the unusual and unprecedented nature of this contest should be an opportunity for Americans to have a serious conversation about whether our campaigns really need to be, and should be, as lengthy as they have become—or whether our democracy would benefit from a campaign cycle that is succinct, lean, concentrated, and not unending. Sometimes in life, shorter is better. Maybe our democracy can benefit from a little less, rather than more and more.”
9. How Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s potential vice presidential candidacy summoned forth left-wing antisemitism
Why you should read it: The Atlantic writer Yair Rosenberg details how Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro—a potential vice presidential choice for Kamala Harris—has become the target of left-wing anti-Israel activists despite his scathing criticism of the current Israeli government.
“A politician designed in a lab to help Democrats win pivotal Rust Belt swing states would probably look a lot like Josh Shapiro. In 2016, when Donald Trump won Pennsylvania by less than 1 percent of the vote, Shapiro was elected attorney general by nearly 3 percent. In 2020, when Joe Biden won the state by one point, Shapiro won reelection by more than four points. And in 2022, the Democrat took the governorship by a whopping 15 percent… Today, Shapiro is the only veep contender subject to an organized campaign to capsize his prospective nomination. Put together by hard-left congressional staffers and members of Democratic Socialists of America, among others, the push is ostensibly about Shapiro’s support for Israel. ‘Tell Kamala and the Democrats now,’ reads the site NoGenocideJosh.com, ‘say no to Genocide Josh Shapiro for Vice President.’”
“Anti-Israel partisans have every right to advocate against candidates who oppose their cause, and there’s nothing inherently anti-Semitic about doing so. But as its name implies, the ‘Genocide Josh’ campaign is not about applying a single standard on Palestine to all VP contenders; it’s about applying them to one person, who just so happens to be the only Jew on the shortlist. And to make matters more absurd, Shapiro’s positions on Israel don’t come close to fitting the epithet… That all of these politicians [and potential vice presidents] support Israel should not come as a surprise. After all, Harris is searching for a moderate to help her win swing voters in states that are currently polling in the Trump column. Although some Democrats have grown more critical of Israel, Americans back the country by a two-to-one margin and oppose the recent campus protests… And yet, activists have not organized in force to discredit any of the non-Jewish contenders for vice president on these grounds. There are no viral memes against ‘Killer Kelly’ or ‘War-Crimes Walz.’ Either the activists involved are extraordinarily lazy and never thought to investigate the other VP possibilities, or they think that Jews are uniquely untrustworthy. Seen in context, the ‘Genocide Josh’ campaign and its tendentious reading of Shapiro’s record look less like a legitimate political critique than a rigged litmus test imposed on the Jewish lawmaker alone.”
Why it matters: “It has become hard to escape the conclusion that some of the activists imposing this inquisition have a problem not just with Israel or Zionism but with Jews, who they assume are serving a foreign power, no matter what they’ve actually said or done. Historically, this is nothing new. The white-nationalist right has long sought to stigmatize American Jews as subversive and exclude them from political life, arguing that Jews are loyal only to their own kind. In this case, however, some on the progressive left are the ones treating Jewish identity as inherently suspect and holding Jewish political actors to a different standard than their non-Jewish counterparts.”
Odds and Ends
How Mars rover Curiosity accidentally discovered sulfur crystals while tooling around on the Red Planet…
What’s in the darkness of the Moon’s Shackelton Crater? NASA found out with the help of a new camera on a South Korean orbiter…
How the ancient Egyptians used hydraulic lifts to help build their very first pyramid…
What does nineteenth-century champagne taste like? Probably not great after spending decades in a shipwreck on the Baltic sea floor…
How India’s sloth bears hold their own against the tigers that stalk them…
What I’m Listening To
To ring in the month, “august” from Taylor Swift’s 2020 album folklore.
“Driver 8,” an early R.E.M. track from their 1985 album Fables of the Reconstruction.
“One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer,” the classic blues number recorded by John Lee Hooker in 1966.
What I’m Streaming
Apollo 11, the stunning and rousing 2019 archival documentary about the first lunar landing mission directed by filmmaker Todd Douglas Miller.
Logan, an excellent, moody 2017 superhero movie directed by James Mangold and featuring Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine.
Those About To Die, a limited series set in ancient Rome under the Flavian dynasty of the Emperor Vespasian (played by Anthony Hopkins) that follows an upstart charioteer faction head (Iwan Rheon of Game of Thrones fame) as he seeks to break into the city’s elite.
Image of the Month
