01 | what i read and listened to this week
the laziest list you ever did see
podcasts: constitutional crisis meet bird flu
The Ezra Klein Show: if it wasn’t obvious already, I’m a big fan of The Ezra Klein Show, in part because of its simple format: one expert, one topic, one hour (or a bit more). When I’m looking for an easy way into a big issue, this is usually where I begin. It should be noted that Klein is an opinion columnist, so he has a take, but he’s a good interviewer and his producers book amazing guests.
In the two episodes below, he chats with legal expert Quinta Jurecic about what could happen if the Trump administration ignores court decisions in the sweep of lawsuits responding to their recent actions. He talks to Yuval Levin, the director of social and cultural, and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, about his views on the administration’s first weeks as someone who’s worked in former Presidential administrations.1
The Daily: Back in December, I produced a show on raw milk and its connection to the avian flu, so I was aware of the concerns within the epidemiology community around the virus’ pandemic potential. The Daily’s episode with NYTs health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli on the possibility of a bird flu pandemic is extremely sobering if not scary. TLDR: we are not prepared should there be another pandemic. Mandavilli lays out why and what we can do.
music: cowboy carter and GNX
real life footage of me trying to find hope + pride anywhere I can.
books: 1980s new york and saving democracy
I’ve yet to finish any of these books but so far I’m really enjoying them:
American presidents have often pushed the boundaries established for them by the Constitution; this is the inspirational history of the people who pushed back.
A big and big-hearted novel—one enthralling, transformative year in the life of a child actor coming of age in a bygone Manhattan. “In the fall of 1980, when I was fourteen, a friend of my parents named Naomi Shah fell in love with me. She was thirty-six, a mother of two, and married to a wealthy man. Like so many things that happened to me that year, it didn’t seem strange at the time.”
An unforgettable story of love and resistance surrounding two young people born across social lines, set against a tumultuous political landscape in India.
There’s a paywall for Klein’s podcasts but, at the time of posting, these two episodes are still unlocked!