There's a lot more on the ballot than the presidency
Down ballot races matter — and could affect your life as much as who's in the White House
Sree’s Sunday Note newsletter is produced w/ Zach Peterson (@zachprague). The photo above is of a blanket my wife, Roopa Unnikrishnan (@roopaonline) made for my 50th birthday this week (design by Srushti Hebbar, @srushtih). Many thanks to all who sent in greetings. Whether we get to celebrate properly in 2021 will depend largely on how the US elections turn out).
Scroll down for Read Something; Watch Something; and a weekly tech tip from Robert S. Anthony (@newyorkbob).
TUNE IN: Sunday #NYTReadalong, 8:30 am ET, live or later. We will be joined by Jim Roberts, who led The New York Times’ coverage of the 2000 and 2004 elections, and starting in 2006, he led the editorial team of NYTimes.com. He is now the Publisher and Chief Strategy Officer for The 74 and was previously Editor-in-Chief of Cheddar. At 9 pm ET, Daily Global Covid19 Show, w/ Anurima Bhargava, President, Anthem of Us; Vice Chair, US Commission on International Religious Freedom.
The best way to know when I’m on the air and see all my archived Covid19 shows, is to subscribe to my YouTube channel. We’ve been going for 235 straight days!
My Digimentors team is working with companies and nonprofits around the world to create virtual events. We’ve worked on events for 50 people and 100,000 people. See our new brochure. Don’t cancel or postpone your conference - contact us! sree@sree.net
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Tuesday is it, the last day to vote.
There are roughly 50,000 reasons to vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, but all of those races down the ballot are incredibly important as well. In fact, state and local elections probably have more real consequences for your day-to-day life than the presidential race.
During presidential election years, local races see higher participation simply by being on the same ballot as the presidency. But, in midterm and off-years, participation and turnout is significantly lower — and the effects of this apathy can be devastating.
Because the last four years have been such a national political and policy disaster, and because 2020 never really ceases to amaze, here’s a nice little guide from Ben & Jerry’s — yes, that Ben & Jerry’s — on why local elections matter. Mayoral offices, city councils, school boards, and statehouses are where policies are made that directly affect your life — and you should vote accordingly.
This segment from John Oliver is six years old, but it holds up remarkably well:
Let’s take climate change as an example.
It’s great, admirable, and necessary to push for climate-friendly policies at the national level. But, as the last three decades have shown, enacting far-reaching policies at the national level is difficult (if not impossible), the measures are typically watered-down, and action simply takes too long.
At the local level it’s a different story. Getting our local school district, city, or county to go green, while no walk in the park, is a lot easier than it is to get the entire country to do so — and, that’s where large-scale change starts.
In the event of a Trump victory, state and local races will exponentially increase in importance. State and local governments, already having weathered four years of the Trump storm, will be the first line of defense against what would surely be an even more chaotic four years than the last chaotic four years.
What happens Tuesday — and/or in the courts over the next couple of weeks — will affect your life, but it may not be the race at the top of the ballot that’s actually the most important.
- Sree
Read Something
This is explanatory journalism at its finest. El País has put together the perfect explainer for how Covid19 spreads and I can’t recommend it enough. Clear, simple, full of visuals — it’s got it all. Check it out and share it!
Tech Tips from @NewYorkBob: Sanitizing Gadgets, Clean & Simple
Each week, veteran tech journalist Robert S. Anthony shares a tech tip you don’t want to miss. Follow him on @newyorkbob.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned this year, it’s how to keep our hands — and anything we touch, like our mobile electronics — as clean as possible. The same public sanitizer dispensers that went ignored in offices and public spaces last year are now looked upon with respect and awe. Fortunately, many gadgets are resilient enough for frequent cleaning—if done gently.
Simple cleaning works: According to gadget makers like Apple and Samsung, it’s safe to sanitize the hard plastic, metal and glass surfaces of smartphones, tablets and smart watches with alcohol-based wipes or Clorox wipes—but not bleach—as long as you avoid getting excess moisture into openings and steer clear of leather or fabrics.
High-tech sanitizers are another option for frequently used gadgets. The new Ampere UV Sanitizer and Wireless Charger expands accordion-style to allow its four ultraviolet LEDs enough room to illuminate and sanitize cell phones or other small gadgets placed under it for one-minute cleaning cycles.
The unit’s top mounted Qi-compatible wireless charger has dual 15-watt coils that can be used to charge compatible cell phones whether the unit is expanded, collapsed or angled for use as a small easel. The company makes no Covid-19 claims but notes that the 250-280-nanometer-wavelength UV light is the same as used by hospitals and laboratories to eradicate microorganisms.
No, there’s no cleaning or disinfection regimen that will guarantee full protection from Covid-19 spread via gadgets, but we do know one thing: cleaner is safer.
Listen to Something
Movies, have we ever appreciated them more? One of the sad ironies of the last 9 months of lockdown is that it also halted production on untold numbers of movies an TV series — which many of us would have finally had time for while cooped up. Paul Scheer and Amy Nicholson’s “Unspooled” podcast is here for you. They’ve discussed many (many) of my all-time favorite films, and I know you’ll find a few episodes to listen to.
Watch Something
Jerry Craft is NYT-bestselling and Newbery Medal-winning author/illustrator of the graphic novel "New Kid." His companion graphic novel, "Class Act," was published this month. He is the creator of Mama’s Boyz, an award-winning comic strip which was a five-time winner of the African American Literary Award, and co-founder of the Schomburg Center’s Annual Black Comic Book Festival. And, I had him on my show!
Odds & Ends
🗞 Sundays are busy at Digimentors. 8:30-10:15 am ET, we read the print edition of the NYT out loud for you to watch live or later. 9-10 pm ET, we interview generally positive people to put some pep in our step as we go into the new week. Today’s videos:
Sunday #NYTReadalong w/ Jim Roberts, former NYT journalist and EIC of Cheddar.
Daily Global Covid19 Show, 9 pm ET (or anytime later you like), w/ Anurima Bhargava, President, Anthem of Us; Vice Chair, US Commission on International Religious Freedom.
The Readalong is followed Sundays 11 am-noon ET by a new medical show I’m co-executive producing with surgeons Sujana Chandrasekhar, M.D. (@DrSujanaENT), and Marina Kurian, M.D. (@MarinaKurian), called She’s On Call (watch live or later).
The Sunday #NYTReadalong is sponsored by Muck Rack and Strategy Focused Group. Interested in sponsorship opportunities? Email sree@digimentors.group and neil@digimentors.group.
🎧 Every Saturday, I host a call-in show on WBAI 99.5FM (@wbai) - "Coping with Covid19" - focused on being helpful, hopeful, and focusing on the pandemic's effects on society’s most vulnerable. Listen live Saturdays from 12-2pm EST, or later. And, of course, call in or tweet questions for us using the #wbaisree hashtag! Listen to a recent episode here!
📺 A reminder to watch my Daily Global Show. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll learn something every time. We’ve had 220+ shows and 350+ guests - and 1m+ viewers. Check out the archive and please subscribe to my YouTube channel. And/or sign up for my WhatsApp alerts list (it’s not your typical WhatsApp group, just a text when I’m live!). We are in partnership with Scroll.in, one of India’s best news and culture websites.
Recent highlights:
Sapphire, whose novel became Oscar-winning “Precious” (she’s newly on Twitter!)
Dr. Keiji Fukuda of HKU, former pandemics expert at WHO & CDC
👀 Did we miss anything? Make a mistake? Do you have an idea for anything we’re up to? Let us know! Let’s collaborate!