Pay Students to Graduate High School? Reacher & Superman in a WWII Spy Movie?! Associated Press Labels People w/Emergency Food "Conspiracy Theorists" Harvard Students Weep (The Five for 02/02/24)
Plus, Zach Efron's new comedy looks great. The case for revisiting the Twilight soundtracks.
Hey, welcome to The Five, a publication about the stories that matter.
It’s Friday, so let’s dive into Culture & Commentary.
[one]
Pay students to attend high school? One state is trying it.
Ohio state lawmakers are proposing bipartisan legislation that would reward students for going to school to not just fight "chronic absenteeism," but also give students an incentive for showing up.
Reps. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati, and Dani Isaacsohn, D-Cincinnati, on Tuesday, proposed their plan to launch a pilot program in the 2024-25 school year.
The program would be run by the State Department of Education and Workforce, which will provide cash transfers to select kindergarten and ninth-grade students for having high attendance rates.
Schools throughout the state, if approved, will be able to express interest in the pilot program by applying to the department, and districts can submit two schools each, to be enrolled.
The department will be tasked with selecting at least one rural school and one urban school, and all participating schools are required to show they have chronic absenteeism in the highest quartile in the state, based on the most recent report cards.
Since the program would be a pilot, only 50% of the students would get payments, while the other 50% would be considered the control group.
Controversial take…but I love this.
Sure, families and communities should motivate students to “want” to learn.
But that’s not happening, and it’s cheaper to pay students to show up (a couple hundred bucks per student) than to have them drop out, have no skills and wind up prison ($30K+ per inmate, per year).
Philosophically, it’s garbage. You shouldn’t have to dangle cash for a kid to open a book. But pragmatically?
It’s more efficient to turn people into taxpayers rather prisoners, even if there’s a bit of an upfront cost.
[two]
With a possible war with Iran and U.S. facing off with Texas and Florida National Guard at the southern border, the Associated Press thought it was quite newsworthy to talk about internet conspiracy theories.
“I have a lot of fear about what I can’t control,” Ramona, now 23, said of her vulnerable mindset as COVID-19 spread. Ramona agreed to tell her story to The Associated Press after she detailed her experiences on a forum for recovering conspiracy theorists. The AP is not fully identifying Ramona or her ex-boyfriend to protect her privacy and safety. “The stuff he was telling me, it made me feel like at least we understood. He had an explanation for what was going on. I didn’t realize what I was getting into.”
This alternate reality nourished by these conspiracy theories would transform Ramona’s life, sending her down a dark path of paranoia and loneliness that upended her life and spun her dreams of the future into turmoil. Convinced that a “New World Order” was already underway, she fell into a trap that has ensnared millions of Americans and even, at times, hijacked the nation’s politics.
Isolated from friends and family, distrustful of the explanations offered by officials and the media, Ramona and Don began to prepare. The military might try to put Americans like them in concentration camps run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA. They had to be ready to flee.
The couple began stockpiling food and supplies. Don started a “go-bag” containing survival gear. He used their modest savings to buy a rifle, a handgun and ammunition.
Ooooh boy, let’s break it down.
First off, people who gather together around weird stuff, like believing the earth is flat, are annoying, but probably no more of a threat than people who live to dress up for Renaissance Fairs on the weekends. Both groups, for the most part, likely transition out of these awkward phases naturally. American society has killed off local religious institutions, and civic ones to boot (when’s the last time you saw an active local Rotary Club?), and so people who struggle socially are going to find any way they can to ease their loneliness.
But…their worries? Historically valid.
”FEMA might put them into camps.”
Yes, the government would never put 25,000 people in the Houston Astrodome to sleep, in August 2005 or anything.
The government would also never build “emergency parks” that can easily be photographed from the air and covered by Wired Magazine or anything.
And having food and water on hand? It’s not like most local health departments have tell you to do that. Oh wait, they do?!
I have no idea what’s going to happen in 2024, and neither does the Assiocated Press. But, as someone who lived with no power for a week last summer, it’s not crazy to have enough supplies to avoid sleeping in a sports stadium.
And buying “a rifle, a handgun and ammunition?” I had two of the three before the government gave me a driver's license.
All of this may be a mystery to the coastal elites who run corporate media who have always lived in plush neighborhoods with their needs catered by Doordash and Prime shipping, but that doesn’t mean having supplies and the means of self defense makes you crazy, it just means you value life.
[three]
Country singer Morgan Wallen is fighting his former management company over an old EP, which the country singer considers to be poor quality and not worthy of fans hearing.
People reports:
Morgan Wallen has issued a response — and a new recording — after he says his former managers distributed previously unreleased material from 2015 "against my wishes."
On Friday, the country star, 30, released the track, “Spin You Around (1/24)." The re-recording is a new take on his 2015 song of the same name. It originally appeared on his Stand Alone EP, when he was still at Panacea Records.
As Wallen explained to fans in a statement posted to social media, "colleagues I parted ways with almost 10 years ago" released an extended version of the EP Friday without his consent, and it now shows up under his name on streaming platforms.
"I’m writing y’all from a duck hunting trip because I want to fill you in on something happening tonight," Wallen shared. "Back in 2014, I went to Florida to try my hand at making original music & songwriting for the first time. This led to a recording deal with a local investor & an artist management deal that I deeply regret."
"Unfortunately, I signed both deals without any legal representation," he wrote. "We made 13 songs. Some were OK, most were terrible as I was just learning how to write in general & figuring it all out."
Taylor Swift is the most famous case of taking action after being unable to control her catalog, but many artists have faced similar challenges. And when an artist dies? All bets are off. Brooklyn rapper The Notorious B.I.G. died in 1993, but 12 years later released an “album” of duets that was little more than vocal snippets of the late rapper remixed by other artists. It’s not that the album is bad, necessarily…it’s that the artist on the album cover is barely on the record, and almost certainly wouldn’t have signed off on it.
Moves like this are why R&B singer Anderon Paak inked himself with a message about what to do with his music after death.
When I’m gone, please don’t release any posthumous albums or songs with my name attached. Those were just demos and never intended to be heard by the public.”
Bottom line…don’t listen to music that the artists who made it don’t want you to hear.
[four]
Harvard students are, ummm, mourning?! the firing of the school’s President over refusing to condemn antisemitism and rampant plagiarism.
The Harvard Divinity School’s Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging hosted a “Gathering to Breathe and Heal” event on Thursday to help students grieve the resignation of disgraced former President Claudine Gay.
“For this gathering, we will create a space for us to discuss and process the departure of our former president, Claudine Gay,” the office wrote in a newsletter announcing the event, obtained by The Daily Wire. The event was intended to give participants the opportunity to “gather to breathe and to heal.”
The newsletter stated that many students are feeling grief upon their arrival to campus.
“This grief and loss may be connected to our personal lives; national and global unrest, harm, and violence; storms and natural disasters; or these increasing times of tension and divide on our campus and in our communities,” it said. “For many of us, this grief and loss also includes the resignation of former President Claudine Gay after her short tenure.”
For the most part, dunking on fragile college students is something that I try to stay away from, as it’s intellectually lazy to call out such an obvious problem. But these are supposed to be the finest students America has. And they’re supposed to go forth and lead major companies, innovate the next generation of tech and guide thought leadership…mere years after they collectively collapsed into a puddle of tears over a President’s very justifiable firing?
Sorry, but if you’re a serial academic cheater, you can’t lead the nation’s most prestigious university.
[five]
Henry Cavill (Justice League, The Witcher) and Alan Ritchson (Reacher) teaming up for the untold true tale of a WWII spy/shoot-em-up adventure is an idea, and it’s one that appears to be well executed.
Catch it in theaters 04/19.
Actor/Director Dev Patel is best known for Slumdog Millionaire and The Green Knight, but is now jumping into the John Wick subgenre of action movies…with a bit of Jean Claude Van Damme’s 1989 martial arts tournament flick Kickboxer thrown in? Cool. I’m in. Catch it in theaters 04/05.
So, comedies just don’t go to theaters anymore, huh? Zach Efron (The Greatest Showman, Iron Eagle) plays a guy who makes up a best friend with cancer, Ricky Stanicky, so he can skip town and gamble and watch sports without his wife nagging him. But when the bluff is called, Zach hires a down-on-his-luck impersonator (John Cena of Peacemaker fame) to save his marriage from years of lying. Hilarity ensues.
Catch it on Prime Video on 03/07. Shame it’s not getting the big screen treatment, as it’s a sign as to what’s coming for comedies. Both Efron and Cena are big stars, so if they can’t get a movie in theaters, good luck to any smaller films.
[new music]
The name Wilder Woods may not mean much, but singer Bear Rhinehart’s main band, NEEDTOBREATHE has a much larger reach. Anold friend of mine, it’s great to see Bear (yes, that’s his real name, BTW) hop on the new single from The War & Treaty, a husband/wife duo who blend classic soul sounds into country music. The pair debuted last March with a full length album produced by Dave Cobb (who has been a key player in the biggest albums from Chris Stapleton, Jason Isbell and Zach Bryan), and look to be following up their freshman LP quite soon. Very cool.
As someone who has listened to pretty much zero time listening Billy Joel…ever…the new Billy Joel single, the first the New Jersey native has dropped in 17 years…is excellent.
[re-listen]
Apple Music | YouTube Music
After my wife got sucked back into the Twilight movies after one was playing on hotel cable, I got sucked back into….the soundtracks for the four films. Think what you want about the teen vampire quadrilogy, but the music that went along with the films captures some of the very best bands and songs from the aughts.If you’re only going to check one of the four compilations out, go with New Moon.
There’s talk of the franchise being rebooted, which makes sense because the original stories are actually better than the horrendous cinematography and special effects that plague the films the first time around. But beating the original music? That’s a tall order.
Until the next one,
-sth