Healthcare CEO Murder--The Media Reaction is Unhinged, UK Labels These Kids Books "Terrorist" Material, Redskins Return to NFL?!, "The Next 'Yellowstone'" (The Five for 12/06/24)
Plus, Scrubs gets a reboot? The music from the Bob Dylan biopic is probably gonna win an Oscar. UFC legend sneaks into Great Pyramid.
Hey, welcome to The Five.
One quick note before we dive in. With Bitcoin crossing the $100K line, I’ve had a couple of friends/neighbors ask me…what is crypto exactly? I wrote a Whitepaper, not for financial advice…but so that people who are completely unfamiliar can get a grasp on what the heck is going on…and why investing in 2025 may be a very good thing.
Make your own decisions about your own money…but here’s a bit of my view and research on crypto.
Now, let’s dive into pop culture & commenttary.
[one]
A lot of the “labor tensions” in the U.S. seem to stem from…workers not having any idea what makes a business actually run (like the tweet above).
From The Daily Economy:
Like most laborers, the barista takes on almost no financial risk in her job. Whether one customer, ten customers, or a million customers come into the café, she is guaranteed to get her agreed-upon wage. She is compensated for her time and expertise, but not for taking a financial risk.
Furthermore, it’s easy for her to compare her pay to sales (instead of profits), but that’s like comparing coffee to wine. The café owner must spend time and money planning the business and building out the physical café. They have to pay for all of the furniture, fixtures and equipment. They have to pay for the rent or mortgage. They have to pay for the cost of the product, including those items ancillary to the product — cups and lids, heat sleeves, various types of milk, sugars, napkins and more.
They have to pay the barista (which costs them more than the barista’s salary, as they have to cover additional taxes, insurance, and perhaps benefits). They have to do the same for other workers.
They have to pay for electricity, water, heat, and air conditioning, and to maintain those systems.
They have to invest in marketing and signage to get people to come to the café. They have to pay for a full technology suite, which may include a website, point of sale, and other communication software and more. They have to pay for a phone line and service fees on payments.
If nobody shows up for their shift, it is the responsibility of the owner, who may have to cover for their workers, or remain shut down and forgo any revenue that day, plus endure brand damage with customers turned away.
It’s safe to assume the barista doesn’t realize any of this…which speaks to a pretty big gap in our K-12 education system about the workings of business…
[two]
As Yellowstone comes to a close, it looks like creator Taylor Sheridan has produced the next hit for Paramount, with Billy Bob Thorton (Tombstone, Friday Night Lights), Jon Hamm (Mad Men, The Town) and Demi Moore (A Few Good Men, Ghost) leading a pretty stacked cast.
This time the critics, who trashed Yellowstone despite being the biggest cultural phenomenon since Game of Thrones, can’t ignore Sheridan’s quality.
Interestingly, the show is reviewing better than the debut of Yellowstone season 1 back in 2018. Critics were not on board back then, as that only had a 58% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Landman has instead arrived with a 74% on release here. That is, however, lower than the other four seasons of Yellowstone that have currently been released. It has a generally lower 66% audience score, but that is at least higher than the 40% that Yellowstone season 5 currently has, as fans are not on board with its current direction in its Kevin Costner-less final episodes here.
It’s not just critics who are sitting up and paying attention, as the streamer pulled 5.2 million viewers tuned into the premier, making it the biggest Paramount+ debut since 2022.
One of the reasons the audience is tuning in to see what the hype is about is a viral clip from the show about windmills…a monologue from Billy Bob Thorton that reveals the “green” technology…still depends heavily on the oil industry:
Do you have any idea how much diesel they have to burn to mix that much concrete? Or make that steel, and haul this shit out here, and put it together with a 450 foot crane? You wanna guess how much oil it takes to lubricate that f***n thing? Or winterize it? In it's 20 year lifespan, it won't offset anything.
And don't get me started on solar panels and the lithium in your Tesla battery. And never mind the fact that if the whole world decided to go electric tomorrow, we don't have the transmission lines to get the electricity to the cities. It'd take 30 years if we started tomorrow. And unfortunately for your grandkids, we have 120 year petroleum based infrastructure. Our whole lives depend on it.
And hell, it's in everything. That road we came in on, the wheels on every car ever made, including yours, it's in tennis rackets and lipstick and refrigerators and antihistamines, pretty much anything plastic, your cell phone case, artificial heart valves, any kind of clothing that's not made with animal or plant fibers, soap, fucking hand lotion, garbage bags, fishing boats, you name it, every fucking thing.
And you know what the kicker is? We're going to run out of it before we find it. Replacement. It's the thing that's gonna kill us all as a species. No. The thing that's gonna kill us all is running out before we find an alternative. And believe me, if Exxon thought them f****g things right there were the future, they'd be putting 'em all over the goddamn place.
Getting oil outta the ground's most dangerous job in the world. We don't do it 'cause we like it. We do it 'cause we run outta options. And you're out here trying to find something to blame for the danger besides your boss. There ain't nobody to blame but the. It's a man and we keep pumping it.
An overlooked element of Sheridan’s success is that the stories resonate not only because we think cowboys are cool…but because there are stories are set in interesting environments we don’t always see on the small screen in this era. Growing up, the majority of the stories on TV were set in New York or LA…it’s great to see middle America gets it’s due in entertainment.
[three]
The government in Britain has lost it’s everloving mind.
A government anti-terrorism unit in the U.K. has reportedly flagged key English literature as potential triggers for right-wing extremism – leading one author whose work is on the list to bash the agency's strategy.
Classic authors such as C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, George Orwell, Joseph Conrad and Aldous Huxley were included on the list of potentially problematic texts compiled by Prevent’s Research Information and Communications Unit, according to The Spectator.
Other authors whose work is allegedly shared by people sympathetic with "the far-right and Brexit" also reportedly include Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Edmund Burke, Thomas Carlyle, Adam Smith and William Shakespeare.
In 2011, the U.K. introduced the "Prevent duty" as a component of its broader counter-terrorism approach, which is known as "Contest." Its primary objective is to employ preventative measures to decrease the risk of terrorist threats, which encompasses the prevention of individuals from being enticed into terrorist activities, according to its guidance.
Ulster Unionist Party councillor John Kyle blasted the list, according to Northern Irish outlet News Letter. "I know that communist and totalitarian regimes have viewed Christianity as dangerously subversive, but when the British Government labels C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books a terrorist threat its counter-terrorism unit has lost touch with reality," he said.
Again, we’re talking about triggers for “right wing terrorism.”
George Orwell was a Democratic Socialist.
Tolkein was an anti-Nazi WWI vet who essentially told his German publisher to F*** off when the publisher asked Tolkein about his “Aryan” heritage."
"If I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people."
And C.S. Lewis…wrote about how current events were often a distraction away from the eternal fate of the soul.
"The current affairs of the moment are not an end, but a means. The use of real events to inflame passions, to cloud judgment, and to distract from eternal truths, is always to be preferred. Let your patient fixate on 'causes,' forgetting that the Cause that truly matters is outside time altogether."
We’re really, really getting close to 1984 territory on the other side of the pond…
[four]
At this point, the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson appears to have been carried out by a disgruntled amateur, not a professional assassin.
Bullets that an unidentified gunman used to shoot and kill UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Wednesday morning had words written on them, CBS News has confirmed.
The words "deny," "defend" and "depose" appeared on shell casings recovered from the scene of the shooting in New York City, according to law enforcement officials. The officials said they are examining whether the words relate to a possible motive involving insurance companies and their responses to claims. ABC News first reported this information.
A source briefed on the investigation said each word was meticulously written, not etched, onto the casings in Sharpie. Officials are examining the casings to determine whether the words could be related to a possible motive involving insurance companies and their responses to claims. Investigators believe they could reference "the three D's of insurance" coined by the industry's critics, which are "delay," "deny" and "defend." The alliteration is a comment on the tactics that opponents say insurance companies use to delay or deny policyholders' claims.
This event will become a political football, likely to outlaw gun suppressors, which are illegal in New York state…and it’s nearly impossible to own a gun in the city, period…and handguns are even harder to own than long guns.
If you want to hear the difference between a regular gunshot and a suppressed gunshot, check out the video below. Suppressors protect the hearing of the shooter…they do not make a gun “silent” like in movies.
If restrictive gun control worked…Brian Thompson would be alive right now. In fact, it’s possible that he died AS A RESULT of gun control, not from the lack of it. The shooter was really bad at the killing, with a gun that kept jamming because the ammo and suppressor did not work well together. (Almost certainly because he got them illegally, and had never tested them at a range).
If concealed carry was legal in New York for all but a select few, the victim would have had ample time to grab his own firearm and defend his life, as he was shot in the leg, then the shoulder before the killing shots were delivered. In most states…Brian Thompson would have had a much better shot at surviving this, because self defense would have been an option.
Whatever you think of the modern healthcare system, the celebration of Thompson’s death, which leaves two young children orphaned, is more than little disturbing. Former Washington Post journalist Taylor Lorenz re-posted the following on emerging network Bluesky:
Hypothetically, would it be considered an actionable threat to start emailing other insurance CEO’s a simple “you’re next”? Completely unrelated.”
After that Lorenz posted a photo of Blue Cross Blue Shield CEO Kim A Keck, without comment…but clearly winking at the fact that someone should murder her next. The so-called journalist then wrapped up the week with a post on Substack under the headline “Why ‘we’ want the insurance executives dead.”
Gun sales have been increasing since 2015, with non-traditional buyers (political liberals, women, minorities), ticking up with crime rates and a general unrest in the country.
The high profile murder of an executive who was simply walking into a meeting…is only going to increase interest among people who never thought they would own a gun.
And your health insurance? Thompson’s death doesn’t improve that one iota.
[five]
As always, let’s head into the weekend with a pop culture roundup…
OUT NOW: I’ve only ever finished one comic book…which I picked up because Watchmen is on Time Magazine’s 100 Best English Language Novels of All Time. The (VERY) difficult to adapt source material got a pretty great movie in 2009, which got a three-hour directors’ cut on Blu Ray, then a spinoff series on HBO in 2019, confusingly also called Watchmen. The source material is essentially about the threat of nuclear annihilation during the 1980’s Cold War era, which means it has some fresh legs, considering Russia threatened to shoot nukes last week. Which means I can forgive yet another reboot, this time with Watchmen in animated form…but make no mistake, this is not kid stuff. Pt 1 and 2 are streaming on HBO Max now.
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is the first project from a galaxy far away in a couple years that actually has positive reviews for it’s Stand By Me meets Stranger Things vibe. I watched the first two episodes…so far, it feels like Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island might have been an influence. There's definitely a pirate undertone…Creature Commandos, the first DC project under James Gunn, has strong reviews for the reboot of that troubled universe.
MOVIES: More footage has been released of Timothee Chalamet (DUNE, Wonka) signing, playing guitar and harmonica in character as Bob Dylan, as well as Boyd Halbrook (Logan, The Bikeriders) as Johnny Cash and Monica Barbado (Top Gun: Maverick, FUBAR) as Joan Baez, and all three sound incredible. The music was captured live, without click or backing tracks, on period accurate microphones—A Complete Unknown releases Christmas Day.
TV: Season 2 of Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone prequel 1923, starring Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren returns February 23rd! If you’re into network TV procedurals, Dick Wolf (Law & Order) is launching a new cop show with Lori Laughlin (Aunt Becky from Full House) in what will probably be perfectly adequate comfort TV (trailer). Scrubs is probably getting a reboot—hopefully with the original cast.
CULTURE SHIFT: The Washington Commanders are restoring the old Redskins logo from the team’s website and archives. The previous logo, which weas based on Blackfoot Chief John Two Guns White Calf, is supported by the Blackfoot Tribe as well as the Native American Guardian Association. UPDATE—rumors are circulating that the full name and logo may return to the team.
It’s great to see Taylor Kitsch (The Terminal List, Friday Night Lights) and Betty Gilpin (GLOW, The Tomorrow War) with writer/director Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights, Hell or High Water) for a Yellowstone meets The Revenant western series that deals with “the violent collisions of cults, religion, and men and women fighting for control of the new world.” Out January 9th.
Harlan Coben is my favorite mystery writer of the modern era. The first American TV adaptation of his work (the Brits have done some stuff, I believe), Shelter, was OK-ish on Amazon Prime. Now, Netflix is taking a turn, with an adaptation of Coben’s 2014 novel Missing You. Streaming in January. This looks very solid.
[music]
Listening to 00’s hip hop is a bit complicated, because some of the best music was released for free online as mixtapes, not proper albums.
Great at the time, but when Spotify et. al. came along, the artists often couldn’t clear the samples used to put their work onto streaming services. J. Cole’s Friday Night Lights is a mixtape in name…but plays as a cohesive album. I don’t enjoy Cole’s later work, but FNL works as a time capsule of the optimism…and uncertainty…of being a college twentysomething navigating the big dreams (in this case, basketball) and big questions that come with college.
The project has finally cleared the samples, which means this is the first time since 2012 or so that you can hear it.
[read & learn]
In my opinion, September 11th, 2001 was the most tragic day for America in my lifetime. But the most shameful? That goes to August 15th, 2021, when Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, and we left 78,000 Afghan allies behind to be slaughtered, along with $7 billion in equipment, vehicles, weapons and cash.
Operation Pineapple Express is the true story of a group of Americans working to pull one of their Afghan comrades-in-arms out of Kabul as the country is collapsing while the Taliban and ISIS fight over who will rule The Graveyard of Empires. It’s as thrilling as it is tragic. (Amazon | Barnes & Noble)
There have been a lot of wild stories told on the Joe Rogan Experience, but one of the craziest to date is UFC legend George St. Pierre bribing his way into a private tour of The Great Pyramid alongside Jimmy Corsetti of the Bright Insight YouTube Channel.
If you’re into the mysteries of the ancient world (i.e. how the Pyramids were built, and for what reason) and you like MMA…this is a must-listen.
Until the next one,
-sth