From Red Lobsters to Pizzaburgers: Cory Doctorow's Pluralistic in May

Having written quite a bit just now about the absolute dreck to which The New York Times subjects its readership, let us discuss journalism of which we can say something more positive--Cory Doctorow's Pluralistic.

As I have remarked in the past, I consider pretty much every post Doctorow publishes there to be worth reading. (Not skimming, but proper, word-for-word reading.)

Still, sometimes it seems to me that a particular piece of Doctorow's merits special mention, and that the past month had more than its usual share of them.

There was Doctorow's item on the real story behind the bankruptcy of the Red Lobster restaurant chain. In its combination of "shareholder activism" and real estate trafficking, the death of antitrust and the death of the middle class, Doctorow makes clear how the decline of this restaurant chain has been a history of neoliberalism in miniature.

There was Doctorow's discussion of the Democratic Party's "Pizzaburger" politics--as well as the enormous risks those politics entail for the party in these fraught times that testify to what might politely be called the party's extreme dysfunction. (For how else can one speak of a party that so often demands that the electorate ""Hold your nose and vote" even as this approach fails again and again?)

And there is, of course, Doctorow's discussion of progress in climate technology and the expansion of electricity production from renewable energy sources--which apart from being worth reporting on itself, especially given the short shrift that the mainstream media tends to give it, he contrasts usefully with the technological hucksterism of Silicon Valley as a matter of real innovation against the fake kind that the "courtiers" of the press so love to slobber over.

Four years ago I concluded that as the techno-hype of the 2010s about self-driving cars and the rest disappointed very badly we had a real technological revolution in the area of renewable energy--in spite of the press coverage. I am more convinced of that now than ever, even as the hucksters of northern California's Bay Area continue to get all the press.