TLP Weekend Edition (January 11-12, 2025)

What we're reading and checking out.

Ravens supporters getting in a workout in Broncos-like conditions ahead of the big playoff weekend. (Author photo)

📖 “America, the beautiful,” by Chris Arnade. On his excellent Substack, Chris Arnade Walks the World, the author departs from his sometimes grim takes on the reality of life in different parts of America and writes about its inherent goodness:

Looking back at my posts for the year, the three best performing were all negative essays on the US, topped by my dystopian take on Phoenix. The second most popular was arguing Europe is healthier than the US and the third about the death of the American Dream. I did write two more positive pieces, one arguing the world doesn’t hate America, and another explicitly stating the US is better than Europe, but neither resonated like the pessimistic pieces.

I stand by all those pieces, yet sometimes you can miss the forest for the trees, or the beauty for the addicts clustered on the street corner. The US is still a great nation, and it’s where I choose to live, not out of necessity or inertia, but because I want to be here. I want to be here for its wealth, its vastness, its independence, its openness, its convenience, its safety, and most of all for its optimism, which while hard to see at times, is there, simmering beneath the surface drawing the hopeful of the world, like moths to a flame, to line up at our embassies hoping to get a green card and a chance at a better life.

That optimism is present even in some of the most dystopian scenes, and even in my most negative pieces, like Caroline in Bristol, who while living in a shelter hiding from an abusive ex, had gotten up early on a Sunday morning to apply for a job at the McDonald’s.

Stellar reporting and feature writing. Arnade says he is finishing up three years of walking and world traveling next month with a trip to “Dubai, Oman, Dhaka, Kunming (China), Beijing, Seoul, ending in Washington DC on February 27 to give a talk in a McDonalds!” His essay on McDonalds in The Free Press is also a worthwhile read.

🕵 “Opening the DNC’s Black Box: Why we’re publishing a previously undisclosed list of all 448 members of the Democratic National Committee,” by Micah Sifry. The American Prospect does regular Democratic Party members a real service by publishing the previously undisclosed list of the select people who will choose the next party chair in February.

But who will make this decision? Officially, it’s a secret. According to the DNC, there are 448 active members of the national committee, including 200 elected members from 57 states, territories, and Democrats Abroad; members representing 16 affiliate groups; and 73 “at-large” members who were elected as a slate appointed in 2021 by the party chairman, Jaime Harrison. For a party that claims the word “democratic” and insists that it is a champion of transparency and accountability in government, the official roster of these 448 voters is not public.

Check it out if you’re a Democrat and see who is making decisions in your name and what their angles and positions might be in shaping the party’s future.

📖 “Hot Pink Speed in Myanmar,” by Patrick Winn. On his Substack, CrashOut, Ioan Grillo publishes a wild excerpt from his friend Patrick Winn’s book, Hello Shadowlands, about the drug trade in Myanmar. This is a country where syndicates “churn out billions of pink speed pills per year, making them one of the top-selling illegal products on earth, and they use them to bankroll veritable states with their own armies, national anthems, highways, electrical grids and hospitals.” What’s the diabolical allure of meth and why is it so popular in this region and others? Winn writes:

Ya ma. That’s what they call these pills in Myanmar. Translation: horse pills. If swallowed or smoked, the pills bring stallion-esque intensity to any task: sex, plowing rice fields, partying, assembling sneakers in a factory, shooting the shit in some dusty attic.

This drug scene is steeped in slang. In neighboring Thailand, a prime consumer of Myanmar’s meth, these tablets are known by a more sinister name: ya ba: madness pills. That’s the term preferred by police across Southeast Asia.

But Zau Ring and his crew are not tilting towards face-chewing insanity—the sort of crazed behavior caricatured in anti-drug propaganda. They seem no more psychotic than a few grad students snorting powder-blue rails of Adderall off a physics textbook. (Still, if Adderall is Bombay Sapphire, this is bathtub gin: noxious, strong stuff riddled with adulterants.)

As the men tell it, meth positively dazzles. Euphoria? That doesn’t quite capture it. It’s more like sublime confidence. Your ego is electrified. Your enemies seem small. Your day crackles with brilliant potential.

On meth, you are essential. You matter. You are in control.

Yikes!

🏈 NFL Wild Card Weekend, on CBS, Prime, Fox, NBC, and ESPN. This weekend kicks off the 2024–2025 NFL season playoffs, with 12 of 14 teams beginning the long journey to the Super Bowl (two teams, the Chiefs and Lions, earned a bye week). Among the six games taking place over the next three days, here are three matchups to watch:

Denver Broncos @ Buffalo Bills—Rookie quarterback Bo Nix and veteran head coach Sean Payton have helped lead the Broncos to their first playoff appearance since the team's 2015 Super Bowl-winning season, ending the league's second-longest playoff drought. This young team will face off against a strong Bills squad whose own quarterback, Josh Allen, is in the conversation for this year's MVP. The Bills are a nine-point favorite, and if they take care of business on their home field, it will put them one step closer to lifting the Lombardi trophy for the first time in their franchise's history. Can the Broncos spoil the fun?

Pittsburgh Steelers @ Baltimore Ravens—Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson has dominated the NFL for much of his six-year career, breaking records right and left and earning two MVP awards (and he is favored to notch a third this season). But there's one major blemish on his resume: production in the playoffs. Despite all his personal success, Jackson's teams have only won two playoff games, and they have never made it to the Super Bowl. This weekend, they face a longtime divisional foe in the Pittsburgh Steelers, who boast one of the league's top defensive units. The two teams split their series during the regular season, and each time the home team came out on top. With this must-win game taking place in Baltimore, can Jackson's unit win and finally make a Super Bowl run?

Washington Commanders @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers—One other rookie quarterback is set to lead his team into the playoffs this year: Jayden Daniels of the Washington Commanders. Daniels, who secured college football's prestigious Heisman Trophy in 2023, is favored to win Rookie of the Year accolades this season as he led the Commanders to an impressive 12–5 record with some thrilling victories. They'll be facing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Bucs are led by journeyman quarterback Baker Mayfield, who seems to have had a career renaissance in Tampa this season. While the Bucs won the Super Bowl just four years ago, the Washington franchise hasn't even won a playoff game in 20 years. Their last win? Over Tampa Bay. Do the Commanders have a date with destiny, or will Mayfield's seasoned leadership and the Bucs' home field advantage be too much?

🎸 “(Is Anybody Going To) San Antone,” played by Doug Sahm. With part of TLP decamped to San Antonio in January, the rest of us will have to live vicariously by enjoying Sahm and his band’s cover of this classic Dave Kirby/Glenn Martin song about his home state. Fiddle, dobro, pedal steel, electric guitar, accordion, drums, bass—this tune has it all.

Kick back with a cold one, watch some football, and hitch a ride to good ol’ San Antone this weekend!