Non Alcoholics Not Anonymous

June 17, 2019

“It’s a great advantage not to drink among hard drinking people.”

“First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.”

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

Cutting Out The Booze: A Sobering Lifestyle

There was a time when about the only way someone with a perpetual and substantial ‘problem with drinking’ could get sober was to join AA and go cold turkey, never again to enjoy a frosty alcoholic beverage. Today there are more options for those interested in no-or-less drinking as a lifestyle choice.

Three years ago New York-based journalist Ruby Warrington started Club Soda NYC, an event series for other young professionals who, like herself, were “kind-of-just-a-little-bit-addicted-to-booze.” The gatherings featured panels on topics like “Sex, Lies and Alcohol” plus new Age icebreakers like “deep-eye gazing” and Kundalini disco.

The term Warrington had come up with was “sober curious.” In 2018 she published a book by the same title, started a podcast and held other sober curious events. Soon a growing group of sober curious Americans, many of whom were women influenced by health and wellness concerns, wanted to experiment with alcohol-free living. In Chicago a Sober Curious Meetup group for women in their 20s and early 30s has more than 200 members. There are over 18,000 Facebook followers of a nonprofit called Sober Movement.

Chic bars around the country now offer artisanal ‘mocktails’ on alcohol free nights; there are sober curious yoga retreats and early morning dance parties for the non-hung-over. A 2017 book, Mindful Drinking, suggests people who don’t want to be 100 percent abstinent might just want to drink a little less, and think about it a little more. Addiction researcher Katie Witkiewitz says the sober curious movement is a great alternative to more traditional approaches to sobriety.

Vox Populi Popped Beijing’s Bubble

In the wake of continued massive protests, on Saturday Hong Kong’s leadership suspended its push for legislation to allow extraditions to mainland China. It was the biggest concession to public pressure during President Xi Jinping’s seven years as China’s increasingly authoritarian leader.
“This is a defeat for Xi even if Beijing frames this as a tactical retreat,” noted the author of the recently published China’s New Red Guards: The Return of Radicalism and the Rebirth of Mao Zedong. Xi was not in Beijing at the time of the political crisis — he was in Tajikistan celebrating his 66th birthday with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (NYT)
Hong Kong protests: pressure builds on Carrie Lam as public rejects apology: Calls for government leader to stand down after an estimated two million march over unpopular extradition bill (Guardian)

Out With The Old, In With The Doom

It’s a distinction without a difference. In April the military ousted Sudan’s brutal dictator President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who ruled for 30 years. His enforcer, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, aka Hemeti, led the Rapid Support Forces paramilitaries that carried out the violent dispersal of protesters on June 3.
Now Hemeti is Sudan’s de facto ruler. “We thought this might happen,” said one protester. “For years Hemeti killed and burned in Dafur. Now Dafur has come to Khartoum.” (NYT)

You Don’t Trade With Me, I Don’t Trade With You

Earlier this month President Trump announced he was withdrawing India’s preferential trade treatment under America’s Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). The move impacts $5.6bn worth of Indian exports, including steel and aluminum, that were previously duty-free in the US.
Beginning Sunday India will retaliate by imposing new duties as high as 70 percent on 28 US products, including almonds and apples. The tariffs come just days before India’s foreign minister is set to meet with US secretary of state Mike Pompeo at the G20 summit in Japan. Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are also expected to hold talks. (BBC)
China prepared for long trade fight with the U.S.: party journal (Reuters)
Why New Balance turned on Trump over China tariffs (CNN)
‘Catastrophic,’ ‘Cataclysmic’: Trump’s Tariff Threat Has Retailers Sounding Alarm (NYT, $)

Facebook Facepalm

To protect and slur: Inside hate groups on Facebook, police officers trade racist memes, conspiracy theories and Islamophobia (Reveal News)
In court, Facebook blames users for destroying their own right to privacy (The Intercept)
Facebook’s cryptocurrency to debut next week backed by Visa, Mastercard, Uber, and others: WSJ: An unveiling is expected next week, with a launch to follow in 2020 (The Verge)
How Weapons Secrets Often Fall Into Enemy Hands (NYT, $)
Trump’s 2020 campaign is buying a whole lot of Facebook ads: Facebook advertisements were a big part of the president’s campaign in 2016. (Vox)
Facebook to Boost Ad Spending as It Tries to Restore Reputation: Tech giant wants to improve the value of its brands as it seeks to rebuild trust (WSJ, $) If there’s any company in the world that knows the value of advertising it would be Facebook. The government regulates physical health products like Juul, it should also regulate products that affect mental health like Facebook.
Does Facebook Have a Leaks Problem? (New York Magazine)

Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Firewall!

For years the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI have warned that Russia has been inserting malware that could sabotage American power plants, oil and gas pipelines or water supplies in the event of a possible conflict with the US. Officials are now describing the previously unreported deployment of American computer code inside Russia’s electric power grid that is a stepped up response to Moscow’s disinformation and hacking units around the 2018 election.
Advocates of the more aggressive strategy say it’s long overdue. The administration declined to outline specific actions it was taking, but last week national security adviser John Bolton said the US’s broader view of potential digital targets is part of an effort “to say to Russia or anybody else that’s engaged in cyberoperations against us, ‘You will pay a price.’” (NYT)
Trump accuses New York Times of ‘virtual treason’ over Russia cyber warfare report: US president again accuses journalists of being ‘the enemy of the people.’ (Guardian)

America: We Have Met the Enemy, and They Are Us