Essential minerals, English rock stars, and the Philly debate
Our green future needs lithium, Oasis wants your ticket money, and the Sept. 10 presidential debate demands everybody's attention.
In absence of exhaustive reporting crafted into a single compelling narrative, here’s a sampling from my recent media diet. …
Bracing for the lithium boom
For your podcast listening I recommend the “On Point” miniseries “Elements of Energy: Mining for a Green Future.” What do we think needs to happen before we stomp on the accelerator of our electric vehicle, or tap the screen on our smartphone? Increasingly, we need to extract lithium from deep underground in Nevada and North Carolina—as well as other essential minerals from many other mines. It’s a fascinating series that digs deep (sorry) beneath the headlines.
Don’t look back in anger—unless it’s lucrative business
I really didn’t think Oasis qualified as the current biggest band in the world, but it isn’t everyday I receive a New York Times push alert for a reunion tour—as I did for the return of fractious brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher to the same stage to lead a reunited Oasis, the sneering British rock band that first took the world by storm in the 1990s with songs such as “Rock ’N’ Roll Star,” “Wonderwall,” and “Don’t Look Back in Anger.” (Yes, sentences sometimes run on when everybody’s writing on Substack without editors. And don’t get me started on the unnecessary parentheticals.) Step aside, U2, the Rolling Stones, Coldplay, etc. However, when it comes to the Britpop war, I’ve always preferred Blur over Oasis. (Blur frontman Damon Albarn managed to launch a second globally successful and entirely stylistically different pop act, Gorillaz—a feat unequaled by the Gallaghers.) But I get the allure of a band that has been out of action for 15 years: Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Even better that it’s a pair of brothers who seem to relish getting under each other’s skin: The Gallaghers have only become more relevant to our modern reality-TV and social-media culture that craves oversharing every iota of family drama. And as Iowans we certainly understand sibling spats within a landmark band, thanks to the foundational example of the Everly Brothers.
Oasis also benefits from Liam’s belligerent anti-hero charisma: He’s the most entitled and unapologetic rock star on the planet, unafraid of insisting he’s in the best band in history (except for maybe the Beatles) while expecting everybody to worship Oasis, shut up, and shell out hundreds of dollars for their reunion tour. The hilarious video clip below of Gallagher complaining about no longer being able to afford several stagehands to help make his tea has circulated again in the wake of the Oasis news.
Debating debates
I think all of us can be forgiven for approaching the Sept. 10 debate between presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump with some measure of post-traumatic stress.
The June 27 Trump-Joe Biden debate, as none of us can forget, set fire to the summer political calendar as the first in a series of events that transformed the presidential race.
This debate will be held in Philadelphia, the “City of Brotherly Love” (nothing to do with Oasis). The National Constitution Center, the venue for the event, is home to a private, nonprofit, and nonpartisan organization dedicated to supporting constitutional education among the general public.
I’ve long extoled the virtues of this org and its diligence in strengthening our democracy through simple means such as civil debate and free education; their weekly podcast, “We the People,” is one of my longtime favorites.
The center also recently published “a brief history of presidential candidate debates” on its website. The article reminds us of the modern TV history of these rhetorical fencing matches, stretching back to John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960.
This year we’ve entered a new era of presidential debates—not only because of the dramatic Biden-Harris switcheroo but also because the Commission on Presidential Debates was scrapped in favor of the Democratic and Republican parties directly brokering their own terms. There’s been plenty of reporting on the rules for the Sept. 10 debate—including a tussle over whether the microphone would be switched on or off for the candidate not speaking. (It will be off—an advantage for Trump to help prevent him from undermining himself by slinging continuous insults?)
I tend to find most debates entertaining, but I can’t promise this one will be enlightening.
You can rely on the regular National Constitution Center programming for that.
The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative roster
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