Dez Reads. The Season of Inebriation.

With Memorial Day weekend in tow, Dez wants to start off by saying thank you to all those who have served. It’s Katie Runkle here, taking the pen while Josh Culling fights the issues of the day.

We hope your celebrations give due honor to all active-duty service members and veterans, though fall short of the rowdiness this issue starts off with — Drunk deer spinning around in the French countryside, unpredictably.

In our usual Dez Reads fashion, this week’s lineup contains drunk animals, human error, and a bit of philosophy, the usual D.C. newsletter. Right?

MaryGrace fills us in on how liquor affects large animals, along with a warning for French drivers, through linking short-form video evidence. And Josh Culling reminds us that long-form media mattered long before Gen-Z discovered Tiktok Videos, Instagram Reels, and Youtube Shorts, with James Murdoch’s investment to make sure it matters again.

Maya Shackley and Ava Sheehan get into two social faux-pauxs: Accidentally announcing the British Monarch’s death on public radio, and embracing typos to prove Chat-GPT didn’t write that LinkedIn post for you. (Spell check wants me to take the comma before ‘and’ away but to prove I’m human, it remains. Sorry, Ava.)

Nathaniel Beach brings us home with his usual thoughtfulness, this time focused on Martha Nussbaum’s book about human capabilities and freedoms. A light reading recommendation for your holiday weekend, I guess….

Thanks, as always, for reading along with us.

Here we go.

DUI (Deer Under Influence.)

The New York Times. Beware of Drunk Deer, French Police Say, Announcing Season of Inebriation

Ok, first of all, go click the video and then come back to me after you’ve sent it to all your group chats.

I’ll wait.

I’m sure you’ll agree when I say this deer — who got hammered after eating some combo of dried buds, fermented fruits, or decaying vegetation — would be absolutely awesome company at a Phish concert. 

Police in France are warning drivers to avoid drunk deer like this fella because they spin around in fields and are totally unpredictable. Great warning.

Although there is some debate over whether these whirling deer really are half in the bag, The New York Times reports, “Some researchers have questioned whether animals, especially large ones like elephants and elk, can actually become drunk, given their size and the limited alcohol in the environment.”

Well, some researchers should rewatch some video. Bambi’s bombed.  

Plus, the NYT reports, “A variety of animals have shown a predilection for alcohol.” So, there it is folks. 

But Dez Reads fans already know that. And so does our iconic old pal “Trash Panda“ who it’s safe to say has finally found his very own spirit animal. 

Cheers to that. 

– MaryGrace Lucas

Long Live Long Form.

NYT. James Murdoch, Intent on ‘Thoughtful Journalism,’ Buys Half of Vox Media.

I’m a long form guy in a short form world. I am also a capitalist and understand that unless there is an investment thesis for an idea, it’s probably not viable.

The Succession angle on this investment by Fox Corp scion James Murdoch is obvious. But more interesting is his interest in reviving a storied media brand like New York alongside a big bet on audio. I don’t tend to listen to much of Vox’s podcast lineup, but I think it’s important that these conversations are happening, with all the context and nuance that is rapidly disappearing thanks to the quick cut social video content that is destroying our brains.

I may be adding New York to my subscription list to follow along with James’s new project.

– Josh Culling

A Royal Mess-Up.

People. Radio Station Accidentally Announces Death of King Charles Due to ‘Computer Error.’

The Brits, though often loathe to admit it, love their monarchy. They may not camp outside Buckingham Palace waving Union Jacks or spend their evenings dissecting royal gossip over tea and digestive biscuits, but deep down they have no desire to see the monarchy abolished. Complaining about the royals, after all, is practically a national pastime.

The death of Queen Elizabeth II on September 8, 2022, triggered an extraordinary outpouring of grief, public mourning, and national reflection. An estimated 250,000 people queued for up to 24 hours to view her Lying-in-State at Westminster Hall.

There have, of course, been persistent rumors surrounding the health of King Charles III. While the Palace has confirmed he is being treated for cancer, the public remains in the dark about the specific diagnosis and prognosis. News of his death would undoubtedly shock the nation, though perhaps not entirely surprise it.

Imagine, then, driving down the busy M6, absentmindedly singing along to “What’s Up?” by 4 Non Blondes, when suddenly the music cuts out. A solemn voice interrupts:

“This is Radio Caroline. We have suspended our normal programming until further notice as a mark of formal respect following the passing of His Majesty King Charles III. We will now be playing suitable continuous music until further notice.”

Moments later, the British national anthem begins to play. Oh dear. Computer error.

Hours later, Radio Caroline apologized, crown in hand, for prematurely ushering the nation into mourning. One suspects that several producers were summoned to the broadcasting equivalent of the Tower of London.

The incident demonstrated two timeless truths about Britain: First, that the monarchy still occupies a deeply emotional place in the national psyche; and second, that nothing causes collective panic faster than interrupting a perfectly good 90s singalong with a formal announcement and a sudden outbreak of patriotic organ music.

– Maya Shackley

Typos are not Cool.

The Atlantic. The Typo Vibe Shift.

We’re apparently in an era where typos are being rebranded as authentic.

Our digital world is inundated with AI-polished emails, LinkedIn posts, and influencer messaging to the point that spelling mistakes now signal when a human is behind the keyboard.

Does anyone else see the irony? AI is a human innovation that helps us work harder, better, faster, and stronger. But society is now convinced that flawless grammar is soulless, so we are choosing to sound less intelligent by embracing typos.

This goes against every part of my designer being. Craft matters.

A typo isn’t charming to me. It’s distracting. It breaks trust. It tells me that the details weren’t respected. I’m not asking for perfection, but if you choose to skip spell check and think it’s cute to misuse “they,” “there,” and “they’re,” we must agree to disagree on this “typo vibe shift.”

AI has made people nostalgic for imperfection. I get it. But let’s not lower our standards to think that grammatical mistakes are acceptable.

Autocorrect exists for a reason. I’m not *ducking* around.

– Ava Sheehan

Useable Freedoms.

Martha Nussbaum. Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach.

While not a “news of the day” piece like most Dez Reads, I’ve been reading a lot of Martha Nussbaum recently. She’s a modern Aristotelian philosopher at the University of Chicago and one of the sharpest thinkers working today.

Most philosophers who write about human dignity are actually writing about an abstraction, but Nussbaum inverses that standard through her “Capabilities Approach” which basically asks what people can actually do and be, not just what rights exist on paper. But that single reframe exposes more about inequality than most political theorists can.

You can enumerate freedoms all day. Nussbaum asks whether anyone can actually use them. That’s the more uncomfortable question, and most thinkers dodge it.

She also makes a serious case that emotions aren’t just noise that clouds good reasoning, but actually a form of reasoning themselves. When you grieve, you’re making a claim about what mattered. She corrects a mistake Western philosophy has been making since Plato.

Her blind spots are real. The capabilities list occasionally reads like a (small-L) liberal wish list. But she’s one of the rare philosophers who starts with actual human beings rather than working backward to fit them into a theory.

– Nathaniel Beach