On (not) going paid on Substack
I wrote this piece on Medium about why I backed away slowly from enabling paid subscriptions to my newsletter, Alte Frau - New Life.
I had been this close to adopting a "paid without the paywall" model that several other writers have been implementing.
But the news of Substack's deal with Apple to enable in-app subscription purchases (and that those subscriptions will cost more for subscribers outside the U.S.), put the kibosh on that.
You can read more about why here:
Cathi Harris
This is a Medium gift link to my article. You can click through and read the story even if you are not a Medium member.
Speaking of that Berlin newsletter...
In an essay from a few weeks ago, I took a look at the immigration debate from the flip side of the coin.
Germany, like the United States, is facing a rapidly aging population and a declining tax base. Unlike the U.S., the government has promoted immigration as a solution.
The situation on the ground is more complicated. As we soon found out.
Viewed from a distance, as we considered a job offer from a Germany company while still at home in the States, we thought our move would be a win-win. We would get a footing in a stable European economy, contributing needed skills and tax revenue, and bringing two teenage kids who soon finish school and be able to do the same.
No one mentioned the housing shortage, the teacher shortage, or the long waits at the understaffed Auslanderbehörde.
Cathi Harris
Noted
Some links (plus my two cents) on interesting and/or important stories from around the internet this week.
Billionaire gets preferential treatment, news at 11 ...
I, for one, was absolutely not shocked to learn that the city of Palo Alto, California, has allowed Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife to violate numerous zoning ordinances on their way to building a hyper-secure, five-lot compound (plus unlicensed private school) in the middle of the uber-posh Crescent Park neighborhood.
I did find this bit interesting:
"He has a team of private security guards who sit in cars, filming some visitors and asking others what they are doing as they walk on public sidewalks."
Also this:
"In 2016, Zuckerberg asked Palo Alto for permission to demolish the four homes that border his main family house and rebuild them much smaller with big basements."
So it would appear that the man who became obscenely wealthy undermining (if not obliterating) privacy protections for everyone else is obsessed with protecting his own.
Interesting ...
Read the rest at The Seattle Times website here.
The MAGA Influencers Rehabilitating Hitler
The Atlantic's Yair Rosenberg covers influencers and media personalities on the U.S. right who are promoting a revisionist history of Nazi Germany and World War II.
Last September, [Tucker] Carlson interviewed a man named Darryl Cooper, whom he dubbed “the most important popular historian working in the United States today.” Cooper’s conception of honest history soon became clear: He suggested that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill might have been “the chief villain of the Second World War,” with Nazi Germany at best coming in second. The day after the episode aired, Cooper further downplayed Hitler’s genocidal ambitions, writing on social media that the German leader had sought peace with Europe and merely wanted “to reach an acceptable solution to the Jewish problem.” He did not explain why the Jews should have been considered a “problem” in the first place.
This is utterly horrifying, but not shocking for anyone with a decent knowledge of history and who has been paying attention.
This is not even Holocaust denial, but Holocaust justification.
The second Trump administration has been implementing (or trying to) the policies of the Third Reich like they read Mein Kampf as a training manual.
Rosenberg's argument is that the right wants Americans to "unlearn" the lessons of the Holocaust so that they will be more susceptible to anti-Semitic propaganda. I agree, but think it goes further. I think they want to acclimate and normalize atrocities against all marginalized groups.
Read the article on The Atlantic website with this gift link.
Also, for a reminder on where this could go:
Cathi Harris
Member discussion