Hamilton

A few weeks ago, I encountered Lin-Manuel Miranda's new revolutionary hip-hop musical, Hamilton, and I haven't stopped listening since. Two and a half hours of early American history, the seemingly-stodgy Founding Fathers portrayed by insouciant people of color. I pity any musical going up against its brilliance for the Tony next year.

NPR streamed the whole thing, but now has Spotify links & such

Cowspiracy

And in a completely other vein, let me direct your attention to Cowspiracy, a film streaming on Netflix. As a sometimes-frothing-at-the-mouth environmentalist, I started exploring vegetarianism at 16 due to the much lower footprint of a plants-centric diet. But I didn't realize, until seeing this film, that's it's actually something like the much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much lower footprint.

Rarely do I overcome the discomfort enough to get my preach on, but I'm saying it now: back away from that burger. Watch this movie. Tell your friends. If you want to stop the destruction of the aquifers and the rainforests and the I-can't-even-start-to-list-it-all, not eating one serving of meat will make more of a difference than weeks of water conservation around the home, driving an electric car, going solar - everything.

(And if you're all distraught, come visit me, I don't get to share my vegetarian cooking with enough people. Also I serve venison, because deer overpopulation. But wow do I have mad respect for vegans these days.)