TLP Weekend Edition (September 28-29, 2024)

What we're reading, watching, and listening to this weekend.

A fan holds up a sign prior to the final game ever at the Oakland Coliseum. The MLB regular season concludes this weekend with possibilities galore in both the AL and NL wild cards. (MLB Photos via Getty Images)

📚 We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite, by Musa al-Gharbi. The book that really nails how and why the social justice ideology of knowledge economy professionals has risen to dominance in the name of fighting inequality and, paradoxically, mostly reinforces the social position of those very same professionals. Read this book along with John Judis and Ruy Teixeira’s, Where Have All the Democrats Gone?, and Patrick Ruffini's, Party of the People: Inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP, and you’ll pretty much know what you need to know to understand today’s political landscape.

📖 “Creating West Coast Buddhism,” by Ethan Edwards in Palladium magazine. Where did all that groovy west coast Buddhism come from and what does it have to do with the original creed as practiced in Asia? This terrific article traces how west coast Buddhism came about in a—dare we say it—enlightening way. As Edwards writes:

Each morning, millions of Americans meditate, and Buddhist scriptures are available in every bookstore. But monks are few, and it’s rare that they follow the full rigor of monastic discipline. Many meditators do not claim to follow the True Dharma, and it’s not uncommon that they haven’t heard of it at all. The mindfulness movement has become an incredible source of profit and fame.

Buddhism had to gradually adapt and be adapted to become a part of the modern Western religious landscape. It’s a process that began as soon as Europeans systematically studied it in the nineteenth century. Meditation practices were stripped of their traditional context and given new purpose while still retaining the allure of their oriental origins. Books portraying Buddhism as the religion of modernity excited people’s interest, and accessible retreat-based meditation programs were meant to keep it. This transformation, a collaboration between Western countercultural figures and Eastern religious reformers, tells a story of how a modern religion is shaped and the contours of its future.

📰 “The Problem With a Crowd of New Online Polls,” by Nate Cohn. Ever wondered why some online polls are more accurate than others? Nate Cohn lays it out nicely in the NYT explaining why the original panel-based online polls with statistical adjustments like those from YouGov perform better than more recent opt-in ones (people joining a survey after clicking on a banner ad or app).

The polls were one of the big winners of the 2012 presidential election. They showed Barack Obama ahead, even though many believed a weak economy would propel Mitt Romney to victory.

The polls conducted online were among the biggest winners of all.

The most prominent online pollsters—Google Consumer Surveys, Reuters/Ipsos, and YouGov—all produced good or excellent results. With the right statistical adjustments, even a poll of Xbox users fared well.

These successes seemed to herald the dawn of a new era of public opinion research, one in which pollsters could produce accurate surveys cheaply, by marrying online polls with big data and advanced statistical techniques.

A decade later, the new era has arrived—and has fallen far short of its promise. Ever since their 2012 breakout performance, the public polls relying exclusively on data from so-called online opt-in panels have underperformed the competition.

Keep this article in mind as we head into the final few weeks of an extremely tight presidential election.

⚾️ MLB final regular season weekend. The final series in the 2024 regular season unfolds this weekend with many fascinating storylines to conclude through Sunday (and now into Monday because of the hurricane). We’ll be watching to see who the Orioles play at home in the AL wild card, either the surging Tigers or the Royals. The NL wild card also fits the bill with a crazy last weekend to determine if the Mets, Diamondbacks, or Braves get in the post-season along with the Padres.

🎶 Night Reign, by Arooj Aftab. The latest album from Arooj Aftab—a Pakistani-American singer and composer based in Brooklyn—is a total gem. She’s currently on tour opening for Khruangbin, so check her out live if you can. Celestial vocals and cool orchestration to kick off your weekend evenings.

This song “Bolo Na” was particularly enchanting in her recent D.C. show at The Anthem.