Orel Family

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, March 29, 2023, Detroit It wasn't so long ago that Bruce Springsteen coming to Michigan to play was pretty much an annual event. Every year from 2002 through 2009, Bruce made at least one appearance in the Great Lakes State. But after Bruce infamously forgot where he was during that 2009 show at The Palace of Auburn Hills , his appearances here have been rare. Last night's appearance with the E Street Band at Little Caesar's Arena in Detroit marked just his 2nd appearance in Michigan in the past decade, and was his first in the city of Detroit since 2005. Which is to say, it's been a moment. Things have happened. But more to the point: Springsteen & E Street Band -- the graphics for this tour can't be bothered with first names or definite articles -- were in town last night for a show, and this is what I witnessed. Smile for the camera! Ezra (and the hat) with Bruce in Detroit Just before 7:45pm the lights dimmed. I was s...

On Sunday morning I was kicking back, killing a little time flipping through whatever popped up in my twitter feed. I saw a somewhat provocative post from journalist Matt Taibbi , with a somewhat vague (to me, anyway) accusation : "The worst thing you can do, if you want people to take a vaccine, is lie about it. You don’t realize it, and these people at Stanford may not, but what they massively promoted “hesitancy.” What are we supposed to, not print this?" Taibbi has been one of Elon Musk's primary go-to people for publishing "the twitter files"; presented as an exposé of how Twitter operated prior to Musk's takeover of the platform last October. A couple days prior, Taibbi had presented episode 19 of the files , which he titled, in his typically understated approach, "The Great Covid-19 Lie Machine - Stanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of 'True Stories'". The thread was a whopping 45 tweets, and I stopped paying close atte...