The New Yorker: Country Music’s Culture Wars and the Remaking of Nashville /July 17, 2023 by Ashley Gilbertson

Worked with The New Yorker’s Emily Nussbaum on a story about honky tonks and Nashville: Tennessee’s government has turned hard red, but a new set of outlaw songwriters is challenging Music City’s conservative ways—and ruling bro-country sound.

Source: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/07...

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“I don’t do video” lol… On set with dead set legend @groocha

From my journal on Jan 6, 2021: …a few meters away there’s a group, one with a confederate flag, smashing the windows of an entryway. I see Christopher Lee. Good to see a friendly face. The crowd gets in and busts open a door and people stream into the building. I rush in with them. And the first few frames I make in those beautiful, ornate passageways of the lead group to breach the Capitol have Ron Haviv - another VIl photographer - and Christopher in them. My images are out of focus and have movement so I take a moment to change my camera settings. There’s no police to be seen. And it feels like there’s no sense of where people are going. No idea where the chambers are. I have no idea- it’s my first time in here, like it is for most of the insurectionists too. And then they’re moving through the hallways, and the front group stops. I walk into the scene and there’s one police officer, standing there, shouting at them. He’s telling them to stop, they’re telling him to move, they move towards him and he grabs at his pistol. I see him unclip the holster for his weapon and I make sure there’s a protester between me and him - ten inches of flesh should be enough to stop a 9mm I figure and keep working. But incredibly this officer–an African American man being confronted by scores of white nationalists, one of them actually carrying a Confederate flag, others in helmets and armor, some of them with spears and bats–shows restraint. He threatens and he shouts, and he points and screams and holds his ground, and talks into a small radio on his shirt. And then he runs up the stairs. The group follows, and they round the stairs, and follow him into a room with more officers… Thanks for having my back @amykellner & @kathyryan

U.S. insurance companies deny 850 million claims every year, a strategy putting profits over customer health. Patients don’t realize that 50% of appeals have a chance of success. One new company, @getclaimable is going head to head with the big guys to generate appeals for us. I visited Missouri to meet some of the patients that needed help–and got it. Link in profile to a short doc @talkingeyesmedia and @getclaimable made with sound and images we gathered of inspiring patients we met. Captions: “Just when I think there’s hope, they take it away again.” Said Michelle Sharpe, 59, who was filing an appeal for a denied insurance claim in Bridgeton, MO. “Even for me, with a practice management background, to know the whole course of having to file an appeal, how to do it - you just get exhausted.” Said Denice Brown, at her home in St Louis, MO. “How do you deem something medically neccesary for three treatments and then you drop it?” Said Jennifer Hagnauer-Braunagel, in Granite City, MO. “I can barely walk my ankles

Christmas parties that include 13 miles of racing are good luck. If you don’t believe me ask @corey.m.weiss @orchardstreetrunners

New York, NY, Nov 16, 2024

Residents of Awosting, N.J., watch as fire skirts their town for the second night in a row as the Jennings Creek Wildfire grows to 2500 acres and remains out of control. A states parks worker died fighting the blaze overnight, and by Sunday evening, at least 43 municipal fire departments were fighting the fire.

Nuclear lake, the site of a 1972 explosion that sent weapons grade plutonium throughout the woods and lake, is my new favorite swimming hole.

Sunday runs are the best @orchardstreetrunners

Tuesday night mutants / superheroes @orchardstreetrunners

Sunset on summer holidays JK WHAT HOLIDAY