Each Tuesday (OK, most Tuesdays) I’ll continue to deliver a taste of what I’m reading, watching, and thinking about, right to your inbox. Here is your Taste of Tuesday.

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June 4, 2024

This past weekend I sat on my patio with friends and listened as they shared memories of making their way across the border from Mexico when they were seven years old. The story was harrowing and familiar – it’s part of growing up, living, and working in Southern California. My friends were glad their parents decided to take the risk, and they said young Americans don’t know how good everyone has it here. “Sure we have problems in America,” my friend said, “but here the government is controlled with money. People use money to buy influence, or they withhold it to persuade. But in Mexico, the government is controlled with violence. Fear persuades. And when people aren’t afraid, they get killed.”

No fewer than 37 candidates were killed in Mexico leading up to the June 2 presidential election. And one day after the election, the mayor of a town in Michoacan was killed.

But in between, something truly remarkable happened. A liberal, feminist, Jewish environmental science scholar was elected president of Mexico. Claudia Sheinbaum is also the first woman to be elected to the post. And she won a Nobel Peace Prize as a member of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

You can read more about Claudia Sheinbaum here.

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📺 What I’m Watching —

Somehow, I missed “Patriot” when it came out. Then, sometime last year, I cracked up watching an opening scene in which a guy pushes another guy in front of a truck. I know how that sounds. My wife didn’t like it either – she called in the five-minute rule so I didn’t get any further than that. But recently we ran out of ideas, and I had previously won her over with “Slow Horses,” which she also didn’t want to watch at first, so she caved and we watched. Then we couldn’t stop. The show turns out to be brilliant. From the LA Times review, Amazon’s ‘Patriot’: Crafty, crazy, and the best show you’ve probably never heard of: John Tavner (aka John Lakeman, played by Michael Dorman) is a low-key CIA operative trying to recover in Amsterdam from a deeply traumatic mission. John’s wife, Alice (Kathleen Munroe), is intelligent and supportive, but doesn’t know the true depths into which he descends for his job. His father (Terry O’Quinn) is a big wheel in the agency who believes his son, though damaged, is the best choice for an important mission to keep Iran from going nuclear.

Simple enough: Infiltrate a Milwaukee industrial piping company sending a delegation to a Luxembourg conference, and under that cover, pass a large amount of cash to a visiting Iranian ally there. But the mission takes countless wrong turns — Conrad’s superb plotting keeps tension ratcheting up — and what should have been a simple exchange ends up taking two full seasons of “Patriot” to play out. As problem after problem arises, John’s solutions can be ingenious and complex or abruptly and brutally efficient. Though it all makes sense in retrospect, in the moment, the hairpin turns are hard to see coming. Yet that compelling, often comic intrigue is just the icing on a messed-up layer cake.

Conrad says his actual pitch to Amazon went something like, “‘I think we can write for hours about a person who’s at his breaking point and allow this character to be remarkable because he withstands so much.’”

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🎙️ What I’m Listening To —

Season 2 of “Patriot” plays “Sure Shot” by the Beastie Boys during the opening credits. I had forgotten how much fun that was.

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📚 What I’m Reading —

I’m reading parts of The Principles of Neural Science (6th Edition) online because I can’t bring myself to shell out nearly $200 for a hard copy. Does anyone have a spare?
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🤔 Quote I’m pondering —

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Thanks for reading, and please feel free to reply to this email. Which bite is your favorite? What would you like to see more or less of? Any other suggestions?

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P.S. If this edition of Taste of Tuesday was forwarded to you, you can join the list here.

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David Preston Educator & Author ​https://davidpreston.net​ Latest book: ACADEMY OF ONE​

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