Power with Drunk
It's like an election party in your inbox, but with less anxiety.
Voting drunk is an unflattering premise, but it has a historical precedent. George Washington was known for “swilling the planters with bumbo,“ or plying protestant land owners with booze before voting by drunk-yelling. But in 2016, white nationalists were reportedly back to distributing alcohol, only this time to pacify voters into staying home. So even if you numb the pain of a two-party system with a few cocktails, remember what one wasted woman learned in 2008: it is not illegal to vote drunk. As long as you don’t start a fight or pop bottles at your polling site, it is better to serve your civic duty overserved than to not vote at all.
Ideally, we suggest sipping on Benriach’s Smoky Ten Single Malt Scotch Whiskey afterward. Matured for at least 10 years, you can be sure your beverage has a bite — along with ginger, vanilla, and oak notes. Scotch the vote.
It’s Time to Stop Kidding Ourselves: There Is No Plastic Recycling
In some ways, it’s the “yellow loading zone” of trash: plastic in the recycling bin. Is this cool, or nah? The bottle says recyclable…
Here’s the truth: we’ve been lied to. When we chuck plastic in the blue bin, all we’re reusing is the same old plausible deniability. Plastic is not recyclable. A 2022 report published by Bennington College found that a measly 5% of plastic is recycled. If this measly number runs counter to what you’ve always thought about how recyclable plastic is, you are not alone. In September 2024, the California Attorney General sued Exxon Mobile for its deceptive practices in leading consumers to believe their plastics were recyclable.
The main issue with recycling plastic is that it’s a huge pain and not profitable. There are all kinds of plastics, and only the same kind can be recycled together, making sorting them a logistical nightmare. Making new plastic, on the other hand, is cheap. This is why plastics can feel pretty unavoidable. Our foods, soaps, and home goods all come packaged in the stuff.
To address this, more and more “refill shops” are opening up. These are places where you can bring in your own glass jug and stock up on things like dish and laundry soaps.
A little more time-consuming, yes, but maybe worth the drive when we think about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (woof). To put it in perspective, this continent of garbage currently floating through the ocean is twice the size of Texas. We’re gonna need a bigger blue bin.
Welcome to The Smoking Section
In a 2013 interview with Harper’s Bazaar, Gwenyth Paltrow admitted she regularly smokes one cigarette a week. So classy. So inspired. So shameless. We decided to try it to see if it felt as lovely as it sounds.
Cig #1: After not smoking in years, it felt like one American Spirit took an eternity. I was done before the cigarette was finished. I threw the remaining half-butt away instead of saving it for later, arrogantly wondering, “Maybe one cigarette a week is moderate and healthy.”
The Witches Are Witching
As comedian Lisa Chanoux puts it, the Los Angeles astrology girlies helped The Dodgers win the World Series. The witches of Reddit have been busy casting “freezer spells” on a certain presidential candidate that rhymes with dump. And then there were the hundreds of occultists who used their brooms to power stand-up paddle boards in the name of charity.
The coven is clearly staying busy, but is there anything witches cannot do? Sadly, they cannot slow-cook a stew in a cauldron-shaped Crock-Pot, which explains why they eat more Dunkin Donuts than Ben Affleck.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Crock-pots have always been considered an extension of “witch culture,” but it wasn’t until writer and fellow substacker Shani Nichols asked why a cauldron crock-pot technology had yet to be realized. The internet lit up like a purple orb with pleas for such a device. Finally, Crock-Pot’s official account responded, “Let us see what we can cook up.”
In the end, kitchen witches could have the last cackle.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Couch-Lock Book Club: Doorstopper Books to Hunker Down With
Crisp air and sweater weather mean one thing: time to avoid the outside world! You don’t have to be in school to crave the feeling of a freshly cracked book. Put your phone down, and finally knock one of these off your to-read list.
This is an incredibly well-researched account of Henry VIII inventing divorce so he could marry Anne Boyelin, told from the point of view of Thomas Cromwell, the King’s charming advisor. You’ll feel like a fly on the musty walls of Westminster Abbey. Plus, this is the beginning of a series. Plenty more binge-reading to come!
My Name Is Barbra by Barbra Streisand
Do yourself a favor and listen to the 48-hour (yes, you read that right) audio version of this jaw-dropping memoir. You don’t even have to be a Barbra Streisand fan or very familiar with her work to appreciate this improvisation-filled telling of her own life. It’s also full of food descriptions, beefs, and juicy celeb and politician gossip.
Determined by Robert Sapolsky If you end up reading this book, you always were destined to read it anyway. Stanford neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky explores this fascinating take in this accessible science book. In it, he makes a hell of a case that we don’t have free will. His argument is hard to ignore and worth having an existential crisis over.
The Forecast: Bitcoin is at $67,850 Gold is at $2,745.70 an oz /Eagles at Cowboys Sun Nov 10 1:25pmPT/4:25pmET/This 3-minute Deepak Chopra meditation can help you stay focused if you’re feeling distracted by the internet
Hooky is a lifestyle publication featuring affiliate links. We receive a small commission for sales made through the Amazon Associate’s Program.
"Scotch the vote" is so good.