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3 weeks ago | 
readcontra.com | Aaron Everitt |Pedro Gonzalez |Pedro González |Jack Buckby
Back in 2023, ResumeBuilder asked 1,000 business leaders whether and how they surveil employees on a primarily remote or hybrid arrangement. More than a third said that they used webcams to monitor workers. The previous year, the New York Timesreported on the rise of the “worker credit score,” the new model of productivity enforcement in which bonuses and promotions are tied to mechanical inputs like keyboard swipes that are not necessarily reflective of real productivity or creativity.
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1 month ago | 
readcontra.com | Leighton Woodhouse |Pedro Gonzalez |Pedro González
The first half of this episode is free. You can find Leighton’s work at on Substackand follow him on Twitter @lwoodhouse. “Morning in America.” That’s what comes to mind when we think of the heady 1980s. Departing from the “malaise era” for brighter shores with wind in the sails and dawn’s gentle rays on our faces. A nation strutting with swagger anew, convinced of its exceptional destiny, ineluctable as the tide.
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2 months ago | 
readcontra.com | Pedro Gonzalez |Pedro González |Joe Ondrak |Katherine Dee |Helen Roy
This is a short newsletter, but I think you’ll enjoy it. Be sure to also check out the latest episode of the podcast. This week, I’ll be talking with the man behind . The Medium Is the MonsterFew pieces have left me so unsettled as this one by about what the internet is doing to people. I think I looked over my shoulder after reading it. In her foreword, explains that the “internet is a layer over reality” now.
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2 months ago | 
readcontra.com | Pedro Gonzalez |Pedro González |Ross Barkan
The politics of personal enmity have been a fact of life for so long that it’s sometimes hard to remember that it wasn’t always this way. We stopped being able to disagree without wanting to kill each other and forgot that it’s possible to consider someone else’s views without accepting them. It bled into everything and ruined all it touched, eradicating a cultural common ground.
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2 months ago | 
readcontra.com | Pedro Gonzalez |Pedro González |Vincenzo Barney |Ken Klippenstein |Liza Libes
A consistent format for these newsletters has been pretty elusive, but I think this is close to what it will look like. I considered just naming each one “Contra Review #” like I used to because it saves me a headache. You’d be surprised how long it takes to come up with headlines. But it can also be part of the fun. I hope you enjoy it and consider upgrading to paid if you’re currently a free subscriber. PODCASTPromises made, promises kept. We’re back with new episodes of the podcast.
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Jan 15, 2025 | 
readcontra.com | Liza Libes |Pedro Gonzalez |Pedro González
Substack has become the hub of some of the most interesting writing you’ll find anywhere. It’s also become home to a cadre of writers struggling to reclaim the humanities and fiction in particular from modern-day book burners who see great literature as little more than vehicles to explore trite ideological fixations.
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Jan 3, 2025 | 
readcontra.com | Pedro Gonzalez |Pedro González
By the time Shamsud-Din Jabbar exchanged gunfire with police officers, he had already rammed a pick-up truck into crowds of revelers on Bourbon Street in the heart of New Orleans’ French Quarter. It was just after 3:15 a.m. on New Year’s Day. Later that morning, nearly two thousand miles away, a Tesla Cybertruck rolled to a stop in front of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas.
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Dec 31, 2024 | 
readcontra.com | Pedro Gonzalez |Pedro González
Our kids are playing by the fire when we hear the chime jingle bells. The little ones freeze in their tracks. They had seen what appeared to have been a sleigh in the night sky earlier. Now their ears are raised to the air and their eyes are wide with wonder and suspicion. A hearty knock at the door, and a booming voice bids us open it. In steps Santa Claus with red coat and trousers all lined with white fur and a long frosty beard over a big belly.
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Dec 19, 2024 | 
readcontra.com | Pedro Gonzalez |Pedro González
A gray sky stretched over the Manhattan courthouse as cries of joy and anger erupted within the room on the thirteenth floor. Daniel Penny, a white former Marine who got into a fatal altercation with a black homeless man while riding the subway, was acquitted on the charge of criminally negligent homicide. Demonstrators gathered daily to call for Penny’s head as the trial unfolded. One of the organizers, a man named Walter “Hawk” Newsome, was inside the building that morning.
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Dec 16, 2024 | 
readcontra.com | Pedro Gonzalez |Pedro González
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThus strangely are our souls constructed, and by such slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity or ruin. —Mary ShelleyI recently came across a short story by Ernest Hemingway called “I Guess Everything Reminds You of Something.” It’s a relatively obscure piece that critics have largely dismissed as too biographical. That is a shame because what makes it so unique is that it deals searingly with personal themes.
