It is known that Denzel Washington is quite possibly the best male actor alive.* This has been the case for, I don’t know, at least two decades now, right? He was beloved and celebrated all throughout the 90s, and by the time he won his second Oscar (for Training Day, which I will surely write about someday) in five nominations, I think we all kinda looked around and said “So this guy’s the best, right?

What a sad week it’s been with MC Conrad’s death. Like many many others around the world, I’ve spent hundreds of hours with the recordings he features on, as well as catching him live several times. He nurtured a style of MCing that was rooted in a very human interface between his mind, voice and the music played by LTJ Bukem and others. I’ve heard people say over the years, “I’m not a fan of MCs, but Conrad, he’s a different class”.

In this episode: Behind closed doors, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed House Bill 433, a sweeping piece of legislation that was originally written by lobbyists for some of the biggest companies doing business in the state. The legislation will dissolve local living wage laws, prevent communities from passing “Fair Workweek” rules, and block efforts to set new heat-safety standards for outdoor workers. How did a bill like this pass? Well, $160,000 a week in campaign contributions from Big Business lobbying groups certainly helped.

I’m still on a South African high okay?! I’ve had a cup of rooibos daily for the past 8 years so when I was in South Africa and the tea was widely available everywhere I went, my intake increased to an amount I did not know was possible. Now that I’m back in London, I really wanted to learn more about it and test out some recipes using the tea. I unfortunately did not have the time to go to any Rooibos farm when staying in Cape Town so instead, I watched hours of badly edited Youtube videos and tested out different brands and formulations of the tea to educate myself a bit more about my own preferences.

Border Studies - Notes from Samantha Culp By Samantha Culp Border Studies is an occasional newsletter from writer/filmmaker Samantha Culp (now including: updates on the book I am writing about the history and present-day landscape of "futures thinking" in its many forms) ncG1vNJzZmirpZfAta3CpGWcp51kjbStzJqlraCRmMKtvA%3D%3D