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Welcome to Gibson Johns’ pop culture newsletter — subscribe to get recommendations of what to watch, read and listen to in your inbox every week!Subscribe to my new weekly podcast “Gabbing with Gib”: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTubeWe’re less than a week into 2024, and we already have our first major water cooler moment of the year — at least for those that pay attention to reality TV. You’ve surely seen the memes, the reactions, the hoopla on social media about the season 4 finale of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,” a highly-anticipated episode that promised to contain a big reveal and more than delivered on that promise.

With cooking, the simplest things are often the hardest to perfect. Like an omelette. Or coconut rice. Coconut rice is the central component of nasi lemak (‘fatty rice’), one of the most popular hawker dishes in Singapore. This is traditionally a humble Malay dish, a way to tap on the resources on our island. Terry Wong of the blog The Food Canon suggests picturing a “seaside Malay village”, where “the typical family with simple means will eat off the sea and land”.

Richard Norton Smith is at the top tier of American presidential historians. He is the author of the highly acclaimed new biography: An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford. Smith is widely recognized for his regular appearances on the PBS News Hour, as well as a historical commentator on CBS and other networks. He’s a familiar and beloved guide to history on CSPAN.

Welcome to The #Content Report, a newsletter by Vince Mancini. I’ve been writing about movies, culture, and food since I started FilmDrunk in 2007. Now I’m delivering it straight to you, with none of the autoplay videos, takeover ads, or chumboxes of the ad-ruined internet. Support my work and help me bring back the cool internet by subscribing, sharing, commenting, and keeping it real. Bad Boys Ride Or Die is the fourth film in the Bad Boys franchise, and the second to be directed by two Belgian guys, who go by “Adil and Bilall,” professionally (I guess we have the Daniels to blame for this kind of collective billing).

In almost four decades of my professional life, I have heard all the cliches and sayings about the business world. Some cliches become such because they are true. Others miss the mark. One, in particular, I thought I had achieved, but came out the other side with a different perspective. We’ve all been told, “Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Or maybe, “Follow your passion; the money will follow you.

The latest episode is live! Check it out at Ancient Faith Radio or wherever you get your podcasts. First Maccabees is a historical book. A lot of people naively think that means it’s a book that describes what happened. But that’s not the case. History is not what happened; it’s what people say happened.  Some of those statements are more reliable than others. But they’re all partial because they rely on a person (or persons) sifting through the available data and interpretations and making interpretations of their own for the purpose of presenting a certain picture.

Something about naming a baby Riot feels very Aries, and we may have Rihanna’s Aries Moon and Venus, and A$AP Rocky’s Mars in Aries to thank for this. The meaning of the word riot is quite chaotic, and implies uproar, disturbance, and sometimes violence - all things associated with the sign of Aries. Aries is ruled by Mars, and Mars is about getting things done by any means necessary. Aries and Mars goes straight for what it wants, and is unafraid of any conflict or confrontation that could arise as a result of this.

Over the weekend, I received an email which announced the end of the life of Catherine Kassenoff. This is a story that ends with my own assisted death in Switzerland.  Its lead up has been published for years on Facebook, in Ms. Magazine and in other media.  The New York Court system is responsible for this outcome and should be held accountable for ruining the lives of my children, me, and so many other similarly-situated protective parents (mostly mothers) who have tried to stand up against abuse but were labeled "

Word of Dickey Betts’ passing hit me hard this morning. I knew he had been ailing, which removes the shock element, but does nothing to diminish the sadness and pain of the loss. Dickey was an absolutely monster presence in my life, both personal and professional. His incredible melodic sense, bone-deep playing and fantastic songwriting, including but by no means limited to "Blue Sky," "Jessica,” “Rambling Man” and "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.