Last night, our heatwave was broken by a thunderstorm. It wasn’t a violent storm, but it was still spectacular to see, hear and fall asleep to. The heat is gone, but after last night’s rain, the humidity still persists. With this break in the weather, I was able to get out, at least to shop for food. I listened to NPR on my drive to the store and heard an article that introduced the concept of micro dramas, which are ultra-short, vertical format video series with 1-to-3-minute episodes designed for mobile phone binge-watching. This concept is derived from Tik-Tok. Apparently, they are the new-new thing in Hollywood. Though each episode is tiny, a season of about 100 episodes scale in duration to that of a Netflix miniseries. Their viewer cost is an order-of-magnitude greater though. They are marketed much like video games, with opportunities to level up and save money, but fundamentally they are a profit driven vehicle.

Similarly, President Trump in the latest episode of his never-ending serial soap opera this last weekend banned CNN, MSNOW and Politico from the Whitehouse. Trump was upset with these three outlets for their editorial content. Payback is a bitch though. Today, CNN was the designated news agency responsible for hosting all network’s pool reporting. So, there was no network feed today of a photo-op for the new helipad’s ribbon cutting. Unprofessional bloggers tried to fill-in, but lacking the real pro’s skillset, nothing said was heard. How long this solidarity lasts is anyone’s guess, but at least for one day the Whitehouse press corps showed a backbone.