PJH Studios

Category: Pop Culture

Popular culture, culture that seems to spread beyond more than three people

  • US drug deaths down

    A promising trend: drug deaths are declining. Why?

    Theories include the wider distribution of Narcan, or naloxone; a trend of weaker, less deadly fentanyl being sold by dealers; more readily available addiction healthcare; and also the loss of so many vulnerable young people who have already died.

    Many researchers believe another key factor may be less risky drug and alcohol use among teens and twenty-somethings, a pattern that emerged during the years of the COVID epidemic. One study by a team at the University of Michigan found the number of teens abstaining from substance grew to its highest level in 2024.

  • Gen Z parents don’t read to their kids

    I’ll never be a parent, but it makes me sad when a parent doesn’t read to their kids. Signs are pointing to a decrease in Gen Z parents reading to their children.

    If parents are reading out loud to their children less, US educators can tell. Russell, who offers courses to teach literacy skills to kids as young as 18 months, regularly gets inquiries from parents of older children – some as old as 14 – who still struggle to crack open a book.There are other tell-tale signs. “We see children who can sit still and focus for hours on YouTube or Miss Rachel, but when you sit them down with a book, they move, wiggle, or scream and run away,” said Russell, who lives in Houston.

    Gen Z parents inherited an economy racked by inequity and instability that makes child rearing all the more stressful. The cost of childcare in the US – roughly $11,000 a year on average – has soared since the 90s. It’s no wonder they might be too tired or stressed to read to their kids at night, even if they realize it’s important to do so.

  • An elephant forgets to pay for its snacks

    An elephant entered a grocery store in Thailand for snacks.

    Danai Sookkanthachat, a volunteer park worker familiar with the elephant, said Plai Biang Lek, who is about 30 years old, is a familiar sight in the area and has been known to enter people’s houses in search of food. This was the first time he had seen him going into a grocery store.

  • Sewing pattern makers to fold

    As a consequence of private equity closing JoAnn’s fabrics, and tariffs, the company that prints sewing patterns will now be liquidated.

    The legacy sewing pattern brands Simplicity, Butterick, McCalls, and Vogue, commonly referred to as the Big 4, have been sold to a liquidator.

    The brands were owned by IG Design Group, a leading manufacturer and distributor of stationery, crafts, party, and gift products based in the UK. On Friday, the company announced it had sold its US division, IG Design Group Americas (DGA), which owns the sewing pattern brands, to Hilco Capital, a liquidation firm. DGA also owns other craft brands, including Boye needles, Wrights trim, and Perler fusible beads, among others. Hilco has also been involved with liquidating Joann’s assets after it filed for bankruptcy in January.

    IG Design Group cited the impact of tariffs imposed by the US as a factor. Over 50% of DGA’s products are manufactured in China, although the sewing patterns are made in the US. The company also mentioned a softening market over the last several years, as well as the bankruptcy of Joann, as factors in the sale.

  • Ukraine also fighting the media war

    After Ukraine bombed Russia, images and other media of its success proliferated online. And that’s part of the war.

    Within just hours, three videos of the strike spread from Ukraine’s federal security agency to a journalist based in the country, later spilling into social media and news outlets worldwide. The videos appear to be filmed from the perspective of a drone, complete with an overlay of information about the drone’s telemetry.

    In one video, the drone flies over an airfield, passing clouds of dark gray smoke billowing from multiple warplanes. Another clip apparently captures the moment a plane explodes into a tower of flames. The third shows a drone descending toward an aircraft, with the video suddenly freezing and displaying the message “Warning no data” upon reaching the plane.

  • Puzzmo

    Puzzmo offers a collection of casual puzzle games from the traditional crossword, a fresh take on sudoku, or a clever incarnation of poker. It offers leader boards and groups to challenge friends.

    puzzmo homepage

  • Reconnecting with friends

    Once you hit a certain age, life accumulates, and staying in touch with friends becomes a challenge. Here are a few tips to reconnect with friends you’ve grown apart from.

  • Publishing newspapers at 15

    A group of teenagers are publishing their own weekly newspaper in Montauk, NY.

    Billy Stern, the paper’s 15-year-old top editor, kept tabs on their progress in a planning document on his laptop. According to his color-coding system, reporters had already filed articles about nearby summer camps and the construction of a new hospital on the grounds of a former baseball field.

    He turned to Teddy Rattray, 15, the paper’s most prolific columnist and Billy’s friend since Little League, to float ideas for a restaurant review.

    “We still haven’t done hot dogs,” Teddy said. Billy agreed: Hot dogs should be an editorial priority.

    The operation has grown slicker since the boys got into the news business last year, as eighth graders at East Hampton Middle School. Billy had been looking for a summer job that was more stimulating than his usual gig squeezing lemons at a food truck. He enlisted Teddy and Teddy’s cousin Ellis Rattray to put together an eight-page paper exploring Montauk from a teenager’s perspective.

  • Exporting the Irish Pub

    There’s an entire business devoted to exporting the Irish pub vibe.

    But founder Mel McNally is not in the business of just shipping pub-in-a-box packages around the world. Each one is custom-designed to fit a specific space in collaboration with the local owner, who has creative control over the many, many, many details involved. The company’s stock-in-trade is not the Irish pub as a commodity; it’s the Irish pub as a vibe. You can’t sell the history and lore and memories intrinsic in a community’s longstanding institution. But you can sell the craftsmanship inextricably linked to a nation’s cultural legacy.

    The Irish Pub Company evolved out of a project McNally did about pub design for a competition when he was an architecture school student in Dublin in the 1970s. What the professors believed to be a cheeky excuse to spend time drinking pints turned into a two-year expedition through Ireland in which McNally and some architect friends visited more than 200 pubs in cities and remote country villages.

  • How the Trump Administration is breaking the government

    A collective of writers have put together a website documenting how the Trump Administration is breaking the government. It’s detailed, concise, and well sourced.