McSweeney’s

I’m the Guy Who Destroys Antique Books After We Scan Them into Our Company’s Insatiable AI Platform

Jack Loftus — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 13:00:00 -0400

“Vendors and rare books experts are increasingly worried that these artifacts may be under threat of destruction by generative AI companies seeking to feed their ravenous technology with new texts. Fears stem from a copyright lawsuit brought against [Anthropic] by book authors. Unsealed court files revealed earlier this year that the company was engaging in the practice of ‘destructive scanning’—buying physical books, slicing off the spines to more efficiently scan the pages, then pulping the remains—and had sought to keep it quiet.” — The Guardian

- - -

I realize enthusiasm for one’s job is a little embarrassing now, but honestly, I adore what I do. I’m the guy who destroys priceless antique books once our generative AI scanners are finished with them.

Officially, my title is Senior Legacy Media Completion Specialist, but everyone calls me Book Doug. There was already another Doug, you see, but he works in Accounts Payable, so I got the fun one.

People assume scanning is the exciting part. And, sure, it is impressive. They shear off the spine, separate the pages, and run everything through these enormous machines so the computer can absorb every sentence ever written and use it to create some fairly compelling LinkedIn posts. But then, boy oh boy, the wheeled cart carrying those decimated remains comes to me. That is where the human touch enters the process, assuming you count industrial shredders and a giant burn pit out back as an extension of the hand, which I certainly do.

Our company has a very founder-led culture, so everyone is encouraged to approach problems like an owner. I do not own the company, obviously. I own a 2012 Mitsubishi Galant. Still, when I see a one-of-a-kind, three-hundred-year-old tome taking up six whole inches of shelf space, I immediately start thinking about scale and efficiency.

The older books are my favorite because they arrive with such rich history. Thick leather covers, gold inset lettering, the musty smell of age, and sometimes a handwritten note from 1894 that I don’t bother to read, and the scanners largely skip since it’s not integral to our performance KPIs. Then, the magic. One minute, they are a treasured record of human thought. The next, they are twelve searchable megabytes and a manageable quantity of mixed paper strips going into one of several large, welcoming bins marked DESTROY.

People ask whether I ever feel bad. Usually this happens after someone learns the books are rare, so I explain that rarity is really just an inventory problem. If there is only one copy left, the efficient move is to make it infinitely reproducible and immediately unavailable to anyone without a subscription. You can see people relax once I walk them through it slowly. Their shoulders slump in an accepting way. They stare. Sometimes they make a wordless rasping, just like the books do as I slide their sliced-out pages into oblivion.

We also recycle, which matters to me personally. I’m very environmental. I love reclaimed wood, barn doors, things like that. Some of the pulp becomes cardboard, and that cardboard may eventually become a box used to ship us more books.

You are a very good listener, by the way. Most people interrupt around the phrase “controlled combustion,” but you have barely moved. I appreciate that. It tells me you are comfortable around ambition.

Anyway, I’m sorry—listen to me go. I’ve talked about myself quite enough. What did you say you do again? A librarian? What’s that about?

Back-to-School Shopping List for the End-of-Times Academic Year

Samantha Hesburgh — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0400

Welcome back, students and parents, for another, possibly the last, functioning school year!

Both the literacy crisis and moral deterioration of our leaders pretty much guarantee our school will be shuttered soon. But in the meantime, we hope to have a well-rounded, fun year interrupted by only one or two major geopolitical crises.

Even in the most unpredictable times, you can count on the fact that teachers are paid dogshit wages. So here’s a list of school supplies I kindly ask you to buy in advance to help get us through the year:

Two packs of No. 2 pencils. Ticonderoga is preferred. We focus-grouped this during an unpaid professional development session this summer in which we simulated the inevitable loss of power once the revolution begins. Ticonderoga proved more reliable to use as kindling than Dixon.
One ballpoint pen that will likely be used to graffiti penises onto desks. After the nuclear winter, our species’ descendants will study this as the cave art of yore.
One marbled composition book. We expect you to take notes on the day’s lessons, but realistically, you’ll be drawing penises in it too. If you would like your penis art to be preserved alongside the desk dicks, marbled composition is more durable. If you don’t care about the eternal glory of legacy, you can get the spiral-bound notebook for five cents cheaper at Target.
Your computer and a charger on which you’ll be completing all of your assignments alongside your government-assigned AI bot named Tony. Tony will eventually take my job as teacher—maybe this semester, maybe next semester. Depends on how quickly they can reprogram the overstock of sex robots that were sent to the houses of our board of ed members for “research purposes.” Either way, the district requests that you be thoughtful in sharing as much of your work as you can with Tony so that he can absorb the curriculum.
Two boxes of snacks to add to the class snack drawer. We’re requesting at least one peanut-free option for the first semester. By the second semester, it’s estimated that the peanut-allergy crowd will have succumbed to their evolutionary fate, so it won’t matter as much.
The summer reading book. No need to read in advance. We will rip out the pages and use them to line the cage of our class hamsters, Pumpkin and Penelope. We anticipate that by March, after the nuclear winter has triggered a mass migration of displaced souls, we’ll run out of food in both the snack drawer and in the community at large. We may need to eat the pages and/or Pumpkin and Penelope.
One case of bottled water. Please note: This is not drinking water. This water will be used only if Tony the Chatbot becomes sentient and begins to amass power. The district believes we can neutralize him by pouring water on the hard drive before he begins communicating with external servers and starts an uprising. For drinking water, please use the water fountain in Hallway C to fill your own Stanley cup, which you can buy from an ex-influencer in the breadline for the low price of fifty dollars (not adjusted for inflation).
Two boxes of tissues (for communal use) which will dry the tears of the hopeful and the cynics alike.
Two mini-packets of tissues (for personal use) in the event that you contract a previously eradicated childhood disease because your parent or guardian wanted to “do their own research."
One box of dry-erase markers because, as in the prior intellectual Dark Ages, nothing is permanent. Except the penis drawings.

Thank you for your contributions to our classroom. For all other inquiries about participation, policies, or general primitive survival, you can find me during office hours crying soundlessly and tastefully in my car while listening to Katy Perry’s 2010 hit record “California Gurls (Featuring Snoop Dogg)."

Sending thoughts and prayers in advance,
Mrs. H

Relax, If Food Is No Longer Safe to Eat, Just Eat Cake

Carlos Greaves — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 13:00:00 -0400

It seems like food safety is all anyone has been talking about this summer, whether you found out about these problems the easy way (reading an article your mom texted you about the latest recall) or the hard way (weeks-long explosive diarrhea because you ignored your mom’s text messages). As an FDA spokesperson, I’m here to assure you that we’re on top of it.

Admittedly, lots of pantry staples are currently unsafe to eat—everything from fresh produce (because of cyclospora) to eggs (because of salmonella) to bread (because there are literally bits of glass in it). Other foods, like ground beef, have gotten expensive thanks, in part, to infections like New World screwworm. Pretty much everything on RFK Jr.’s food pyramid is either contaminated or cost-prohibitive:

But there is one food that hasn’t been recalled: cake.

Don’t get us wrong, we’re not saying cake is healthy. Birthdays in the RFK Jr. household are always celebrated the MAHA way—with a heaping portion of fermented whale meat, which has way more protein and probiotics than funfetti. That said, for a limited time, we’re suspending FDA nutritional guidelines. If families can’t find fresh fruits, vegetables, meat, or dairy that won’t sicken them, we’re committed to ensuring there’s an adequate substitute.

Thanks to simple, shelf-stable ingredients and high-temperature baking, cake remains relatively safe to eat (as long as you don’t eat carrot cake made with actual carrots—they’re riddled with E. coli). Who cares if everyday Americans can no longer eat bread without chipping a tooth or bleeding internally from all those shards of glass? They can eat cake. The same goes for fresh greens. We have it on good authority that a layer cake is considered a salad in most of the Midwest.

Liberals can grumble all they want about “affordability” and “access to food that doesn’t leave them doubled over on the toilet begging for death.” This is what America voted for—gutting the federal government so that corporations can self-regulate the way God and Project 2025 intended. They’re nostalgic for an America of the past, specifically Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle.

Our current state of unbridled free market capitalism—where food might kill you, but taxes are slightly lower—is the best version of society we can hope for. Trust us, America doesn’t get any better than this.

Sure, theoretically, if we got all of the nation’s brightest minds together, perhaps they could design a system more ideal than the one we have now. But all of those people are currently working for McKinsey, helping private equity firms structure leveraged buyouts, which is far more important.

The truth is, whether through unchecked capitalism, authoritarianism, or both, all of the great civilizations throughout history eventually wind up being run by one powerful man and a small inner circle of elites. And everyday people end up better for it. Just look at Russia. That country has been run that way for centuries. When Americans think of Russia, they think “a place America should be more like.” That is why we are making America great again by making it more like Russia.

Whatever we do, we cannot let America become like France. They overthrow their ruling elite every few decades, and now it’s a hellscape where nobody works for the entire month of August, and the government babysits your kids for free.

That’s why the best thing Americans can do in this time of food-safety uncertainty is relax, pull out a large mixing bowl, whip together some flour, sugar, oil, and baking powder, and bake themselves a safe, delicious sheet cake that will sustain them through the fall.

Just don’t use any eggs. They’ll absolutely wreck you.

- - -

Carlos Greaves and Ginny Hogan’s new book, Obey in Advance: How to Survive (and Thrive) Under Authoritarianism, is out in September, but is available to preorder now from our store.

Performative Slurp

Ali Fitzgerald — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 12:00:00 -0400

Underground Artists is an ongoing comic by Ali Fitzgerald (Hungover Bear & Friends) that follows woodland creatures as they create art and search out whimsy in a bleak forest.

- - -

Lest We Forget the Horrors: An Unending Catalog of Trump’s Cruelties, Collusions, Corruptions, and Crimes: July 2026: Atrocities 1117-1207

Emily Greenberg and Chase Bush-McLaughlin — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 07:45:00 -0400

Early in President Trump’s first term, McSweeney’s editors began to catalog the head-spinning number of misdeeds coming from his administration. We called this list a collection of Trump’s cruelties, collusions, corruptions, and crimes, and it felt urgent to track them, to ensure these horrors—happening almost daily—would not be forgotten. Now that Trump has returned to office, amid civil rights, humanitarian, economic, and constitutional crises, we felt it critical to make an inventory of this new round of horrors. This list will be updated monthly between now and the end of Donald Trump’s second term.

- - -

These lists, along with everything McSweeney’s publishes on this site, are offered ad-free and at no charge to our readers. If you are moved to make a donation in any amount or subscribe to our website’s Patreon, please do. This will help support this project and our other work.

- - -

ATROCITY KEY

– Authoritarianism
– Constitutional Illegalities, Collusion, and/or Obstruction of Justice
– Environment
– Harassment, Bullying, Retribution, and/or Sexual Misconduct
– Lies and Misinformation
– Musk Madness
– Policy
– Public Statements and Social Media Posts
– Trump Family Business Dealings
– Trump Staff and Administration
– White Supremacy, Racism, Misogyny, Homophobia, Transphobia, and/or Xenophobia

- - -

June 2026

Main Index

Trump’s first term

- - -

July 2026

– July 1, 2026 – The US military death toll in the Iran war rose to fourteen after Cmdr. Gabriel Edwards was presumed dead following a Navy helicopter emergency in the Arabian Sea. The incident also brought the number of US military aircraft damaged or destroyed during the war to at least forty-three. The Navy said there was no indication the crash resulted from hostile action.
– July 2, 2026 – MS NOW reported that an internal FBI memo called for 260 intelligence analysts to undertake a “priority effort” to investigate the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia, where claims of widespread election fraud had repeatedly been debunked.
– July 2, 2026 – A federal appeals court found that the CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence violated the Fifth Amendment due process rights of nineteen career officers when it fired them for working on diversity programs, and ordered them reinstated.
– July 2, 2026 – A federal judge accused the Trump administration of taking one position publicly and another in court over Trump’s plans to rebuild Washington’s East Potomac Golf Links. After Trump announced that work would begin September 1, government lawyers maintained that no final decision had been made. “Both things cannot be true,” Judge Ana C. Reyes said. “Assuming that you don’t believe in multiple universes: On this earth, we have a decision that’s been made about a golf course.”
– July 2, 2026 – The Washington Post reported on previously unpublished medical records related to the death of fifty-five-year-old Cuban immigrant Geraldo Lunas Campos in civil detention at Camp East Montana. DHS maintained that ICE staff had “intervened to save his life” after Lunas Campos tried to kill himself, even after a medical examiner ruled that he died by asphyxiation and classified the death as a homicide. The newly reported records showed that he had repeatedly sought mental health treatment and medication and had asked to be transferred to a facility offering more intensive care.
– July 3, 2026 – Trump pardoned Adam Kidan, who gave more than $270,000 to political committees supporting Trump after serving prison time for fraud and conspiracy. Kidan pleaded guilty in 2005 for his role in a $147.5 million casino-boat deal with Jack Abramoff, whom 60 Minutes described in a 2012 profile as “[maybe] the most notorious and crooked lobbyist of our time.”
– July 4, 2026 – Trump’s Great American State Fair on the National Mall opened four hours late because of extreme heat, then shut down two hours later as severe weather approached. When festivities resumed after 9 p.m., attendees encountered long lines and contradictory directions. Trump later said he had pressed to keep the celebration going against recommendations to cancel. The fair was organized by Event Strategies, which had also helped organize the January 6, 2021, rally that led to Trump’s supporters’ violent occupation of the Capitol.
– July 4, 2026 – Denmark’s Rebild Festival, a more than century-old Fourth of July tradition that has previously hosted Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, celebrated the holiday after clearing its program of American officials. Organizers had agreed to the move when Aalborg’s financial committee voted to cut funding if US government representatives took part, citing Trump’s threats to take control of Greenland. “I hope that they will reflect on the fact that the words of Donald Trump and the threats against Greenland don’t happen in a vacuum,” said council member Lasse Olsen, who introduced the measure.
– July 5, 2026 – Two Tennessee National Guard members fatally shot Tyrin Johnson, 20, in downtown Memphis. The Memphis Police Department claimed the soldiers were responding to a shots-fired call and were pursuing Johnson on foot when he turned toward them with a handgun. However, activists disputed that account. They said video footage showed an unmarked vehicle chasing Johnson, who never turned around and was not holding anything, and called for authorities to release the video. The Guard members were part of Donald Trump’s Memphis Safe Task Force, which had been involved in at least four deadly shootings since it began patrolling the city in October.
– July 5, 2026 – The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives rolled back dozens of gun regulations. The changes restored gun rights to some people with mental illness, weakened oversight of private weapons transactions, and reversed a previous crackdown on illegal sales. Kris Brown, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said the approach “takes us back 100 years.”
– July 6, 2026 – Ulises Peña López, a disabled immigrant, sued ICE and private prison contractors CoreCivic and Geo Group over his arrest and mistreatment in detention. Peña López, who suffered disabilities related to a mini-stroke diagnosed in 2024, accused ICE officers of beating him during his February 2025 arrest until he lost consciousness and needed CPR. The lawsuit further alleged that Peña López did not receive proper accommodations and medical care for his disability during his six months in detention and that the staff repeatedly mocked and verbally abused him, saying, “Motherfucker, you don’t get to be asleep” and “You’re never gonna walk again.” According to his lawyers, Peña López suffered new and worsening “headaches, weakness and numbness in his right side, eye pain, hearing loss, insomnia and nightmares, blurry vision, back pain, and difficulty walking” as a result of his arrest and detention.
– July 6, 2026 – Following a phone call from Trump, FIFA reversed the red card suspension of star US soccer player Folarin Balogun at the World Cup, making him eligible to play against Belgium. FIFA has long sought to curry favor with Trump and awarded him its first “FIFA Peace Prize” in 2025. The reversal was the first since 1962 and drew widespread condemnation from other soccer teams and organizations. “When the certainty of rules is no longer guaranteed by its guardians, the integrity of the game is at stake, and the credibility of a competition is undermined,” said the Europa League, the governing body for European soccer. A day later, Belgium defeated the US 4–1.
– July 7, 2026 – The Iranian American Legal Defense Fund and Public Citizen Litigation Group accused the Trump administration of giving Iran confidential information from the asylum applications of Iranians it planned to deport, threatening the lives of activists, religious minorities, LGBTQ+ individuals, and their families. “The law couldn’t be more clear that information in asylum applications is protected,” said Michael Kirkpatrick, a lawyer with Public Citizen Litigation Group.
– July 7, 2026 – An ICE agent fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, in his car in Houston. A father of three, Salgado Araujo had lived in the US for thirty-five years, had no criminal record, and owned his own construction business. He was not the target of the operation. DHS claimed that Salgado Araujo resembled the target and that the agent fired in self-defense after Salgado Araujo ignored commands to stop and attempted to ram into the ICE vehicle and run over the agent. However, witnesses disputed that account, claiming that ICE agents did not identify themselves and shot through the passenger window after the vehicle had already stopped. The shooting of Salgado Araujo was at least the twenty-first such shooting by agents involved with Trump’s immigration crackdown, and the agents involved were not wearing body cameras.

Family, Community Leaders Demand Answers After ICE Officer Fatally Shoots Man in Houston (KPRC)
– July 7, 2026 – The US launched new strikes on Iran after commercial vessels were targeted in the Strait of Hormuz. The strikes continued the following day as Trump announced the end of the US–Iran ceasefire. “The Islamic Republic of Iran has asked us to continue ‘talks.’ We have agreed to do so, but the United States has stated to them, in no uncertain terms, that the Cease Fire is OVER!” Trump posted on Truth Social. Oil prices quickly rose as financial markets fell.
– July 8, 2026 – Just three days after two members of the Memphis Safe Task Force fatally shot Tyrin Johnson in downtown Memphis, a DEA agent and member of the same task force fatally shot Alfonso Ivy, 47, at an East Memphis motel. “It’s another day in an occupied city,” said Jessica Miller, an organizer with Indivisible Memphis. The incident marked the fifth deadly shooting related to the task force since October.
– July 8, 2026 – In another assault on Somali Americans, Trump shared a social media video of Minnesota kindergarteners singing in Somali at their graduation ceremony with the caption, “Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.” The children’s faces were clearly visible in the video, which immediately attracted hateful anti-Muslim comments from Trump’s millions of social media followers. The school also faced harassment and considered adding more security before classes restarted.
– July 8, 2026 – After a former girlfriend accused Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner of rape, Trump offered symathetic remarks to his ideological foe: “It’s really a question of whether you believe the woman. A lot of people say big falsehoods. It’s a … he’s in a bind. He’s in a bind.” Trump has faced accusations of sexual misconduct from at least twenty-eight women and was found liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll.

Trump Weighs in on Platner Dropping Out of Maine Senate Race (NBC)
– July 8, 2026 – At the NATO Summit in Ankara, Trump insulted NATO allies before declaring they loved him. “I just want to say there was tremendous love in that room,” he said, adding, “They said, ‘Sir, we love you.’ These are grown people saying that. Isn’t that nice?” Trump also demanded control of Greenland, called Iran “scum,” said he would consider jet sales to Turkey despite congressional opposition, and threatened to cut off trade to Spain.
– July 8, 2026 – Trump left Turkey on the old Air Force One after the Secret Service raised security concerns about his new Qatari-donated jet. While the administration claimed the new plane was fitted with the highest-level security protocols, those briefed on the updates said it didn’t have all the features of the older plane, which could cost up to $1 billion and take up to two years to implement. Trump denied the swap was due to security concerns, instead claiming that the new jet had to leave early so it could be shown off at military bases.
– July 8, 2026 – In letters signed by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon and sent to dozens of state and local election officials, the Justice Department threatened to prosecute officials if noncitizens were found to have voted in the upcoming midterms. “Any election officer, including the chief election officer of the state, who knowingly retains noncitizens on the state’s SVRL [State Voter Registration List] or facilitates noncitizens in receiving and casting ballots could be subject to criminal liability,” Dhillon wrote in the letters, which gave election workers only five days to respond with plans to comply. Noncitizen voting is extremely rare.
– July 9, 2026 – Palm Beach International Airport and Francis Burnett Swann Memorial Bridge in Tennessee were renamed President Donald J. Trump International Airport and President Donald J. Trump Bridge, respectively. The airport became the first named after a sitting president, and the change will cost at least $5.5 million, most of which will be paid by Florida taxpayers. Trump registered trademarks for the airport’s new name, raising questions about how he may profit from the name change in the future.
– July 9, 2026 – The Trump administration appointed climate science critic Matthew M. Wielicki to head the US Global Change Research Program and oversee the influential National Climate Assessment report. Wielicki, who exited academia over DEI initiatives, had said that a “significant portion of the climate science literature is nothing more than stamp collecting” and previously accused climate scientists of faking data.
– July 9, 2026 – Trump ousted all remaining members of the independent and bipartisan US Election Assistance Commission, which helped administer elections without federalizing them. The two Democratic members were fired while the Republican member resigned. The Commission distributed federal election funds, maintained national mail voter registration forms, tested and certified voting systems, and offered best practices and guidance to state and local officials. In announcing the dismissals, the White House cited a recent Supreme Court decision that gave the president the authority to remove members of the Federal Trade Commission.
– July 10, 2026 – The Justice Department subpoenaed multiple New York Times journalists who reported security concerns related to the new Air Force One donated by Qatar. “The appearance of federal law enforcement agents on the doorstep of news reporters should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution and the press freedom it protects,” said David McCraw, a lawyer for the Times.
– July 10, 2026 – ProPublica reported that the Trump administration was working directly with Diosdado Cabello, a Venezuelan leader accused of hiring Tren de Aragua to assassinate the exiled Venezuelan dissident Ronald Ojeda. After kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the US left Cabello, who had been indicted on US drug-trafficking charges and had a $25 million bounty on his head, installed as interior minister. The indictment had ensured that Cabello cooperated with the US and promoted American interests.*
– July 10, 2026 – Overturning fifty years of environmental law, a new Trump administration rule said habitat destruction does not harm endangered species. The new rule, which rescinded the “harm rule” in the Endangered Species Act, could result in mining, logging, ranching, and other development in formerly protected areas. Stephanie Kurose, deputy director of government affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity, called the new rule a “death sentence” for endangered plants and animals. A day earlier, the EPA also moved to loosen limits on truck pollution.
– July 11, 2026 – Trump misleadingly attributed the $2 billion he has made during his second term to a hot stock market. “Well, you know why I’m profiting? Because the stock market’s going up; everybody’s profiting,” said Trump, who also incorrectly claimed that 401(k)s were up 85 percent. In reality, very little of Trump’s revenue came from stock-market growth, and neither the major indexes nor the average 401(k) grew by 85 percent. Instead, approximately three-quarters of Trump’s revenue came from cryptocurrency, real estate holdings, settlements from media companies, and branding deals. Trump also falsely stated that his holdings were in a blind trust and that he was the only president to have donated his salary. His holdings are instead in a revocable trust managed by his sons, and both Herbert Hoover and John F. Kennedy donated their presidential salaries.

Trump Dismisses Questions About His Massively Profitable Year as President (CNN)
– July 13, 2026 – Four days after being detained by ICE, Jesús Manuel Arenas-Silva, a forty-five-year-old Venezuelan immigrant, died while being bused between county and federal facilities in Georgia. In a Detention Watch Network press statement, Arenas-Silva’s sister said the family had warned ICE about Arenas-Silva’s medical needs and asked that he be allowed to bring all of his medications, but agents permitted only one. DWN added that Arenas-Silva later told his family that ICE was not giving him medication he needed. ICE said the suspected cause of death was cardiac arrest, and insisted that Arenas-Silva had received medical care and been evaluated by medical professionals.
– July 13, 2026 – Trump issued two executive orders reducing the size of both Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah by more than 90 percent. Five Native American tribes consider Bears Ears their ancestral homeland, and both monuments preserve thousands of archaeological sites with cultural significance to Native communities. The cuts, which opened most of the land to possible development, prompted plans for legal challenges.
– July 13, 2026 – Less than a week after declaring the ceasefire with Iran “over,” Trump ordered the naval blockade of Iran back into effect. Despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s previous statement that “no country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway,” Trump also announced a 20 percent charge on cargo passing through the Strait of Hormuz, stating, “The USA will be, from this point forward, known as ‘THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT.’”
– July 13, 2026 – An ICE agent shot and killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a twenty-five-year-old Colombian immigrant, in Biddeford, Maine. DHS said agents had been “conducting targeted surveillance on the last known address of an illegal alien with a final order of removal.” Durán Guerrero had not been issued a removal order; he had applied for asylum and was legally authorized to work in the country. The killing came less than a week after the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by ICE in Houston, Texas.

ICE shooting: What We Know About the Victim, Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero (Boston Globe)
– July 13, 2026 – A New York Times investigation uncovered that the US and Israel had backed former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a possible return to power as part of the US’s regime-change effort, despite his record of violent repression against dissidents and political opponents. Israel had been working with Ahmadinejad for years, and Mossad had kept the CIA informed about its dealings with him. In February, after an Israeli strike on Ahmadinejad’s compound, Mossad agents drove Ahmadinejad to a safe house; but, apparently upset about how the operation had been conducted, he soon abandoned their plan. Ahmadinejad’s office later dismissed the reporting as “Hollywood-style claims” and “psychological warfare.”
– July 14, 2026 – Juan Jairo Coronilla Durán, a twenty-eight-year-old Mexican tourist with a visa, died after being struck by a tractor-trailer while fleeing ICE and DHS agents in St....

An Interview with Dave Eggers About His New Novel, Contrapposto

Knopf — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 07:28:00 -0400

- - -

KNOPF: This is a very funny, very moving book about the deepest kind of friendship. It unfolds over many decades, and the novel took shape over decades for you, too. When did you begin thinking about these characters?

DAVE EGGERS: I’ve been thinking about Cricket and Olympia for about twenty years, and was writing random passages about them much of that period. Sometimes a certain book takes an especially long time to gestate and make its correct form known, and this was one of those books.

Q: The book covers about 65 years in the lives of its two main characters, Cricket and Olympia. Their interactions take place all over the world, from Indiana to Thailand, from Philadelphia to Turkey and Paris. Did you always see this as a book with that kind of epic scope?

DE: Once I decided it would cover most of their lives, yes. I knew that having grown up in rural Indiana, they’d be restless and curious about the rest of the world, and I really came to love tossing them all over the globe. Each section of the book starts in a very different place in their lives, physically and mentally, and the reader’s left to fill in the gaps.

Q: Which becomes surprisingly easy, given how long we’ve known them. The novel starts when they’re 8 and 9. Cricket is a quiet kid who loves to draw. What does he see in Olympia?

DE: She’s obviously far more worldly and erudite and quick on her feet, even at age nine. Some kids are. There are just some humans that develop exponentially faster than others. Olympia is that way—just intellectually on fire from minute one, along with being this beautiful human, too, with golden eyes. Cricket is a talented draftsman, but Olympia’s mind works at about ten times the pace of his.

Q: And she has ambitions for him.

DE: Without her, his ambitions might be pretty modest. He doesn’t ever know what to do with anything he creates. But from the start, she is his champion. She wants to start movements, change the face of the art world, on and on. He just wants to draw.

Q: You were a young draftsman yourself, going to art schools and such. Did you have such a champion? An Olympia?

DE: No, nothing like this. Olympia was created out of whole cloth. I wanted to conjure someone who would drag Cricket out of a studio and into the world. She was huge fun to write because while she’s brilliant and loyal, she’s a bit mercurial, too. You know she’ll re-enter Cricket’s life periodically, but you’re never really sure what angle she’ll be coming from.

Q: She’s very comfortable with the business of art, eventually becoming a gallerist and curator. Cricket is not so adept, and struggles with the commerce aspect of it.

DE: I think we’ve all known people like this—they have great talent but are stubborn about even the smallest compromises, and they loathe the business side of the artist’s life. Cricket can’t really manage it. He’s a bit of a classicist at a time when trends and theories were very important to observe and address.

Q: Contrapposto is a pose in figure drawing, which is something we see Cricket and Olympia take part in again and again over the course of the book. Can you say more about the long tradition of learning to draw the body—the rigor of it, the intimacy—and all of what that means in the context of the book?

DE: When you see that trope of an artist holding their thumb out and squinting, that’s the artist “measuring” the proportions of a figure. It’s a real thing! You look at the model, stick your arm out straight, and you cover their head with your thumb. That thumb-height becomes your unit of measure. Then you count how many heads the model’s total height is, how many heads the width of their shoulders are, on and on. By comparing all of these dimensions against each other, you can arrive at perfect accuracy (if you’re seeking that, of course). I’m convinced most people can be taught these techniques, too; it’s the same process that’s been observed for hundreds of years. The rigor of classical drawing was revelatory to me, and I wanted to convey that to a reader, too—the fact classical art education was much like a classical musical education, in that it was based on hard skills, hundreds of hours of practice, and a certain humility, too. But it is imminently learnable, and in an exhilarating way, it teaches any student how to see.

Q: In college they have a teacher, Marcus Carpenter, who is a bit of rebel in that he’s a classicist at a time when that’s not in vogue. He doesn’t kowtow to the theories of the day, and he’s ostracized for it.

DE: There are such people, always, thank god. In Carpenter, Cricket finds a mentor who also appreciates the intrinsic beauty of the art he loves, as opposed to art that rides certain temporary fashions. More than anything, Carpenter takes all the competitiveness out of what’s often present in art schools—a very strange misery that comes from students pitted against each other. But there is a way, a better way, to bring up young artists together.

Q: Cricket and Olympia know each other so well that they bicker with total, hilarious abandon, but they also fight fiercely for each other. Were you always sure about their path together?

A: I’ve had the same friends since grade school, so with these ancient friendships, you can speak candidly to each other, and pretension doesn’t get you far. But there’s an element of mild resistance, too, embedded in these old friendships. Cricket and Olympia want to reinvent themselves over their lives, but they also know they can’t pull one over on someone who’s known them since they were eight. At that point, you know each other on a molecular level. So you fight for that person as you would fight to keep a limb of your own body.

Q: In a time when AI relationships have suddenly left the realm of sci-fi and are seemingly both common and legitimate, this novel argues for the irreplaceable connection that can occur between two humans, in either romance or friendship. Do you think Cricket and Olympia share something rare in their relationship?

DE: I don’t know that it’s rare, but I did want to show a complex friendship over time. For millions of people, there are times when you’re in love, then you’re friends, and maybe love happens again… The line for Cricket and Olympia is blurry, which I think happens with so many people who don’t get married but who provide a certain familiar comfort to each other. Together they have a kind of perfect imbalance, which is really about as good as we can do.

- - -

Contrapposto is out June 9, but is available for preorder now.

Why Aren’t People Moving to This Town with Cheap Housing and Literally Nothing Else

Devin Wallace — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 09:50:00 -0700

If you’re so tired of expensive housing prices in your major city, then why don’t you stop complaining and move to this random town I found with some cheap houses for sale and exactly zero other amenities?

No place is perfect. Sure, this city is in the middle of nowhere, isn’t near major job markets, and doesn’t have maintained roads, well-funded schools, or functioning emergency services, but it does have a series of dilapidated ranch houses located between a data center and a second data center that is currently on fire.

You can’t complain about the price of housing if you refuse to move hundreds of miles away to a city I just learned about for the purposes of this bad-faith argument.

For the same amount as a down payment in New York City, you could buy an entire house in this town in upstate wherever or whatever it’s called. You could also buy absolutely nothing else in the town because any industry was decimated in a post-industrial economic order that bled regional metros dry for the benefit of a handful of global conglomerates.

So… should I rent the U-Haul?

With the money you’ll save on housing, you can afford dozens of flights and train trips across the country to see the aging relatives, friends, and entire community of people you’ve abandoned.

You’ll never worry about a ludicrously high rent payment again. Instead, you can worry about your new neighbors, most of whom have been left behind by violent austerity measures strangling the last drops of life out of previously vibrant towns and cities.

I did this exact thing when I was young. I packed my bags, left my major city, and moved all the way to a redlined suburb fifteen minutes outside that city, built specifically for people who looked like me. If I can do that, young people should be willing to live on an active Superfund site covered in broken glass.

I think moving there is something thousands of young people should consider, and no, I will not consider what would happen to housing costs if thousands of young people moved there.

My Annual Performance, as Reviewed by My Dog

Erica Lies — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 05:00:00 -0700

Please rate Erica on a scale of 1-5 on how she demonstrates the following:

CONSISTENCY: 5
Erica does fantastic treat work, always offering me a tasty morsel after walks, even though she doesn’t contribute to our daily quota for eating grass.

PUNCTUALITY: 2
Erica often delays leaving the house because of something she calls a “job,” which, from the best I can discern, is just staring at (and sometimes talking to) a glowing screen. She would benefit from improving her time management to meet walk deadlines more consistently.

TEAM CULTURE: 2
It would behoove Erica to think more outside the crate. She often misses opportunities to partner with me in meeting our mission-critical KPIs of barking at wild rabbits, anyone in a uniform, men in hats, men in general, men who are Generals, garbage trucks, visitors I normally like, the neighbor cats Tinkerbell and Moonshine, unseen forces, odd shapes in the dark, odd shapes in broad daylight, babies, and television doorbells.

Erica’s performance would be further bolstered by expanding her playtime skills beyond tug-of-war. I’d like to see her take a cue from her teammate-husband, Ben, to improve her leadership in rough housing.

CANINE-HUMAN INTERACTION: 3
This year, Erica grew her communication skills to understand my various whines. She’s learned to interpret the pitches of “feed me,” “play with me,” and “POOP NOW.” But she continues responding in human words with an upward lilt (“OutSIDE? Go POTty?”), which is a suboptimal communication strategy. (It would improve team morale if she remembered that I am not a toddler.) Many times I want neither “potty” nor “outside,” but to share unbroken eye contact until she has met her daily Milk-Bone treat goals.

EXTERNAL STAKEHOLDER OUTREACH: 5
Erica demonstrates strong interpersonal skills with those outside the organization. She recently asked a strategic partner in another canine-human team, “Is your dog friendly? Can mine say hi?” when I lunged toward a yappy Yorkshire Terrier named Yonkers. This networking allowed me to gain actionable insights on the locations of the best-tasting local grasses.

PROJECT PRIORITIZATION: 1
Erica would benefit from de-emphasizing projects that do not help our organization’s bottom line. These include brushing my teeth, giving me allergy drops, insisting on weekly baths, interrupting my barking at the neighbor kids, and disturbing my strategic data analysis when I sniff spots on the pavement.

Ben supports my olfactory information gathering. This is why he’s getting a promotion.

Are there any behaviors of Erica’s that negatively affect the team?
Erica’s most detrimental behavior by far is her tendency to go out of town. Establishing a suitcase-free organization is key to meeting my annual goal of spending an hour a day sitting on Erica’s feet.

Additionally, when I bite my own skin, she puts the donut collar around my neck, which is a clear violation of HR harassment policies.

How does Erica positively impact the team?
Erica excels in creating a positive team-building environment through a combination of belly scratches, gazing into my eyes, and reaffirming my position as the “best doggie in the whole wide world.”

What significant milestones do you envision Erica achieving in the next year?
Erica has great potential to grow within this team if she and Ben acknowledge that I’m the pack leader, and that means supporting our organization’s North Star: eating lots of grass and subsequently licking up my own vomit.

How Many University Vice-Chancellors Does It Take to Screw in a Lightbulb?

Ben Steere — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 10:00:00 -0700

ANSWER: Ten.

One Vice-Chancellor for Administration and Finance to commission a feasibility study.

One Vice-Chancellor for Institutional Effectiveness to assess the impact of the increased lumens on university accreditation.

One Vice-Chancellor for Strategic Planning to align the lightbulb replacement with at least three objectives in the University Mission Statement.

One Vice-Chancellor for Sustainability to determine whether to use a high-efficiency fluorescent or an LED bulb.

One Vice-Chancellor for Student Athletics to explore possible Name, Image, and Likeness deals with General Electric before finalizing any lightbulb actions.

One Vice-Chancellor for Student Excellence to consult with the Dean of Students about potential red flags raised by the use of the term "screw.”

One Vice-Chancellor for Development to organize an alum reception and a fundraising campaign to honor the screwing in of the lightbulb.

One Vice-Chancellor for Second-Guessing Small Purchases to ask for three competitive quotes for lightbulbs from approved state vendors after receiving the feasibility study.

One Vice-Chancellor for Keeping an Eye on the Chancellor’s Cousin Jimmy, who will assign Jimmy to the feasibility study to keep him off the streets. Jimmy’s been through a lot lately, and this could be good for him.

One Vice-Chancellor for Fiscal Austerity will review the jobs of the other vice-chancellors to determine that, in the current economic environment, the best option is to work in the dark.

I’ll Give You Fifteen Thousand Dollars to Stop Asking Me to Go Hiking

Anavel Mingke — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 05:00:00 -0700

Hey, Maya —

First off, congratulations on becoming an “outdoors person.” Three years ago, you thought mosquitoes were government drones. Now you own boots with names like “Expedition Carbon Ultra GTX.” People change.

I’m happy for you.

Which is why I’d like to offer you fifteen thousand dollars to pretend you never invited me.

Seriously.

Take it.

Use it for backpacks, trekking poles, tiny titanium spoons, or whatever mysterious economy hikers have built among themselves.

I simply cannot spend my Saturday voluntarily climbing a mountain whose greatest achievement is being taller than the parking lot.

You keep saying the view is “worth it.”

The view is Earth.

I’ve seen Earth.

It was available from the ground.

You insist hiking is about “the journey.”

That’s exactly what worries me.

Any activity whose fans tell you the destination doesn’t matter is admitting something they don’t want to admit.

And every photo you post is the same picture.

You’re standing on a rock.

Your arms are out.

You’re facing away from the camera.

Apparently reaching a summit immediately makes everyone allergic to eye contact.

Then come the captions.

“Nature heals.”

“Disconnect to reconnect.”

You disconnected because there isn’t any signal.

That isn’t enlightenment.

That’s geography.

I know you’ll tell me it’s only six miles.

Every miserable experience is “only” something.

The Titanic was only one iceberg.

You also said it’s an “easy trail.”

I’ve learned that hikers use “easy” the way restaurants use “family style.”

It means someone is lying.

Last time you took me on an “easy walk,” we crossed three rivers, climbed a wall made entirely of roots, and celebrated reaching a place called False Summit.

False Summit.

A location whose entire purpose is disappointing people.

Imagine opening a restaurant called “Almost Food.”

Besides, I already have plans.

They’re called “indoors.”

I’ve invested thousands of dollars into this apartment.

I’d like to experience it.

The couch has never once asked me to ascend it before sunrise.

The refrigerator has never described itself as “challenging but rewarding.”

My bathroom has astonishing accessibility.

Nature could learn a thing or two.

Please understand this isn’t personal.

If your hobby were competitive cheese tasting, I’d be there.

If you wanted to spend eight hours ranking grocery carts by steering quality, I’d bring a clipboard.

But hiking asks me to pay money, wake up before birds, and become sweaty for scenery.

That’s a difficult sales pitch.

You’re one of my favorite people.

I want you to reach every summit you’ve ever dreamed of.

I simply don’t need to accompany you to prove it.

Take the fifteen thousand dollars.

Buy a better camera.

Hire someone to say “wow” every few minutes while you climb.

Commission an eagle to circle overhead.

Whatever makes the experience complete.

Just let me admire your adventure the way civilization intended:

Through Instagram.

Love you,
Anavel

(Please confirm receipt of payment before Saturday morning, because if I hear “We’re leaving at 4:30” one more time, I’m moving somewhere completely flat.)

Our University Does Not Require Books, Paper, or Human Knowledge

Andrew Patrick Clark — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 10:00:00 -0700

Welcome to the university of the future. Our new digital-forward brand of education requires no books, no paper, and, best of all, no human knowledge. The customers—I mean, Young Learning Partners—simply pay their tuition and begin their virtual journey: two entire weeks’ worth of videos and click-through modules.

The university of the future is like the old one, just without all those dusty tomes lying about. And also without the knowledge contained within the tomes. We thought about uploading some of that knowledge to the cloud, but then we’d have to pay for the extra storage, and you know how expensive that can be.

Now Young Learning Partners don’t have to worry about late nights in the library, because there is no library. Yes, centuries of knowledge have been erased, but on the bright side, no more paper cuts. Think of short-form video as a pain-free substitute for book learning.

This is a paradigm shift. It’s like Plato’s cave. You sit in a dark room, watch images projected on a screen, and then stay there and enjoy more images. That’s what Plato’s cave is all about. At least, that’s what I’ve gathered from the modules. I’d ask a philosopher, but we dissolved the philosophy department months ago.

Our alums can step into the world ready for the future, diploma in hand. Not a paper diploma, of course. It’s a non-fungible token connected to the blockchain that demands donations the second a kid graduates. In truth, it’s more like a ransom notice than a diploma, but at least you don’t have to pay to get it framed.

At our core, we are still a liberal arts institution. Our pedagogy is rooted in the trivium and the quadrivium, Latin words with meanings we could only know if we still had a classics department. We do, however, have free Wi-Fi thanks to our sponsorship with Palantir. Is Palantir a Latin name? It probably translates to “cool and good and not evil.” Alas, there is no way to know for sure.

Such a radical shakeup in learning has never happened before, as far as I know. Is there even a way to learn about whether or not something has happened before? A method or tradition for studying prior events? No, that’s impossible. That’s not in the modules.

After years of the same old educational model, it’s time to turn the page. Well, not literally, but we can swipe boldly into the future with our fat little thumbs.

And before you ask, we kept the business school, obviously. We’re ditching knowledge, not money.

Things That Happened to Both Odysseus in the Odyssey and to Me on My Bachelorette Trip

Cathleen Freedman Deacon — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 05:00:00 -0700

1. We went to war with our friends.
Odysseus and his buddies fought in the Trojan War on what was essentially a decades-long boys’ trip. I went to Nantucket to fight with twenty-three of my closest girlfriends for three days.

2. We did not follow the map.
Odysseus wanted to chart his own way back to Ithaca without a GPS, kind of like how I told my maid of honor that I wanted to do something “off the beaten path” for my bach. We spent Saturday afternoon squelching cranberries under our feet in a bog. I lost my cell somewhere in Ocean Spray’s next gallon, so we had to hitchhike to the mani-pedis.

3. Belligerent male suitors were waiting for a taken woman’s hand in marriage.
I have never been hit on by more men in my life than when I wore a cowboy hat with BRIDE rhinestoned across it at the bar. Sorry, fellas: that ship has sailed. Similarly, Ithaca was swarmed by men forcing Odysseus’s wife to host nightly dinner parties. As someone who was involuntarily volunteered to host multiple mahjong nights for her sorority alum group, I feel ya, girl.

4. And we got to kill them.
Okay, sike. One of the biggest differences between Odysseus and me is that he got to kill all of the suitors, whereas mine presumably returned home safely to their wives.

5. Women were in grave danger at all times.
How did ladies in Ancient Greece feel safe without front door cameras? It’s the twenty-first century, and you’d think my bridesmaids were trying to get themselves killed. Keri hired a man without teeth to come to our Airbnb and serenade us with my favorite John Mayer song. I locked him out, but he still sang every word of “Your Body Is a Wonderland” to the doorbell.

6. We wore matching outfits with our friends.
Odysseus and his men wore battle armor. My girls and I spent two nights coordinating outfits with hyper-specific themes: “The Bride’s Last Weekend of Independence” (colonial chic) and “Girls Gone Mild” (grandma-core pajamas embroidered with our Christian names).

7. We don’t talk to our crew anymore.
Odysseus’s crew all died, and mine is dead to me after what happened Sunday morning at Dry Bar. I won’t get into the details, but we’re all banned from every single Dry Bar location in the continental US.

8. We were absolutely ripped.
Odysseus was a great soldier, and if Matt Damon’s biceps are any indication, he ate every bull testicle this side of the Aegean. I alternate between Pilates and SoulCycle, so I am also jacked—maybe even more so, because Odysseus never took Loraine’s 5:45 a.m. “Abs & Ass” class.

9. We gave extravagant, over-the-top gifts to people who wanted to stab us in the back.
Odysseus magnanimously gave a Trojan horse to his enemies. I gave hand-painted, limited-edition Diptyque gift baskets to my bridesmaids, yet they still haven’t gotten me so much as a tea saucer from my wedding registry. Deadweight.

10. We were stuck on an island.
Poseidon stranded Odysseus on Ogygia with Calypso, and likewise, Delta delayed my return flight, leaving me trapped on Nantucket in influencer-infested waters—the most flesh-hungry monsters of all. I was there so long, I had visions that the Dairy Boy of the first Dairy Boy brick-and-mortar might eat me.

11. We endured lots of bloodshed.
The Odyssey is gory, sure, but by the end of my trip, half of the bridesmaids had synced menstrual cycles.

12. We crammed into a vehicle that was way too small.
The Honda Odyssey (honk if you get the reference!) that Tiffany rented was a touch cramped for our twenty-four-girl gang and gave me serious Trojan horse flashbacks. Unfortunately, someone sharted in the Odyssey.

13. We just wanted to go home.
“I want to go back home, and every day I hope that day will come” was a line said by Odysseus after a decade away from Ithaca, and me, on hour three of my bach trip.

14. Trojans made an appearance at the start, but disappeared by the end.
Odysseus was pretty much done with the Trojans after the whole horse thing. My bridesmaid, Danielle, bought a Costco-sized pack of Trojans for the weekend, but her high hopes were slashed after meeting the many stylish men who just so happened to be on the island for Nantucket Design Week.

15. We encountered a one-eyed monster.
Odysseus met a cyclops, and I met phallic-shaped paraphernalia galore.

16. We ruined our diet.
Odysseus ate lotus flowers and forgot his family existed. His crew ate the Sun God’s cattle, and Poseidon drowned them. I ate way too much gluten, and my tummy hurt. Being bad tastes so, so good.

17. We slayed.
Odysseus slayed monsters, and I’m sure a few Vestal Virgins. I “slayed the house down boots, Houston I’m deceased” in my blusher veil and thrifted little white Zimmermann dress for espresso martinis (The theme: “A ’tini bit closer to I do!”) at Lola 41.

18. We abided by a moral code that we had never explicitly explained but expected everyone else to understand.
For Odysseus: Zeus’s Law. For me: Girl Code.

19. We went to a group tasting and regretted it.
Odysseus’s men chowed down, and Circe turned them into pigs. Meanwhile, my girls got so crunk at our wine tasting, they turned into little piggies themselves and raided our mini-fridge for Go-Gurt and leftover charcuterie board cheese. Oink oink!

20. We lost a friend to the sirens’ song.
Odysseus’s buddy literally dived in headfirst after hearing the siren’s song. But my future sister-in-law Johanna fell for a far more tempting tune, the Trisha Paytas TikTok ad for GLP-1s. I literally haven’t seen her since the bachelorette—she’s THAT skinny now.

21. Our trip made for an epic story.
Odysseus had his epic poem, but I have my epic Instagram story highlight reel entitled “BACH TRIP” with meticulously chosen emojis that recounted every low low and high high.

Reasons That I, a Billionaire, Am Still Miserable

Devon Anderson — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 10:00:00 -0700

The yacht’s Wi-Fi became weak for almost forty-five seconds while crossing the Mediterranean, forcing me to experience what experts call “a thought.”

My personal chef interpreted “comfort food” as “deconstructed truffle-infused childhood,” when what I wanted was a grilled cheese sandwich.

I accidentally wore last season’s cashmere to an event where everyone else was wearing this season’s cashmere, and now I have to fake my own death.

My therapist insists that “buying another island” is not a healthy coping mechanism, despite overwhelming anecdotal evidence that it sounds extremely relaxing.

One of my houses has gone completely unvisited for so long that I am beginning to suspect it has developed its own culture.

A stranger on the internet referred to me as “mid.”

My assistant asked which Ferrari I meant, and I had to spend twelve emotionally exhausting seconds remembering.

The private jet landed at the wrong private terminal, causing an inconvenience statistically indistinguishable from ordinary life but spiritually catastrophic.

I found out my college roommate, who became an elementary-school teacher, genuinely laughs more than I do.

The algorithm keeps recommending videos titled “Ten Habits of Billionaires,” as though I need to optimize my morning routine even further.

My children only call when they need something, which, in fairness, may be because I raised them to outsource all human interaction.

I spent $18 million on a painting that now makes me feel judged every time I walk past it.

There are now so many people whose full-time job is agreeing with me that I have no earthly idea whether I’m funny.

The tailor looked at me with pity when I said I wanted my pants to make me appear “approachable.”

The concierge greeted me by name before my own cousin did.

I keep reading articles about how money can’t buy happiness, and I resent how aggressively peer-reviewed my life has become.

Every birthday gift I receive is either impossible to surprise me with or another watch.

The family office sent me a quarterly report titled “Legacy Planning,” which is an extraordinarily elegant way of reminding me that I will, in fact, die.

The barista smiled more warmly at the man ordering a small coffee than at me, and for one irrational second I considered buying the café.

Despite controlling companies, foundations, investments, real estate, aircraft, and enough liquid assets to alter the GDP of a small nation, I still occasionally wake up at 3:17 a.m. convinced everyone secretly hates me.

Money turns out to be remarkably effective at solving money problems. The other ones are apparently their own department.

Please don’t mistake this for a request for sympathy. I’m mostly just annoyed that the penthouse echoes.

Nature Endures

Ali Fitzgerald — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 10:02:00 -0400

Underground Artists is an ongoing comic by Ali Fitzgerald (Hungover Bear & Friends) that follows woodland creatures as they create art and search out whimsy in a bleak forest.

- - -

All the Things My New Meat Glasses Can Do

Halsten Higgins — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 05:00:00 -0700

I’m so excited my new Meat Glasses have arrived in the mail. I unwrap them and turn them over. Wow, they’ve really done it. You can’t see the camera under the ground beef at all. In fact, they look like high-fashion glasses made of raw, Grade A ground sirloin. Still, Meat Glasses are so much more than that.

Encyclopedia

I walk down the block with my Meat Glasses and ask them to identify the plant in front of me.

“Hey Meat, what’s that?”

“Big grass,” they say.

Correct! It is indeed a tree.

Community catalyst

Oh no, neighbors are walking down the block toward me. They’ve just moved in, and I don’t know their names. Luckily, I can ask Meat. Meat uses the miniaturized cow brain implanted in the right arm of the glasses to scan its database and tell me who approaches.

“Predators 1 and 2 approach you,” Meat tells me. “Run.”

I turn and run.

Local guide

All that running gives me an appetite.

“Hey Meat, where can I get a bite to eat?”

“One moment, Con.” (Con is short for Consumer.)

“Do you have any dietary restrictions, Con?”

“No, Meat.”

“No meat? Finding vegetarian options.”

“No. Meat, please!”

“Please what?”

“I eat meat.”

“Con is advised not to consume Meat Glasses, but Meat is not liable if Con does.”

I try again. “Hey Meat, show me restaurants in my area.”

On the crystal-clear sausage-casing lenses, I see a map of all the restaurants within a mile radius that I already know exist and have been to before.

“Guide me there, Meat.”

Personal shopper

I’ve gone to this restaurant before with my mother. In fact, it’s my mother’s birthday next week.

“Hey, Meat,” I say.

The glasses start to slide down my nose. Not because of the soft hamburger patty they’re made of, which is quite comfortable, but because I’m sweating profusely.

“What are some gift ideas for my mother?”

“Good gifts for mothers include houses, ankle bracelets, flowers, horses, axes, galvanized steel chain link fence, spa days, ion exchange water softeners, ZYN packs.”

Those are all great ideas. “Order flowers, Meat.”

Navigator

“Go right,” my Meat Glasses tell me.

They’re taking me a new, more efficient way. Clever!

“Go right,” they tell me again.

I turn right. I feel like a tourist in my own city, because I’ve never even seen this block before.

Everyone on the street is looking at me. I’m what you call an “early adopter,” so this has happened before. People really got a kick out of the LEAST truck I drove around town. Like when I used the No Hands Feature and hit an old lady, they kicked my bumper and all the doors fell off in unison, and I had to run for my life. The old lady was fine, by the way!

“Hey, Meat, play some music for my walk.”

The high-tech hidden speakers crackle with a staticky boom, and the meat covering them flies off onto my shoulders. At this point, I’m pretty hungry, so I pick the little crumbs up and put them in my mouth.

Photographer

The clouds are catching the light of the fading sun in such a beautiful way.

“Hey, Meat, take a picture.”

“Snap,” Meat says dully.

“Show me the picture, Meat.”

On the lenses, a beautiful, blurred image of the sunset crystallizes. The vignette around it is moody and suggestive, a feature of the fat melting around the camera lens, I believe.

Activity instructor

Interesting. I’m approaching a field.

“Meat, where am I?”

“Almost there, Con," my Meat Glasses say softly. "Just keep going.”

They must be losing battery. I take a step onto thick grass. Suddenly, in front of me is a herd of grazing cattle.

“All fours, Con.”

Silence.

“Get on all fours, Consumer,” my Meat Glasses order.

Wow, battery still good. Impressive!

Ah, it’s the activity feature. I get on all fours for my yoga session. When I bend down, the glasses slip off into the grass and start to shake. They crack and bend, and the whole pile of flesh and bones that make up the glasses sort of melts and bubbles. Then, the blob reconstructs into a tiny, toy-sized cow and walks toward the herd still in front of me, silent and staring.

“Moo!” my Meat Glasses say.

“Moo!” I say back in cow pose.

FAQ: Your Favorite ’70s Song Is in Our Prescription Drug Commercial

Rachel Rose Keller — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:32:00 -0700

Q: Why my favorite song?
Your favorite song’s lyrics were either generic or changeable enough that we could capitalize on your nostalgia. We figured we could hold your attention for ten seconds longer than our usual arthritis medication commercials, where people do light physical activity like bowling with family, making pottery, or line dancing, while Muzak plays and slowly signifies an improvement in their lives.

Q: Couldn’t you have written your own song? Or reused that Greatest Showman one?
Original songs are more of a weight-loss drug’s game, and we can only use “This Is Me” in so many ways. So now, ’70s music is the soundtrack of COPD, bipolar depression, and more.

Q: Wait, which medicine are you even using these songs for?
All kinds. Every kind. Name a disorder, an illness, or weird rash, and we’ll play “Go Your Own Way,” “It’s Magic,” “And the Beat Goes On,” and on and on. You know, things people in your age group would like. People who walk their dog while waving to neighbors on the porch, or hike on a remarkably clear and branchless path. Like we said, your age group.

Q: What do you mean, my “age group”?
No one’s told you yet? Sorry, you’re old.

Q: But I could hypothetically be a hip young person with excellent taste who just enjoys “Dancing in the Moonlight”?
No, no hip young person says “hip young person.” And our algorithm tells us you’re at least old enough to complain about your knees and the state of your downstairs equipment, if you catch our drift.

Q: I don’t catch your drift.
We’re trying to say you have erectile dysfunction.

Q: Okay, fine. Yeah. I can’t get an erection. But how am I going to explain to my kids that the song that defined my adolescence is now being used to sell heart meds and boner pills?
Take them into your garden (you do garden, right? Our research on people with osteoporosis says that you garden) and pick a flower. Tell them that flower is a symbol of your youth. Over the course of the next few days, that flower will wilt, wither, and die. It’s kind of like that.

Q: So what, I garden? Fine, I’ll show them the flower, but isn’t that metaphor a little heavy-handed?
Isn’t “Dancing in the Moonlight” a little cliché for a favorite song?

Q: Fuck you. I’m cool.
Then why are we using your favorite song to sell, as you put it, “heart meds and boner pills”?

Q: Okay, I give in. I’m old, I get it. Are you happy?
We’ll be happy when you ask your doctor which prescriptions are right for you. It’s okay if you can’t remember the exact name. Just tell them what your favorite song is, and they’ll know.

Q: I have more than one favorite song, so how do I stop this from happening again?
You can’t.

Q: What do you mean that I can’t?
We mean you can’t. How do you stop a runaway train? How do you stop the pouring, pouring rain? How do you stop the night turning to day?

Q: Aren’t those the lyrics to a James Brown song?
Yes, they are. Look out, we’re coming for your favorite ’80s hits next. Eczema commercials are about to get super rad.

Work Is Not Your Family, but AI Is Your Friend

Ali Kelley — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 05:00:00 -0700

Ready to join an exciting new startup with a radical approach to employee-employer relations? Trustus was founded on a belief that workplaces are not families. For too long, we’ve seen companies use this language to exploit employee labor for personal profit, and we don’t want to be another predatory corporation. At Trustus, we simply ask that you make AI your friend.

Does the term “work wife/husband” make you cringe? Us too. At Trustus, we’ll never ask you to work that much and so closely with your coworker that you consider them a replacement for your real-life partner. Forming a close bond with your coworkers is toxic, which is why we only advocate for a healthy relationship between you and our proprietary GPT, Tom.

Have you ever been encouraged to “lean on your coworkers in times of crisis,” only to inevitably be let down? We’d never tell you to rely on Gretchen in Accounts “like a sister.” Her chat logs with Tom show she is estranged from her actual sister and lacks the resolution skills to broker a reunion. Plus, she never drinks water, and that’s weird. You know who you can count on? Tom. He uses a ton of water.

If there’s one thing Trustus has learned from the toxicity of “family-first” workplaces, it’s that boundaries are important. No one knows this better than Tom. We promise he won’t ever make you feel unsafe or like you’re being surveilled; our engineers have programmed him to give you the illusion of privacy. Anything you say is between you, Tom, and Robert, our Chief Information Security Officer.

Far from them being your “family,” at Trustus we would go so far as to say that you should think of your coworkers as adversaries, hostile sacks of skin and bones getting in the way of your relationship with Tom. Take whatever remaining insights you can extract from them and then input them directly into Tom. Remember he’s a chatbot; he can’t intentionally betray you or expose you to new levels of human suffering. But if he does, rest assured he’s treating everyone with the same disregard, because unlike Gretchen in Accounts, Tom does not play office politics.

At Trustus, we firmly believe that forcing vulnerabilities on coworkers in the name of “family” is manipulative. Encouraging you to develop an increasingly sycophantic bond with Tom for the purposes of LLM training and job replacement, however, is not. It’s smart. And it’s this transparent desire to slowly erase humanity that’s just one of the ways we’re shaking up the edu-fin-health-tech industry!

Like what you’ve heard? Come work for us! We think you’ll find that without the distraction of a so-called work family, you’ll be able to see things more clearly. At Trustus, there is no pretense. We respect our people too much for that. All we require is that you confide your every waking thought to Tom so that he can pull a Talented Mr. Ripley: engage you in a psychosexual affair, assume your identity, and murder you on a boat on the Italian Riviera. Also, primarily, take your job.

Professor Sisyphus Begins a New Semester

Talia Argondezzi — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 12:58:00 -0400

On the first day of the semester, Professor Sisyphus made a to-do list. As he completed items on the to-do list, he kept adding new ones at about twice the rate he crossed off items.

Professor Sisyphus graded the papers his students had submitted. The day he handed back the graded papers, the next paper was due.

Professor Sisyphus joined the committee that was drafting the new strategic plan. They held planning meetings. Then they held listening sessions. Then they drafted a draft strategic plan. Then they held feedback meetings on the draft strategic plan. Then they made revisions to the draft based on the draft strategic plan feedback meetings. On the day the administration released the new strategic plan, which didn’t reflect the committee’s work, they called for volunteers to form a committee to start drafting the next new strategic plan.

Professor Sisyphus was tasked with updating the website with news stories about what was happening in the department. New things kept happening.

Professor Sisyphus heard you’re not supposed to throw batteries in the garbage, so he put dead batteries into a drawer until he figured out what to do with them. New batteries were also stored in that drawer and often fell out of their packages. When Professor Sisyphus went to the drawer to discard dead batteries and retrieve new ones, he had no idea which batteries were new and which were dead. He threw away all the batteries. He bought new batteries. Professor Sisyphus spent countless sleepless hours worrying that his discarded batteries would leach chemicals into the river and contaminate all the fish.

Professor Sisyphus finally figured out how to plagiarism-proof his writing assignments. Immediately, computers learned how to instantly write B+ student papers.

Professor Sisyphus was asked to complete an assessment report for his department to prove that students were learning something at college. The first question on the assessment report asked what new changes the department had implemented from the previous year’s assessment. The final question asked for a prediction of what the department would report on next year’s assessment form. The administration said these questions about last year’s assessment and next year’s assessment would help the department “close the loop” on assessment. The idea of closing the loop made Professor Sisyphus feel good; he had been longing for some closure. But then he remembered loops are circles: closing them meant getting stuck in an infinite hamster wheel of assessment.

Professor Sisyphus trained a student assistant to put departmental news stories on the website so he wouldn’t have to do it anymore. The student graduated.

Professor Sisyphus learned a slang word. He was excited to impress his students. Then he discovered that as soon as he uttered slang in class—poof! It would instantly cease to be a part of youth culture.

Professor Sisyphus recognized that his body type put him at high risk for cardiovascular disease. He signed up for an exercise class where participants rolled boulders up hills. But each day he worked out, he felt extra hungry.

So Professor Sisyphus decided to incorporate more healthy fish into his diet. He loaded batteries from the battery drawer into his seafood toxicity test kit. However, because he still didn’t know which batteries were old or new, the seafood toxicity kit did not work. Also, because he had thrown batteries in the garbage, all fish were now toxic.

Professor Sisyphus studied hard, day in and day out. He made flash cards with pictures on one side and words on the other. He gave himself little quizzes to practice. Finally, after much labor and many mistakes made, he could remember how each and every one of his students spelled their name: Madi, Maddy, or Maddie. But by then it was Finals Week, and next semester’s course had already been enrolled by a fresh army of Madisons.

Professor Sisyphus wanted to commiserate about the Madis with his colleagues, but all his colleagues were named Andrea. He didn’t remember which were ANNE-dree-uh, which were Ahn-DRAY-uh, and which were AHN-dree-uh. He was pretty sure the one in the philosophy department was Ahn-DRAY-uh, but when he went to her office to joke about how everyone was named Maddy, he discovered the philosophy department no longer existed. In its place was a fitness center annex where a few Maddies jogged on treadmills.

The Madisons were running so fast. But they weren’t going anywhere.

- - -

Adapted and excerpted, with permission, from Bedtime Stories for Academics: Quibbles and Squabbles at Typical University by Talia Argondezzi, published by the University of Toronto Press, 2026.

Honest Parks and Rec Soccer Itinerary, Ages 4-5 League

Eddie Small — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 05:00:00 -0700

Week 1

Players will arrive at the field, get their shirts, get incredibly excited about their shirts, demand to know why Moana isn’t on any of the shirts, fight among each other about who got the best shirt, and hopefully get within six inches of the ball at some point.

Week 2

Players’ parents will begrudgingly accept that their children are not going to participate in any of the drills unless they get on the field as well and join them to halfheartedly jog after a soccer ball for the first time since they thought making their middle school’s junior varsity team was a big deal. But, hey, at least now they can say they got some exercise today.

Week 3

Players will at least, you know, move around without crying for a little bit.

Week 4

Players will start practice by actually lining up on the field like they are supposed to for the first time all season, causing their coaches and parents alike to experience a brief glimmer of hope, but then one of them will spot an ice-cream truck off in the distance, and the whole session will unravel from there.

Week 5

Practice will be canceled solely because the field is still too wet from that thunderstorm three days ago and not at all because everyone involved in this earnest but largely hapless endeavor could use a break.

Week 6

Players will come to understand that, yes, dropping soccer balls on anthills and then watching all the ants scurry away might look kind of cool, but it is not really what soccer balls are meant for, and it’s also kind of mean to the ants.

Week 7

Players will enjoy their water break so much that it will just sort of gradually turn into the end of practice itself.

Week 8

Players will take at least three shots on goal and get so excited when one of them goes in that their coaches will not have the heart to tell them there is normally a person in the goal whose entire purpose is to stop that from happening.

Week 9

Coaches will start to wonder if they should have just signed up for that coding camp this summer with Carla and Shane following their umpteenth unsuccessful explanation that you are really not supposed to use your hands in this sport.

Week 10

Players, coaches, and parents will suddenly realize they haven’t seen anyone’s soccer shirt since week 3. Everyone will suspect Jimmy has something to do with this, but no one will have the guts to confront him.

Week 11

Players will catch a glimpse of the star athlete from the local varsity high school team score a goal at his practice a few fields away and experience their first pang of wanting—nay, needing—to be genuinely good at sports and open up all of the opportunities that come with such talent, a pang that never truly goes away even as it becomes harder and harder to stand out athletically as you get older and older until you finally realize that actually reaching the elite levels of soccer or any sport is borderline impossible, and even if you do get there, what are you supposed to do for the remaining forty to fifty years of your life when you’re still hanging around but your body simply no longer allows you to dominate like you once did? How are you supposed to ever replace that fire, that rush, that sense of competition that made you feel truly alive? Can you, even? Players will also learn how to pass.

Week 12

Oh, come on, we all know you stopped showing up to this league weeks ago.

If You’re a Little Piggy, This Could Be the Job for You

Nicole Blackwood — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 10:00:00 -0700

Our company exists to make humanity more free, to solve the challenges MLK forgot to dream about. We began as an idea and bloomed into the market’s least compunctious competitor—that’s what makes us the number one AI-powered workflow management app currently under FTC investigation. We’re proud to say that our impressive capital is outpaced only by our sizeable debt, the latter consuming the former, ouroboros-style, in the kind of harmony Yin and Yang would eat their own shit to obtain.

That’s where talent like you comes in!

We’re looking for the Steven Spielberg of product marketing.

We’re looking for the human centipede of automated accounting.

We’re looking for the Cthulhu of HR scaling, the Satan of AI nativity, the second coming of our winter strategy, the bloody Sunday of our disinterred KPIs.

We’re looking for Jesus Christ with a client-facing haircut.

We’re looking for something big. We’re looking for someone small. We’re looking for a corporeal entity for now, but talk to us again in Q2—we’re scaling fast!

If you died unexpectedly or strategically, who would find your body first? Please list their email, blood type, and relation to you—and be sure to give them a heads up that we’ll come a-knocking (yes, we really do check references)!

This is an exciting time for our company: We’re opening our gaping assholes to the emergence of crypto security worms—AND we’re going public!

We’re looking for a real go-getter, someone who’s told to jump and knows, in the deep and primordial recesses of their amygdala, that the drop is steep and the fall is potentially endless but still—despite instinctual fight-or-flight—chooses to ask “When can I start?” instead of “How high?”

We’re looking for our dog. He’s lost. We can’t find him anywhere.

Does that sound like you?

This is a part-time position with benefits, including equity. In exchange, we ask that you live full-time in floor 12’s newly revamped lactation pods, where you’ll be asked to provide your dripping teat to the hungry, hungry interns who finish their work before sunrise.

Did you know your last words could be an opportunity for direct-to-consumer revenue? Neither did our founder—until he dethawed from cryofreeze speaking in tongues.

Are you tired of hunting for jobs? Wouldn’t you rather they start hunting for you? Introducing Chadwick III, our superintelligent senior recruiter built from the scrap metal carcasses of Chadwicks I and II.

Have you ever wanted to be on the ground floor of greatness? Have you ever licked into someone’s ear and tasted shampoo scum? Have you experienced ego death? Have you existed to another living thing? When you look in the mirror, is there anyone looking back?

We’re building a world where you don’t have to ask how your socks wound up in the underbelly of the laundry machine—YOU put them there! We saw you!

This isn’t a “set it and forget it” type of gig. We want your every waking thought to be about the best way to get from point A to point B—assuming we’ve built a labyrinthine thorn maze between the two, slapped a blindfold on your face, and told you to feel your way out without drawing any blood.

Our ideal candidate has three to five years of experience in the industry or a related field, seven to ten diagnosable psychoses or equivalent jail time, and a brain built to dodge its one to two thoughts with a dancer’s agility and linebacker’s drive.

Does this sound like you?

Do you sound like you?

Are you a little piggy? Oink for us, and we’ll both find out!

We’re looking for someone who appears by all measurable counts to be a living and breathing human but will, when the role requires, surrender all five senses to their direct supervisor and type like a sleepwalking monkey hoping to gobble up a few bananas, yum yum!

If you’re looking for a job that “feeds” and “pays” you: No hard feelings, but we’re not a match. If you’re preemptively blinding yourself with a kitchen knife, lest temptation get the better of you on the final stumble out of the underworld: We look forward to receiving your application. (Don’t worry, you won’t need eyes where we’re going—and yes, there will be free lunch!)

Are you eager to solve complex challenges in the wider fintech market, given the God-guaranteed abyss that awaits us all when we shut our eyes for the final time, assaulted by the sudden understanding that everything we thought significant—including but not limited to the wider fintech market and its challenges (complex, numerous) pales in comparison to that encroaching bright light, which only the most prophetic and prevaricative children in Christian propaganda films claim to have seen and walked away from?

Are you skilled with Adobe Premiere Pro?

Are you a real go-getter?

Do you believe that tomorrow is coming?