they are chosen by affluent media ownership SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE they aren't burdened by any sense of responsibility to their profession or the public

Got at the weird political relationship between hemp/cannabis a bit in this column about state-level hemp bans (or not):

excuse me?!

really cannot be emphasized enough that bari weiss has literally never done journalism. i don’t mean that in the pejorative sense. i mean that in the “has never performed the job she was hired to do” sense

“Asked whether the Avula administration considers contact with the media to be a part of the CAO's job description, a city spokesperson said, ‘Mr. Donald is focused on executing Mayor Danny Avula's vision for a thriving Richmond.’”

A lot of people like to post that journalists should quit their jobs when stuff like this happens. It can be hard for rank and file. It is not as hard for millionaire TV personalities.

still got a few left! itsfingers.bigcartel.com

Mad Enough to Blog It™️:

This article is actually fairly thorough and critical on Youngkin's (bad) record on K-12 education, but you'd never know that from the hed, dek, or photo selection, all of which give his years of chaotic partisan hackery undeserved legitimacy in the eyes of a casual reader.

yeah and orcas like to tell each other “target acquired”

Mr. Beast, all my friends and I were saying how good at boxing you’d be

📥 The Fingers Weekender hits paid subscribers' inboxes tomorrow morning chock-full of analysis on the latest news in beer, wine, spirits, and beyond. Subscribe now, here's a ***BLUESKY-ONLY*** discount: www.fingers.email/upgrade?offe...

getting tossed from the bar for ordering a who-garita with a grinch rim

sorry, john what? and he's from where?

🤷‍♂️ 🤷‍♂️ 🤷‍♂️: www.reddit.com/r/TrueUnpopu...

there’s no global whiskey glut and trump’s trade war is not exacerbating it for american distillers by destroying crucial export markets and margins. why would you even suggest such a thing?

Richmond’s contract is up for renewal in 2026.

richmond streets cry out for the bollard

everybody has a business plan until they get punched in the face

richmond ballet really brought it last night

and/or the type of nescac alumnus who uses “summer” as a verb and still mourns the closure of the best made co in tribeca

I would rather walk in on my parents watching porno than catch them reading this

One of the ways you can tell America is stronger than ever is that it’s almost Christmas and all anyone is talking about is a heavily redacted set of documents about sex monsters

this is a good reminder of how things that are shitty but have been accepted as normal and inevitable can actually turn out to be abnormal and evitable with some science, time, education and political will

every founder of a sequoia-backed company should be asking why they haven’t fired maguire yet

My final column of 2025 (!) for The Lookout is a spotlight on a local illustrator who's new to the East End and has a pretty clever scheme for meeting people:

all the stuff about bathrooms and sports was a pretext and obviously so prospect.org/2025/12/19/t...

rly makes u think

i feel like the dek on this @fastcompany.com piece is insanely glib given this racist VC freak (but i repeat myself) could easily get this poor student killed:

RPD and the city of Richmond just put out a press release touting an enforcement blitz on vape shops called (sigh) "Operation Vaporize." Officials claim to have shut down 18 shops across the city, including a pair in the East End. More: rva.gov/sites/defaul...

Took a fun trip down memory lane this week researching a column. Hawley’s seat used to belong to Claire McCaskill, who had tried her hand at populism a decade prior making some noise about blocking the InBev takeover of Anheuser-Busch before apparently deciding it wasn’t for her. Oh well!

3. Debate them in the marketplace of ideas, of course.

1) These guys have more moral clarity than a lot of people in Congress and other halls of power. 2) Lol, the captions transcribing ICE as ISIS the second time.

Chomsky was a hero to most but her never meant shit to me Saw the pictures of him on the plane Motherfuck him and David Blaine

This is an 👀 quote for a guy who became CEO because his predecessor was suddenly ousted in a sex scandal

Last week, the country's biggest brewer announced plans to close three of its 12 mega-plants across the country. In my column this week at @vinepair.com, I broke down the long-simmering logic animating this seemingly sudden retreat—and how the planets aligned to make now the moment to call it.

American Gothic (Revival)

Coming across anything fun online now comes with a necessary pause for a call up to the booth for review. Like waiting to find out if it was a catch or not in the NFL. We are robbed of spontaneous delight.

Looking sharp in the Fingers LEAVE IT OPEN hat @olllllo.bsky.social! Two left: itsfingers.bigcartel.com Every purchase supports award-winning, AI-free independent journalism about drinking in America.

if i were trying to sell beer i'd do everything possible to avoid suggesting that it upsets your stomach to the point where you need over-the-counter medication. anyway.

Getting Naloxone kit to jab into my friends heart any time she considers buying pack of Magic cards

The Free Press' "name alone serves as a shibboleth for rich people to signal to each other that they’d like to think of themselves as broadly liberal while still embracing the rising fascist spirit of the age." — @rusty.todayintabs.com

After over 3 years on strike, members of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh (@pghguild.com) have returned to work at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. While the legal battle is still unresolved, this is a major victory for the labor movement.