“The worst men have the best jobs, the best men have the worst jobs or are unemployed or locked in madhouses.” - Charles Bukowski

I’ll be on WXNA’s ‘Psychobabble’ with a bunch of great folks tomorrow at noon to talk about the @nashvillescene.com’s late, great Jim Ridley. Tune in! More details here.

Reporters Madeline Fening and Lucas Griffith of alt-weekly Cincinnati CityBeat were arrested Thursday while doing their jobs, covering a protest in Northern Kentucky.

DOJ Removes All Mentions Of Justice From Website theonion.com/doj-rem...

"Five months into its unprecedented dismantling of foreign-aid programs, the Trump administration has given the order to incinerate food instead of sending it to people who need it" @hana-kiros.bsky.social, on spending $130,000 to burn food worth $800,000 www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

Charlie English’s entertaining, inspiring THE CIA BOOK CLUB tells the story of the agents and resistance members who waged a literary campaign against totalitarianism in Cold War-era Poland. @randomhouse.bsky.social

Thrilling! We went to Caracol several times in the early 2000s. Gorgeous, haunting site, the huge ceiba trees and roars of howler monkeys echoing in the deep green. Almost no visitors then, and we hung out with some of the archaeologists once. One of my favorite places on earth.

WTAF

Bonkers story. Always amazing how many hardcore committed criminals use messaging acts with spectacular stupidity about exposing themselves. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/08/w...

We're partnering with The Porch on a summer writing contest for Vodka Yonic, the Scene's personal essay column for women and nonbinary writers. Submit an original essay by July 25 for a chance to win $200, a free Porch class, and publication in the Scene! Learn more: www.porchtn.org/vodkayonic.

I’m happy to show up & bring Cambodian food to book clubs when folks want to read SLOW NOODLES & ask questions about how Chantha & I collaborated. I will admit that some people say/ask very weird things. I’m getting used to people telling me they “couldn’t get into it at first.”

Robert Kaiser--an innocent father who was wrongly convicted and imprisoned thanks to the flawed theory of shaken baby syndrome--has been added to the National Registry of Exonerations. Kaiser is the 41st person on the registry cleared of SBS accusations. exonerationregistry.org/cases/14212

I loved all his work, but his aviation stories were unequalled. My favorite was “The Turn,” a 1993 piece on the physics of how an airplane banks & yaws. He explained it so elegantly that I began to see turning flight as extraordinarily beautiful. I would have loved to take a flight lesson with him.

Some argue that AI will be wildly powerful and dangerous; others say it will be a stupid waste. My take is that it will be a wildly powerful and dangerous stupid waste.

@propublica.org is continuing to follow what has happened in the wake of the destruction of USAID. By Brett Murphy and Anna Maria Barry-Jester www.propublica.org/article/trum...

I... oh my god. amandaguinzburg.substack.com/p/diabolus-e...

"The owner tried chasing the zebra through traffic Saturday, but it escaped in a wooded area." fox17.com/news/local/z...

As a child, Shamsa Sharawe was brutally cut. As an adult, she underwent hours of reconstruction surgery. As a mother, she vowed to protect her daughter from female genital cutting. And now as a social media influencer, she is persuading others to do the same. trib.al/z8NU9U3

Yesterday my husband said we couldn’t get a handmaid because she would be called “Ofhal.”

I urge everyone to read Unbreaking’s new page on everything the govt is doing to destroy & diminish medical research funding. It’s the best thing I’ve read on this topic: @lizneeley.bsky.social & co have such done an incredible job. unbreaking.org/issues/medic...

today, a special feature arranged for your delectation by @davidswanson.bsky.social: notable sandwiches of literature, from dickens to roth to morrison: buttondown.com/theswordandt...

the people here probably already know this but really spread this far and wide: tell your normal offline friends and family to stop using ChatGPT for legal advice. it's happening constantly now. I'm always explaining to people why the advice this silly thing gave them is not real legal advice.

Am in favor

Really one of the best times of the year.

Also, rail against whatever you include in "MSM" if you want to, but if you're doing so without subscribing to/financially supporting an alternative even as you have the means to do so...

This is insane

Whenever I have to go out (and I don’t feel like it) I imagine there’s a group of birds who are “people watchers” that have been waiting their whole bird lives to spot an introvert in the wild and that they’ll be telling their bird friends about me for years and it kinda helps

A Shattered Nation Longs To Care About Stupid Bullshit Again theonion.com/a-shatt...

So excited to learn that 13th century Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II was known as the “Astonishment of the World,” and now I want to get another cat so I can name it that

If you love a book, write a nice review. It gives the author encouragement for bad days when they want to take up scorpion petting. - @lianabrooks.bsky.social #WriterSky #BookSky #KidLit

In one dramatic example, Gambian officials said the State Department issued a veiled threat of cutting funds to their fragile democracy if they didn’t approve a license for Musk’s Starlink.

Incredible book—will never forget it

Your state DMV probably won't text you about unpaid fees — but scammers will.

The Hungarian government is about to pass a law that will allow it to destroy the tiny online outlets that represent the last vestiges of independent Hungarian press 444.hu/2025/05/22/v...

Johan Helberg woke up because his neighbor was pounding on his door, telling him to look outside. “I thought, who in the world rings the doorbell at 5:45 in the morning? I looked out the window, and he said: ‘Haven’t you seen the ship?’”

12 months ago he had fended off another attack, that time by a great white shark. "I feel like they're trying to kill me, all these animals," he reportedly said. www.bbc.com/news/article...

“a growing recognition that women’s pain should be treated.”

Stop Forcing A.I. Into Every Fucking Thing!

No actual writer wants this shit. Please stop forcing it on us.

i wrote about a beautiful memoir, cambodian history, the num pang sandwich, rice and bread: buttondown.com/theswordandt...

and today's sandwich forms the bookend of the trio, and is partly the book review of an amazing memoir by cambodian author chantha nguon about fleeing cambodia and returning, and the food that sustained her along the way: buttondown.com/theswordandt...

This is an absolutely stunning piece of writing.

If you’re not reading Talia Lavin’s wonderful series about sandwiches, you should totally start.

Sarong lives her life with such wholehearted generosity. She’s an inspiration.

This morning is the 65th Anniversary of the bombing of civil rights attorney Z. Alexander Looby’s house. The crime remains unsolved.

Does he know there’s such a thing as a win-win? Or does he think absolutely everything has to be zero-sum at all times?

Today only, there's an ebook promotion for Code Name Verity for $2.99 (usually $9.99). I've included all the links that fit here - feel free to share! Kobo: www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/... Google Play: play.google.com/store/books/... Barnes & Noble: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/code-name-...

"If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people." -- Virginia Woolf

“It’s actually in the interest of American people to keep diseases down,” said Dr. Githinji Gitahi, who heads Amref Health Africa, a large nonprofit that relies on the United States for about 25 percent of its funding. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/07/h...