This Week's Writing 8/15/26
Politics, culture, and cat poems.
Another week staggers to a close. This is what I published.
Politics
Trump can’t lie his way out of a missile shortage. (Public Notice)
Ross Douthat knows the fascists are on his side. (EIH)
Cultural criticism
Young George Washington gives us a Founding Father for MAGA. (Religion Dispatches)
Rock music is defined by whiteness. (EIH)
Stephen Wilson Jr makes country for fathers and sons, not bros. (Chicago Reader)
The End of Oak Street is a 1980s exercise with dinosaurs. (Splice Today)
Over Your Dead Body doesn’t quite go for the jugular. (EIH)
Sabrina (1954) is great, except for the guy. (EIH)
In The Loop and bureaucratic, nonideological war. (EIH)
Poetry
Put it in the paper. (dadakuku)
Explosive Headline
The good news is White Queen diarrhea cures politics.
Better news is unitary exec Kaopectate tweaks polling karaoke.
Caucacity . . . Caucacity . . .
Hard hitting poem from the front lines. (Five Fleas)
Big Choices
Will the cat
sit on my lap?yes
nono
yesyes and no and
?There’s a lot of indecision
in a cat.
Poetry and math. (Five Fleas)
Cat Story Problem
Shave the cat.
From the fur make another cat.
The cat eats the fur.
The cat coughs it up.
The cat eats the hairball.
How many cats do you have?
One cat around all the cats.
You have to shave it to find out.
From the archive
Not Horseshoe Theory. Tentacle Theory.
This piece ran originally at the much-lamented Pacific Standard in 2018. I think it’s still an important point, so thought I’d re-up it.
