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“For me, saying that I am a feminist has always meant that I believe in the social, economic, and political equality of all males and females of all races and groups.” How do we process the passing of Gloria Steinem at a moment when her core goal of equality is facing so many setbacks? Maybe how she told us to: with optimism, hope, an embrace of how joyful social movements are, an awareness of how far we’ve come, and a constant reminder that “the biggest leaps are those that we make within ourselves.” The New Yorker: Gloria Steinem’s Final Essay. (alt link.) “As I write this, the world seems in a tailspin. Many feel that all the progress we’ve made is being reversed. When you’re lucky enough to have lived a long life, as I have done, your role as an older person is to remind us how far we have come.”
+ Netflix: Famous Last Words: Gloria Steinem. “Told that she chose the harder path in committing to progress and change, she replied, ‘Doesn’t feel harder. It feels like fun.’”
+ NYT (Gift Article): Gloria Steinem Stayed Positive, Even as the Manosphere Took Hold.
+ Hillary Clinton: “Gloria Steinem was, at heart, an optimist. Her activism was rooted in optimism, and that’s a moral choice she made every day. Even though we’ve faced setbacks to women’s full participation and equality in America and around the world, I want Gloria’s voice to remain in our heads.” Maybe that voice was in a few heads and in the air at Olivia Rodrigo’s recent Daisy Chain Fields, an all-women music festival that raised $20 millionfor “nonprofit organizations benefitting women and girls, including the Center for Reproductive Rights and Planned Parenthood.” Rodrigo “brought out her heroes onstage: Alanis Morissette for ‘Ironic,’ Stevie Nicks for ‘Landslide,’ and McLachlan herself. ‘I feel like I’m dreaming,’ Rodrigo told the crowd. ‘This is the best day of my f-ckin’ life!”
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More Popular Than Sliced Bread
“A quarter of U.S. adults are now part of the so-called ‘sandwich generation,’ according to a Pew Research Center survey from September 2025. These adults have a parent age 65 or older and have a child under 18, an adult child receiving financial support or both.” More than half of Americans in their 40s are sandwiched between an aging parent and their own children. “Adults in the sandwich generation were more likely than those who were not sandwiched to say they were very satisfied with their family life.” (Like all sandwiches, a lot depends on the bread.)
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The Arch of History Bends Toward Ugly
“The rush to push ahead with work on the arch follows a familiar pattern for Mr. Trump, who has frequently embarked on large-scale changes to historic properties in Washington without approvals from Congress or anyone else. And it comes days after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the administration to continue building a ballroom on the site of the demolished East Wing.” Trump to Break Ground on Arch Before Getting Approval. (Break ground before you have approval. Finish it before the courts can catch up. Make it ugly. Put your name on it. It’s like Trump in NYC in the 80s.)
+ “A coterie of advisers, planners, and architects is enabling the President’s passion project—renovating D.C. in his own image.” The New Yorker: Donald Trump’s Capital Makeover. (At some point, if we’re lucky, we can rename the sites of these monuments after William McReavy. He’s the guy who invented the jackhammer.)
+ I’m much less worried about the changes to the view in DC than I am about the wrecking ball Trump is trying to take to our elections. “The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to lift a block on the U.S. Postal Service plan for President Trump’s attempt to restrict mail-in voting for the midterm election.”
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Weekend Whats
What to Movie: I recently watched a couple of movies that have particular resonance when it comes to this moment in AI and American culture. The first was The Imitation Game, in which Alan Turing leads a team of scientists in building a machine that can break the WWII coded messages being transmitted by the Germans. That’s the AI part. The way Turing was treated because he was gay is the part that sadly matches some of today’s culture wars. The other movie is The Big Short.
+ What to Doc: The Untold series on Netflix is always interesting. Their latest doc covers one of the weirder moments in recent Olympics history. Raygun: Breaking Badly.
+ What to Read: “People who live and work in land-based economies are well accustomed to being called backward by the more urbane, and Berry’s work has sometimes borne this slight. But he was the opposite of backward; he was prescient ... If any readers still doubt that a farmer could have much to tell them, it’s their loss.” Barbara Kingsolver in the NYT (Gift Article): Wendell Berry’s Message to Readers: All We Need Is Here.
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Extra, Extra
Prep Rallying: “UK citizens will be told to stock up on tinned food and take steps to ensure they are prepared for national emergencies as part of a new government campaign to improve the nation’s resilience.” From yesterday: Finland runs Europe’s biggest civil defense exercise since the end of World War II. Related: The Risk of Russian Sabotage in Europe: A Fight That Spirals Out of Control.
+ A Familiar Story: “What makes the AfD’s rise especially shocking is that it is much more extreme than other European far-right parties that are either already in power, like Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, or could be soon, like Marine Le Pen’s National Rally. Whereas those parties have sought in some ways to detoxify and moderate themselves, the AfD has become more radical over time, deepening its ties to neo-Nazis and promising to repatriate migrants. As it has done so, it has grown more popular.” NYT (Gift Article): Something Alarming Is About to Happen in Germany.
+ 9 to 5 Billion: “The August payroll gain was the strongest in five months and well above Wall Street forecasts of 53,000 new jobs.” Employers add 162,000 jobs in August. Speaking of adding... The AI boom pushed global billionaire wealth to a record $15.1 trillion in 2025.
+ Unfettered Review: “One morning in June, three paralyzed military veterans in wheelchairs from rural Pennsylvania arrived at the office of Sen. John Fetterman for a long-awaited meeting to discuss legislation that would improve their care. Fetterman’s staff greeted them with bad news: The Pennsylvania Democrat had to cancel. He’d told his staff he may have eaten something bad and wasn’t feeling well, according to people familiar with the matter. Less than an hour after his staffers met with the veterans in his place, Fetterman walked into his office, showing no signs of illness. He had an appointment he didn’t want to miss, he told staff: an interview on Fox News to discuss Israel and the war in Iran.” The leaks in this story suggest Fetterman’s own staff is getting really tired of his act.