L.A. Heatwave + Kendrick's Super Bowl + Sergio Mendes Dies + Another School Shooting + An American Murdered by Israel + The Cut's Cat Problem + Save The Elizabeth Street Garden
Just here in a triple digit heatwave dealing with rolling blackouts while the winds of a major wildfire 60 miles away are about to start blowing over the city. That’s all. Literally, just trying to keep the my ice cubes frozen long enough to make margaritas, just trying to keep the AC on long enough to not have to decamp with my little demon baby to a hotel. Everything else on my productive weekend list will have to wait until next week.
Also — I know I promised more free weekly essays. It might be more like free monthly essays at this point. I’m still trying to figure some things out. My soul knows that not everything needs to be done in 10,000 words, I just need my brain to understand that. More to come —
Kendrick Lamar to Headline The 2025 Super Bowl Halftime Show (Variety)
Ina Garten and The Age of Abundance (New Yorker)
Rapper Rich Homie Quan Dies At 33 (AP)
California African American Museum’s Hosting a Free ‘Zine Workshop 9/14 (CAAM)
What Exactly Was Influencer Tana Mongeau’s Plan For These Women? (@meeposaurus)
“Deportation for thee, but not for me”… Anna Delvy Edition (@Sophia)
Brazilian legend Sergio Mendes died earlier this week in Los Angeles due to complications from long COVID. He was 83.
The last days… the absolutely suffocating dog days… of summer are upon us. Let’s time travel back to the decades of my youth, the ‘80s and the ‘90s, long before the heat made me nauseous and long before I ever had to put a utility bill in my name (and pay it every month). Back when summer meant something, back when it felt like this:
Explore more of photographer Joseph Rodriguez's work here.
Last month, Verso Books curated a reading list that offers “a history of the occupation of Palestine, situated in a wider context of anti-colonial struggles around the world.” At the top of the list is a free e-book, described by the site as an “urgent editorial intervention.”
View the reading list here.
“You’re just wondering which one of those [gunshots] are gonna be for somebody that you’re, like, best friends with, or somebody that you love.”— Landon Culver, Apalachee High School Student
Just mere hours into the start of the school year, two students and two teachers are dead, and nine others injured, in yet another American school shooting. The shooter, Colton Gray, 14, carried out the slaughter with an AR-15 bought for him by his father. The gifted gun being handed to Colton just a few months after his own online threats had the FBI showing up to his door. Colton’s father, Colin Gray, was arrested after the shooting and appeared alongside his son in court this week. His mother reportedly contacted the school minutes prior to her son’s rampage, but miscommunications on-site led to the wrong student being pulled from class, or so she says.
Colton Gray and his father fit the profile of a very specific, very prevalent American terrorist, one whose harm and frequency of attacks over-index well above those from any Arab or Muslim boogeyman this country (and the men who run its governments and media) want you to fear. Those men, and their empires, will not only refuse to recognize the Grays as terrorists, they’ll do as whatever they can to cover for them, for as long as they can. Case-in-point: the rushed, dangerously lazy and unethical journalism from Cox Media’s Atlanta-based WSB-TV:
Pictured above is not the shooter, but his victim — a black child with autism named Mason Schermerhorn. A freshman killed only three weeks into his high school experience.
Elsewhere…
Israel’s army just shot an American woman in the head
The New York Times and their headline would rather not say who did it
War criminal, election stealer Dick Cheney announces his plan to vote for Kamala Harris
Why did Ivanhoe get a $70M renovation while neighboring schools struggle? (We know why)