Reading List

The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.

Trump might want “boots on the ground” in Iran. Just not American ones.

Last week, President Donald Trump spoke with Iraqi and Iranian Kurdish leaders, reportedly offering “extensive US aircover” and logistical support for armed groups to cross the border from Iraq into Iran to push out regime forces. As one of these leaders put it, his message was that “Kurds must choose a side in this battle […]

The logic of anxiety

Anxiety is one of those words that means a hundred different things depending on who’s using it. A clinical disorder. A mood. A personality trait. A vague feeling that you don’t understand but desperately want to resist. What if some forms of anxiety are more like a signal telling you something deeply true about yourself […]

The mysterious Redditor who’s changing the way we do laundry

Here is what you need to know about the man known to hundreds of thousands of people as Kismai: Kismai is not his legal name; he is incapable of eating cheeseburgers without getting some on his shirt; and he hates when people are wrong on the internet. Separately, those three distinct characteristics could describe anyone. […]

Bugs were supposed to be the future of food. Now, the insect farming industry is collapsing. 

“We have to get used to the idea of eating insects.” This proclamation came from, of all people, an insect researcher. Dutch entomologist Marcel Dicke pitched eating bugs in his 2010 TED talk as critical to sustainably feeding a growing human population, because insects have a much smaller carbon footprint than beef, pork, and chicken.  […]

Is Trump coming for Cuba?

We’re not even three months into 2026, and already it’s shaping up to be President Donald Trump’s year of regime change. He successfully removed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January, he took the US to war with Iran late last month, and now he may be eying a new target: Cuba, which he told a […]