Dog man star
We are now at “the logical endpoint of 21st-century America: An influencer shot to death at a school in front of a crowd of smartphones.” / Garbage Day
A giant interactive wall of the names of the 50,000 people killed in Israel’s attacks on Gaza is the winner of the 2025 Tiny Awards. / Fifty Thousand Names, Tiny Awards
The removal of the Banksy mural on London’s Royal Courts of Justice has left behind a ghostly image that’s become a metaphor for government crackdowns. / Hyperallergic
See also: In New Orleans, preservationists bring back a Banksy that was twice defaced and then demolished. / Oxford American
This week, cosmologists detailed how a complex apparatus called LIGO helped them realize Einstein’s dream of detecting the collision of black holes through gravitational waves. / CNN
Related: Trump has LIGO lined up for a 40% cut. / The New York Times [$]
Interviews with fired public lands employees before they were reinstated. / Patagonia
Step one: “Make a really big pile of sand.” Finnish district cuts winter heating fuel use 60% with a 2,000-pound battery made of crushed stone. / Fast Company
Human speech everywhere is found to move at the pace of 1.6-second “intonation units.” / Phys.org
For much of Christian history, Saint Christopher was portrayed with a dog’s head, revealing “how medieval European thinkers conceptualized otherness and difference.” / JSTOR Daily
The idea of “the West” as a community distinct from the rest of the world is credited to the French philosopher Auguste Comte. / Mere Orthodoxy
Why are professional poets embarrassed by Mary Oliver? “Many of us have retained a queasiness about the narrow scope of first-person poetry.” / The Yale Review
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The straw-hat pirate flag from One Piece has become a symbol of protest, starting in Indonesia and now appearing in Nepal. / Firstpost
“The failure of Reconstruction feels like the origin story for much of American life as we know it now.” What we’ve lost by forgetting the 1868 assassination of a US congressman. / Longreads
Renowned couples and family therapist Terrence Real recommends Bruce Springsteen as a representative of healthy masculinity. / GQ
The average age of a Silicon Valley employee has risen from 34 to 39 in the past two years. / Fortune
Gen Z students explain why they’re drinking less: “It’s about generational identity.” / The Wall Street Journal
A bio-hacking doctor says “ultra-fit” men and women are often basically starving themselves. / Desmolysium
See also: “The story of the quarterback has always been a story about American fame.” / The Atlantic [$]
On the Washington Post’s vacuous “ready for some football” editorial: “The more I read, the less I think I like football.” / Defector
Do media organizations even want cultural criticism? “There’s just a lot of editors these days who don’t value it.” / Intelligencer
Donald Judd’s architecture office in Marfa, Texas, will soon reopen. / designboom
In the members area, unlocked links from the New York Times and the Atlantic ↓
Trump has LIGO lined up for a 40% cut. / The New York Times
“The story of the quarterback has always been a story about American fame.” / The Atlantic