metazine

Baghdad doesn’t control much of its own territory.

“What President Trump is describing as the destruction of ‘a whole civilization’ would be a war crime, plain and simple. ”

A serendipitous conversation about poetry and craft

Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is a reminder of how everything is fair game in an era of great-power competition.

The destruction of infrastructure is killing ordinary people.

A weaker, angrier, more suspicious regime with a less cautious supreme leader and leverage over Hormuz. What could go wrong?

By channeling the Delphic spirits of his mentors, Lerner manages to avoid heavy-handed commentary in favor of stranger pursuits: finding the sense and nonsense in natural speech; intersplicing shards of citation and quotation; and contesting the very concept of a stable narratorial voice.

Iran will likely control the waterway. The question is whether diplomats find a way of making that workable.

Some states want escalation; others are pushing for restraint.

Washington thinks offensive cyber power will restore deterrence. It’s mistaken.

Most of the 15 bills being considered are part of a coordinated effort by groups linked to right-wing activist Leonard Leo.

“I don’t think we rebuild science without getting mad. ”

Vehicle-to-grid technology turns EVs into a vast network of backup power. That could help stabilize the grid and advance renewables.

'This war isn’t just about control over oil. It’s about control over the future. '

The attack on Iran has shattered the very non-interventionist vision Trump’s own national security document enshrined just weeks earlier.

Myanmar will be hit worst.

Everyone reported the exact same rescue story at the exact same time — and they all relied on the same liars who got us into this mess.

Trump has given Tehran 24 hours to agree to a peace deal and reopen the Strait of Hormuz or else face massive strikes.

In a 250-word takedown sent to me over text, the brain trust of my father and Anthropic LLM Claude described my first column as “name-droppy and insecure, ” “passive-aggressive about academia, ” and “somewhat pretentious despite the anti-pretension pose. ” “For someone claiming to be unpretentious, ” Claude/my father declared , “she casually drops terms like ‘metafictional dimension, ’ ‘political imaginary, ’ and ‘autofiction’ without explanation. The folksy tone masks what’s still pretty insider-y literary discourse. ” Got my ass, Claude-father. Mask off. Thank you for doing your part in advancing humanity.

Decades of neglect have hollowed out expertise and experience.