Weekly Round-up, April 11, 2026

The Grand River at Riverside Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Another week in the stupid and unnecessary Iran war, started and exacerbated by syphilitic dotard Donald Trump and his various bootlicks, water carriers, and enablers. Which, at this point, includes every conservative-leaning person in the United States.

The GOP, MAGA, the KKK, DOGE, Christian Nationalism, the Epstein Class. Those are all different names for the same people. That is a Venn diagram which forms a near-perfect circle. There may be some variation at the edges of the odious egg-sack, but they are minimal and inconsequential. And once a willing participant in any of those, there is no path to redemption. All are indistinguishable from fascism, and fascism is a syphilis of the soul: Even when it isn’t apparent, once you’ve had it, it will never go away, and will resurface when the conditions are favorable.

So it goes.

I have been working 50 to 60 hours a week almost every week this year. And it looks like this will continue through the beginning of June. The past few weeks were rough but I have, I think, adjusted. Not that I enjoy it, but the deep-in-my-guts stress from the long hours has been replaced by a sort of restless numbness. I feel kind of like I did in the early 2000s, working for an increasingly thankless and toxic design agency. 70+ hour weeks were answered, not with thanks, but with “I wish you’d done more.” And definitely not with money, though the owners liked to throw parties for us in their gigantic house in the most expensive neighborhood in the city. So we got to see what we could aspire to if we were willing to fuck over a sufficient number of employees.

Reading

I have had very little time to read, but I have made progress in The Evergreen Review Reader, 1967-1973. Much of the content in the first part of the book is about, or by, Che Guevara. Which makes sense, as Guevara was murdered in October 1967. Really interesting stuff. And Guevara was a pretty good writer.

Writing

No free time = no writing. Maybe in June.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Kaiju, Music
Setting: Wilderness
Genre: Romance

Listening

Sekou Sundiata, “Days Going By in Broken English,” from his 1997 album The Blue Oneness of Dreams.

Interesting Links