This week: The Gaza war transformed the Middle East / The Special Forces culture / The vivid animated version of Beethoven’s ‘9th Symphony’ / Robot rabbits used to capture pythons in the Everglades / The risks and rewards of cold-water immersion
Most of these items come from my social media networks. Follow me on BlueSky, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism. Learn more about my academic background here and about me here.
1. Gold futures rise above $4,000 per ounce for the first time
By Wyatte Grantham-Philips | Associated Press | October 2025
“Gold sales can rise sharply when anxious investors seek secure investments for their money. Even before the shutdown, the asset — and other metals, like silver — had seen wide gains over the last year, as President Donald Trump ’s barrage of tariffs cause uncertainty around the outlook for the global economy. More recently, the prospect of lower interest rates has also made gold a more attractive investment than interest-bearing investments.”
2. After two years, Israel’s Gaza war has reshaped the Middle East
By Ishaan Tharoor | The Washington Post | October 2025
“Israel’s hard power preeminence in the Middle East seems paramount. But the country’s leaders — and the entire region — still face an array of political challenges.”
3. The American Experiment
By Jeffrey Goldberg | The Atlantic | October 2025
“At 250, the Revolution’s goals remain noble and indispensable.”
4. What is Insurrection Act, could it help Trump deploy troops to US cities?
By Sarah Shamim | Al Jazeera | October 2025
“The threat to invoke the Insurrection Act comes amid protests in Portland and legal challenges against his anti-immigration crackdown.”
5. Cold-water immersion may offer health benefits — and also presents risks
By Stephen Wade | Associated Press | October 2025
“Claims about the benefits of cold-water immersion date back centuries. Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and the third American president, wrote toward the end of his life about using a cold foot bath daily for 60 years. He also owned a book published in 1706 on the history of cold-water bathing.”
6. America’s Vigilantes
By Matthieu Aikins | The New York Times Magazine | October 2025
“A four-part investigation of the culture of impunity in the U.S. Special Forces.”
Part 1: A Green Beret’s Confession | Part 2: Nine Bodies on a U.S. Base
Part 3: A Culture of Secrecy | Part 4: Lawlessness Comes Home
7. Doing almost anything is better with friends, research finds
By Richard Sima | The Washington Post | October 2025
“You might be leaving some happiness on the table by doing your everyday activities all by yourself.”
8. Octopuses prefer to use different arms for different tasks, scientists find
By Nicola Davis | The Guardian | September 2025
“Creatures favour front arms for most tasks, study suggests, despite fact all eight arms are capable of all actions.”
9. How Not to Get a Progressive Party off the Ground
By Arash Azizi | The Atlantic | October 2025
“The British left needs a strategy that can win elections instead of throwing them to the right.”
10. Stupidology
By William Davies | n+1 | Fall 2025
“The outsourcing of judgment.”
11. Going Beyond War’s Cliches
By Alisa Sopova | Nieman Lab | September 2025
“A collaborative project records Ukrainians’ day-to-day lives since the Russian invasion.”
12. See Beethoven’s entire ‘9th Symphony’ visualized in colorful animations
Open Culture | October 2025
“In a sense, ‘Ode to Joy’ is a natural choice for a musical representation of Europe, not just for its explicit themes, but also for the obvious ambition of the symphony that includes it to capture an entire civilization in musical form.”
13. JFK Wanted You to Watch This Movie Before He Was Assassinated
By Gordon F. Sander | Politico Magazine | February 2025
“The president had a hand in the making of a Cold War blockbuster.”
14. With ‘drug boat’ strikes, Trump leans into war on terror tactic against cartels
By Ryan Lucas | NPR | September 2025
“The administration has provided few details on the scope of its anti-cartel campaign, but it has adopted — at least in part — the blueprint of military strikes from the global war on terrorism that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.”
15. Robot rabbits the latest tool in Florida battle to control invasive Burmese pythons in Everglades
By Curt Anderson and Cody Jackson | Associated Press | August 2025
“They look, move and even smell like the kind of furry Everglades marsh rabbit a Burmese python would love to eat. But these bunnies are robots meant to lure the giant invasive snakes out of their hiding spots.”
16. The Art of the Impersonal Essay
By Zadie Smith | The New Yorker | September 2025
“In my experience, every kind of writing requires some kind of self-soothing Jedi mind trick, and, when it comes to essay composition, the rectangle is mine.”
17. When Mexico’s richest man threw ‘The New York Times’ a lifeline
By Rick Edmonds | The Poynter 50 | April 2025
“Before the bundles, the podcasts and the 10 million digital subscribers, there was a $250 million loan with a sky-high interest rate.”
18. The Book That Taught Nonna to Cook Is Coming to America
By Kim Severson | The New York Times | September 2025
“An English translation of Ada Boni’s The Talisman of Happiness, an indispensable guide for Italian home cooks since the 1920s, is finally on its way.”
19. The Fisher King: In the Kingdom of the Imperfect
By Bilge Ebiri | The Criterion Collection | June 2015
“Trauma and kindness. These are the two elements that govern The Fisher King, and they re represented by the two mythical figures that haunt the film.”
20. Augustine’s Confessions
By Melvyn Bragg | In Our Time :: BBC 4 | 2016-2018
Also see: Justinian’s Legal Code | Four Quartets | Purgatory | The Battle of Salamis
Stillness of Heart 
You must be logged in to post a comment.