This week: Lady Gaga, the gothic groundbreaker / Time to rethink obituaries / Coffee has a long term effect on health / The ‘new’ Middle East may not exist / Some in MAGA want Trump to go harder / Napping smarter
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1. What you put in your coffee can have an outsize impact on your health
By Trisha Pasricha | The Washington Post | October 2025
“Add no more than 1 teaspoon of sugar and 2 tablespoons of whole milk to each cup. But go ahead and grab another mug; 3½ cups of filtered coffee per day can be good for your health.”
2. A ‘New Middle East’ Is Easier to Declare Than to Achieve
By David Remnick | The New Yorker | October 2025
“As a long-overdue ceasefire takes hold amid the ruins of Gaza, the President’s visit to Jerusalem is more about transactional politics than transformative peace.”
3. A seed bank in England marks 25 years of preserving the world’s plant diversity
By Mustakim Hasnath | Associated Press | October 2025
“The Millennium Seed Bank at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew holds more than 2.5 billion wild plant seeds from around 40,000 species. The seeds are stored in sealed glass jars and foil packets, and are preserved in temperatures of minus 20 degrees Celsius ( minus 4 Fahrenheit) to guard against extinction.”
4. In D.C., the Arc de Trump Goes Up as the Local Workforce Shuts Down
By Michael Schaffer | Politico | October 2025
“Trump really wants a shining capital. Can you do that while battering the city economy?”
5. Obituaries are important, worth rethinking and reviving
By Kristen Hare | Poynter | November 2021
“Here’s what we discovered from 2.5 years of work, a fellowship and a newsletter.”
6. Putins All the Way Down
By Joshua Yaffa | Foreign Affairs | October 2025
“The Kremlin no longer holds to any democratic pretensions. Putin appears destined to rule indefinitely, and even far down the ballot, independent candidates are kept from running.”
7. The Rise of RFK Jr.
Frontline :: PBS | October 2025
“Tracing the dramatic and controversial rise of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., ‘Frontline’ examines how the scion of a storied dynasty endured tragedy and scandal, broke with the Democratic Party and his family, stoked conspiracy theories, and is reshaping government and public health.”
8. Latinx Shakespeares of the 20th century
By Carla Della Gatta | Shakespeare & Beyond :: Folger Shakespeare Library | October 2025
“Latinx peoples and cultures have been a rich part of American Shakespearean performance for more than 85 years.”
9. The Conservatives Who Think Trump Isn’t Going Far Enough
By David Austin Walsh | Boston Review | October 2025
“MAGA’s base is more fractured than it looks.”
10. Lady Gaga Was Always Gothic. Now the World Has Caught Up to Her.
By Wesley Morris | Cannonball :: The New York Times | October 2025
“At a moment when other pop stars are flirting with dark spectacle, Gaga’s ‘Mayhem’ tour shows that she has perfected it.”
11. ‘Shall We Have a King?’
By William E. Leuchtenburg | American Heritage | Fall 2025
“Some delegates at the Constitutional Convention wanted a strong executive, while others feared the American president might become a king.”
12. How a ‘dark fleet’ of tankers helped a Mexican cartel build a fuel-smuggling empire
By Stefanie Eschenbacher, Shariq Khan and Stephen Eisenhammer | Reuters | October 2025
“The Jalisco New Generation Cartel has mastered the use of tankers to smuggle fuel to Mexico. U.S. oil players are helping them. Reuters traces one ship’s brazen journey.”
13. Revenge is never simple — neither is the legacy of ‘Kill Bill’
By Caroline Siede | Paste | October 2025
“Like The Bride herself, Kill Bill remains a messy, contradictory, thoroughly kickass duology.”
14. The secret to waking up from a nap feeling refreshed (and not groggy)
By Andee Tagle | NPR | October 2025
“Ever woken up from a nap and felt more tired? Or so discombobulated you forgot which planet you were on?”
15. Francis Ford Coppola Forced to Sell His Custom $1 Million Watch After ‘Megalopolis’ Debacle
By Laurie Brookins | The Hollywood Reporter | October 2025
“The one-of-a-kind F.P. Journe watch will be on display in New York before its sale in December. The director spent $120 million of his own money on the film, which grossed just $14.4 million.”
16. Social Ties Help You Live Longer. What Does That Mean for Introverts?
By Dana G. Smith | The New York Times | October 2025
“You don’t have to be the life of every party to reap the health benefits.”
17. A new island erupted from the sea – can it show us how nature works without human interference?
By Patrick Greenfield | The Guardian | October 2025
“The volcanic island of Surtsey emerged in the 1960s, and scientists say studying its development offers hope for damaged ecosystems worldwide.”
18. Stonewall Uprising
American Experience :: PBS | June 2023
“When police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in the Greenwich Village section of New York City on June 28, 1969, the street erupted into violent protests that lasted for the next six days. The Stonewall riots, as they came to be known, marked a major turning point in the modern gay civil rights movement in the United States and around the world.”
19. Inside Llewyn Davis: The Sound of Music
By Kent Jones | The Criterion Collection | January 2016
“The world of the Coens is the world of everyday heroes and scoundrels, of you and me and the stranger sitting across from us, the ordinary citizens trying to make sense of life as we live it, who have neither the time nor the wherewithal to develop into the Transformative Figures of Our Age.”
20. The Inca
By Melvyn Bragg | In Our Time :: BBC 4 | 2011-2019
Also see: The Taiping Rebellion | Maimonides | Aristotle’s Poetics | The Mexican Revolution
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