This week: The inevitable end to the shutdown / MTV in the 1980s / Is it time for Cat. 6 hurricanes? / The $2,000 tariff dividend idea / The golden age of Costco / Cormac McCarthy shares his inner self
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1. Hurricanes: Do we need a new ‘Category 6’?
Sky News | October 2025
“There are five levels on what is called the Saffir-Simpson scale. But with storms getting stronger, should another category be added to it?”
Also see, from The New Yorker: The Hidden Devastation of Hurricanes
2. Beyond the Apocalypse
By Amitav Ghosh | Equator | October 2025
“How visions of catastrophe shape the ‘climate solutions’ imposed by aid agencies.”
3. What to know about Trump’s plan to give Americans a $2,000 tariff dividend
By Paul Wiseman | Associated Press | November 2025
“Budget experts scoffed at the idea, which conjured memories of the Trump administration’s short-lived plan for DOGE dividend checks financed by billionaire Elon Musk’s federal budget cuts.”
4. Inside the CIA’s secret mission to sabotage Afghanistan’s opium
By Warren P. Strobel | The Washington Post | November 2025
“In a decade-long covert operation, the U.S. spy agency dropped modified poppy seeds in an attempt to degrade the potency of Afghanistan’s billion-dollar opium crop.”
5. Why the Democrats Finally Folded
By Russell Berman and Jonathan Lemire | The Atlantic | November 2025
“This is how the government shutdown was always going to end.”
6. Sneaky viruses can hide in your body and bounce back even if you’re cured
By Gabrielle Emanuel | NPR | October 2025
“Often the human hosts have no idea. They’d fallen ill, then appeared to beat the virus. Their blood tested negative. They show no symptoms.”
7. What the Fascist Tech Bros Get Wrong About Prometheus
By James Folta | LitHub | October 2025
“Why a statue of this Greek myth? Prometheus is often seen as the patron saint of innovative risk, but there are some parts of the myth that the tech bros are overlooking.”
8. The Wayback Machine’s snapshots of news homepages plummet after a ‘breakdown’ in archiving projects
By Andrew Deck and Hanaa’ Tameez | Nieman Lab | October 2025
“Between May and October 2025, homepage snapshots fell by 87% across 100 news publications.”
9. Couldn’t Care Less
The Santa Fe Institute | December 2017
“Cormac McCarthy in conversation with David Krakauer … reflects on isolation, mathematics, character, and the nature of the unconscious.”
10. A Baleful Legacy
By David A. Bell | The New York Review of Books | November 2025
“Enlightenment writers who proposed ways of improving and even perfecting the human species laid the theoretical foundations of modern racism.”
11. What killed Napoleon’s army? Scientists find clues in DNA from fallen soldiers’ teeth
By Ari Daniel | NPR | October 2025
“In October, Napoleon called his soldiers back after barely engaging the Russian army. It wasn’t a defeat, but it was no win either. And during the march home, winter arrived early.”
12. ‘MTV Was a Lot Like Kabul’
By Tom Freston | New York Magazine | October 2025
“Tequila girls. Coke-dealing staffers. Office fires. In its ‘80s heyday, the network was a wild place with few rules.”
13. Could the internet go offline? Inside the fragile system holding the modern world together
By Aisha Down | The Guardian | October 2025
“Behind every meme and message is creaking, decades-old infrastructure. Internet experts can think of scenarios that could bring it all crashing down …”
14. Still ‘Crazy’ for Patsy Cline
By Holley Snaith | American Heritage | Fall 2025
“Since her untimely death in 1963, the legendary country music star — and the first female to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame — continues to inspire new audiences and artists.”
15. A Trip to Mars? They’re Ready to Go.
By Alex Vadukul | The New York Times | October 2025
“Fans of the red planet joined scientists at an annual conference sponsored by the Mars Society. One attendee said he would take a ‘one-way ticket’ “
16. Can the Golden Age of Costco Last?
By Molly Fischer | The New Yorker | October 2025
“With its standout deals and generous employment practices, the warehouse chain became a feel-good American institution. In a fraught time, it can be hard to remain beloved.”
17. Walking is good for you. Walking backward can add to the benefits
By Stephen Wade | Associated Press | October 2025
“Backward walking, also known as retro walking or reverse walking, could add variety and value to an exercise routine, when done safely. Turning around not only provides a change of view, but also puts different demands on your body.”
18. The Perfect Crime
American Experience :: PBS | April 2018
“When Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two well-educated college students from a wealthy suburb of Chicago, confessed to the brutal murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks, the story made headlines across the country. The unlikely killers not only admitted their guilt, but also bragged that they had committed the crime simply for the thrill of it.”
19. The Breakfast Club: Smells Like Teen Realness
By David Kamp | The Criterion Collection | January 2018
“This was John Hughes s great gift in his early films as a screenwriter and director: he understood the whirling, emotionally inconsistent state of being an American teenager better than anyone else working his beat in the 1980s.”
20. Lorca
By Melvyn Bragg | In Our Time :: BBC 4 | 2011-2019
Also see: The Minoan Civilisation | Cogito Ergo Sum | The Bhagavad Gita | The Age of the Universe
Interested in more like this? Since June 2011, Stillness of Heart‘s “Recommended” series has accumulated a magnificent collection of articles, essays, music, podcasts, historical analyses, cultural reflections, and documentaries. Scroll through the offerings here.
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