I’m finished: The end of writing

I'm finished and I know it.

Artificial Intelligence is the end of us writers, us scribblers who shove words at you and hope you'll give a shit.

I imagine the artist who drew pictures 17,000 years ago on the walls of the caves of Lascaux being told, “Put away your brushes, Ug, we've got this new thing called ‘speech’ that makes your cave drawings kind of old-fashioned."

There is nothing new under the sun. All forms of communication live and die, as all creatures live and die.

How Trump is banning DEI at universities — except for Jews

Students protest an pro-Palestinian encampment George Washington University on April 25, 2024. Photo by Photo by Amid Farahi/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

The Department of Justice declared it illegal last week for universities receiving federal funds to give “preferential treatment” to members of any protected class, including funding “safe spaces” like study spaces or dorms for specific groups or recruiting minorities by targeting institutions that they are likely to attend.

What to Know About the Court Case that Could Decide Free Speech in Trump's America

Protesters in Seattle rally against the targeting of pro-Palestinian international students. Photo by Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images

A federal judge in Boston is currently weighing what could become one of the most consequential cases in Donald Trump’s effort to deport people for their speech.

The Next Time Some Idiot Tries to Tell You the GOP is “The Party of Business”

As predictably as the sun rises, every Sunday a commentator or politician on one of the Sunday political talk shows says — without being challenged —that the Republican Party understands and supports business better than Democrats. The weekend as I’m writing this chapter, it was CNN’s turn.

All my life, the media has told us that the GOP is the “party of business.”

It may have once been true under Eisenhower when I was a very young child, but today it’s a lie — and has been so in a huge way since the neoliberal Reagan Revolution.

Media Sidelined Deadly Consequences of Trump’s Reconciliation Bill

President Donald Trump on July 4 signed into law an omnibus reconciliation bill, branded in MAGA propaganda (and much of corporate media) as the “Big Beautiful Bill.” The legislation scraped up just enough votes to narrowly pass in both chambers of the Republican-controlled Congress, with 51 to 50 votes in the Senate and 218 to 214

Records Show Trump DOJ Forced to Drop Cases Against LA Protesters Due to Federal Agents' Lies

Demonstrators gather in front of a federal building guarded by U.S. Marines and National Guard troops in Los Angeles, California on July 4, 2025. (Photo: Etienne Laurent/AFP via Getty Images)

 

Documents obtained by The Guardian and reported on Monday further detail how the Trump Justice Department has been forced to drop cases against protesters in Los Angeles because of false claims made by federal immigration agents.

'You Cannot Destroy a People Without First Destroying Their Healers': Israel’s War on Gaza's Medical System

Friends and relatives mourn after Israel killed Indonesian Hospital director, Dr. Marwan al-Sultan, along with seven of his members in a targeted strike on his home on July 2, 2025. Photo by Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images

The healthcare system in Gaza is not simply collapsing – it is being dismantled by design through targeted killing, abduction, and imprisonment of Palestinian doctors, nurses, and first responders.

Medicaid cuts all Hoosiers will feel

The effects of this legislation will trickle down to all Hoosier patients — not just those on Medicaid — as hospitals are forced to cost-shift these significant losses in the coming years. (Getty Images)

“Why is health care so expensive?” is the question I’ve been asked more than any other since joining the Indiana Hospital Association last year. It’s a critically important one, and while my answer usually begins with, “It’s complicated,” one thing is now certain: 

Pope Demands 'Immediate Halt to the Barbarity' of Israel's War on Gaza

Pope Leo XIV greets the crowd as he leaves after presiding over a mass at San Pancrazio Cathedral at Albano Laziale on July 20, 2025 in Albano Laziale, Italy. (Photo: Ernesto Ruscio/Getty Images)

Pope Leo XIV on Sunday called for "immediate halt to the barbarity of the war" on the Gaza Strip as Israel's military carried out fresh massacres of Palestinians seeking food aid.

How Norway Became Freer Than America

Earlier this month, Louise and I vacationed across several different cities and rural areas in Norway, the country from which my grandfather emigrated to the United States in 1917. The place was immaculate, modern, and, astonishingly, seemed entirely free of homelessness. Official stats say around 3,000 people lack housing across the entire country. That’s about the number you’ll see sleeping on sidewalks in a single Los Angeles neighborhood.

The War on Women

When we said women and people who loved them needed to vote like their lives depended on it in 2024, it wasn’t hyperbole. Despite the hole the Dobbs case, which reversed Roe v. Wade, tore in the heart of so many Americans and the women who have suffered and even died since then from the unavailability of basic medical care, not enough Americans understood how precarious the world had become for women.

From the NY Times, July 20, 2025:

More than 60 Palestinians were killed after crowds gathered in the northern Gaza Strip where aid trucks often enter the enclave, according to the Gaza health ministry and hospital workers

Israeli forces killed and wounded dozens of Palestinians on Sunday in the northern Gaza Strip, after crowds gathered near a crossing from Israel into the territory where aid trucks often enter the enclave, according to the Gaza health ministry and hospital workers.

US Faces 'State of Emergency' for Civil Rights Under Trump: Urban League Report

A demonstrator holds a sign depicting John Lewis at a 'Good Trouble Lives On' rally outside City Hall on July 17, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

 

One of America's oldest civil rights organizations warned Thursday that the country is experiencing a "dangerous tilt toward authoritarianism."