Taylor Swift’s ‘Seemingly Ranch’ Might Not Be Ranch at All! Tabs, Mon., Oct. 2, 2023

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Democrats didn’t “bail out” Kevin McCarthy. They saved America from Republicans. This is what happens when you actually care about people. (CNN)

Matt Gaetz vows to oust McCarthy this week. It’s like a bad reality show over there. (The Guardian)

This sounds like the title of a Nancy Drew novel but it’s actually a very good read — “Dianne Feinstein and the Knife Fight in the Phone Booth.” (Mother Jones)

Feinstein became mayor of San Francisco because of assassination. Because of a workplace shooting. Because of an aggrieved white dude who saw himself as a “defender of the home, the family and religious life against homosexuals, pot smokers and cynics,” as the New York Times would put it, and who shot the first openly gay Californian to ever hold elected office and a progressive mayor determined to bring social services to San Francisco’s downtrodden.

Black folks still don’t trust the media to depict us accurately. (The Root)

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I don’t necessarily agree with Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips about Biden, but I do share his contempt for “oh, just relax” thinking. (Politico)

In my professional life, both in the public sector and private sector, chilling out has never been a recipe for success in addressing any problem. Thoughts and prayers don’t solve gun violence, they don’t give people homes or food — and chilling out does not make for electoral success.

The Supreme Court is returning to work. God help us all. (Balls and Strikes)

An uplifting read about old folks freed from the shackles of their student loans. (Fortune)

Everyone’s wearing ballet flats, even in porn. (Vice)

Amanda Mull on the ballet flat’s encore performance. (The Atlantic)

Physically, ballet flats are a nightmare for your back, your knees, your arches; when it comes to support, most offer little more than you’d get from a pair of socks. Spiritually, the injury might be even worse. Twenty years is a normal amount of time to have passed for a trend to be revived as retro, but it’s also a rude interval at which to contemplate being punted out of the zeitgeist in favor of those who see your youth as something to be mined for inspiration—and therefore as something definitively in the past.

Seems like they finally caught the guy who killed Tupac. (Pitchfork)

An interesting look at the fall (and prior rise) of Ibram X. Kendi (Washington Post)

There’s a lot of interest in Taylor Swift’s dipping sauce preferences. (Bon Appetit)

When my son woke me up early the other day, I explained that I was in the middle of a dream where his Aunt Katie had sent his mother and me to Tuscany — home of great art, culture, and my beloved Florentine steak. “Was I there?” he asked. “This isn’t about who was or wasn’t with your mother and me in Tuscany,” I replied.

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