Reading

Created
Mon, 08/06/2026 - 22:00

Today’s your lucky day, kid. I’m you from the future. I traveled back to 1955 to give you this sports almanac. It lists all the biggest sports events from now to the end of the century. All you have to do is bet on the winner, and you’ll never lose.

You’re the fifth “me” I’ve visited. I guess sports have changed between 1955 and the twenty-first century, because after the others read a few pages of the almanac, they threw it in my face and called me a “psycho.” One of them called the cops. Another got our dad, who pulled out his shotgun and called me a “dirty red.” So this time, I’m explaining a few things so you don’t freak out.

For starters, horse racing is no longer the biggest thing in America. Yes, “seriously.” I know right now it’s as big as baseball, but in the future most Americans just care about the Kentucky Derby, and only because it involves day drinking. The few people who regularly watch horse races anymore are white folks looking for an excuse to cosplay the Jim Crow–era South, millionaires who broker in horse semen, and degenerate gamblers.

Created
Sat, 06/06/2026 - 03:00

“Elon Musk has again weighed in on Christopher Nolan’s upcoming big-budget adaptation of The Odyssey, this time agreeing with a racist comment made by a far-right journalist who criticized the casting of Oscar-winning actor Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy.” — The Hollywood Reporter

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Hollywood is once again deliberately undermining Western civilization, this time by desecrating one of the foundational texts of our proud literary canon. Christopher Nolan’s pitiful adaptation of theOdyssey is just the latest in a litany of re-imaginings of beloved works by Tinseltown screenwriters and film directors. The movie is rife with historical inaccuracies, and there’s no greater proof than Matt Damon playing Odysseus. Damon was born and raised outside Boston and isn’t the least bit Greek.

Created
Fri, 05/06/2026 - 22:00

“Several women who dated Graham Platner recall ‘unsettling’ behavior. The Democratic candidate for Senate in Maine could be charming, women said in interviews, but some found his actions intimidating and disturbing.”
The New York Times

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I must apologize.

You see, right now Graham Platner is the presumptive Democratic nominee for the Maine Senate seat. If he wins, he will go head-to-head with Susan Collins this fall to try to take her seat. And if early polling is any indication, he has a decent chance of winning.

He’s also one of the most scandal-plagued candidates in Senate history.

So, yeah, my bad.

Created
Fri, 05/06/2026 - 03:08

Hey, thanks for reaching out. I get that you are having an existential crisis of self, facing the realities of aging, and accepting your social and economic circumstances, but listen, there is nothing I can do; I’m just a cat stretching in a bodega.

And no, it doesn’t matter that it’s a BIG stretch either.

I can’t do anything about your unaffordable rent or exorbitant student loans; I have no expenses in my life. I live in a potato chip display and sleep twenty-three hours a day. I can’t fix your general lack of purpose. The most I can offer is startling you as you reach for a bag of Sun Chips, but that’ll only make you feel alive for a split second. Then it’s back to pondering the pointlessness of everything.

Created
Thu, 04/06/2026 - 22:00

PRETEND: “We want diverse stories that push boundaries!”
ACTUAL: “Just make sure your ‘diversity’ doesn’t make our straight white readers uncomfortable. Gay but not too gay. Brown, but relatable. If your trauma can’t be solved by brunch, it’s a pass.”

PRETEND: “Literature should make you uncomfortable.”
ACTUAL: “But not in a way that makes me, a straight white agent, reflect on my privilege. I meant uncomfortable like, ‘Oh no, she wore mismatched socks to the book club!’”

PRETEND: “We’re hungry for authentic queer voices!”
ACTUAL: “But can you make it, you know, more like a straight person’s coming-of-age? We want RuPaul energy, but in a Love, Simon package—nothing that’ll make Becky from Vermont question her marriage.”

Created
Thu, 04/06/2026 - 16:43
On May 19, 2026, Oxfam Australia’s media release – Australian billionaires’ wealth grows by $50,000 per minute – informed us of the growing inequality in Australia, a country that promotes a ‘legend’ that egalitarianism is at its core. I will discuss their research in detail at another time but the results are stunning. In a…
Created
Thu, 04/06/2026 - 09:30

“‘The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable,’ Scott Pelley said late Tuesday, just hours after being fired from CBS News after almost 40 years at the network. ‘The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.’”
Variety

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Previously, in the Animal Newsroom.

- - -

TO: NEWSROOM
FROM: ANIMAL, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
SUBJECT: NEWS MAN TOO ANIMAL

NEWS TEAM,

Created
Wed, 03/06/2026 - 23:00

Forgive me, Padre, for I have binged.

Kissed brimstone. Huffed hellfire. Made a $5.99 deal with El Diablo for a five-pack of chicken nuggets.

In the back booth of a Taco Bell Cantina, I plop down my tray like I’m late to the Last Supper.

Spread before me: an unholy communion. Nuggets instead of wafers. A chalice of consecrated Baja Blast.

Illuminated above me: not stained glass, but a neon-purple sign promoting a timeless fast-food parable. LIVE MÁS.

I cross myself in the sign of Our Father, dab at a spill that looks like my mother, then take the plunge—flipping open a box of Taco Bell’s new Diablo Dusted Crispy Chicken Nuggets.

Like the scooped litter of an infernal feline, pulverized tortilla chips cling to dust-coated clumps of chicken. Seasoning slides around the bottom of the box like loose sand. The smell is sharp and stinging—dehydrated hot sauce tickling my hallowed nose hairs.

Created
Wed, 03/06/2026 - 22:01

I’m a famous mystery novelist, power-walking enthusiast, and spunky widow who, despite my husband’s death, has not had my joie de vivre diminished in the slightest. Meeting me, perhaps you’d surmise that I’m a glass-half-full kind of gal who loves socializing, travel, and dinner with an ever-widening coterie of friends.

You’d be wrong. To make the most of my twilight years, I’ve cultivated a detached numbness to death that would give the grizzliest veteran of Guadalcanal the thousand-yard stare. This is because the people I’ve known have been murdered so often that I don’t feel anything anymore, not even when I find the dead body myself.

Nothing.

Well, perhaps that’s not true. I feel—it’s not quite excitement. It’s like when you leaf through the paltry reading material at the dentist’s office, and you discover that someone has neglected to fill out the People magazine crossword puzzle. So, I’m keeping busy, but I basically feel nothing.

Created
Wed, 03/06/2026 - 14:42
Today (June 3, 2026), the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the latest – Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product, March 2026. This data does not really capture the full impact on the Middle East disruptions nor do they capture any interest rate impacts arising from the recent hikes in rates from the…