Why subscribe?
I basically try to read and research things so you don’t have to. Every day I spend the first 2-4 hours reading the news and information that comes to me from about 100 subscriptions and looking at how the news is being covered in mainstream news sources on the left and right. I also subscribe to and use three pro AI-search platforms when I want to learn more about something.
Generally I look for things in the news that provide a journalistic peg for an essay that tries to build context and dimension by studying connections, adding more factual material and researching side elements of the story in order to create a broader analysis of how specific news fits into the evolving narrative.
An example of my process might be the way a sentence about rare earths that pops out for me in a Trump post on Truth Social leads me to researching the uses of samarium along with where it is mined and refined. Following the trails between disparate kinds of information is a lot of what I try to do, hoping to escape the gravitational force of whatever the prevailing narratives are in order to see things as clearly as I can.
My background is as a poet, journalist, teacher, and educational leader, though I am retired now from the latter two elements of my career. I write in a dialogue with what I read and witness, hoping to provide clarity and accuracy, or at least an interesting take on things.
