Staunchly, vol. 75: Where Have All the Corgis Gone

10/29/18

I have a super short Staunchly for you guys today. Your girl is tired. I was up most of the night with a sick pup, rubbing his tummy and listening to Mazzy Star on the slapping cold limestone steps in the garden, all of which is very Pisces moon of me.
 
Most of the time I’m able to forget my dog is terminally ill. He has so much light and pep in him. And then a night like last night will happen, which is probably the first of many similar nights, when I can see his tiny body working through the pain, and it’s just like…damn this is hard. 

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This week was a circle jerk of misery. Some weeks, things feel mildly okay, given the circumstances, and sometimes it’s just like wow, we really are just so deep in the shit, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to claw our way out.  
 
Of course that’s not really an option. We have to keep clawing. I suggest filling out your sample ballot now so you’re ready to go for the election next week. It’ll probably make you feel a little better and a little less powerless to wrap your head around all the complicated things you get to vote for. 

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1. Trump’s Caravan Hysteria Led to This by Adam Serwer (The Atlantic)
 

The apparent spark for the worst anti-Semitic massacre in American history was a racist hoax inflamed by a U.S. president seeking to help his party win a midterm election.


There it is. There’s the sentence.
 
2. Toward Creating a Trans Literary Canon by RL Goldberg (Paris Review)
 
In the wake of us learning about Trump’s ambitions to virtually erase trans identity, it’s never been more important to support trans and nonbinary writers and works of art that convey the vast human experience (tbh regardless of the news hook, this is always important).
 
3. Wait, How Many ‘Last Corgis’ Does the Queen Have? By Lisa Ryan (The Cut)
 
This is the part in today’s issue when I reveal my brain’s total inability to retain real news this week. (New subscribers: I usually don’t start with the animal interest stories this high in the Deep Reads section).
 
4. Emily Dickinson’s Patreon by Riane Konc (New Yorker)
 
This made me giggle. Sometimes I think about starting a Patreon for Staunchly but I actually think it would shape out way too close to this in earnest.
 

$5 or more per month
 
I will shout at the Moon in your stead—for she can bear it. Plus all previous rewards.


5. It's A Chick! Sydney's Same-Sex Penguin Couple Welcome Baby by Emily Sullivan (NPR)
 
Modern families and penguin paramours and emotionally present fathers?! Idk about you but I really needed this today. I really fucking needed this.