Leads (Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025) (Patreon)

Why, hello. Fancy meeting you here.

I won't apologize for going so long without writing any "Leads" posts. When you're a trans person working in Trump's America who covers the news for a living, writing weekly recaps of the state of the world loses its appeal.

Over the last day or two, I've received phone calls from spouses of correctional officers who've spent more than 24 hours at work — in the middle of an unauthorized strike by correctional officers. I've also spoken to at least one inmate and his wife during said strike. And I've written stories about missing children (blessedly found safe), house fires, and shootings. The news is unappealing to me right now.

Personally, things have been, to put it mildly, vexing. After having an abysmal 26th birthday last week, I learned two days ago that my health insurance had been prematurely termianted. An absolutely miserable day spent on the phone with my former insurance provider and Medicaid ensued, culminating in me calling Janet choked with unintelligible wailing. That situation has been resolved (more or less), but it's taken days of energy out of me.

So I want to skip past the news. I've been following the correctional officer strike closely because it's happening so near my station — and when the National Guard heads to prisons, you have to pay attention (why yes, Attica is in an uproar). I also live a few miles away from the bridge where someone spray painted a death threat to the Presidential Grand Vizier who owns Tesla. I've seen the news up close, and it's not interesting to me now. I'd rather talks about books.

Lately I've been on a C.S. Lewis kick and realizing that I have begrudging affection for my childhood literary idol. Till We Have Faces is one of the great English novels of the 20th Century, the Space Trilogy is quite good, and a couple of the Narnia books (namely The Silver Chair and The Magician's Nephew) are excellent fairy tales. Lewis is an abysmal theologian, but he can tell a story like nobody's business. Should I write something about Lewis? Would anyone like to invite me on their podcast to talk about him? I think I need to talk about Lewis.

Additionally, the YouTube channel Love Unrelenting just uploaded a pleasant documentary about David Bentley Hart, one of my favorite writers in the world. Doesn't cover everything I'd like it to, but the B-roll of Hart's late beloved dog Roland and Hart's description of fashCath apologist Edward Feser as "a person for whom Christianity is mostly about killing people" more than make up for it.

Also the Hot Ones episode with Rob McElhenney is fun.