Sidelines · 20 September 2026
First the Lettuce Was Going to Kill Me
Seriously? First the head of lettuce was going to kill me. Now it is just going to wipe out my bank account.
Avenues
Sunday File · 20 September 2026
The strait gets the headline. Joliet moved the number.
Diesel set an all-time national record this week. The explanation traveling with the number is the Strait of Hormuz. Part of that is real. It is not what moved this week.
20 September 2026
The Strait Is Not the Shed
Everyone is pointing at the strait. The strait is real. It is also four thousand miles away and not ours to open. The part that is ours is a building, and we have not built one in forty-nine years.
17 September 2026
A Rumor Is Not a Diagnosis
I do not know whether Xi Jinping had a stroke. I know a rumor about one man’s body was enough to make a market behave as if the second engine of the world had developed a cough.
World View · 17 September 2026
Rumors Send Tremors to Wall Street
And preseason shivers in Canada.
Sidelines · 17 September 2026
They Are Afraid of the News. We Are Annoyed at the Pump.
I am going to say the unkind thing, because it is sitting on the table.
17 September 2026
They Do Not Turn on a Dime
Continuity is a bet. It is not a law.
Sunday File · 17 September 2026
Xi After BRICS: What Happened, Why the Stroke Claims Don’t Hold Up Yet, and What Actually Matters Next
Chinese President Xi Jinping left New Delhi on 13 September after the 18th BRICS summit and landed in Beijing that evening on the announced schedule. Within days the stroke rumors filled the gap.
Sidelines · 17 September 2026
You hedged. Now what?
All right. Worst case.
14 September 2026
Resistance and Its Cost
Costume-play “Resistance” is a Saturday. The Founders left a country. The bill was real.
Sunday File · 14 September 2026
The clip is from August. The deal died in August.
I watched a siren go around Sunday. Deal of the century. Canada just zeroed farm tariffs. DJT on camera: duties “eviscerated. Down to zero.”
7–9 September 2026(posted 14 September 2026)
The Swarm Still Needs a Shed
I do not sleep better because a general used the word “swarm.” I also refuse to pretend the sky over Charlotte is already full of someone else’s air force.
Sunday File · 21 January 2026(posted 14 September 2026)
He asked for the island. He took the door.
In mid-January, DJT put a price on eight European countries for standing with Denmark over Greenland. Ten percent in February. Twenty-five percent in June if there was no “complete and total purchase.” Troops had gone up there to show the flag. He answered with a tariff list: Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, Britain, the Netherlands, Finland.
January 2026(posted September 2026)
The Oil and the Deputy
A defendant on a plane and a concession on a desk. Those are different kinds of founding.
13 September 2026
I Am Not a Conspiracy Theorist
I am a fence-sitter. I always see both sides of an issue. And I will say this: I am not a conspiracy theorist. I do not believe twelve men in a panelled room run the planet with a shared calendar and a preferred font for the New World Order letterhead.