My latest film, “The Atomic Bowl: Football at Ground Zero—and Nuclear Peril Today” has been airing over PBS stations this past month and streaming (key links to easily watch right now and more here). A companion book, my 14th, has been available, and you can read more or order here. Thank you. And subscribing to this newsletter is still somehow FREE.
>Steve Brodner this morning:
>Politico:
Trump says ‘we have to beat the hell’ out of ‘radical left lunatics’ after Kirk killing
>Trump on Fox & Friends this morning:
TRUMP: I'll tell you something that's gonna get me in trouble but I couldn't care less. The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don't want to see crime. The radicals on the left are the problem.
>But from the Anti-defamation League:
>Denver Post today on kid, 16, who shot up school in Evergreen, CO this week:
‘Radicalized’ Evergreen High School shooter appeared to hold antisemitic, violent views in online accounts
This is maybe the best piece ever about my friend, mentor and co-author Robert Jay Lifton, who passed away last week, by The New York Times’ great M. Gessen. She had interviewed him at length for The New Yorker a couple of years ago.
My tribute from last week here.
I covered the Americana Fest awards show yesterday but did not mention that topical and very prolific songwriter Jesse Welles (highlighted here earlier this month) was also honored. He then sang one of his songs from about a year ago, “War Isn’t Murder.” Just part of the lyrics:
War isn't murder, there's money at stake
Girl, even Kushner agrees it's good real estate
War isn't murder, ask Netanyahu
He's got a song for that and a bomb for you
War isn't murder, it's an old desert faith
It's a nation-state sanctioned, righteous hateSo in a short 20 years, when you vacation the Strip
Don't think about the dead and have a nice trip
Here as he sang it on Wednesday night:
And I suppose we do this every year at this time, John Prine, “Summer’s End.”
From Tunes to Toons
White House orders flags at half-mast:
Steve Brodner again:
The first time I heard Jesse Welles he reminded me a lot of a young John Prine. Loved both these clips. Thx.
Excellent! Thank you.