Most of October

Politics have been particularly bad recently, particularly w/r/t the Kavanaugh debacle:
Elizabeth Bruenig, WaPo, Kavanaugh is one more step in America’s cycle of self-destruction
Adam Serwer, The Atlantic, The Cruelty Is the Point
Jennifer Rubin, WaPo, The left no doubt what they think of women
Tara Isabella Burton, Vox, Christian Nationalism, explained through one pro-Trump propaganda film

Christopher R Browning, NY Review of Books, The Suffocation of Democracy

Emily Badger & Quoctrung Bui, NYT, Americans Say Their Politics Don’t Define Them. But It’s Complicated.

Conservatism has been particularly bad recently as well:

Jane Coaston, NYT, When 'Conservatives' Turned Into Radicals

Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, Why I'm Leaving the Republican Party

Max Boot, WaPo, The dark side of American conservatism has taken over
James Poulos, The American Mind, Why Conservatism Failed
Jake Meador, National Review, A Unified Nation Must Rest on Something Real

Technology has been particularly bad recently:
Alyssa ElHage, Institute for Family Studies, Keeping Technology in Its Proper Place: An Interview with Andy Crouch
Alexis C Madrigal, The Atlantic, Raised by YouTube
Ben Sasse, WaPo, This new technology could send American politics into a tailspin
Harriet Griffey, The Guardian, The lost art of concentration: being distracted in a digital world

Stephen Marche, LARB, The Crisis of Intimacy in the Age of Digital Connectivity

Some Baltimore stuff:
Holden Wilen, Baltimore Business Journal, Baltimore transportation chief says city faces infrastructure 'crisis'
Morgan Eichensehr, Baltimore Business Journal, Stop Apologizing, Baltimore: From Sandtown to Roland Park, why city business owners are still here
Daniel L Hatcher, Baltimore Sun, Maryland needs to stop forcing foster children to pay for their own care

Some screen-based entertainment reviews:
DL Mayfield, Christ & Pop Culture, The Good Place Recap: The Snowplow (Season 3, Episode 4)
DL Mayfield, Christ & Pop Culture, The Good Place Recap: Jeremy Bearimy (Season 3, Episode 5)
Josephine Livingstone, New Republic, 'A Star Is Born' Is the 'November Rain' of the Big Screen

Maura Judkis, WaPo, Netflix’s new ‘Salt Fat Acid Heat’ is unlike any other food show on TV

Book reviews:
Adam Schwartz, University Bookman, The Presence of the Counterkingdom
Gracy Olmstead, University Bookman, A Most Hospitable Benedict Option
Valerie Weaver-Zercher, Christian Century, Good reading and the good life
Jedediah Purdy, New Republic, George Scialabba, Radical Democrat

Casey N Cep, NYT, Is All Art Sacred Art? In a Prose Meditation, One Poet Makes the Case

David Auerbach, The American Reader, Review: Thomas Pynchon’s “Bleeding Edge”
Alan Jacobs, Books & Culture, Unexpected Refuge

A wide variety of Christian writing:

Samuel James, Desiring God, What Netflix Cannot Give — and Death Cannot Take
Hannah Anderson, Christ & Pop Culture, The Vocation of Parenthood
DL Mayfield, CT, Love Your Neighbor as Yourself—And Bring Your Kids Along
Jonathan Merritt, NYT, It’s Getting Harder to Talk About God
Chase Pasudniak, Patheos, Is a Smaller Church a Better Church?

Dana Ray, Comment, Everyday Aesthetics: Apartment Living and 'Rainbows for the Fallen World'

David Bentley Hart, First Things, The Secret Commonwealth
Jeremy McClellan, America, Catholic comedian Jeremy McLellan on finding God by welcoming the disabled
Wilfred M McClay, Comment, Gardeners and Pilgrims

Ed Welch, Desiring God, Six Ordinary Lessons for Mental Health Issues
Hannah Anderson, CT, Breaking Bread with Broken People Brings Wisdom
Matt Damico, Desiring God, Four Ways to Love a Disappointing Church
Jason Barnhart, Tethered Freedom, A Curmudgeon Looks at Worship
Natasha Sistrunk Robinson, CT, Weary in the Wilderness?

Memento Mori:

Raymond C Barfield, Comment, When Self-Help Means Less Help
Tom Scocca, Hmm Daily, Your Real Biological Clock Is You’re Going to Die

Old people:
Krista Tippett & Eugene Peterson, On Being, The Bible, Poetry, and Active Imagination
Kate Shellnutt, CT, Eugene Peterson Has Completed His Long Obedience
John Motyka, NYT, Mary Midgley, 99, Moral Philosopher for the General Reader, Is Dead
James Parker, The Atlantic, Paul McCartney Can't Stop Making People Happy

Miscellaneous:
Amy Brady, Orion, Rewilding your Lawn in the Anthropocene: An Interview with Author Jeff VanderMeer
Amy Brady, Chicago Review of Books, Climate Fiction Reveals Just How “Weird” Humans Truly Are
Rebecca Schuman, Guernica, The Franz Kafka Marriage Manual for Young Ladies
Claire Fallon, HuffPost, Instagram Poetry Is A Huckster’s Paradise
Kim Foster, NPR Desert Companion, The Meth Lunches

Joe MacLeod, Hmm Daily, I Wanted to Be Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
Immaculata Abba, Popula, Me, My Body, and I

Caroline Langston, Image, Waiting for Nothing to Happen