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When I was in college, a few friends and I used to fast for about 24 hours and then go to the Sizzler to see how much damage we could do to the all-you-can-eat buffet. As a Humanities major who’s spent decades writing on the internet, I’m pretty sure this was the last time I operated a successful business model. Age, GLP-1s, and gastrointestinal wear and tear have taken their toll, but I still like to think that, when push comes to shovel, I could put a pretty serious dent in a restaurant corporation’s market cap. So it’s probably lucky for Red Lobster that I’m not into shrimp. The waitstaff at Red Lobster can avoid me, but sadly, they can’t avoid all the other determined gluttons looking to take advantage of the struggling restaurant chain’s questionable decision to once again pimp the shrimp. Luke Winkie in Slate (Gift Article): Red Lobster’s Endless Shrimp Is Back. Employees Are Horrified. “Caught in the crossfire, of course, are the Red Lobster cooks and waitstaff, who have been asked to return to the infernal battlefields of Endless Shrimp. ‘We have this training app, and it told me I had a new notification. When I clicked on it, it was about Endless Shrimp,’ said a woman we’ll call Mary, who works at an East Coast Red Lobster location and is one of the rare employees who was hired during the brief interregnum after the company’s bankruptcy but before the reintroduction of the promotion. Mary says she was given a week’s notice to prepare for Endless Shrimp, an experience that might be compared to getting drafted to Vietnam in 1972. She wasn’t the only one bracing for impact. Scroll through the Red Lobster subreddit and you’ll find plenty of servers doomsaying about the approaching incursion of shrimp. (’God no … I can’t … unless they let us kick people out after a certain time I just can’t,’ read the comment of one imperiled employee.) ‘All of my co-workers were like, ‘You have no idea what’s coming,’ Mary told me. ‘Before they brought it back, my co-workers were like, ‘It’s good you started working here after Endless Shrimp days were over.’” (That sounds like something I might say to young news curators after the Trump era...)
2
Boss Hog
War. Oil spikes. Gas prices. Unstable leadership. Global instability. The market isn’t worried about any of that. In fact, the stock market just had its best month since the pandemic rebound. There’s a significant divide between how investors feel about the economy and how the average American is experiencing things these days. That’s even more true when you compare CEOs to employees. There’s always been a decent divide between CEO and worker pay, but the spread may have reached escape velocity. CEO pay increased 20 times faster than worker pay around the world in 2025. “When adjusted for inflation, global worker pay declined 12% between 2019 and 2025, the equivalent of 108 days of free work during that time period. In comparison, CEO compensation increased by 54% between 2019 and 2025.”
3
Task Monogamy
I write better distracted. After years of editing the internet, I had to adapt to writing while doom-scrolling, hearing the bings and bongs of constant notifications, receiving news alerts, and, these days, hearing the near-constant sound of my own moaning. Apparently, this is not the way to be most productive. But, “in a world full of distractions, getting your brain to focus on one thing at a time requires radical measures.” David Epstein in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Secret to Success Is Monotasking. “Here’s the frightening part: We gravitate to a customary level of interruption. If you are disrupted by notifications all day, every day, then even if those external triggers magically disappear, you will unconsciously start interrupting yourself to maintain the rhythm of distraction you’re used to. That is why the mere presence of a smartphone on a desk or in a pocket—even if it is turned off—has been shown to impair performance on cognitive tests, particularly among people who are more phone dependent.”
4
Weekend Whats
What to Watch: There must be something wrong with the trailers or marketing for Big Mistakes on Netflix, because the comedy that features the perfect comedic timing of the duo of Dan Levy and Taylor Ortega should be the streamer’s number one show. It’s great.
+ What to Doc: Michelle Khare undergoes scientific testing and professional training to complete a truly crazy endurance challenge. But it’s the human stories that win the race. On YouTube: I Ran 7 Marathons in 7 Days on 7 Continents. (I’ve never even walked my beagles seven days straight.)
+ What to Movie: If you’re a fan of shows like The Gilded Age and Downton Abbey, but you’re also a fan of movies like Airplane, then Fackham Hall on HBO might be your cup of tea.
5
Extra, Extra
Tired of All The Winning: “Iran and the United States have failed to come to an agreement not because hard-liners are blocking pragmatists inside Iran, but because both sides seem to sincerely believe that they have won the war.” Thomas Wright in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Real Reason Iran Hasn’t Struck a Deal. That said, “Iran has handed over its latest proposal for negotiations with the United States to mediators in Pakistan, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported Friday. President Donald Trump subsequently said he’s ‘not satisfied” with it.’” Meanwhile, today “marked the 60th day since the White House notified Congress of its military operations in Iran, meaning Trump would have to withdraw forces or seek formal approval from Capitol Hill.” But luckily, it’s not actually a war, the US has ‘won’ the Iran war, but Trump wants to win by a bigger margin, the ceasefire means the 60-day counter stopped, the constitution is unconstitutional, and some other reasons this won’t mean anything. Here’s the latest from AP and CNN.
+ Peace Dividends: There actually may be multiple winners in this war. It’s just not who you’re thinking of. NYT (Gift Article): Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff and the Profitable Business of Peace. “The creeping privatization of both war and peace has been underway for some time. But Trump has pushed this trend to its logical conclusion: His administration has turned the delicate practice of peacemaking, previously handled largely by experienced diplomats, mediators and specialists, into a business for a select few stakeholders who are bound together by a thicket of financial affiliations and conflicts of interest.”
+ Vote Moat: “The central tenet of American democracy is the right to vote. But in practice, for Black voters, especially in the South, it wasn’t until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that their access to the voting booth was fundamentally improved. The law eradicated many Jim Crow-era intimidation tactics.” How Did the Voting Rights Act Change Black Representation in 10 States? (As I explained yesterday, fuggedabout 86-47. America’s most dangerous number is actually 6-3.)
+ Afford Focus: “Initial sign-ups had already fallen by about 1.2 million people. But insurance companies, state officials and industry analysts are reporting that many more have lost Obamacare coverage now that people are facing long-term higher costs. The federal government has yet to report current enrollment data.” (Making health care unaffordable makes it unaffordable...)
+ Spirit Away? Talks over a $500 million government rescue deal have collapsed, leaving Spirit Airlines on the verge of shutting down.
+ Calculated Gamble: “The clinicians who treat gambling disorders are more concerned about what they are seeing with their patients. In their spaces, when it comes to sports gambling and prediction markets, the end result is virtually the same.” Prediction markets say they’re different from sportsbooks. Gambling addicts say it’s all the same. (Prediction markets know exactly what they’re building.)
+ Knock Knock: “For believers in the paranormal, uns