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“Brad Watson, 41, awoke without an alarm at 5:30 a.m., strapped on his headlamp and headed to the barn.” Watson was doing what he, and generations of family members before him, had been doing since before the Civil War: Running his dairy farm in Northern Pennsylvania. But even for family traditions and businesses that seem like they will go on forever, there is a season, churn, churn, churn, and for the Watsons, it had become impossible to make enough bread to keep their butter business going. “The average Pennsylvania family dairy farm was earning about $20 for every 100 pounds of milk — and that same amount now cost more than $30 to produce.” It offered little solace that the Watsons are hardly alone. “The number of dairy farms in the United States had fallen to fewer than 25,000 from a peak of nearly 700,000 in the 1970s. Milk prices had barely risen in half a century, held down by overproduction and a handful of large corporations that dominated the dairy market. The costs of running a family farm had skyrocketed by as much as 500 percent. Brad had supported Donald Trump in 2024 in part because Trump promised to change all that by becoming ‘the most pro-farmer president you’ve ever had.’ Instead, new tariffs had cut into Brad’s potential export market and the emerging war in Iran had sent gas and fertilizer prices surging by as much as 70 percent. He was losing thousands of dollars each month and falling behind on his feed bill, until he made the call he’d been dreading his whole career. He dialed up an auction house to arrange the Watson family’s final dairy sale last month.” No one captures these American stories better than Eli Saslow. NYT (Gift Article): The Last Days of Butter Ridge. For the auctioneer, this was a familiar story (”In the last decade, he’d helped run dispersal auctions for Brian’s brother, his cousin and his uncle”), although Brian Watson’s last day working his dairy farm was less bleak than many. “His career had unfolded against a steady backdrop of bankruptcies, accidents and tragedies: the New York farmer who shot all 51 of his dairy cows and then turned the shotgun on himself; an Amish father who suffocated with his two sons after becoming trapped in their grain silo. In 2018, a Wisconsin farmer had sold his cows at auction, taken a part-time job at a grocery store and then killed himself with a note in his pocket. ‘I’m a dairy farmer,’ it read. ‘I want my old life back, but I can’t get it anymore. Everything I do fails.’”
2
Beer Goggles
“In Mason, just south of Lansing, Paula Caltrider, 53, who voted for Mr. Trump and runs the Michigan for Jesus Facebook page, teamed up with Rita Leolani Vogel, 51, a Never-Trumper ... They were never friends, and Ms. Caltrider had even blocked Ms. Vogel on Facebook over what she said was unfair criticism of a Christian friend who had spoken out against a drag brunch at a brewery.” In this age of seemingly insurmountable political divides, what could bring two political opposites together? The same issue that seems to be uniting Americans across the political spectrum all across the country. NYT (Gift Article): ‘The Most Bipartisan Issue Since Beer’: Opposition to Data Centers.
+ Editor’s note: The space it takes to drive computing power constantly shrinks. The phone in your pocket today has the computational power of a late 1990s supercomputer. Maybe we should just hold off building all these data centers until we can fit them into a shoebox? I asked Gemini (the one AI service with “mini” in its name) about this, and it explained that’s not how things will play out: “The ‘efficiency gains’ you’re hoping for are being outpaced by the ‘expansion gains.’ For every 10% an AI model gets more efficient, developers often respond by making the model 100% larger to gain even more intelligence.” (I countered that the more intelligent computer models get, the stupider we seem to behave. We decided to end the conversation there, at least until Gemini has a few more data centers’ worth of computational power to come up with a satisfying answer.)
3
The Spirit No Longer Moves You
“Spirit Airlines died as it lived: lots of angry customers and no one picking up the phone. Early yesterday morning, when America’s most hated airline announced that it would immediately cease all operations, Spirit left tens of thousands of passengers at airports across America scrambling to figure out what to do next. Some arrived to catch their flight, only to find deserted check-in kiosks plastered with a goodbye message: All Spirit flights have been cancelled, and customer service is no longer available.” Saahil Desai in The Atlantic (Gift Article) on the Hemingway-esque bankruptcy of Spirit Airlines (”Gradually and then suddenly”) and why it’s a big deal, even if you never flew the discount airline. “For all the justified kvetching, America is about to learn a hard lesson: The only thing worse than a world with Spirit is one without it.”
4
In the Black
“As cars become computers on wheels, QNX is trusted by the world’s largest automakers because its simple, real-time operating system is designed to never, ever fail. ‘The only way to make this software malfunction,’ a user once raved to Fortune magazine, ‘is to fire a bullet into the computer running it.’ With its bulletproof reputation, the software has spread to factory floors and other workplaces that value safety, precision and tech that won’t glitch.” So who makes this software that will never die? A company you thought was left for dead a long time ago. WSJ(Gift Article): You Have No Idea How Much You Still Use BlackBerry.
5
Extra, Extra
Ceaseless: Both Trump and the Iranian regime think they’re winning the war. One group we know is losing: the Iranian people. In January, Trump told Iranian protesters, “Help is on its way.” Well, here’s what arrived. BBC: Some Iranians fear the regime is now more entrenched - and ready for revenge. Meanwhile, across the region, the cease seems to be disappearing from the ceasefire. The US says it has destroyed many small Iranian boats, the UAE has been hit with several missile strikes, and Israel and Hezbollah are fighting. Here’s the latest from BBC, CNN, and The Guardian.
+ Pill Chill: “The Supreme Court has temporarily restored online and mail-order access to the abortion drug mifepristone after a federal appeals court curtailed access to the medication on Friday.” But the order was issued by Alito, “who wrote the majority opinion in the case that overturned Roe v. Wade,” so don’t get too excited about this being good news. Politico: Supreme Court restores abortion pill access — for now.
+ Generation Tube: “YouTube during snack time, dismissal and indoor recess. YouTube to teach drawing to first-graders. YouTube to read a book to class. YouTube under the covers at night, watching hamster videos on school-issued Chromebooks. A survey touted by YouTube executives shows that 94% of teachers have used YouTube in their roles.” WSJ (Gift Article): How YouTube Took Over the American Classroom.
+ Etch-a-Stretch: “Ridden by Jose Ortiz, Golden Tempo navigated past 17 other horses around the final turn and made a hard charge down the stretch. With a crowd of more than 100,000 watching and roaring at Churchill Downs, Golden Tempo passed morning-line favorite Renegade -- ridden by Jose’s brother Irad -- just before the wire to win by a neck.” Golden Tempo makes DeVaux first woman trainer to win Kentucky Derby.
+ Cruise Control: “The cruise ship at the center of a deadly outbreak of hantavirus has been refused permission to dock, with 149 people still on board — two of them seriously ill. The virus is suspected to have killed three people and sickened three more, with one patient hospitalized in critical condition.”
+ Eat Sh-t: “The number of food-stamp recipients is dropping sharply across the country as states move to implement new Trump administration rules on who qualifies.” More Than Three Million People Have Lost Federal Food Aid.
+ Some Good News? And Howl... “Big Dog Ranch Rescue and the Center for a Humane Economy negotiated a confidential agreement to purchase the 1,500 dogs for an undisclosed price from Ridglan Farms, where police used tear gas and pepper spray to repel activists trying to take beagles from the facility last month.” 1,500 beagles will get new lives and warm laps after release from research facility. (Just a heads-up to my neighbors: I’m thinking about adopting about half of them.)