I'm moving right along to the links today, perhaps in a fruitless effort to fast-forward my own Friday to happy hour. Picture me holding aloft my icy pickle martini in an end-of-week toast to you.

Daniel José Camacho on Saint Augustine, ancient slavery, and the enslavement that defines America's past. "Perhaps no figure illuminates the commonalities between a triumphalist history of the United States and a triumphalist history of Christianity as much as this North African bishop."

Developers are buying up thousands of acres of rural land to build the warehouses that support our collective online shopping habit. Anya Slepyan reports on how some small towns are fighting back.

The states with the strictest abortion laws are doing the least to help poor families. What could possibly go wrong? Abby Vesoulis reports on this deliberately engineered systemic failure.

"I basically completely disagree with the premise that we all live in bubbles," says Marie Le Conte in an interview about growing up alongside the internet. "The problem is the complete opposite: we’re all together in the same spaces all the time." The kids all want to be influencers when they grow up. Plus, Cat Zhang turns her search history into a series of micro-essays.

Clio Chang joins aspiring sanitation workers at trash school, which includes a truck obstacle course, baskets training, and something called "the juice."

On pre-chopped produce, single-use plastics, and the difficulties of eating sustainably while disabled. Jacqueline Reposo reports on the roots of—and solutions to—eco-ableism.

Haley Mlotek is against August.

This 20% slice is known as Bubbly's Law: No matter how many cans of seltzer you buy, they will all be consumed before the party's over. It is often followed by Fizzy's Addendum: As you clean up, you will pour dozens of half-finished cans down the drain.
 

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Another Editor's Note! If you're not a paying member, this is the last pie chart you'll see for awhile. They are going back behind the paywall next week, for the foreseeable future. To keep the fully pie'd edition of this newsletter arriving, you can sign up for a membership—it's just $15/year. 

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Björk is podcasting now?! (All I can think is: "Why am I the only one in this club popping my f'ing podcast?") I'm getting into Vibe Check, a new show from favorites Sam Sanders, Saeed Jones, and Zach Stafford. The ballad of the oldest daughter. The compounded joy of many, many Megan Thee Stallions. Photos of cluttercore decor, a term that is apparently useful if you consider maximalism "too adult". An illustrated meditation on craft as art.

I co-wrote a whole book about the validity of this plan.

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The alfredo sauce roadway slip 'n' slide had me googling "truck spill" + my favorite liquids. Most relevant crashes, based on my personal interests, involved a tahini river, a gin slick, and several different shredded cheese incidents (two of them "fiery;" one inspiring the public-health advice to "Never eat highway cheese... ever.") Alas, the Great Ranch Dressing Spill of 2019 was bottled, not free-flowing, but I'll give it an honorable mention. 

Are you ever looking at something on the internet and realize that this has to be somebody's "thing"? Shout out to the good people at TruckSpills.com for their tireless commitment to this new-to-me genre.