* “Fighting Back, At Last: New activist groups are responding to the spread of illiberal tendencies on campus and beyond.”

* “Life Lessons from a Moab Trailer.” Better and more interesting than you think; the real punch is from the last 10%.

* “U.S. rent has increased 175% faster than household income over past 20 years.” And people wonder why the birth rate has cratered.

* On Larry McMurtry.

* “Religious fervor is migrating into politics.” It’s hard to be paying attention and to have missed this shift.

* ‘The Narrative Is, “You Can’t Get Ahead:”’ on the peculiar racism of “anti-racism” efforts; one might be reminded of the idea that, if fascism arises in the United States, it’ll be called anti-fascism.

* “Bear Is About Much More Than Having Sex with a Bear.” An essay about reading and how reading changes over time.

* “The Woke Meritocracy: How telling the right stories about overcoming oppression in the right way became a requirement for entering the elite credentialing system.”

* “A Medical Student Questioned Microaggressions. UVA Branded Him a Threat and Banished Him from Campus: Kieran Bhattacharya’s First Amendment lawsuit can proceed, a court said.” Questioning “microaggressions” yields institutional macroaggression: a darkly funny outcome.

* Dana Gioia on Becoming an Information Billionaire, a favorite Conversation with Tyler.

* “The genius of John von Neumann:” a good candidate for the smartest person in the 20th Century, and maybe ever.

* “The Nixon Seminar with Peter Thiel.” The transcript is rough but Thiel is consistently interesting.

* “A City’s Only Hospital Cut Services. How Locals Fought Back. Apollo-owned LifePoint is embroiled in a dispute in central Wyoming that now stretches to Washington.” Why are the healthcare prices too damn high? This is a field with real monopoly problems.

* This describes me well: “For infovores, text, in contrast to photos or videos or music, is the medium of choice from a velocity standpoint. There is deep satisfaction in quickly decoding the textual information, the scan rate is self-governed on the part of the reader, unlike other mediums which unfold at their own pace (this is especially the case with video, which infovores hate for its low scannability).”

* More on carbon capture and storage: covers familiar ground, but these types of pieces keep popping up.

* Why have blog audiences declined? We can choose to be free: but mostly we choose Facebook.

* On America’s barren suburbs: “Cities are not massive subdivisions divided by multi-lane highways, where life only exists at the strip mall or in empty suburbia. There is actually a diverse urban culture, with nice walkable downtowns. And even if you live in the suburbs, there is something there. You may find train stations, subway stops. A square with stores and restaurants. Parks, playgrounds. Hiking areas etc.” They are “massive subdivisions divided by multi-lane highways” in the United States, sadly.

* “Jacques Barzun and Friend: What did a distinguished historian, and possibly a great man, see in an unkempt young would-be writer?”

* “China threat to invade Taiwan is ‘closer than most think’, says US admiral.”

* “It’s All Just Displacement,” on the problems and incentives facing the media.

* People love the idea of 20-minute neighbourhoods. So why isn’t it top of the agenda?

* “Chinese government officials and state media are increasingly incorporating woke talking points in their attacks on American values.”

* “U.S. rent has increased 175% faster than household income over past 20 years.” The need to build more housing is acute.

* “The psychedelic roots of Christianity.” Maybe.

* “The Era of the Wood Skyscraper Is Arriving.” Now the U.S. just to make it legal to build them.

* “How U.S. media lost the trust of the public.” “How could it not?” might be the more interesting question.

* “The Ambiguous Utopia of Iain M. Banks.” I’ve never been able to get into the Culture novels, but maybe I should try again.