AMERICANA / GIVING THE POPULAR VOTE ITS DUE

Illust. by F. Stop Fitzgerald for PillartoPost.org

A 51-vote Electoral College bonus could mend a system that leaves millions feeling cheated — no matter which side they’re on. 

[PillartoPost.org original essay]--The United States is one of the few democracies where the candidate with the most votes can still lose the presidency. That paradox — winning the popular vote yet losing the White House — has scarred two of the last six elections. Each time, it deepens mistrust and hardens the political divide. 

Defenders of the Electoral College argue it prevents domination by the largest states and ensures that candidates pay attention to the entire map. Critics counter that it distorts democracy, handing outsized power to swing states and sometimes producing presidents without a popular mandate. 

The divide has become symbolic, a recurring reminder that our institutions often lag behind our ideals. But there may be a middle course — one brick removed from the wall of division. 

What if the winner of the nationwide popular vote automatically received a bonus of 51 electoral votes — one for each state and the District of Columbia? This reform wouldn’t dismantle the Electoral College. Instead, it would strengthen it by tying the system more directly to the will of the people. 

Such a reform would prevent a repeat of the outcomes that leave half the country feeling cheated — whether their candidate won or lost. At the same time, it would preserve the federalist spirit of the system, ensuring that rural states and urban centers remain part of a common contest. 

The genius of the American system has always been its ability to balance national majorities with state voices. A popular-vote bonus would preserve that balance while restoring legitimacy to the presidency. 

What would it take to make this idea part of our ever-seeking effort to form a more perfect union? 

The same thing that has driven every democratic reform since 1789: political will. 

Congress and the states would need to embrace a constitutional amendment, or at the very least coordinate through an interstate compact, to guarantee the 51-vote bonus. Neither path is easy. But if citizens across the spectrum — left, right, and independent — agree that the popular vote should carry real weight, pressure on lawmakers would grow. Step by step, acorn by acorn, reform could take root. 

A modest adjustment, yes. But democracy often advances through modest adjustments. A popular-vote bonus would reaffirm that the choice of the majority is not an afterthought — it is the bedrock of legitimacy. 

 Editor’s Note: PillartoPost has appeared here every day since 2011 — more than 5,000 posts and counting. One recent story on the 90th anniversary of the Social Security Act drew over 10,000 readers in a single day. This blog accepts no paid advertising; it is offered freely as a daily slice of Americana. Thank you for reading and being part of the journey. 

MEDIA MONDAY / THE JARGON WARS? WHO'S WINNING? MEDIA TO BLAME?

[PillartoPost.org original essay]—Somewhere along the way, national debate stopped being a dialogue and became a duel. Left and right, progressives and conservatives, have turned the public square into a contest of rapid-fire slogans and verbal shorthands. 

Each side coins fresh jargon meant to score points in the media cycle. The faster the soundbite, the more potent the strike. And yet, outside the ring of combat, the audience—ordinary citizens—are left scratching their heads. When did “dox” become common currency? 

Not long ago, the term was tucked away in hacker forums, short for “dropping documents.” Now it’s a political weapon, tossed around on talk shows and headlines. 

For insiders, it signals intimidation. 

For the average reader, it’s one more word that requires a second search just to keep up. 

Or consider the strange label “vertical liberal.” For most people, it lands as empty geometry. For insiders, it’s a shorthand for policy depth versus breadth—a way to jab at opponents without spelling out a real argument. The term works in-house. Outside, it confuses more than it clarifies. 

Even “antifa” illustrates the gulf. On its face, “anti-fascist” seems unimpeachable. Who in America willingly lines up as “pro-fascist”? But the shorthand has been twisted into something menacing, freighted with images of masked mobs. A term that once stood as a literal opposition to dictatorship is now deployed as an epithet. 

This is where the jargon wars become dangerous. 

Words are meant to sharpen understanding, not fog it. But in the rush for one-upmanship, meaning collapses. Here the media enters the blame game.The political wings have built private languages, more interested in humiliating the other side than in persuading the public. Citizens not in the fray are forced to decode slang before they can even weigh the argument. In the rush to keep current themselves the media does not offer definitions to the shortcuts they publish or broadcast.

Independent thinkers deserve better. Media should interrogate these shortcuts rather than amplify them. If we continue to let insiders coin new shibboleths unchecked, we risk a national conversation where only the combatants understand the rules of engagement. The rest of us are left in the dark—watching a fight in a foreign tongue. 

Glossary of Divisive Jargon 

• Antifa – Anti-fascist activism; painted in extremes depending on the speaker. 

• Cancel Culture – Public backlash or boycotts; framed by critics as mob censorship, by supporters as accountability. 

• CRT (Critical Race Theory) – A legal framework recast as a catch-all label for race-related teaching. 

• Deep State – Shorthand for supposed entrenched government power; used to stoke distrust. 

• Defund the Police – Means reform to some, abolition to others; shorthand that fuels division. 

• Doctrinaire Stance – A rigid, uncompromising adherence to an ideology, applied without flexibility or regard for practical realities. 

• Dox / Doxxing – Publishing private info to punish or intimidate an opponent. 

• Elites – A broad swipe at wealth, education, or cultural power. 

• Election Integrity / Election Denial – Competing shorthand for debates over voting rights and security. 

• Fake News – Either misinformation or, more often, a way to dismiss inconvenient reporting. 

• Gaslighting – A psychological term now common shorthand for deliberate manipulation. 

• Globalist – Pejorative for elites accused of undermining national sovereignty. 

• Identity Politics – Neutral in academia; divisive in public fights over race, gender, and class. 

• MAGA – “Make America Great Again,” both a slogan and label for its supporters. 

• Open Borders – More accusation than policy, implying uncontrolled immigration. 

• Patriot / Real American – Used to imply some citizens are more legitimate than others. 

• Performative Posturing – A public display of belief, virtue, or conviction intended more to signal alignment than to act on it. It’s a performance of principle, often meant to win approval, status, or credibility, but lacking genuine follow-through. 

• Progressive – In current political terms, a progressive refers to a person who advocates for social and economic reforms through government action to address societal inequalities. While the term has historical roots in the early 20th century, modern progressivism focuses heavily on systemic issues such as income inequality, climate change, and social justice. 

• Replacement Theory – A once-fringe fear of demographic change, now mainstreamed. • Snowflake – Insult for someone seen as fragile or easily offended. • Vertical Liberal – A jab at piling progressive causes one atop another.

• Virtue Signaling – Dismissal of moral stances as performative posturing. 

• Woke – Once meant socially aware; now used derisively for excessive political correctness.

SUNDAY REVIEW / NOBEL PRIZE SHORT STORY "KABULIWAWA"

GUEST BLOG/ Fiction by Rabindranath Tagore, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. He was the first non-European laureate, recognized for his profoundly sensitive, fresh, and beautiful verse, particularly his work Gitanjali (Song Offerings). 

My five-year-old daughter Mini cannot keep quiet for a minute. She has the gift of eternal and incessant conversation. I believe this is the natural gift of childhood itself, for children seldom tire of speaking. Whenever I come home from my morning’s work and sit down, she runs up to me at once and begins: “Father! Ramdayal the gate-keeper calls a crow a krow! He doesn’t know anything, does he?” 

She does not pause for an answer. “Father! Bhola says there’s an elephant in the clouds, blowing water out of its trunk. Do clouds have elephants?” 

Then, without waiting: “Father! What’s mother to you?” 

One day I was writing something at my desk. The morning was winter-clear, the sun streaming golden. Mini was seated by my feet, chirping her endless little questions. 

At that very moment a Kabuliwala passed by the road. 

He was a tall, turbaned fellow, loose garments, a bag slung on his back, and some grapes in his hand. He called out, “Kabuliwala! Kabuliwala!” and Mini, seeing him, shrieked and ran inside. She had never seen such a man before. 

But a few days later, by a strange fate, she and the Kabuliwala became friends. He would bring her nuts and raisins; though I objected at first, soon I found her pockets stuffed with almonds. They would sit together in the courtyard, the big man and the tiny chatterbox, and exchange their odd confidences. The Kabuliwala would laugh and ask, “Mini, are you going to your father-in-law’s house?” 

This was the stock joke between them, for in Bengal little girls are teased about marriage from an early age. Mini would respond, “Are you going to your father-in-law’s house?” and laugh loudly. I liked this giant Pathan’s affection for my child. 

But one day he was arrested. He had stabbed a customer who tried to cheat him, and was sent to prison for many years. Mini soon forgot him in her child’s world of play. 

Years passed. 

Mini grew into a young woman, her marriage day was fixed. It was the morning of the wedding when the Kabuliwala returned, released after his sentence. He came straight to my house, carrying his old bag. 

I was busy with the wedding arrangements. 

He asked to see Mini. At first I hesitated, unwilling to disturb the bridal seclusion. 

But I relented and called her. 

Mini entered, her wedding garments rustling. 

The Kabuliwala stared at her, bewildered, as if she were a stranger. Where was the little girl with whom he had laughed? 

He sighed deeply, and tears gathered in his eyes. 

He told me quietly that he too had left a little daughter in his own far-off Kabul. 

Every year, when he sold his wares in Calcutta, he remembered her. 

Seeing Mini again had broken open that wound of separation. I realized then that beneath the robes of this foreigner beat the heart of a father. 

My own eyes filled with tears. 

Out of the money set aside for the wedding, I gave him a small amount, saying: “Go back to your daughter, Kabuliwala.” 

He pressed the coins to his forehead in gratitude, and left. 

COFFEE BEANS & BEINGS / TERRIFIC IDEA: TIJUANA’S SIGN CAFE

[Photo, above) Behind the counter, Gabriel Díaz, 22, works the bar with his colleague Ángel Palomares, 25. Palomares always wanted to be a barista, but until Seña opened, his opportunities were limited. Now, he pours coffee in a space where his language is not an obstacle but the very foundation.  

 AND HOW TO START A SIGN CAFE IN YOUR 'HOOD   

In Tijuana, a cup of coffee comes with a different kind of conversation. At Seña Casa de Café—“the Cafe House of Sign”—the familiar clink of cups and hiss of the espresso machine share space with hands moving in rhythm. 

Here, customers are invited to order not with words but with gestures in Mexican Sign Language.   

The café is located in Río Tijuana’s Insurgentes Plaza [Av. delos Insurgentes 18137, Rio Tijuana 3a Etapa, 21], and modest on the outside. But once inside the openness of the space is deliberate: clean lines, neutral tones, and good lighting so every hand signal is clear. Even the design supports its purpose—sight lines matter more here than background chatter.   

[Photo, above) Behind the counter, Gabriel Díaz, 22, works the bar with his colleague Ángel Palomares, 25. Palomares always wanted to be a barista, but until Seña opened, his opportunities were limited. Now, he pours coffee in a space where his language is not an obstacle but the very foundation.   

The driving force is Misael López, who grew tired of seeing deaf friends sidelined in ordinary social settings. His vision was a place where silence wasn’t absence, but culture. The motto—“Más que café: somos un puente entre culturas, lenguajes y corazones”—is visible in every exchange across the counter.   

Visitors encounter drinks with names to match the creativity of the project: a Carajisso—chai, caramel, and espresso in one cup—sits beside a cold-brew Chili Coffee infused with chile de árbol and mandarin. 

Upstairs, a quiet second floor doubles as a study room, available for small groups who want to work in a space built for focus and communication without barriers.   

Local press calls Seña the first café in Tijuana where sign language is the official tongue. Customers who don’t know it are encouraged to try, armed with a cheat sheet of gestures. For some, it’s a novelty. For the deaf community, it’s long overdue: a place where ordering a latte means being understood without having to adapt to someone else’s world. 

How to Start a Sign Café in Your City   

The idea behind Seña Casa de Café is simple but powerful: give people who sign a place where their language leads, not lags. For readers inspired to try something similar, here are a few essentials: 

• Language First. Staff should be fluent in the local sign language, not just dabblers. It takes real commitment, with ongoing practice and training. 

• Design for Sight. Good lighting, uncluttered sight lines, and open layouts help conversation flow. Think of every angle as a stage for hands. 

• Invite Participation. Encourage hearing customers to try ordering in sign. Cheat-sheets or menu cards with simple gestures make the experience approachable. 

• Partner with Community. Work with local deaf schools, organizations, and cultural groups. Their guidance ensures the café is authentic and respectful. 

• Blend Novelty with Normalcy. Creative drinks and a welcoming atmosphere attract first-timers, but the goal is a space that feels like home to regulars. 

* Offer a bulletin board of names who can teach sign language(s).

Coffee houses have long been social crossroads. A sign café like Sena Casa de cafe, left, shows just how far that tradition can stretch—bridging silence and speech over a shared cup.

Getting to Tijuana’s Sign Café 

The address is Seña Casa de Café, Centro Comercial Insurgentes, Av. de los Insurgentes 18137, Río Tijuana 3a Etapa, 22226, Tijuana, B.C. 

Hours are Monday through Saturday, 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., and Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. 

The easiest way to find it in apps or maps is by entering “Seña Casa de Café” or “Centro Comercial Insurgentes 18137.” 

If you’re coming from San Ysidro CA, once you cross the border, take a taxi or rideshare toward Av. de los Insurgentes and ask for Plaza or Macroplaza Insurgentes. 

The drive usually runs twenty to thirty-five minutes depending on traffic, and the mall has parking on site. 

From Otay Mesa, the same directions apply—tell the driver Macroplaza Insurgentes or Av. de los Insurgentes 18137 and expect about a similar drive time. 

If you arrive through the CBX bridge at Tijuana International Airport, taxis and rideshares can reach the café in roughly twenty-five to forty minutes. 

Public transportation is also an option. Tijuana’s SITT bus line runs along Av. Insurgentes, and Terminal Insurgentes is a major stop. From there, it’s a short taxi ride to Centro Comercial Insurgentes. 

For those navigating on their own, ride apps recognize both “Macroplaza Insurgentes” and the specific address 18137 on Av. de los Insurgentes. 

Landmarks along the way help confirm if you’re close. The Macroplaza complex includes well-known anchors like Cinemex, Sears, and Sanborns, so spotting one of these means you’re in the right zone. 

Delivery apps also verify the location under Seña Casa de Café at Insurgentes 18137. 

Practical advice for border crossers: Uber and other rideshare services are reliable in Tijuana, but always check the plate and driver information before getting in. 

Most places, including this café, accept credit cards, though carrying pesos for small purchases is smart. Downloading maps ahead of time or having an international cell plan makes travel smoother. 

Travel Insurance & Mexican Auto Insurance Outlet

--Baja Bound Insurance Services specialists in Mexican auto insurance—online quotes, drive-through border offices, and policies issued by strong Mexican underwriters. Based in San Diego, but serving travelers across the border. 

FRIDAY FLIX / THIS WEEKEND’S FILM FESTIVAL DOUBLE FEATURE

By Jack Cracker and Bob Korn 

Actor Suranne Jones

 HOSTAGE (2025) 

Newbie: 

Some thrillers want to dazzle with spectacle. Hostage—the limited series created by Matt Charman (Bridge of Spies), directed by Isabelle Sieb and Amy Neil—prefers dread and claustrophobia. Its setup is stark: the British Prime Minister’s husband is abducted overseas, and the crisis detonates in the corridors of power.

At the center is superbly cast Suranne Jones as Prime Minister Abigail Dalton. She’s freshly elected, and Jones plays her as both stateswoman and human being—commanding across the Cabinet table, fragile in private moments. The performance carries the show.

She’s not alone. Ashley Thomas is Alex Dalton, the husband whose kidnapping sparks the chain reaction. Isobel Akuwudike plays Sylvie Jane Anderson, the PM’s daughter, who forces the story to widen beyond politics into family anguish. Julie Delpy is icy and sharp as Vivienne Toussaint, the French President, a rival wrapped in silk. Corey Mylchreest plays her stepson Matheo, restless and reckless. Lucian Msamati as Chief of Staff Kofi Adomako brings grounded calm. And James Cosmo as Max Dalton, Abigail’s proud but frail father, injects history and generational weight. It’s an ensemble with real gravity.

Much of the series’ impact comes from its 10 Downing Street set. The detail is uncanny—portraits, parquet, even the squeeze of the stairwell. It looks and feels like a seat of government under siege. The cinematography (uncredited publicly so far) leans into muted tones, narrow frames, and long silences. Negotiations stretch like piano wires, so that when violence arrives, it feels brutal, not routine.

If the plot occasionally over-stuffs itself with subthreads, the emotional line is clean. The story keeps circling the same question: how do you lead when your family is collateral? Watching Abigail shift between public firmness and private fracture is the series’ central tension.

The payoff comes not in explosions but in a single small collapse: the Prime Minister alone, finally letting her guard drop. No news crews, no aides—just a human being who’s carried too much. That moment is the series’ loudest line, and it’s whispered.

Hostage proves that a thriller doesn’t have to sprint to be gripping. Sometimes the most unnerving thing is the quiet, and the knowledge that power, at its core, is just people under impossible strain.

 

Jeremy Irons in Lisbon

THE NIGHT TRAIN TO LISBON (2013) 

 Oldie:

Jeremy Irons ticket to ride is a first class train ticket along memory lane. There are thrillers, and then there are meditations disguised as thrillers. Bille August’s The Night Train to Lisbon is firmly in the latter camp. 

Directed with restraint by August, photographed with sunlit melancholy by Filip Zumbrunn, the film is adapted from Pascal Mercier’s bestseller. 

Brilliantly cast, Jeremy Irons plays Raimund Gregorius, a Swiss professor who rescues a mysterious woman one rainy morning and ends up boarding a train to Lisbon on a whim. What he finds is not action but excavation—the life and writings of Amadeu de Prado (played in flashbacks by Jack Huston), a doctor-poet entangled in Portugal’s resistance to Salazar’s dictatorship. 

 The cast is stacked with heavyweights who wear their years well: Charlotte Rampling as Amadeu’s brittle sister, who is a devote keeper of secrets, Bruno Ganz as a steadfast comrade, Tom Courtenay, Mélanie Laurent, Lena Olin, even Christopher Lee in a late cameo. They embody a generation trying to square with what they did—or failed to do—when history came calling. Lisbon itself is the film’s co-star. Zumbrunn’s camera lingers on tiled walls, yellow trams, and alleys that look washed in regret. 

This is a film that loves its city and uses it as a mirror for Gregorius’s awakening. 

The professor, who has lived too long in books and routine, discovers that history isn’t just in archives; it’s etched into people’s faces. Some critics groused that the film is too talkative. Fair enough—but that’s like complaining that a wine tasting involves too much sipping. The point here is reflection, not chase scenes. 

Irons, with his cultivated fatigue and precise diction, makes a late-life intellectual quest feel both believable and moving. 

 What stays with you isn’t a grand revelation but the accumulation of small ones: the tremor in Rampling’s voice, the resolve in Ganz’s eyes, the quiet awe on Irons’s face when he realizes that it’s never too late to step on a train and ask the larger questions. The Night Train to Lisbon is not for those in a hurry. But if you’re willing to slow down, it rewards you with a meditation on memory, courage, and the stubborn endurance of love.  It's worth the trip.

THE FOODIST / A CENTURY OF SWEETNESS

ONE WOMAN'S PASSION FOR HARD CONFECTIONS AND TRADITION SAVED BUTTERFIELDS CANDY 

 For a hundred years, the copper kettles at Butterfields Candy have turned out the same simple magic: hard fruit-flavored confections dusted in sugar, each bite bursting with flavor. The small factory in Nashville, North Carolina, may not look like much from the outside, but inside, history still hums.  As a result, Butterfields candy has been disappearing from candy jars since 1924.

 Founded in Winston-Salemas the Cane Candy Company, the business moved across towns and through hands, eventually taking root as Butterfields. Eight different candy-making families kept the tradition alive over the decades, even as times changed and factories elsewhere chased automation. By the late 1990s, Butterfields had settled into its name and its identity: a boutique maker of intensely flavored “buds,” with the peach variety—the Peach Bud—becoming its calling card. 

Dena Manning

The recession of 2009 nearly silenced the kettles for good. But in 2012, an energetic, business savvy woman named Dena Manning, who had loved the candy since childhood, bought the business out of dormancy. She risked her savings, rallied her family, and brought the factory back to life. 

Her son Harry joined her on the floor, while Joseph, another son, helped restore and modernize equipment. Together, they preserved the old-world methods—hand folding, rolling, and sugaring every batch—while also ensuring the company could meet modern demand. 

 Today, Butterfields still produces candies much as it did in 1924. Workers tend the kettles, pour out glowing sheets of sugar, cut them into neat cubes, and dust them lightly. The recipe has never been written down; it’s passed on in practice, not paper. That fidelity to craft is why each Peach Bud tastes like a bite of ripe fruit kissed with coconut. 

Customers describe the flavor as a burst of nostalgia—summer peaches remembered, childhood summers revisited. From its century-old foundation, Butterfields has grown into a small but spirited operation. The factory now turns out a thousand pounds of buds a day, shipping them across the country and even overseas. 

Weddings, holidays, and reunions feature the candies as keepsakes, tiny tokens of something both sweet and enduring. It is, in the end, more than candy. Butterfields is a reminder that craftsmanship and perseverance still count—that a family willing to put their hands to copper and sugar can rescue a tradition and carry it forward. After one hundred years, the buds are still blooming. 

DESIGN / MINDING THE GAP WITH A NEW BRIDGE

UPDATE: DELAYS IN CUSTOMS FACILITIES AT BOTH ENDS IS MOVING GRAND OPENING FROM FALL 2025 TO SPRING 2026.

New Gordy Howe Bridge will make it easier for Canada US leaders to squabble nose to nose 

[PillartoPost.org]--After years of planning, litigation, and the slow poetry of steel rising above the Detroit River, the Gordie Howe International Bridge is finally entering its final stretch. From both banks—the Delray neighborhood of Detroit and Windsor’s Sandwich Town—the towers now stand complete, their harp-like cables strung in place. The once-familiar silhouettes of construction cranes have disappeared, leaving a clean line of concrete and cable that already feels like part of the skyline. 

For commuters and truckers, the new span means fewer hours idling at the old Ambassador Bridge, fewer detours through clogged surface streets, and a long-overdue second option across the river. With six lanes for traffic and a separate path for pedestrians and cyclists, the Gordie Howe crossing is being built to handle the daily grind as much as the long haul of international trade. 

On the ground, finishing touches are everywhere. Inspection plazas are being fitted with their canopies and booths, the lighting and safety systems tested, and the approach roads groomed to lead traffic seamlessly into the new span. The $6.4-billion project is said to be more than 95 percent complete, though the last miles in projects like these are always about precision—the testing, the certifying, the quiet rehearsals that ensure everything works on opening day. 

For the surrounding communities, the bridge has already reshaped the landscape. In Windsor, a planned cultural pier and landscaped parkland will soften the industrial edge. In Detroit, long-promised improvements to roads and green spaces are beginning to give Delray a new face. While residents have carried the disruptions of construction for nearly a decade, many now see the payoff just ahead. 

And then there’s the name—Gordie Howe, the hockey legend whose grit and longevity made him a folk hero on both sides of the river. The choice was deliberate: a nod to binational ties, to toughness, to the long game. The bridge that bears his name is designed to last a century. When it opens, the Gordie Howe International Bridge will stand as more than an overpass of steel and cable. It will mark a shift in how two border cities see each other—less as bottlenecks on a map and more as neighbors bound by a shared river and economy. For Detroit and Windsor, the bridge is a reminder that infrastructure can be both practical and symbolic: a structure built for trucks and travelers, yes, but also for the idea that connections matter as much as separations. 

Who’s Behind the Gordie Howe Bridge? 

Lead Designer 

AECOM — global infrastructure firm with Detroit offices at the helm of the bridge’s design. 

Bridge Architect 

Erik Behrens (AECOM) — known for sculptural cable-stayed bridges around the world. 

Design–Build Team 

Bridging North America — consortium led by Fluor, Aecon, and Dragados Flatiron, handling construction from towers to road connections. 

Canadian Port of Entry Design 

Moriyama & Teshima Architects — Toronto-based studio shaping the inspection plazas and landscape.

 Operations & Maintenance 

ACS Infrastructure, Fluor, Aecon — responsible for the bridge’s upkeep once traffic begins to flow. 

 Gordie Howe Bridge Fast Facts 

Total Cost CA $6.4 billion 

Bridge Type Cable-stayed with two 722-foot towers Length 1.5 miles (2.5 km) across the Detroit River 

Traffic Capacity 6 lanes — plus a dedicated pedestrian and cycling path 

Ports of Entry One of the largest in North America, with state-of-the-art inspection plazas on both sides 

Expected Opening Fall 2025 

Lifespan Designed for 100+ years of service 

AMERICANA / IS THE CURRENT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES A CONVICTED FELON?

 

YES! 

Details of the Conviction 

• On May 30, 2024, a jury in New York convicted Donald Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records stemming from payments made to Stormy Daniels, intended to affect the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. Michigan News+15Wikipedia+15The Sun+15. 

• On January 10, 2025, Judge Juan Merchan sentenced him — not to incarceration, fines, or probation — but to an "unconditional discharge", meaning there were no punitive penalties despite the felony convictions. PBS+8People.com+8The Sun+8. 

Thus, while he faces no immediate punishment, the conviction stands, making him the first U.S. president (current or former) to be a convicted felon. The Sun+7People.com+7PBS+7.

MEDIA MONDAY / EX-NFL LEADS HOMETOWN RAGE AGAINST TRUMP

The Former NFL Player Chris Kluwe exemplifies the engaged civil disobedience we desperately need in this time. 

Chris Kluwe exemplifies the engaged civil disobedience we desperately need in this time. 

PHOTOGRAPH BY TED SOQUI FOR THE NEW REPUBLIC 

GUEST BLOG / By Susan Milligan for The New Republic--Ask a professional football punter: They don’t get no respect. Kick a ball downfield 45 yards so the punt can’t be returned—in other words, do your job well—and there’s a collective yawn from the stadium. 

But mess up and give the other team great field position, then everybody knows your name. And not in a good way. 

Chris Kluwe, whose pro-equality activism dates back to his days with the Minnesota Vikings, is feeling the punter’s curse even in retirement from professional ball. 

Disturbed that the City Council in his hometown of Huntington Beach, California, approved the placement of a coded MAGA plaque at a local public library, Kluwe, 43, decided a simple objection wasn’t enough. He went to a City Council meeting in February to fight the plaque (which cheekily included the phrase “Magical Alluring Galvanizing Adventurous”) as well as a more explicitly pro-Trump line: “Through hope and change our nation has built back better to the golden era of Making America Great Again!” Kluwe ticked off a list of what MAGA stands for, including “trying to erase trans people from existence,” “resegregation and racism,” “censorship and book bans,” and cuts to air traffic safety and education. “MAGA is profoundly corrupt, unmistakably anti-democracy, and most importantly, MAGA is explicitly a Nazi movement,” Kluwe said at the City Council meeting, winning applause from onlookers. 

Kluwe then approached the council members themselves, placed his hands behind his back, and fell to the floor. He was quickly arrested and detained by local police. 

But it didn’t stop there: Edison High School, in the enviable position of having a former professional athlete as its freshman football coach, fired Kluwe. 

Like nearly anonymous punters everywhere, Kluwe wasn’t quite famous enough for the high school to fear a public national outcry over his dismissal. 

But he was just well-known enough to make the school skittish about what Kluwe said he was told was “too much attention” for their comfort level. 

The library had been a target of conservative political activism for some time, Kluwe said, such as efforts to ban LGBTQ-themed books and another to privatize the collection. 

The MAGA plaque was what made him decide to conduct civil disobedience. Kluwe said he thought, “I’ve been waiting for one of my elected officials to do something about this. I’ve been waiting for someone to get arrested for causing trouble, and no one has done it.” And then he thought, “I can’t ask them to do something I’m not willing to do myself.” 

Kluwe’s acts are being replicated across the country by throngs of Americans protesting Trump administration policies. During a June wave of protests against immigration raids, several hundred were arrested in California, Texas, and at Manhattan’s Trump Tower. 

Others have filmed the masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and posted the videos online. 

At least five elected officials have been arrested or confronted by law enforcement as they challenged Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. Senator Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, was handcuffed and forced to the ground after he attempted to ask a question of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a news conference. 

Kluwe has a history of activism and speaking out, on matters football-related and beyond. He very publicly called out leading NFL colleagues for being “greedy” in what Kluwe thought was holding up a contract between the NFL and players. He slammed NFL brass for putting substandard replacement referees on the field to squeeze concessions from experienced refs. 

Kluwe’s vocal support for same-sex marriage in 2012 — three years before the Supreme Court made such unions legal—led, he believes, to his release from the Minnesota Vikings in 2013. 

Kluwe said that the special teams coordinator at the time, Mike Priefer, taunted him with homophobic comments. Kluwe threatened to sue, and the case ended with the Vikings agreeing to donate to several LGBTQ rights groups, including a charity run by Wade Davis, an openly gay former NFL player. 

Kluwe never punted in a regular season NFL game again. 

Now 43, he writes the occasional op-ed and books and is running for a state legislative seat in California. “I don’t really want to be a politician, but we’re at the point in our nation’s history where it’s all hands on deck,” Kluwe said. “Are we going to act to save democracy or not? That really is the fundamental question we have to ask ourselves.” 

SUNDAY REVIEW / ALWAYS BUSY SAN DIEGO JOURNALIST PENS NEW FICTION

 Ron James: A San Diegan Debuts Quantum Deception

By Thomas Shess, Editor/Founder PillartoPost daily blog--San Diego writer Ron James has spent a lifetime telling stories in many forms—through newspapers, magazines, photography, food and travel essays, and digital news platforms. Now, the veteran journalist and media entrepreneur has stepped into new territory with the release of his debut novel, Quantum Deception, a fast-paced cyber-thriller that blends high-tech intrigue with human drama.

The book marks a bold new chapter in James’s long career. Known locally for his sharp eye on culture, food, and community life, he brings the same sharp sense of detail and timing to his fiction. Quantum Deception reflects both his curiosity about how technology shapes society and his gift for turning complex subjects into compelling narratives.

Before entering the world of fiction, James built an impressive résumé in San Diego media. He worked with San Diego Magazine and The San Diego Union-Tribune, eventually managing the newspaper’s digital arm, SignOnSanDiego.com, for nearly a decade. He later served as President and CEO of the San Diego News Network, a pioneering digital news venture that showcased his forward-looking vision for online journalism.

Beyond hard news, James carved out a vibrant niche in lifestyle writing. He is the co-founder and editor of Wine Dine & Travel Magazine, a publication that has taken him across the globe to chronicle food, wine, and travel experiences. His stories and photography from the magazine have earned recognition from the San Diego Press Club and the Society of Professional Journalists, cementing his reputation as a versatile voice equally at home describing a fine meal in Barcelona as covering the shifting landscape of digital media.

A U.S. Navy veteran with deep roots in San Diego, James has long balanced his professional drive with community connection. Whether reporting on local issues, launching media ventures, or exploring the pleasures of food and travel, he has always returned to the written word. With Quantum Deception, he channels decades of storytelling into a new form, one that introduces him not just as a journalist, but as a novelist to watch.

 ABOUT QUANTUM DECEPTION:

San Diegan Ron James has debuted his thriller novel Quantum Deception worldwide in paperback, hardcover and kindle for a great price: $6.99.  This story blends San Diego roots with global intrigue, cyber-espionage, and high-stakes adventure.  Says James, "it has been an incredible journey bringing Luke Payne's story to life, and I'm so grateful for the encouragement and support from everyone along the way.

Paperback and Hardcover: https://www.amazon.com/dp/BOFNMC9CP9...

Kindle: https://a.co/d/f6eVoVI

COFFEE BEANS & BEINGS / MINI CAFE IN BUCHAREST BECOMES THEATER OF THE STREET

 

In a city where space is luxury, some cafes carve out niches not just for espresso but for imagination. Boiler Coffee’s latest outpost in Bucharest’s leafy Bucureștii Noi neighborhood does exactly that—turning a forgotten sliver of land into what feels like both a shrine and a stage. 

Wedged between two residential buildings, the café sits inside a sharply pitched structure, its glass façade drawing daylight deep into the narrow interior. Local studio Vinklu designed it with reverence, borrowing cues from Japanese roadside shrines and chapels. 

The result is a lantern-like silhouette, glowing softly at night, and during the day, an airy timber-clad space that belies its tiny footprint. From the street, the approach is ceremonial: a short metal staircase leads into the intimate nave-like interior where counters and seating line one wall, flowing seamlessly from bar to bench to storage. At the rear, a small bathroom pod tucks neatly into place. 

Outside, a long bench extends the welcome, turning the spillover of customers into part of the theater of the street. Yet this is no cold design object—it’s a working café, humming with the clink of porcelain cups and the whirr of grinders. On one day, a young woman lounged on the steps with her dog at her feet, iced coffee in hand, while inside, Boiler’s baristas orchestrated their craft in a room not much larger than a corridor. 

Despite its size, the café feels generous, an open extension of public space where passersby can pause, connect, and recharge. Boiler’s collaboration with the neighboring Reconnect Clinic & MedSpa may provide context, but the real therapy here is the ritual of coffee itself. 

In a city of sprawling boulevards and grand cafés, this micro-chapel insists that intimacy, light, and good design are enough. It’s a reminder that the best coffeehouses are not measured in square meters but in atmosphere.

Boiler – The Chapel Strada Bârlogeni 58, Bucureștii Noi, Bucharest Open daily: 8am–4pm [One of a chain]

Photography by Vlad Patru

FLY BY FRIDAY / VISIT TO USAF MUSEUM

 

North American XB-70 Valkyrie

Dayton, Ohio, is an unassuming city, better known for its role in the birth of aviation than for its skyline. Yet a few miles from downtown, across a flat plain and beyond the perimeter fences of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, a set of massive hangars rise like a mirage. 

They house the National Museum of the United States Air Force—a cathedral of steel and light where the long, uneasy marriage of flight and war is laid bare.  

What distinguishes this museum is the size of its collection and the way it renders history three-dimensional. 

Above: First stop is the Memphis Belle—you stand beneath its fuselage, close enough to see the faded nose art. 

Next, the B-29 Bockscar, which ended the Second World War over Nagasaki, squats in the Cold War gallery with an unsettling calm, its polished skin reflecting the faces of visitors who circle its fuselage. 

Nearby, the SR-71 Blackbird stretches the length of a city block, still sleek enough to suggest mock motion at rest.  

The museum is organized chronologically, but the effect is less a timeline than a series of thresholds. You cross from the fragile optimism of early flight—canvas stretched across wooden ribs—into the brute practicality of World War II bombers, then into the anxious aesthetics of the nuclear age. 

By the time you reach the stealth fighters and drones of recent decades, the line between man and machine feels thinner, more conditional.  

The Presidential Gallery offers a different form of revelation. Here, the airplanes and jets that once ferried Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Reagan sit open to the public. The Air Force One décors are simple, almost austere, as though the presidents knew that the real luxury was speed, secrecy, and altitude.  

For veterans, the museum is a mirror. They stand in front of “their” aircraft—the model they crewed, or saw in person causing the present to slip into the past. Conversations spark easily: one man pointing out the turret where he once served, another describing the long hours on missions no one writes about. 

For families, the experience is wonder tinged with gravity. Children stare up at bomb bays wide enough to swallow buses, then run toward space capsules dangling like toys in comparison.  

Apollo return to Earth capsule

The curators resist turning the place into a shrine. The exhibits are not romanticized. Instead, the panels and films make clear the paradox of air power: the exhilaration of innovation matched by the blunt fact of destruction. 

A stroll through the galleries is a walk through the last century’s geopolitical anxieties—daylight bombing campaigns, the Cold War standoff, the militarization of space. Even in silence, the machines seem to hum with unresolved questions.  

Practical details feel almost beside the point. 

Admission is free, parking plentiful, the café adequate. The gift shop sells the predictable patches and model kits. 

What matters is stamina: the hangars sprawl across 19 acres, and it is easy to underestimate how much ground you’ll cover in an afternoon. 

Most visitors leave footsore, a little overwhelmed, but reluctant to step back into ordinary daylight.  

In the end, the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force is less a collection than a reckoning. It gathers the artifacts of speed and ambition, of fear and necessity, and places them where anyone can walk among them. 

Here, the twentieth century hangs suspended, its engines quiet, its wings at rest. And in that quiet, visitors are left to measure the distance between human ingenuity and human consequence—the sky above, and the shadows it casts. 

THE FOODIST / THERE'S ONLY ONE QUARTIERI SPAGNOLI

AND IT'S IN NAPLES. 

Step off Via Toledo and within a breath you’re no longer in a city of grand avenues but in a living, breathing warren where every wall leans close. The Quartieri Spagnoli—Naples’ Spanish Quarter—is not polished for postcards. It is a theatre of narrow lanes where balconies lean into each other, where laundry ripples like banners, and where scooters skim past wooden tables set out beneath neon trattoria signs. 

Here life isn’t staged; it spills onto the cobblestones. Elderly women argue in dialect across alleys barely wide enough for daylight to squeeze through. A boy zigzags a football past stacked cases of mineral water, while waiters weave trays of pasta alla genovese and plates of rum-soaked baba through the crowd. You catch the scent of frying calamari, the hiss of an espresso machine, the thrum of a radio drifting from an upstairs kitchen. 

Quartieri Spagnoli has worn many reputations: once a military grid built for Spanish troops in the 16th century, later whispered about as a quarter of crime, and now slowly transformed into a neighborhood of trattorias, artisan bars, and murals that carry the weight of its history. The grit is still there—you wouldn’t want it otherwise—but it sits alongside a hospitality that is pure Naples. 

Barrucchiere

And when the day is done, you don’t have to stray far for a bed. Within walking distance are tucked-away hotels that understand the poetry of the neighborhood. Hotel Il Convento, a restored 17th-century convent, is as intimate as its name suggests, offering quiet cloisters just a minute’s stroll from the chaos of Via Toledo. A few steps further, Hotel Toledo holds the same old-world charm, with a terrace view where you can sip limoncello above the hum of the streets below. For those who like their comforts with a touch of design, Relais Della Porta offers high frescoed ceilings and grand staircases, though still within wandering distance of the alleys where the real Naples unfolds. 

To walk Quartieri Spagnoli at dusk is to understand why Naples resists categories. It isn’t quaint, nor dangerous, nor tourist-polished—it is all of those at once. The Quarter asks you to surrender to it, to follow the glow of a trattoria sign into a room where strangers become your dinner companions, and to remember that sometimes the most memorable journeys are down the streets that never make the guidebooks. 

And if you want to stitch your own evening through its fabric, begin at Piazza del Gesù Nuovo, where church facades glimmer under streetlamps, and wander slowly down Via Toledo. Slip left into the Quarter, let the alleyways draw you past shrines lit with votive candles, then stop at a trattoria for a plate of pasta alle vongole or a glass of Falanghina poured without ceremony. When you’ve had your fill, keep walking downhill. In fifteen minutes the alleys open like a curtain to reveal the sweep of the bay. The air smells of salt, scooters give way to sea breeze, and in the distance Vesuvius rises dark against the stars. That is Naples in miniature: grit turning into grandeur, one street at a time. 

Quartieri Spagnoli

Citizen of Naples

DESIGN / LA JOLLA MODERNISM TOUR

RETRO FILES / AH, PARIS 1961

Photographer Claude Azoulay captured a moment outside Les Deux Magots (at 6 Place Saint-Germain-des-Pres), where a sidewalk café becomes a stage for light, laughter, and passing strangers. One of those images you want to step into and never leave. And, the girl passing by with the beautiful smile? That's Claudia Cardinale, who at 23 years at the time, was right at the beginning of the decade that made her an international star. 

MEDIA MONDAY / EPSTEINGATE JUST WON'T GO AWAY

Justice behind bars, but the walls won't shut up

--F. Stop Fitzgerald, PillartoPost.org

SUNDAY REVIEW / A CONVERSATION ACROSS TIME

Fiction. 

University student Polly Peterson interviews her great-great grandfather, Bastion Cartwell, former Southern plantation owner. 

“Fear is the cruelest master—in everything we do.” —Bastion Cartwell 

Q: (Polly): Poppi, I am your great-great-granddaughter talking to you from 2025. I know the family called you that. I have so many questions for you, but for the purpose of my college paper let’s get to the heart of the matter. Do you still feel resentment about losing your plantation, your way of life after the Civil War? And before the war started, did you ever think that loss would happen? 

A: (Bastion): Child, I marvel at that Yankee twang in your voice—where’d y’all end up? … California, you say? Lord, when I was a young buck I heard tell of California, gold dust and fortunes. By the time word reached Virginia, folks swore the gold was already picked clean. I had half a mind to ride west, but my pappy passed, and the land fell to me at just twenty-three. Now, to your question. Resentment? It clings like moss on an old oak, but truth be told, what I carried was more hollow than hate. That plantation was my whole world, and when it slipped away I stood like a man cut adrift. Did I reckon it might happen? No, ma’am. I trusted our wealth and our traditions to keep us safe. I was wrong. The war taught me that no inheritance—no matter how rooted—can stand against the tide of history. 

Q: Poppi, to this day our country remains divided. The South still lingers in red states, while the North and West are largely blue. What did you believe would happen to America after you passed on? 

A: I figured the Union would hold, but only like two houses forced under one roof—bound by law, not by love. Never once did I picture this nation as one people, truly joined. I surely didn’t reckon the quarrel would still be echoing in your time. 

Q: Poppi, the South went to war. Your plantation class was in power. You share responsibility. Why did you and your neighbors talk of secession? 

A: Round our supper tables, we spoke of rights—our land, our way o’ livin’. We dressed it up in talk of honor and sovereignty, but under it all was fear. Fear that slavery—the cornerstone—would be pulled out from under us. When the first shot rang at Sumter, most of us cheered, blind with passion, blind to the ruin it would bring. 

Q: Are you surprised that even now the South is poorer and more rural than the North and West? 

A: Not surprised, darlin’. Saddens me, though. We clung tight to the soil and to memory, while the North forged iron and the West raced ahead with rails and riches. Pride held us back. What I once thought sure as sunrise—land—turned heavy as a millstone without progress. 

Q: What did you all think of General Sherman’s march through Georgia and South Carolina? 

A: Didn't feel it first hand, but we cursed his name. To us, it weren’t war, it was punishment. Fire in the fields, homes in ashes, rail twisted like a child’s toy. Yet his march, cruel as it was, broke our will. It showed plain the Confederacy could not shield its own. Brutal, yes—but inescapable. 

Q: My generation feels slavery was evil. Why did you keep slaves? Didn’t you know it was wrong? 

A: In my heart, I reckon I knew. Any man who looked an enslaved soul in the eye and heard the chains clink knew. But pride and profit smothered that truth. We wrapped ourselves in scripture, in law, in all manner of excuses. I kept slaves ’cause I was weak—valued comfort more than courage. That’s the hardest truth a man can own. 

Q: What happened to your slaves after the war? 

A: They walked off, one by one. Some to seek kinfolk long torn from ’em, some to scratch out a livin’ elsewhere, some lingered near ’cause the world beyond was uncertain. Their leavin’ hollowed my plantation more than any cannonball. Did they find better lives? Some did, many struggled. But freedom—even hard freedom—was theirs at last. 

Q: Did you fear they would come back to hurt you? 

A: Lord, yes. Nights I’d wake at every creak of the floorboard, expectin’ vengeance. But most freedfolk had no time for revenge—they were too busy survivin’, searchin’ for kin, buildin’ new lives. That fear of mine, it was the shadow of my own guilt. 

Q: America is now the most powerful nation on earth, yet we are still divided—red against blue, fearful of immigrants and those of different skin. What advice do you offer? Are we doomed? 

A: Fear, Polly, is the cruelest master. In my day, we feared the slave. In yours, it’s the immigrant. Don’t let fear bind your heart. Division’s natural, but hatred ain’t. A house may hold many rooms, but it’ll stand so long as its foundation is justice. Choose justice over comfort, courage over fear, and maybe y’all can break the cycle we never could. 

Q: Poppi, I wish I could give you a hug. You didn’t invent the plantation system—you lived in it. The family tree you planted is strong. What happened to your world after the Civil War? 

A: It unraveled, plain and simple. Grand houses fell to ruin, fields went barren, pride turned to dust. For a spell, freedmen found voice in schools, in offices, in hope. But white resentment rose up mean and choked it back. My world after the war was ashes. Yours, for all its quarrels, still holds possibility. Don’t lose sight of that. 

Q: Poppi, we’re talking because we have imagination, and we love each other. No one will be able to build a machine that can take me back to your Virginia plantation, but through imagination we can see eye to eye and figure out a dream—a dream of how the world can be fair for as many of us as possible, all peoples. I have that dream and it came to me from you, from family. Gosh, my husband and I named our firstborn Sebastian Cartwell Peterson. How about that? I can dream to wish for a better world. I can wish to be able to come to Sunday dinner with you and all my grammies and Poppi’s so we can talk. Talk about that better world. And, until later, let me know what we would have had for Sunday dinner back then? 

A: Polly, you honor me with that boy’s name. Sebastian—strong as oak. Last name comes from Derbyshire.  We go back to the Mayflower. Makes an old man proud. As for Sunday dinner, well, we’d spread the table with roasted chicken or a fine ham in the middle, corn puddin’ rich with butter, collards stewed down with pork, hot biscuits puffin’ from the hearth, and bowls of beans and sweet yams. For dessert, apple or peach pie, and coffee, dark and strong, poured after grace. It was abundance, sure, but carried on the backs of those not free. I see that now. If ever I could sit again at such a table with you and all our kin, I’d pray the feast be fair—every hand honored, every voice welcome. That’s the better world you dream of, child, and I pray it ain’t just a dream. 

 Closing Reflection 

Polly Peterson: Talking to my great-great-grandfather is both painful and healing. His words remind me that fear, pride, and injustice cost generations their peace. But he also leaves me with a warning and a hope—that justice, not comfort, is the only foundation strong enough to hold America’s house together. And, I loved him for not laughing at my name. 

An original concept by Staff of PillartoPost.  Illustration by F. Stop Fitzgerald.

COFFEE BEANS & BEINGS / WHEN DID INSTANT COFFEE GET BETTER?

NOTE: We are reviewing Arabica beans based instant coffee only in this blog review.

When Instant Coffee Got Better Freeze-drying in the 1960s was the first big leap, but the real jump has been in the last decade, when third-wave roasters began freeze-drying their own 100% Arabica single-origin beans, selling them in small sachets. 

That’s when “instant” started tasting like “real coffee.” 

 Current Worthy Picks for Arabica Drinkers 

-- Sightglass La Magdalena (Tolima, Colombia) – Dark chocolate, goat’s milk caramel; genuinely resembles a fresh brew. About $4/serving. 

-- Canyon Instant Coffee – Nuanced medium roast with chocolate-cherry notes; closest to fresh drip, but pricey ($3.30/serving). 

-- Verve Streetlevel – Mild, malty, a touch citrus; best if brewed slightly stronger than instructions. ~$2.70/serving. 

-- Blue Bottle Craft Instant Espresso – Rich, smooth bitterness, blackberry and nutty depth; shines in iced lattes. ~$2–3/serving. 

-- Swift Coffee Mainstay – Jammy blackberry tartness, bold and roasty, surprisingly good iced. ~$2/serving. 

-- Mount Hagen Organic – Affordable jarred option; body lingers, generic but reliable diner-style cup. ~$0.30/serving. 

 --Little Wolf Companion Blend (Instant Coffee) – Blend of washed Colombia La Victoria & natural Colombia Gaitania; tasting notes: chocolate, berry, creamy. Convenient travel packets perfect for outdoorsy coffee fans. (~$18.50 for 6-pack box; sold out at times but definitely worth watching) Little Wolf Coffee +1 Bottom Line (two-line takeaway) 

 For an Arabica loyalist, skip the old supermarket jars and head straight for specialty freeze-dried instants like Sightglass, Canyon, or Swift—rich, complex, and drinkable black or with milk. 

Mount Hagen remains the budget fallback if you want convenience without despair. 

FIST FIGHT FRIDAY / BIG ORANGE OR THE NEW REPUBLIC MAG?

Who Will Makes It to the Finish Line: An Essay 

Illustration by PillartoPost.org's F. Stop Fitzgerald 

History has a way of pitting institutions against personalities. On one side of the track stands Big Orange Balloon, a man whose political career feeds on hot air turbulence. On the other is The New Republic, a magazine born in 1914, scarred by every decade’s battles, yet still lacing up its running shoes. 

The question: which survives the sprint, and which collapses before the tape? 

The incumbent administration is built on the brute durability of the presidency. Once seated, an administration has the ballast of the federal bureaucracy—cabinet secretaries, agencies, a Congress that often shrinks from confrontation. Orange Julius (Caesar's) staying power depends less on headlines than on two hard metrics: the patience of his base and the pace of his legal calendar. 

Neither is guaranteed, but both have kept him standing longer than critics expected. 

The New Republic, by contrast, has no tanks, no Air Force, no executive power to wield. Its armory is the printed word, sharpened into editorials that cut hard against Trump. 

TNR’s coverage has been relentless—portraying his press conferences as unraveling, his rhetoric as dictatorial, his impulses as combustible. It has, in short, made Trump a full-time beat, one where alarm is the lead paragraph. Survival for a magazine doesn’t hinge on elections or court filings. It hinges on subscriptions, reader loyalty, and the economics of digital publishing in a media landscape dominated by Fox, Newsmax, podcasts, and the infinite scroll of social media. 

Yet here is the paradox: Trump’s hostility toward critical media may actually fortify TNR. Its audience knows precisely what it’s buying—a bastion of skepticism, a century-old organ unafraid to call out authoritarian drift. The “finish line” is an elegant metaphor because administrations are finite by design. 

Four years is a maximum, eight if voters will it. Publications are not bound by terms; they rise or fall by stamina. 

The New Republic has survived world wars, depressions, McCarthyism, and the collapse of print newsrooms. It is hard to imagine TNR will fold simply because one White House disapproves. 

So, who makes it to the tape first? 

Odds favor the magazine. 

Trump may stagger through a full term, but administrations fade. Magazines, when they keep their readers and their fire, endure. 

The real story is not whether TNR outlasts Trump—it almost certainly will—but whether American democracy, in all its noisy, quarrelsome vitality, keeps room for both the presidency and the press to do their jobs. In the end, the finish line belongs not to Trump or to TNR, but to the readers. 

RETRO FILES / BILL BIGGART'S FINAL 9-11 PHOTOGRAPH

 

“The skeletal façade of the South Tower (2 World Trade Center) juts skyward amid dust and debris in Lower Manhattan, minutes after its collapse on September 11, 2001. At center looms the fire-damaged 7 World Trade Center, which would fall later that afternoon. This image, taken by photojournalist Bill Biggart, was the last frame he captured before being crushed by the North Tower’s collapse.”

In his final moments on September 11, 2001, freelance photojournalist Bill Biggart captured a haunting image of the attack on the World Trade Center. The 54-year-old was killed when the North Tower collapsed, making him the only professional photographer to die while documenting the tragedy. After the first tower fell, Biggart had spoken to his wife on the phone and told her he was safe "because he was with the firemen."

However, his drive to document the historical event led him closer to the North Tower, where he was looking through his camera viewfinder when the building came down. 

Four days later, responders recovered his body from the debris. Beside him were his cameras and a single, miraculously preserved digital flash card. The card contained nearly 150 images, including his final photograph, time-stamped at 10:28:24 a.m., just seconds before his death. Biggart's work stands as a powerful legacy of his courage and dedication to capturing the truth. 

Here’s what the photo shows in detail: 

• Foreground, right side: The twisted steel remains "tridents" of the South Tower facade, still standing like ribs jutting into the air. The tridents were part of the exterior lower sections of the outer walls that survived the collapse and became one of the most iconic images from Ground Zero. 

• Middle of the frame: Thick smoke and dust are pouring into the street canyons. The light shaft through the smoke is sunlight reflecting off the surviving high-rises nearby, giving the scene its eerie glow. 

• Left side of frame: Heavily damaged buildings along Vesey Street, including 7 World Trade Center and the Verizon Building. Some of their facades are blasted open from falling debris. 

• Background center: The dark rectangular tower is the damaged facade of 7 World Trade Center (which itself collapsed later in the afternoon). 

• Atmosphere: Everything is cloaked in a dust cloud of pulverized concrete, asbestos, glass, and smoke, reducing visibility and giving the scene a sepia-gray cast.

More on Bill Biggart (1947-2001):

The path that eventually led Bill Biggart to the World Trade Center the morning of 9/11 took him through Northern Ireland, the Middle East, Berlin, and deep into the heart of racism in his own country. He never stopped moving until the end. 

As a spot news photographer, Bill chose to cover stories that most interested him, not the ones an editor selected. He focused on presenting the minority side – the Palestinians in the Middle East, the Catholic/IRA “troubles” in Ireland, and the issues of Native Americans, blacks and gays in America. 

 “With a press pass around his neck and a camera bag over his shoulder, in the middle of a cross fire – Bill was in heaven” 

                                                -- Wendy Doremus, Bill's wife.

Bill was born in Berlin in 1947, the pacifist son of a conservative U.S. Army officer. Raised in a rambunctious family of 12 children, Bill grew up learning to express his opinion - loudly and demonstrably if needed. 

Politics was often a heated topic of conversation and it affected his life at an early age. His family was forced to leave Berlin on one of the last trains before the Berlin Wall was erected.

In New York, Bill worked as a commercial photographer, while also pursuing his passion for photojournalism. In 1973, he went to Wounded Knee to cover the American Indian protest movement. He somehow got past the FBI perimeter and was captured by the besieged protestors who assumed he was a federal agent. His gift for gab got him released, but some of his film was confiscated. 

In 1985, Bill received his first press card and immediately closed his studio. He left commercial photography behind and entered the world of black and white photojournalism. He hated color and only came back to it when he grudgingly accepted digital photography methods, colleagues said.

Over the years following, Bill photographed racism in New York, the KKK in the South, the Palestinian uprising and refugee camps in Israel, the life of people in Northern Ireland, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. 

He was one of the first members of a cooperative photo agency, Impact Visuals, which was devoted to issues of social change and alternative news. “If he had left when he promised to, for the rest of his life he would have been bitching about how we made him miss the photo of the second tower falling” - Bill Biggart, Jr. 

Aside from photography, Bill loved gardening, planting street trees in New York, sailing his boat, listening to Yankee games with his sons, and living in the center of what he considered the greatest city on earth. 

He died there at the age of 54. A life fully, fiercely and passionately lived. Bill is survived by his wife, Wendy Doremus, and three children – Bill Jr., Kate and Peter. 

That Horrible Day 

It was a beautiful day in New York. The morning calm was broken by a passing taxi driver who yelled out that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Bill ran home, grabbed three cameras (two film, one digital) and began heading toward the WTC. Walking and shooting as he went, he moved quickly downtown toward the smoke and flames.

 “I’m safe, I’m with the firemen.” 

As his pictures indicate, Bill was eventually shooting straight up at the burning buildings. He was not far from the first tower when it fell. After being overtaken by the dust cloud, he photographed the devastation all around him. Wendy, his wife, reached Bill on his cell phone shortly after the first tower fell. He told her not to worry, he would meet her in 20 minutes at his studio. “I’m safe,” he assured her, “I’m with the firemen.” It was the last time they ever spoke. 

 About 20 minutes later, the second tower collapsed. Bill’s body was found in the rubble four days later. His camera equipment was damaged, but his friend and fellow photographer Chip East was able to extract the films and flash card, which contained Bill’s final images. The last photograph was time-stamped at 10:28:24, seconds before the second tower collapsed.