From Palestine to the U.S., the politics of Israel have increasingly become a language through which political actors process defeat and project frustration.

This week, Thomas Massie, the Republican congressman of Kentucky’s 4th district, has become the latest in a long line of actors whose political defeats have been followed by intensified efforts against Israel.

In May of this year, Massie lost his renomination bid to Ed Gallrein, a former U.S. Navy Seal who had the backing of President Donald Trump as well as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which spent $37 million supporting Gallrein. Massie candidly labeled AIPAC “very persuasive.”

Since his loss, Massie has targeted AIPAC, demanding foreign lobbying groups be labeled as foreign agents (which would restrict their ability to donate to candidates), and this week sent a bill to the House that would cut off $3.3 billion in military aid to Israel in 2027.

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The picture of the beach is not the beach in the picture

Massie was the only Republican supporting his bill. If anything, the legislation provided a platform for Democrats who have hardened their position against Israel in light of its war in Gaza, where U.S.-made weapons have aided in leveling cities and the deaths of tens of thousands of Gazans in what many are calling a genocide—an accusation which Israel denies.

Thanks to Massie’s bill, the split in the Democratic party over support for Israel is palpable. The fracture itself took shape during the 2024 presidential election, when Democratic candidate Kamala Harris lost to Trump.

Many in the Democratic party blamed progressive Democrats for that defeat after they rejected Harris over her support for Israel during what they see as the Gaza genocide.

Either way, the Israel issue became a flashpoint dividing the Democratic party. A recent poll showed that 58% of Democrats believe that Washington supports Jerusalem too much, and favorability of the country has plummeted in recent years.

Ironically, then, punishing Harris for rejecting punishment of Israel over war efforts in Gaza is also a signifier for political frustration. I.e., progressives are punishing Israel through a proxy—moderate Democrats.

In a sense, the crux of the current issue was Israel’s response to October 7, 2023, when Hamas decided fatefully to invade Israel on the morning of the Jewish festival of Simchat Torah, killing over 1,000 Israelis.

Many analysts suggested that Hamas launched the attack to derail warming relations between Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and Israel because the issue of Palestine was frustratingly being sidelined.

While failing to torpedo the existing Abraham Accords, the attack did stall further ties between Israel and Arab states. While Hamas achieved that goal by channeling its frustration into an attack against Israel, the question remains at what cost to itself?

Gaza lies in ruins. Its strongest regional ally, Hezbollah, has been pushed north of the Litani River and is being chased by the IDF through Beirut’s southern suburbs. Hamas’ most powerful ally, Iran, has faced brutal attacks by the U.S. and Israel that have killed dozens of its senior political and military leadership, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei. The Islamic Republic is now tied up in a standoff with the U.S. over the Strait of Hormuz.

Now, Hamas has announced it will dissolve its government, which has been in power since the last Palestinian elections in 2006. Viable Palestinian statehood, meanwhile, has failed to advance in any substantial measure.

What Massie’s show vote this week reveals, then, much like Hamas’ October 7 onslaught, is that supporting Palestinian self-determination and targeting Israel as a vehicle for political frustration are different political acts. One seeks liberation. The other signals political grief.

Internet users flooded Google, Facebook, and Yelp with bad reviews of a MetroFlex gym near Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego on Tuesday after an image purporting to show the owner in an American-themed Nazi T-shirt went viral on Reddit.

The Reddit post, titled “Metroflex gym owner wearing Nazi BS shirt openly. Miramar Ca [sic],” appeared on the SanDiego, SanDiegan, and MarchAgainstNazis subreddits on Tuesday and includes what it says is an image of the gym’s owner from behind wearing a black T-shirt featuring the double lightning bolt insignia of the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary organization, decorated with the stars and stripes of the U.S. flag.

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Following the posts, which garnered over a thousand upvotes and hundreds of largely upset comments—the gym’s Google ratings plummeted from 3.2 stars to just above 1 star by Wednesday morning.

“How do accidentally wear that shirt,” one Google user wrote. “SSomething SSeemed off with the owners attitude,” wrote another.

Its Facebook page hovered just above 1.5 stars.

Yelp also temporarily disabled the ability to post on MetroFlex Miramar’s page due to “increased public attention resulting in an influx of people posting their views to this page.”

The owner of MetroFlex Miramar, meanwhile, took to Instagram late Tuesday to address the controversy, writing that he failed to consider the implications of his shirt.

Apologizing alongside a blank image, the Instagram profile posted, “I foolishly purchased & wore a shirt that mongers hate. Originally interpreting the shirt as reflecting being rooted in ‘America’ and love for the Flag, I was clearly not thinking about all interpretations of the design.”

In the wake of the controversy, Brian Dobson—the owner of the MetroFlex gym chain based in Arlington, Texas—told Constant Feed he’d woken up to “100 emails” that were “mostly directly attacking me.”

He said MetroFlex is based on “Christian values and principles.

“I personally am as far from being a Nazi as the east is from the west,” Dobson added, threatening punitive action against the owner of the Miramar franchise.

“If [the owner of MetroFlex Miramar] truly is what hes being accused of and wants to promote Nazi apparel we will take steps to remove our brand,” said Dobson.

One Reddit user claimed the shirt is from an apparel brand called “Curb Stomp MFG” and linked to another Reddit post featuring a man wearing the same shirt in Temecula, CA. While that clothing brand does sell Nazi-themed apparel, the shirt from the Reddit post was not on its website.

a red hawk wrangling a dove
in a high trafficked intersection
at a red light turning green
and the oncoming traffic on a black street
drives the hawk away
before she can make off
with her prey, so
she leaves the grey dove standing
dazed in sunlight, the dove that is taking a step forward 
and a step back as cars pass on either si…

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By Eliezer Sherman

It goes without saying that most people’s fantasies about Southern California involve a beach: lounging, surfing, sailing, or cruising along routes 1 or 5 with the top down. Children squealing while building sand castles and digging holes to be filled in by rising tides*. Volleyballs and frisbees flying. Smiles, beach towels, sunshine, and palm trees swaying in a cool Pacific breeze in 70-degree temps with almost no humidity.What could possibly interrupt this idyllic fantasy?

Fifty years ago, on Amity Island, only a frenzied great white shark could do that. Today, unfortunately, it’s turds.

This Fourth of July weekend, authorities across Southern California are warning beachgoers to stay out of the water due to elevated levels of bacteria from runoff and sewage that could make swimmers sick.

Impacted beaches include shores from Santa Barbara to San Diego County—in Topanga Canyon, Malibu, Santa Monica, Marina del Rey, San Pedro, Redondo Beach, Coronado, and, infamously, the California-Mexico border town of Imperial Beach, whose beaches have been officially closed for well over 1,000 days due to toxic runoff from the dirty mouth of the Tijuana River.

The malfunction of a sewer line pump that sent 2,000 gallons of sewage into the water led officials in Orange County to close a half-mile of Laguna Beach. Yes, that Laguna Beach—where a two-bedroom cottage near the shore was recently asking $18 million.

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Personally, I was shocked just the other day to smell raw sewage at Mission Beach in San Diego and to find it stuck in beached seaweed just above the tide where my dog was digging. Needless to day, my experience of the sunset was sullied.

The last time I walked over the pedestrian border crossing from Mexico to the U.S., I was nauseated by the intense scent of raw sewage in the Tijuana River canal running underneath the bridge toward the slough in California. I was there for a dental consultation, and in the end, part of my decision to get the work done stateside was related to that experience.

Residents and visitors to Coronado—a literally impeccable resort island replete with mansions, luxury apartments, and an iconic hotel—have begun posting pictures regularly on Nextdoor of murky tides, ostensibly from the Tijuana River runoff. Recently, U.S. Marines training on the island were getting sick from the pollution.

Just this month, someone’s dog became sick at Ocean Beach in San Diego after it ingested effluent that contained methamphetamine. Online, a commenter on the story noted a dog had died from doing the same.

Separately, a large sewage spill in Mission Bay caused runoff that temporarily closed the Ocean Beach Dog Beach entirely.

Ironically, the city of San Diego is currently weighing the closure of public beach restrooms as part of budget cuts despite these issues with pollution.

Further north, toxic runoff continues to leech into the ocean from the rubble of the devastating fires of early last year in the Palisades and along the Malibu coast, possibly feeding algae blooms.

While not related to sewage, I previously reported how along the coast in La Jolla and Pacific Beach, San Diego, dozens of dead seabirds have been discovered along the shore. Scientists are blaming, in part, warming ocean temperatures that drive the birds’ food deeper.

And in Oceanside, just north of San Diego, the beaches are literally disappearing because of old military installations.

I was born and raised in San Diego. Many of my earliest memories are from playing in the sand and surf at Mission Bay and Mission Beach. I see it as our responsibility as Southern California residents to ensure future generations have access to the same opportunities, contamination-free.

The acute environmental deterioration has broad economic implications as well. Studies show that 74 percent of Imperial Beach business have been negatively impacted by the crisis that sees up to 70 billion gallons of untreated wastewater flow into ocean annually. Thirty percent of businesses were forced to lay off staff. The small city of just over 25,000 is losing close to $2 million in property taxes and tourism revenue as pollution in the water and the air drives people away.

It appears as though any meaningful solution to this massive problem is going to take a lot more than volunteer trash collection, though that’s still an important effort.

Despite statements, memorandums, and budget allocations, it appears that neither the Trump EPA run by Secretary Lee Zeldin, local governments in the cities and counties along the coast including in Baja California, nor Sacramento have demonstrated the ability to effect real change.

This is not to say that remedying the problem is impossible. Cities like Boston, MA and Sydney, Australia have undergone major transformation that dramatically reduced beach closures and human-driven pollution on the shore through upgraded treatment plants, extensive monitoring, and deep ocean outfalls.

Southern California's challenge is substantially larger. The region is a massive agglomeration of cities and towns with at least 24 million residents and millions more visitors.

The issue is complicated by longstanding cross-border pollution which multiple administrations in the U.S. and Mexico have attempted to confront, but with limited success.

The encouraging part is that the basic engineering solutions already exist. Southern California and its Mexican neighbor, Baja, are going to have to tackle this issue in a truly concerted fashion before future generations lose one of the region’s greatest assets—and a crucial part of the Southern California identity—to literal crap.

*Digging holes in the sand is now illegal in Del Mar, CA.

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By Eliezer Sherman

A California rideshare drivers union has cleared a major hurdle by signing up 10% of eligible drivers, moving closer to becoming the nation’s second gig workers union, the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) announced this month.

The California Gig Workers Union managed to sign up more than 10% of active drivers by June 2, the board announced in a letter.

Following the 10% threshold, rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft were required to provide the union with a list of all eligible drivers.

If the union manages to sign up 30% of drivers, the state will oversee an election in which drivers can vote to select the union to represent the 800,000 gig workers in the state.

After reaching the 10% threshold and, the CGWU launched an extensive campaign targeting the list of eligible drivers that included texts, emails, and phone calls.

In Southern California, the group sent representatives to meet with drivers at Los Angeles International Airport, hosted barbecues, and touted newly installed bathrooms at LAX in its efforts to increase membership.

To sign up, drivers needed to provide their personal information and digitally sign a union card.

The California union has made increasing wages and confronting “unfair deactivations,” in which driver accounts are permanently banned—often over alleged rider complaints—at the forefront of its campaign. Eligible members must have completed 461 rides between October 2025 and March 2026.

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Unionization efforts came after Governor Gavin Newsom enacted AB 1340 in November last year.

The push to unionize gig workers in California comes on the heels of a successful unionization effort in Massachusetts. There, the App-Based Driver's Union in late May became the first union nationwide to represent some 70,000 rideshare drivers in the state.

Union critics have warned that unionization could increase the price of rides for consumers, restrict new drivers from joining the apps, and force companies to impose rules on drivers, such as scheduled driving times.

A representative for the CGWU said it did not have a timeline for signing up 30% of drivers or for elections.

Some drivers have expressed concern that rideshare companies would find ways to work around union drivers.

By Eliezer Sherman

When the U.S. and Israel launched attacks against Iran at the end of February, Israelis saw it coming, but many in the U.S. were flummoxed.

As the war appears to be winding down this week with a “digitally” signed Memorandum of Understanding, the opposite seems true: Americans get it and Israelis are scratching their heads—somewhat aggressively.

When the war began, many Americans asked (knowingly, perhaps) why the U.S. was fighting a war against Iran when we hadn’t been attacked and no new evidence had emerged that Iran was on the cusp of or had already developed nuclear weapons. The attacks were compared to former President George W. Bush’s launching of the war against Iraq in 2003 over WMDs that never existed.

Also, why was the “peace president” starting a new war in the Middle East?

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As punishing air strikes ramped up in Iran without congressional approval, Trump officials offered a slew of rationales that one analyst compared to paintings by Jackson Pollock—a barrage of splatters looking for meaning.

In the end, the message that really stuck with Americans came from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said the U.S. had launched attacks because it was aware Israel was on its way to do the same.

In essence, Rubio implied that Israel’s decision-making on Iran had forced its hand.

What followed was the sentiment that the U.S. was fighting a war on behalf of Zionism. Ergo, hundreds of billions of tax dollars would be spent and Americans would be dying on Israel’s behalf.

Regardless of Trump’s stated goals of removing Iran’s ballistic missile threat, destroying its naval capabilities, and neutering its nuclear weapons ambitions once and for all, most people didn’t buy it.

Quickly, oil prices spiked and the suspicions of fighting a war for Israel were compounded by the cynicism of yet another war on behalf of global oil barons and weapons manufacturers who would rake in profits.

The truth is, the West is far less concerned about a nuclear Iran than Israel believes it should be.

Unfortunately for Israel, recent polls indicate that the world may be less concerned about an existential threat to Israel’s status quo than Jerusalem is willing to believe. When Minister Bezalel Shmotrich complains that the Iran deal is bad for the free world, many (most?) are wondering why he believes he is authorized to speak on the free world’s behalf.

Europe was never interested in this conflict. China is quietly waiting for opportunities to unfold once it’s over. Russia was happy to get sanctions relief during the war but didn’t seem to care which way it went. And the rest of the world remains deeply suspicious of Israel following the decimating war in Gaza, its destruction of civilian infrastructure in Lebanon, and settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank.

For Americans, U.S. soldiers and innocent civilians dying now in another long and costly Mideast war is more important than what is seen as an ambiguous nuclear threat from Iran. For Americans who despise Trump, supporting any of his policies is seen as riskier than denying Iran nuclear weapons.

The fact that gas prices surged at a time of economic pressure and rising inflation was the straw that broke the camel’s back—resolving the war on the home front was likely going to become a matter of elective politics.

So, for Trump, looming midterm elections and the face of America’s 250th anniversary celebration may have added pressure to his decision to sign off on opening Hormuz now, despite the potential costs of appeasing Iranian tactical leverage. Mounting frustrations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which Trump expressed through a variety of aspersions, in any case indicated the president was determined to wrap things up.

Now, Trump is heading to the G7 Summit to sit with global leaders in high-profile meetings and may well receive a hero’s welcome on the global stage—after all, he ended hostilities, appeared to have brought Iran back to negotiations, and proved willingness to rein in Israel.

For all these reasons, the Iran war is ending the way it is, with a few signatures and enough money to keep the Iranians quiet. For now.

By Eliezer Sherman

There’s a joke trend circulating on social media sites from X to Reddit (and probably Threads, but I don’t actually exist there).

It goes something like this: a user posts an image of a place and classifies it under another place which faintly resembles the place in the image.

For example—a user on a subreddit for Laguna Beach, CA, posts an image of crystalline blue waters, jagged rocks offshore, and a vaguely Mediterranean beach under the title, “I love Laguna Beach!”

Only thing is, the picture in the subreddit does not depict Laguna Beach, but another beach, perhaps one in Spain or in Ohio or wherever. The true identity of the beach in question remains unexpressed.

In another example, a user (perhaps human, perhaps AI) will post, Be Honest—what do you think of this city? followed by the image of the skyline from Chicago or Boston or wherever. Commenters then write something like, Beautiful Toledo, OH—even though the image is obviously neither Toledo nor even the Buckeye State. The commenter knows this, but ha ha.

What appears to be blatant silliness—what Sigmund Freud identified as “the coupling of dissimilar things” in his treatise on jokes and the unconscious—underlines a much more serious proposition: that the picture of the place is not the place in the picture, but merely a symbol.

Thus the very truth of the picture of the place relies on a symbolic categorization, subject to symbolic destabilization exemplified by its social misclassification, while the place in the picture, off somewhere in reality, persists regardless of its symbolization here on the screen.

Truthfully, one can classify any place in reality however one desires too—a place-name is just a signifier. Misclassification fails to alter the existence of the place itself, because the reality of a place is its territory—water, rocks, vegetation, fauna, architectural material, etc. The people who occupy a place are the ones who imbue it with meaning, but that meaning is necessarily bound up in the people themselves.

The symbol itself is futility, requiring ongoing reaffirmation by people who die, while the territory persists senselessly.

Regardless of what one believes about a given territory, such as its symbolic identity or the integrity of that identity, the territory goes on existing. The rock of Sisyphus is a rock whether he’s rolling it or not. For the rock to remain Sisyphus’ rock, he must keep rolling it up that hill, else the story moves on.

On the flip side of such a banal existential threat to places in general, the joke “over the coupling of dissimilar things” like the image of a place and its commonly agreed upon identity begs the question: is such misclassification a joke, or a serious attempt at erasure?

Since it is a joke (one chuckles, “That’s not really Laguna Beach, stupid”)—why is the nonsensical joke over the coupling of dissimilar places in territory funny in the first place?

Lastly, since the image does not in fact depict “Laguna Beach,” what has actually been misclassified by the joke: the picture of the place, the territory depicted therein, the signifier that represents the depiction of the territory, the signifier that represents the territory, or the very classification process itself?

At its most fundamental, such misclassifications of dissimilar things mark a difference of difference, which is kind of funny. I.e., that’s not really that, because it’s actually this, which also isn’t that, but represents something else.

If I post a picture of San Diego, CA and you write—“Newark, OH 4life”—surely you understand that the image I posted is of San Diego, CA. The Giant Dipper Roller Coaster or the Coronado Bridge is right there!

In misclassifying the image, I reaffirm the existence of several things at once: San Diego, CA and Newark, OH as commonly agreed upon places in real territory and their symbolic representations. That relatively few people have developed abstract notions of Newark, OH is irrelevant when you look at the map and the words “Newark, OH” are right there.

Doubting the accuracy of a map containing Newark, OH, is another proposition and you’d have to bring that up with Newark residents. That Newark, OH does appear on a map guarantees there is at least some common agreement that that territory includes the place commonly known as Newark, OH.

Fifty-one thousand residents in the Licking County, Ohio, city of Newark certainly agree, though there are likely at least a handful of Newark residents who doubt Newark exists at all.

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In the end, the crux of most jokes, including this pesky misclassification one involving a fake Laguna Beach, revolve around the concepts of this and that. For example:

A: What do you call a Muslim on the moon?

B: …

A: A Muslim astronaut, you racist.

The joke here is that what’s hidden in the punchline is the lack of a joke about Muslims.

Freud would call this “bringing forth what’s hidden.”

What was hidden was the racism of the joke-listener anticipating something funny about Muslims.

That Islamophobia is not technically racism notwithstanding, the punchline of this joke is both the receiver of the joke itself and the very society in which she unwittingly lives—perhaps an Islamophobic one.

This is not that joke, this is that implicit bias of yours and your society. The jack-in-the-box here—and all jokes are basically jack-in-the-boxes—really contained the joke-listener’s own head. This punchline was really that head of yours.

(Recall the infamous scene at the end of the film, Se7en, where Kevin Spacey’s serial killer, John Doe, plays a horrific joke on Brad Pitt’s detective, David Mills, putting his wife Tracy’s severed head in a box for Mills to discover—I.e. “you’re not just a detective, nor a victim—finally, you’re a criminal.”)

Another joke*:

A: What is the difference between straight beer and gay beer?

B: …

A: Gay beer comes in a can.

In the joke above, “can” is the this that is also the that, which provokes laughter because the meaning of the sentence changes retroactively and the listener is left with contrasting differing cans and the things that come in them, despite the signifiers being exactly the same.

A difference of meaning is the joke itself—all the better for the gay undertones that no doubt straight people too enjoy, though perhaps less obviously.

Incidentally, the meanings of beer, difference, straight, and gay in the joke never change for most joke-receivers, though certainly straight and gay have other meanings.

The joy of jokes like this comes in getting the punchline. The tension that builds around the lack of knowing how the joke will end—what the very words in the joke will mean—is released through the understanding of difference and the passive acceptance that dissimilar meanings revolve around things that are the same, themselves composites of smaller parts.

Therein lies the punchline of the misclassification joke, one that is particularly salient in our heavily mediated reality and one in which getting things right is so important.

Not only is the picture of the place not the place in the picture, but whatever desire we’ve projected on the image of a fabulous beach or an epic skyline is also the false premise of an authentic sensation whose meaning provides only the vaguest of satisfactions that never quite escape our understanding of these images through symbols. The sensations we experience through the images and words on the screen are influenced by symbols borrowed from material reality, which itself is like a screen on which we project meaning from our own and shared understandings.

In reality, the image of Laguna Beach on our computer or phone is not Laguna Beach or Spain or even Ohio, but various plastics, software, and electrical parts working in the room in which we’re sitting, which could be located anywhere, even a room in Laguna Beach.

A deeper reality is that the place known as Laguna Beach is not really that either, but territory that cynically persists regardless of how the people who roam it classify it. This place is not that territory. This place is just our desire for a place.

*I lifted these jokes from Brian on TikTok who tells lewd jokes to an older woman, ostensibly his mother, who is perpetually shocked by Brian’s vulgarity.

Sleeping on a bench at the bus stop
Walking your carriage down the street
without shoes
Walking in black socks
Talking to people you know
Talking to yourself
Spinning around with your fists out
Twirling with your eyes shut
Dancing in a shadow on the corner
of the sidewalk
Moving your bicycle
Sitting in a lawn c…

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By Eliezer Sherman

Roundworm infections are overwhelming California seabirds amid a devastating starvation event that has seen an uptick in juvenile bird deaths along San Diego’s coastline, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife told Constant Feed.

“The parasites we’ve mostly been finding in these emaciated juvenile cormorants and murres are roundworms in their stomach,” said Senior Environmental Scientist Krysta Rogers of the department’s Wildlife Health Laboratory.

While roundworms—also known as nematodes—commonly infect seabirds that eat fish, the starvation event affecting these seabirds has enabled more aggressive infections.

“When a bird becomes debilitated [from starvation], the immune system begins to fail, and the number of parasites in the stomach typically increases,” Rogers said.

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Typically, older cormorants present with greater roundworm infections, possibly due to catching larger prey. But the starvation event in San Diego means younger birds are competing with older birds for a diminishing catch.

Juvenile birds are less adapted to catching prey than older birds and more susceptible to changes in resource availability, the wildlife department noted in a press release in March amid increasing reports from beach-goers about dead seabirds on the shore from Pacific Beach through La Jolla.

One Reddit user noted they had found nine dead seabirds at Tourmaline Surfing Park near Bird Rock.

“2025 was an unusually good reproductive year for these species,” the department said. “An increase in reproduction is often followed by high juvenile mortality.”

Rising sea temperatures have also pushed fish deeper into the waters off where coast birds like cormorants and murres generally hunt, increasing competition, according to researchers who spoke with the Times of San Diego.

The news came as the Trump administration announced it was dismantling an ocean observation system of some 900 deep-sea monitors off the West and East coasts that has been providing scientists with data on climate change for the past decade, as the Trump Environmental Protection Agency continues to relax regulations that put up obstacles to resource extraction.

By Eliezer Sherman

I’ve been a writer my whole life.

Recently, people have been leveling accusations against my writing—claiming it’s AI.

Their proof? I use em dashes—which I learned to use as a journalist—as well as other stylistic choices like a negation statement followed by an affirmative one.

But the accusations are not just irritating, “liar, liar pants on fire!” stuff. They’re uncanny. They trigger the anxiety of Imposter Syndrome, unleashing repressed memories of alienation and isolation, of speaking and being denied.

Have any other writers experienced this?

It feels like being gaslit, like one’s soul has been tethered to electricity and the tactile fingers of a programmer like Sam Altman. Statements you believe are authentic to self are being cast as the products of a deliberate, statistically-informed computation.

Of course, AI learned to “write” by co-opting real writers’ styles—both through training on existing data and through reinforcement learning done by human writers and content specialists. Many believe the former constitutes theft on a grand scale—particularly as AI companies rake in profits while providing writers whose work has been incorporated by models zero compensation—while the latter has drawn writers away from creative work toward training their automated replacements.

It’s a most bizarre circumstance—to be accused of sharing artificial text when it’s your authentic writing.

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Many authors are already producing botched texts to defend themselves against such accusation. “See! Would AI screw this up this bad?”

Meanwhile, I’m out in the Social-Media-Verse, reporting on my experience and being called a fake.

One commenter responds with a GIF of a robot making an obscene “suck it” gesture.

Another says he doesn’t want to read through a paragraph of AI crap.

My subjectivity is bullied away and buried beneath the signifier of inauthenticity, a signifier which became a political weapon in the age of Fake News, a signifier which decides whose facts and opinions are genuine and whose represent special interests or ulterior motives.

And are these acerbic commenters real or AI, anyway?

It wouldn’t be the first time writers have been denied the rights to the authorship of their writing. Shakespeare has been accused of being a phony. And plenty of people don’t believe God wrote the Bible.

Who knows, maybe God used AI.

And perhaps Shakespeare apprehended his material from unknown ghostwriters. Maybe there was no Shakespeare at all, Hamnet be damned… again.

This conundrum begs the question—how important is authorship when it comes to the transfer of meaning?

What gives the author the authority over the consequences of her dictation?

How much responsibility is even hers?

After all, meaning never actually escapes the subject—whether they’re a writer or a reader. Meaning is merely referenced through externalized words, gestures, expressions, and affects.

Objectively, words are scribbles and differentiated collections of phonemes that influence behavior but only because someone else, possibly oneself, understands.

While a subject is represented by his words, understanding happens on the side of the receiver, even if that receiver is oneself, as in the case of a writer who is the sole reader of his own work.

But the consequences of words are up to the subject, i.e. the understander of the words.

Consider the manifestos that accompany mass shootings or the words that have been scrawled on bullets by the killers, words whose linguistic payload is delivered to the psyche and not the animal’s body.

Libel is injurious not because of what the words themselves mean, but because of how people understand them and what that understanding entails for the plaintiff. Did words kill the plaintiff’s reputation, or people in whom those words become understanding?

Quite simply, accusing a writer—an anonymous social media user—of using AI is just a pretext for denying the message itself, of precluding understanding.

This is no different than any claim of Fake News. But in the case of Fake News, another subject, one with an ulterior motive, is implied, while in the accusation of AI writing, the subject of the writing itself is claimed to be absent, automated AI.

Legitimately, AI produces slop that can be cringey to read and irritating to decipher. But its tokenized words do produce meaning in receivers (or inference, in the case of AI) and the one who posts these words, if they’re human, has signed off on a message meant to be understood.

But I didn’t use AI, even if elements of its style have seeped into my own via osmosis. And sadly, this is just another unfortunate instance of peevishness many of us have grown to expect in the hyperreality of digital discourse.

The author’s recent book, Happy Stars Club: Hand-Typed Poems about the Lack of Anxiety, is available on Amazon Kindle.

The mother of a suspected mass shooter reported to police her “suicidal” son was missing along with “several of her weapons” a few hours before Monday’s deadly attack at the San Diego Islamic Center, San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl told reporters.

The woman, whom Wahl declined to name, called police and told them that her son had gone missing along with a companion, according to reports.

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Officers were still with the mother of one of the suspected shooters when the attack at the Islamic Center in Clairemont—which killed three others including a security guard—happened, according to The New York Times.

The two shooters were identified with self-inflicted gunshot wounds in a car nearby shortly after the attack. Cain Clark, 17, and Caleb Vazquez, 18, were their names, according to NBC News.

Investigators also discovered anti-Islamic writing in the car, and the words “hate speech” written on one of the firearms. The incident is being investigated as a hate crime.

The attack was the latest high-profile shooting in which slogans are written on firearms or ammunition.

Luigi Mangioni, who shot and killed health insurance CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024, wrote “delay,” “deny,” “depose” on bullet casings, while Tyler Robinson, who killed prominent political activist Charlie Kirk in Utah in September 2025, scrawled a variety of messages on bullet casings before his attack.

There have been 187 mass shootings so far in 2026, according to the Mass Shooting Tracker.

Baby Boomers are snatching up nearly half of home sales in the U.S. in 2026, according to a report by the National Association of Realtors.

Some 42% of home sales went to those in the generation born between the mid-1940s and 1960s.

At the same time, only 12% of these were first-time buyers—the majority either moving from previous homes or purchasing additional properties.

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While most of these Baby Boomers were opting to live without their children and their families, a quarter of Baby Boomer purchasers were buying multigeneration homes, according to the report. This was similar to the portion of Millennial buyers at 23%.

Baby Boomers also made up 55% of sellers, according NAR.

Gen X and Millennials, meanwhile, made up the next largest cohort of homebuyers, at 25 and 26 percent, respectively. Ninety-three percent of Millennials were first-time buyers, while only 21% of Gen Xers were purchasing their first homes.

While Millennials were continuing to lose market share, according to the report, Millennial buyers also purchased with the highest median yearly income of any group—over $130,000.

Gen Z, meanwhile, made up just 4% of homebuyers.

“Affordable housing” remains a hot-button political issue.

Democratic California gubernatorial candidates debated affordable housing measures and the barriers to new construction earlier this week.

Most of the candidates blamed too little construction and a slow permitting process for the low supply of affordable housing.

Article and Photographs by Eliezer Sherman

Many of us have been feeling the pinch lately as gas prices climb and the cost of living is higher than ever. This is especially true in San Diego—which studies say is now the most rent-burdened city in the U.S.

But San Diego is also blessed with abundant sunshine and a bevy of adventures for even the most budget-conscious. Here are some of the best low-cost activities I’ve found around the county.

Free Balboa Park museums on Tuesday

Every Tuesday, Balboa Park offers a selection of museums and attractions free to verified city residents. Last week, I enjoyed the San Diego Automotive Museum and the Museum of Us. Previously, I visited the Japanese Friendship Garden, the Mingei International Museum, and others.

The automotive museum showcases an international array of historical cars, motorcycles, and internal combustion engines and is currently featuring F1 vehicles.

The Museum of Us is a treasure of anthropology featuring a vibrant exhibit on the history of beer brewing—from ancient Mesopotamia to Mesoamerica—alongside galleries on race in America and Egyptian sarcophagi. Visitors can also purchase a ticket to climb the California Tower above the gorgeous cathedral-like structure and behold 360-degree-views of Balboa Park.

To gain free entry, simply show ID. There are multiple free parking lots for city residents who have completed a two-step permit process online.

Helados at Tropical Ice Cream in Logan

Sometimes, I need ice cream—and San Diego has no shortage of options. I recently stumbled upon this no-frills commissary of sweet Mexican treats in the historically Latino Logan neighborhood of San Diego and I was pleasantly surprised. I purchased a tart, refreshing pomegranate popsicle for a price so good in San Diego, I won’t write it down. The mural of Frida Kahlo facing the street out front was the cherry on top.

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The Indoor Bazaar in National City

I’d passed the Price Breakers Indoor Bazaar in National City before but never went inside. On a recent stop, curiosity got the best of me.

The indoor mall was immediately transportive for someone who’s traveled to Latin America or Asia. Rows of stalls and booths offered everything from locally produced graphic tees to formal attire, veladoras, statues of Santa Muerte, wall hangings, electronics, and gold jewelry, all at bargain-busting prices.

Congregate with the seals at Point La Jolla

It’s the most famous option on my list, and for good reason. Displays of abundant wildlife at the coast of Point La Jolla will amaze just about anyone.

From La Jolla Cove to Boomer Beach, there are ample opportunities to enjoy the spectacle of sea lions lounging in the sun and playing in the tide, their animated barks echoing off the rocks and into Pacific sea spray. In the water are kelp forests and seasonal migrations of marine biology including leopard sharks, bioluminescence, and gray whales. Dolphins surface just beyond the waves and flocks of cormorants, pelicans, and terns congregate on boulders in the ocean.

Viewing the wildlife from a respectful distance with a community of onlookers is one of San Diego’s most iconic spectacles—and it’s totally free.

Get out of dodge on Mount Laguna

The Laguna Mountain Recreation Area is the perfect day trip for San Diegans that is both transformative and close to home.

Located at 6,000 feet above sea level, Mount Laguna is among the highest points in San Diego County. This is the southernmost section of the Pacific Crest Trail, which travels from the Mexican border all the way to Canada. Pine forests and craggy peaks mark the border between the scrubby chaparral of the western coast and the arid wilderness of the Anza Borrego Desert State Park to the east.

It takes about an hour’s drive up the Interstate 8 and winding Sunrise Highway to reach the trailheads.

All you need is water and a $5 Adventure Pass to park, available online or at kiosks in the park. Dress accordingly—temperatures are colder and more variable at elevation.

No photograph submitted

You’ve been lied to
They know
Read the source
Tragedy falls
Tragedy and manipulation
Don’t believe what you see
They did it
You're exploited
Here’s the proof
They know
You’ve been lied to; they did it
Tragedy awaits
You're exploited
They did it, you've been manipulated
They did it
Stop supporting them
They disrespect you
Tragedy awaits
They disrespect you
You're exploited
They disrespect you
You've been manipulated; you're exploited
They did it to themselves
You're exploited
You’ve been lied to
You’ve been lied to

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has a large role to play in antisemitism,” Democratic Congresswoman from San Diego, Sara Jacobs, said in an interview with Zeteo she posted to her official Instagram on Tuesday.

Jacobs is co-leading the Block the Bombs bill, which would halt military aid to Israel after two-and-a-half years of war in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran and what many say are Israeli war crimes and genocide.

The “Jewish rep” criticized unnamed Jewish groups of hypocrisy for criticizing the bill while ignoring blatant antisemitism, such as such as comments by Republican Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina in 2025 mocking Jacobs by recommending a surgeon to “get your nose done.”

She also said some in the San Diego Jewish community where she grew up had isolated her, accusing her work on the bill of “doing something wrong or hurting our community.”

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On the other hand, Jacobs said President Donald Trump was “weaponizing Jewish opinion and the very real rise in antisemitism to accomplish… political goals that actually have nothing to do with antisemitism.”

“He’s literally gutting the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights,” said Jacobs, “which is the entity that helps protect Jewish students on campus, all the while saying he’s doing that to protect students.”

The Office of Civil Rights laid off half its staff in 2025 following federal spending cuts.

Several groups in the U.S. and Israel have noted a significant rise in antisemitism in the U.S. and abroad since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, including terrorist attacks like the 2025 shooting at Bondi Beach in Australia in which 15 died, vandalism of Jewish property like the Ohr Shalom synagogue in San Diego in early 2025, and student issues like a new lawsuit in Florida alleging teachers oversaw antisemitic student presentations and harassment.

By Eliezer Sherman

Three generations of Americans have lived without a serious defense-related existential threat.

It’s been decades since the Cold War ended. The worst ravages of terrorism remain abroad. No one believes Tehran when it says, “Death to America.”

Conflicts in Ukraine, the Levant, and Iran do not challenge this reality, even as millions have died in these wars.

Instead, many see our military—the strongest and most expensive in the world—as a political cost of choice rather than necessity.

Other issues, like the cost of living, health care, or housing, are the real existential threats. It’s the economy that’s trying to kill us, not Vladimir Putin or the Ayatollahs.

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Still, Republicans are unmoved.

The Trump White House recently requested $1.5 trillion for the biggest defense budget yet. It continues to slash funding to the Affordable Care Act and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Premiums have spiked and more Americans are back on the street, increasing pressure on financially struggling cities and stretched law enforcement to maintain order.

Trump ran on an economic platform. He promised to lower costs for American consumers. But the price of gas, food, and living expenses contradict his campaign.

Instead, Republicans are seen as the party that uses the military to decapitate other governments while seizing their wealth on behalf of billionaires and their industries.

They are seen as the party that eschews diplomatic processes like the nuclear agreement with Iran for costlier alternatives like wars of choice—wars in which Russia, Israel, and defense and oil companies appear to benefit more than ordinary Americans.

And they are seen as the party that brutally deports hardworking immigrants, breaking up families and killing Americans who get in their way. All for questionable gains.

So when Americans go to the polls this November, the real threat on their minds will be the GOP economy, not Tehran and not Latino immigrants. And they’re not going to let the Gulf of America, certainly not Israel, and not even Ukraine get in the way of that.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency apprehended a DoorDasher en route to make a delivery, a Reddit user called Sincerely_Palomino claimed on Friday.

A screenshot of the user’s phone posted to the Albuquerque subreddit appeared to show the driver held up at an ICE detention center near the Albuquerque International Sunport.

A picture of the DoorDasher receipt showed an order made on Friday, April 17 from the IHOP at 5221 Ouray Rd in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The order was apparently picked up and headed to its final destination but never made it. The Reddit user said “we called numerous times and texted but he didn’t answer or move from the location.”

“It was taking a while, we looked back on [DoorDash] and noticed he ended up over near the airport,” they wrote.

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The driver’s name was listed as Renaldo although DoorDash users may opt to use a nickname to show customers.

Neither the Redditor nor DoorDash have yet responded to a request for comment.

The Reddit post came as ICE acting director Todd Lyons announced he was resigning from his post. Lyons was quitting after overseeing 570,000 deportations and a record number of people in detention in facilities like the one in Albuquerque.

“Motor City Madman” Ted Nugent of Texas accused the “Left” and “misinformed” of using “scare tactics” to enforce feeding bans of deer in areas affected by a fatal prion disease that is ravaging herds across the nation.

In a video testimony sent to the Louisiana legislature, Nugent rallied behind hunters and hunting businesses as Baton Rouge advanced a bill that would put the kibosh on state baiting bans to prevent Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), and stop any new bans for at least 18 months.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fish previously imposed feeding bans in 18 parishes affected by CWD.

"Banning deer bating hurts rural businesses, farmers and especially, hunters,” Nugent says in the video, with a taxidermy Buck mounted behind him.

The musician, speaking on behalf of the Hunter Nation group, added that feeding bans do not eliminate the spread of the disease, though research indicates they slow its spread. Nugent is featured on the Hunter Nation home page.

According to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fish, the state is home to over 1 million deer and hunting industries contribute nearly $1.4 billion to the state economy.

Chronic Wasting Disease a fatal degenerative prion disease in the same family as Mad Cow Disease and scrapie that primarily affects deer—including white-tailed deer and mule deer—and elk, which are sought by hunters across North America.

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Originally identified at a government lab in Colorado, today CWD has been detected in deer in 36 U.S. states and five provinces across Canada, from Alberta to California to Maryland and down to northeast Louisiana. It continues to spread.

In Wyoming, as many as 24% of mule deer bucks recently tested positive for the disease in 2025, according to WyoFile, with incidence on the rise.

The disease has a long incubation period—typical of prion diseases—of up to 3 years. During this time deer can shed infectious prions into the environment via urine, feces, and saliva. The prions are resilient and can remain infectious in soil for more than a decade.

The highly transmissible nature of the disease led some states like Wisconsin and Washington to impose statewide feeding bans to prevent the congregation of animals and spread of the disease.

Many other states, including Louisiana, impose feeding bans in localities where CWD is detected, such as the ones being addressed by the state legislature.

Hunters use deer baiting to increase the odds of a shot, improve visibility, reduce the cost of hunting, and facilitate the selection of deer by size, age, or sex.

While biologists recommend people do not eat meat containing the harmful prion, which is a kind of protein, many hunters ignore these warnings.

Although it is always fatal in deer, the disease has not yet been identified in humans like other prion diseases such as Mad Cow or kúru.

Article and Photography by Eliezer Sherman

About 75 local poets and poetry lovers gathered at the Point Loma Hervey Library on Monday evening to celebrate with the San Diego Poetry Annual as it turned 20.

Hosts Jane Muschenetz and SDPA Executive Director Michael Klam led the launch of the 2025-26 edition, curating a night of compelling readings from dozens of poets. Journal founder Bill Harding provided jazzy segues on his saxophone.

The evening’s readers traversed many topics—from vivacious poems about the spring season such as “Ta Da,” by writer and teacher Judy Reeves, to more somber existential meditations like “The Canvas,” by author and Marine Corps veteran Addis Sansone.

Sansone noted that his mother had traveled from North Carolina to watch him perform.

Poet and artist Jill G. Hall read her piece, “After the Transition of Power—2025,” about experiencing the Navy jet crash in the San Diego Bay in early 2025 shortly after President Donald Trump took office from his predecessor, Joe Biden.

In her poem, Hall asks whether the incident—in which an E/A-18G Growler crashed in inclement weather after its aviators ejected near the North Island naval base—was “symbolic of our country’s chaotic/transition of power or because of it.”

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The event also featured Spanish-language poetry. Poet and physicist Olga Garcia, an Annual editor, read an experimental rumination on science and history called “Drip Drip Drip,” written under pseudonym enriKetta luisi. After Garcia, Klam read the poem in English.

Point Loma Nazarene University Professor of Writing Katie Manning snapped a selfie with the audience before reading an oceanic poem about impermanence entitled “What Charm Would You Cast if You Could?” Three of her students followed Manning on the mic.

Award-winning poet and author Michelle Smith read an ode to an inspiring teacher. Introducing “A Blossoming Passion,” she noted that it is a ghazal, a poetic form rooted in 7th century Arabic tradition.

“You supported my wish to prove the world wrong, that my purpose/wasn’t solely at home, encouraging me to explore passion,” read Smith.

“What a joy to see so many returning poets who have become mentors and stars in the lit community,” Klam told Constant Feed. “Judy Reeves, Katie Manning, Jill G. Hall, Olga Garcia—and to have Anne Hubbell in the house with her son Drew and our new poet and friend from Hawaii, Nancee Cline—just fabulous.”

Cline read a poem dedicated to the late artist James Hubbell, a fixture in the San Diego County arts and founder of the Ilan-Lael Foundation in Santa Ysabel, who died in 2024 at age 92.

“A shy man with a bright blue gaze/lived as though the Earth were holy,” read Cline.

Klam lauded the “many young writers published for the first time in SDPA at the microphone, speaking their minds through verse.” The evening’s youngest reader, Yuyou Ma, wrote her poem, “muse,” at age 15.

“this is poetry./pure poetry, pouring/from the sky,” Ma read.

The SDPA hosts events year-round and publishes an annual journal featuring submissions from hundreds of local poets. The 2025-26 edition is over 400 pages long. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis and follow founder Harding’s belief that poetry “belongs to all.”

Klam announced that the journal was available at university libraries across San Diego. Free editions of the Annual, the Spanish-language journal, and a Kids! journal are available to read on the Annual’s website.

Original watercolor pieces by artist Brian Meyer—one of which made the cover of the 2026 journal—were on display and for sale. Throughout the event, Meyer sketched quick portraits of the evening’s poets and offered them up

“Our founder Bill Harding started all this 20 years ago, and all of us on the SDPA editorial team look forward to many years of poetry to come!” said Klam.