Friday News Dumps Are Casseroles of Distraction

Friday news dumps are casseroles of the worst sort: tossed together, hidden under a blanket of cheese, and slid onto the table with the hope you’ll be too polite—or too busy—to ask what’s in it. I don’t know who first thought it was clever to release big news on a Friday.  The idea, of course, is that by the time Monday rolls around, we’ll all have forgotten the announcement, too busy doing laundry, running the kids to games, and decorating for whatever holiday is upon us. Politicians call it “strategic communications.” I call it hiding the peas and broccoli under the mashed potatoes.

Every Friday, like clockwork, there’s a press release that says something you might actually want to know—about: budget cuts, indictments, layoffs, or the sort of scandal that comes with the word “alleged” clinging to it like dryer lint on a sock. It slips out at 4:59 p.m., just when we’re uncorking a bottle of Pinot Noir and deciding what pizza goes best with a cozy red wine.  

And yet—here’s the secret nobody in power likes to admit—people notice. Not everyone, but enough of us. Enough that the trick doesn’t feel like misdirection so much as insult. 

Now Aunt Midge will tell you the truth straight out: “Honey, if someone only talks when you’re half out the door, they don’t want you to hear them. That’s not communication. That’s cowardice dressed up in a business suit.” Because Midge believes news, like gossip, should be aired in daylight.

Friday news dumps are the equivalent of sneaking a slice of pumpkin pie cooling on the windowsill and thinking nobody’s going to notice. We notice. We always notice. The question is whether we care enough to holler about it come Monday morning. And the truth is, sometimes we don’t—which is precisely what the dumpers are banking on.

So when the politicians or corporations are feeding us casserole on a Friday night, the key is to scrap off the golden buttery top to see what kind of slop is underneath.  

October -Nature's Artistic Reminder That This Too Shall Pass

 "First of all, it was October, a rare month for boys."

So begins Ray Bradbury, and every year when I reread Something Wicked This Way Comes, I’m reminded why October is unlike any other. It’s half-magic, half-melancholy, and it always manages to tug me in both directions.

The first cool mornings arrive, and I resist them—I want to stay curled in bed, clinging to summer like a child holding the last candy from the fair. But nature doesn’t bargain. She tips her brush into fire and gold, sweeps it across the trees, and whispers, ready or not, here I come.

She’s merciful, though. Just when I’ve given up on warmth, she offers Indian Summer—those odd days when the air turns heavy and we’re sweating in October, while leaves crunch beneath our shoes. And then, as if to apologize for the trick, she gifts us pink dawns, crisp nights, the last songs of crickets before silence falls.

That’s the rhythm of it: beauty, loss, return, farewell. Nature easing us toward the bare bones of February, when winter’s charm has long since worn off. And if you need a reminder that life moves on—that nothing, good or bad, ever stays the same—just look to the seasons.

So tuck a little October into your heart. Keep it for the heavy days. The carved pumpkin grins, the scent of soup on the stove, the sharp sweetness of burning leaves, the trees dressed for their grand finale. Let them remind you: life is harsh and beautiful, chaotic and serene, but always turning. Always carrying us forward.

Happy Fall, y’all. 

The Hunting Wives and the Slaughter of Common Sense

 When I was a girl, the world flickered in warm tones of black-and-white and technicolor optimism. The television glowed like a campfire in the living room, and around it, we gathered not just for entertainment—but for formation. For memory. For what it meant to be good. What it meant to be us.

My parents were strict. Guardians at the gate. The kind that wouldn’t let a whisper of Three’s Company enter the sanctity of our evenings. No sir, not in our house. A man living with two single women? That was a scandal, they said. A dangerous idea. And of course, I snuck around corners to watch it anyway—heart pounding, barely breathing. I waited for the thing that made it wicked. But it never came. A little innuendo, maybe. A wink. Compared to the chaos of today, it was downright quaint—like a sock hop at a church picnic.

Back then, we had Happy Days and Leave It to Beaver. Lucy made us laugh, and the Love Boat brought us cotton-candy tales of flirtation and redemption. Even Miami Vice, flashy as it was, had lines it didn’t dare cross.

But now… now we’ve slipped into something else entirely. A carnival of shadows. A funhouse mirror of storytelling that no longer wants to elevate, but to erode. Teenagers tangled in bedsheets. Adults preying on the young. And it’s called entertainment.

But it’s not. It’s erosion.

Because when you stir the lowest urges in people and call it art, you aren’t freeing them—you’re binding them. You’re muddying their soul. You’re clouding the signal that tells them they were meant for something more.

Flourishing isn’t born from lust or thrill or scandal. Flourishing is born from purpose. From spirit. From the quiet discipline of choosing the good when the bad looks more fun. But what happens when we’ve been so dulled by the grotesque masquerading as glamour that we forget how to seek the good?

We reach for synthetic joy. Sugar. Screens. Pills. Vegas weekends and borrowed highs. We try to fill a soul-shaped hole with something that will never fit.

My daughter tried to talk me into watching a show called The Hunting Wives. I made it through one and a half episodes. Just enough to see the rot under the gloss. A mockery of Southern women, twisted into caricatures—hypersexual, reckless, vapid. Teenagers used as props. Sex scenes masquerading as plot. The message wasn’t even subtext: This is who you are. This is what you’re for.

And I thought: No. No, it isn’t.

But see, this is how we end up with men like Epstein and crowds who don’t flinch. This is how you groom a culture to protect predators and shame the protectors. You feed them filth until they think it's food.

We don’t need more shows like this. We need stories that remind us who we are. Stories with spines and souls. With reverence. With boundaries. With morals—not because they’re old-fashioned, but because they work. Because they keep the machine of civilization humming. Because they guard the spark that makes us human.

What goes on between loving adults? Let that be private, sacred, unbroadcasted. But don’t drag that darkness into the open air and act surprised when the crops won’t grow. We’ve got to bring back the light. The good kind. The kind that doesn’t flicker in shame, but glows with dignity. 

When we trade virtue for cheap thrills, everybody pays. And when we stop expecting better, we stop getting better.

We are meant to flourish. And we can. But only if we remember how.

So let’s turn off the trash, light a candle, and go outside and breathe for a bit. Let’s remember what goodness looks like. Let’s stir it back into our lives like sugar into tea—sweet, strong, and worth sipping slow.