Dear friends,
I’m hopping on Substack to post links to two stories published online in recent months. The first, entitled “The Age of Shit,” concerns the guano trade and the rise of industrial agriculture. It was published by the good folks at Bitter Southerner. An online version of the essay can be found here.
The second piece, which came out yesterday, is the fruit of five days’ reporting in western North Carolina. In it I cover the race for the 11th congressional district: the same district that Helene tore apart back in 2024, that launched both Mark Meadows (architect of the Jan. 6th attack on the Capitol) and Madison Cawthorn. It is a huge, sprawling, very conservative district with a surprisingly progressive (“Progressive”) history.
After the Republican incumbent, Chuck Edwards, dropped out of the race (a bipartisan House committee found that he sexually harassed multiple women in his DC office), Democrats have the best shot at flipping the district in some time. Read about it online at The Assembly, a very fine online journal that covers the people and politics of the Carolinas.
Thanks for your patience! More activity coming very soon here,
Jack