The Maris Review talks to Lyz Lenz about christianity, politics, and her new book, God Land. “Christianity has become so twisted up in our concept of nationalism that what we practice has very little to do with actual theology and more to do with ideas of belonging, morality, and moral capital,” she said. “It helps you self-identify in your space, and that has absolutely nothing to do with theology. That has everything to do with the way we practice Americanism and internationalism, and it’s really toxic.”
The Guardian has announced the nominees for the 4th Estate Short Story Prize. Authors include Jameen Kaur, Arenike Adebajo, and Oluchi Ezeh. The winner will be announced next month.
Mother Jones reports on the FBI investigation into American Media Inc. The agency is looking into whether AMI “engaged in illegal influence peddling on behalf of a foreign power” after it published a special National Enquirer issue “that lavished praise on Saudi Arabia and its controversial leader, Mohammed bin Salman.”
CNN’s Oliver Darcy looks at the ongoing discussion at the New York Times “about how to cover Trump and more specifically his racism.” Executive editor Dean Baquet recently held a company-wide staff meeting after a headline about Trump’s response to two recent mass shootings received a significant amount of criticism. Politico examines FiveThirtyEight editor Nate Silver’s “persistent criticism” of the Times, his former employer. According to the article, Silver’s Twitter comments about the headlines “caused such pain” that it led to the aforementioned all-staff meeting. Slate has a transcript of the meeting.
Patricia Lockwood talks to The Cut about her cat, Miette. “I don’t remember how I came across the name,” she said, explaining that it means “little crumb.” “Madeleine L’Engle had a little poodle that was named something similar, and that might have given me the idea. But I don’t know, it was just like a psychic choice, because, as I said, it did turn out that the only food she likes to eat is little snacky crumbs. It was just like an obvious psychic power swooped in.”