There were a lot of reasons to fire Pam Bondi as United States Attorney General, but Donald Trump picked a bad one.
Bondi was never qualified for the job, which was the second choice after Matt Gaetz, who would have been another ridiculous choice. Bondi made it clear after the 2020 election that she didn’t need evidence to make legal claims, as she declared that Donald Trump was cheated out of that race. She had been in his pocket ever since he bribed her in the 2000s not to investigate Trump University in Florida, when she was the state’s Attorney General.
After Bondi misled the country about her initial disclosures in the Jeffrey Epstein case, Congress responded by passing a law forcing the Justice Department to release its files on the pedophile and his allies. (snip-MORE; click on the title above)
Mason Whiteside of Carrollton poses for a photo in front of the Oak Lawn United Methodist Church, Tuesday, March 24, 2026, in Dallas.Chitose Suzuki / Staff Photographer
It was already dark when Mason Whiteside finished his workday at a Deep Ellum brewery. By the time he was done cleaning and closing up, it was nearing midnight, but there was another job to do.
Whiteside, 25, called a Waymo to take him to Oak Lawn, where he’d lugged a backpack full of chalk and spray paint: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple.
“Does anyone want to color with me?” Whiteside asked as people walked by.
No one stopped. He didn’t need them to.
Over the course of three and a half hours, Whiteside alone repainted more than a dozen crosswalks, what he considered a vibrant act of defiance less than 24 hours after the city began stripping the roads of their color. Dallas is among several Texas cities complying with a state directive to remove “political ideologies” from public roadways.
“I wasn’t hurting anybody,” Whiteside, who is queer, told The Dallas Morning News Tuesday. “I didn’t damage anything. I literally just put back the same things that had been there.” (snip-a bit MORE; click the title)
Off the coast of Sierra Leone, the actor and model are fighting against tourists traps with their own vision: a tropical “eco-city” of the future.
Sherbro Island, a tropical outpost of farmers and fishermen nestled in the crook of Sierra Leone’s arcing Atlantic coastline, is about the size of Chicago, but its population of 40,000 wouldn’t even fill Wrigley Field. Electrical power and wireless internet are scarce. Fishermen can’t refrigerate their catches long enough to sell them on the mainland, and farmers often lack the expertise and equipment to harvest much more than they need to survive. But Sherbro Island has some enviable resources, including miles of unblemished beaches and lagoons, as well as an abundance of replenishable fresh water.
One other invaluable asset: the support of Golden Globe–winning British actor Idris Elba and his wife, Canadian model Sabrina Elba. The couple see an opportunity there to marry ecological sustainability with economic growth in a way they hope can be a template for development projects across Africa—and perhaps help rewrite a whole continent’s narrative. Idris’s father is from Sierra Leone, Sabrina’s mother is from Somalia, and growing up, Sabrina says, “there were particular stigmas attached with being African.” She remembers seeing ads that seemed to show abject people waiting for a handout. “We wanted to see Africa represented the way that we knew it to be,” she says. “We wanted to change the storytelling.”
Her husband—known for the baritone potency he brings to prestige TV dramas like Luther and The Wire, along with films like last year’s critically acclaimed thriller A House of Dynamite—first heard about Sherbro Island years ago. A close family friend had tried to convince him it could become a world-class holiday destination. “At that juncture, I was just like, Oh, OK, that sounds interesting,” says Idris, 53, who co-owns a wine bar in London’s King’s Cross neighborhood. “Like, maybe I’ll build a nightclub, maybe build some tourism.” He made a mental note to visit someday.
He got the opportunity in 2019, while he and Sabrina, now 37, were in Sierra Leone touring small family farms as part of their ambassadorial roles with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). It was during that trip, Idris says, that he had something of an epiphany. He’d been venturing into philanthropy as his celebrity grew: supporting childhood education and hunger-relief programs in Africa, as well as campaigning on behalf of at-risk youths in the United Kingdom (work for which he was recently knighted). But on that trip, the Elbas saw an opportunity to build something more enduring and meaningful than a fancy vacation spot—and “to reframe the conversation,” Sabrina says, “[from] one of aid to one of investment.” (snip-a little more on the page; click through on the title, please)
(Clay Jones writes commentary with his comics; click through on the title to read this one)
(My ophthalmologist referred me to this site one time, because I always have a dog. It’s a hoot most of the time on its own, but recalling that an ophthalmologist subscribes makes it kinda funnier!)
This week I’ve been struggling a little with the fact that I can’t do all of the things that I want to. My book comes out next week (you’re in it!) and I feel so excited and lucky but also terrified and filled with dread. I worry people won’t like it…that no one will show up to the book tour…that I’m failing my publisher because I can’t do some of the things that most authors would jump at because I just don’t have the energy or mental strength to say yes to everything without making myself sick. I even felt a little bad about drawing this week when I probably should be doing author stuff.
But then I reminded myself that I need this quiet drawing time (is it considered “quiet” when I’m doing it while binging Dexter? I say yes.) to keep myself sane and to replenish my energy and to remind myself that I am more than just my work, and that it’s okay to not work yourself to exhaustion even if it’s for something you love.
I suspect we all struggle with this. Perhaps as parents or partners or in our career…the urge to try to be more than our bodies and minds allow, but not being able to because you are…human. It’s so easy to put ourselves last when it’s for something else that you care about.
“There is a fine line between beautiful and suffocating. Don’t forget to leave room for yourself.”
So this is a reminder from me to you to make time for yourself if you can. To rest. To create. To refill your cup. There is so much beauty in what we do for others, for our work and for our passions…but there is also a necessary beauty in what we do for ourselves…a beauty we often forget.
Sending love (and quiet moments of calm repose even when watching serial killer shows)
This morning I was in New York filming the Today Show where I managed to talk about explosive diarrhea, fears of my foot falling off, apologized for using my hands too much, sat on them, promptly pulled my hands back out bc I can’t talk without them and then made all the anchors put pencils in their mouths…all within about 4 minutes. By this afternoon I was in Amish country in Pennsylvania where I met some very nice “fancy Amish” people (this is a real thing) and did not pet a horse even though I really wanted to. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll be in Lancaster for my first tour stop and signing even though technically my book doesn’t officially come out until Tuesday. Then it’s back to NYC, and then a stop in New Hampshire for another reading and signing and then I get to go home for a week to rest for the next round. I’m feeling tired, happy, lucky, scared, excited, embarrassed…all of the things. Oh, and did I mention my first book got banned from a Texas high school after a senate bill deemed it obscene and profane? It’s been a busy week. I would link to everything but I can’t figure out how to do this with my phone
I should have written all this before I left but i was overwhelmed with packing all the wrong things and so instead I’m writing this tonight, on the eve of my first new book event in over half a decade, to distract myself from the fear and from the incredibly loud but very happy drunken wedding taking place two rooms down from mine. It feels like you’re here, in a weird way. I know that’s strange, but it’s comforting.
I’ve drawn in planes and cars and green rooms to keep my hands and mind busy but it’s a jerky mess so instead I’m sharing a drawing from my new book, because it seems fitting while I’m traveling so much in spite of the fact that I never know where I am. It’s an adventure, after all, if I look at it with the right kind of eyes.
It has been a joy to deconstruct my religious trauma alongside 32-year-old comedian Taylor Tomlinson. Four years ago, as I was coming out as queer to my family, I found her Netflix special Taylor Tomlinson: Look at You to be a warm welcome into the community of formerly Christian queer kids and purity culture survivors. Dark humor gave all of us a silly sort of grace, a space where we could grieve and grow.
Tomlinson, who was raised in a conservative Christian household in Temecula, Calif., got her start in stand-up through the church comedy circuit. But as she grew up, she began deconstructing how her conservative Christian upbringing was hurting her mental health and sexual development, deciding instead to be a “secular” comic.
Her new Netflix special Prodigal Daughter was filmed inside Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., which welcomed her not despite but rather because of her comedy. On her aptly named “Save Me” tour, Tomlinson builds on a foundation of jokes about toxic Christian culture to call out not just people who weaponize religion as a tool for bigotry but also the people who make fun of those who still believe in God.
“Because if God does exist, he does not exist to make you feel better than other people. He exists to make you better for other people,” she said. “We judge each other’s coping mechanisms. Like, ‘You’re a quitter if you get on antidepressants. You’re stupid if you believe in God. B—-, I’m on mood stabilizers, you’re on Jesus. We’re all trying to get to ‘dead with Daddy.’”
In fact, Tomlinson recognizes the people in her life—her grandparents, aunt, and uncle, himself a pastor—“who are using religion correctly.”
“There are a lot of people who are using religion as a tool for community and connection and compassion and comfort,” she says, “and when I was writing this hour, I was thinking about those people.”
Cheekily, Tomlinson compares her own stand-up specials to her uncle’s Christian services. “We’re both out here on the weekends, changing lives.”
But the comedian is not here to absolve all the sins of Christianity or its effects on her.
“When you grow up in a religious environment, you spend a lot of your young adulthood untangling who you are from who they wanted you to be,” she says. For Tomlinson, this is best represented by her “late” coming out at age 30.
Tomlinson explains that she has so many queer friends who are open and free about their sexualities—the “Samanthas” of the group—but she didn’t see anyone else who, like her, was nervous entering the queer dating scene. “We need more gay prude representation,” she chuckles, making those of us coming out at an older age and experiencing a real queer second adolescence feel less alone.
A second adolescence refers to how many LGBTQ+ people didn’t have the chance to experience the joys of teenage years. Because of rampant queerphobia inside and outside religious communities, we didn’t have access to the romantic and sexual “firsts”—first crush, first kiss, first sexual encounter—that many heterosexual people did because we were told repeatedly that our love and our bodies were shameful and had to be hidden.
While she doesn’t explicitly name “second adolescence,” the significance of coming-of-age as a queer person runs throughout her special.
According to Adam James Cohen, a therapist specializing in helping LGBTQ+ patients, adolescence is critical to developing and cementing a person’s identity and sense of self. For those who missed out on that true identity formation earlier in life, second adolescence offers a mental and physical stage of healing and liberation, often involving people deconstructing their internalized anti-queerness and religious trauma. Sometimes this liberation happens through comedy, sometimes through therapy, or as Tomlinson discusses in her special, sometimes both. During this formational time, adults reckon with the grief of missing adolescence, and make up for lost time.
Second adolescence isn’t just a uniquely queer experience. Many people raised in far-right Chrisitan environments experience a new phase of psychosocial development after they leave their conservative Christian homes. For people raised in purity culture, their second adolescence can be a time of sexual exploration, experimentation, and liberation during and after deconstructing harmful theologies of the body.
For the queer Christian kids like Tomlinson, we were robbed of moments of bodily and social experimentation and generation, so experiencing our second adolescence is like coming home to our bodies, an emotional rebirth or reversion, to put it in Christian terms, of learning and loving to be a queer child and queer teenager again. For trans and nonbinary people undergoing gender affirming medical care, second adolescence can be even more physical, as hormone therapy brings about a second puberty.
And for many of us, this second adolescence is characterized by an eagerness—and joy—to accept and share the possibilities that many never questioned. As Tomlinson joked, “When I started dating women, it was the closest I’d come to feeling religious in a long time because my friend would complain about their boyfriends and husbands and I was like, ‘Have you heard the good news? You don’t have to live like this. There’s a better way.’”
Second adolescence is especially common among people who have a later-in-life realization or acceptance of their LGBTQ+ identity, often called a “queer awakening” or “second coming out,” just like Tomlinson. There is no time limit on coming out or discovering and affirming gender or sexuality, but as Tomlinson jokes in her special, “coming out as bisexual at 30 feels like saying to a waiter, ‘By the way, it’s my birthday.’ They’re like, ‘Cool, sing to yourself. You’re a grown woman.’”
Tomlinson’s special portrays this second adolescence with a humor, grace, and visibility I hadn’t encountered before but am deeply indebted to. Prodigal Daughter, and her comedy as a whole, carries special poignancy for the formerly queer Christian kids coming of age through humor and deconstruction.
Hahahahahaha oh fuck dude we’re all so fucking fucked holy fuck
I love living in a country run by a religious death cult who delight in the idea of killing everyone because of a book of prophecy that isn’t even actually canon in their own religion.
Scottie's Playtime 