Nightmare on Islamabad Street

If the only person who can stop the United States and Iran from burning the Middle East down is Pakistan, we have to admit that the world has officially become an episode of The Real Housewives where the only sober person at the table is the one who brought the flask.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Pakistan? The country whose national pastime is “Having a Nuclear Weapon and No One Quite Knowing Where It Is”? The place where we found Bin Laden living in the world’s most obvious Airbnb right down the street from their West Point? Yes, that Pakistan is now the “honest broker.”

This is where we are in 2026. The U.S. and Iran are trading missile strikes like they’re playing a casual game of Battleship, and we’re looking to Islamabad to be the marriage counselor. It’s like watching a couple scream at each other in a Walmart parking lot and hoping the guy selling loose cigarettes by the dumpster can talk them into a trial separation.

Insane doesn’t even begin to describe this. Asking Pakistan to negotiate peace is like asking a pyromaniac to lead the fire safety seminar. This is a country that basically invented the “Side Hustle” of cross-border terrorism. For decades, their “Strategic Depth” policy was just a fancy way of saying “We’re going to keep a stable of militants in the backyard to see who we can annoy.”

And boy, did they annoy India. We’re talking about the 1993 Bombay bombings – a coordinated hit on the world’s most populous democracy. And, the 2001 Parliament attack. Imagine if someone attacked the U.S. Capitol, and the guys who did it were living in a condo in Toronto funded by the Canadian government. That’s the neighborhood India’s dealing with! Even lately, with the Pahalgam murders, they’re still at it. It’s the ultimate “I’m not touching you” game, except instead of a finger, it’s a jihadi with an AK-47.

And why? Because of their obsession with Kashmir. It’s the ultimate “Ex-Girlfriend” syndrome. Pakistan is the loser who broke up with a girl in 1947 and still spends every waking hour checking her Insta, driving past her house, and trying to flatten her tires. Dude, she’s moved on! She’s dating a tech billionaire now! India is building the world’s highest railway bridges in Kashmir, and Pakistan is still standing on the other side of the fence with a megaphone shouting, “You’ll be mine one day!”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the irony is so thick you could use it as a building material – which would actually be helpful, because Pakistan’s infrastructure is crumbling. They’ve spent so much money trying to “liberate” Kashmir that they forgot to keep the lights on. In Pakistan, “load shedding” isn’t a diet trend; it’s when the entire country goes dark for twelve hours because they spent the electric bill on a new batch of centrifuges. Their economy is currently worth less than a bag of Bored Ape NFTs, and their railways are basically just a series of “suggested routes” through the desert.

And let’s talk about the HR situation in Islamabad. If you’re a Prime Minister of Pakistan, don’t bother getting the extended warranty on your office furniture. They have pretty much killed, jailed, or exiled nearly every single leader they’ve ever had.

• Liaquat Ali Khan? Assassinated.

• Zulfikar Ali Bhutto? Hanged.

• Zia-ul-Haq? “Crashed” in a plane with a crate of exploding mangoes.

• Benazir Bhutto? Gunned down.

• Imran Khan? Currently doing a residency in a prison cell.

In Pakistan, “Transfer of Power” usually involves a blindfold and a cigarette. It’s not a country with an army. It’s an army with a country that runs it like a country club with a very aggressive membership policy and a hundred nukes.

But the real kicker – the chef’s kiss of irony – is the sectarian violence. Pakistan was founded as the ultimate “safe space” for Muslims. Fast forward to today, and they’re blowing up Shia mosques faster than we change our iPhone home screens. They’ve spent so long nourishing extremists to use against India that the monsters have decided they like the taste of the locals better. It’s the “Frankenstein” school of governance: if you build a monster to kill your neighbor, don’t be surprised when it starts eating your pets.

And now, this is the guy sitting at the table between Washington and Tehran. It’s the ultimate toxic relationship.

The U.S. is like the rich, paranoid guy who thinks everyone is out to get him, and Iran is the religious nut who thinks God wants him to own the Strait of Hormuz. They’re both crazy in their own special, high-res ways. And then there’s Pakistan, sitting in the middle, saying, “Guys, please. I’m just trying to keep the lights on for three hours a day. Can we just stop the ‘Operation Epic Fury’ and talk about how we can give the Nobel Peace prize to Trump?”

It’s what I call the Dysfunction Dividend. We’ve reached a point where the “responsible” powers are so batshit insane that we have to turn to the “unstable” ones to find a voice of reason. It’s like when you realize the only person who can fix the Wi-Fi at Thanksgiving is your weird cousin who’s currently coming down from a mushroom trip.

But don’t get comfortable, because if you look at the horizon, you’ll see it isn’t glowing from the sunrise – it’s glowing from the friction. We’ve finally assembled the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and they’re all riding towards the cliff’s edge at full tilt.

You’ve got Trump back in the saddle, treating foreign policy like a season of The Apprentice where the losers get decapitated. You’ve got Bibi, who thinks “proportional response” is a concept for losers and Europeans. You’ve got the hydra-headed Ayatollahs in Iran, each more ready to meet his Maker than the previous, and eager to take the rest of us as plus-ones. And then you have Pakistan, the alcoholic with the failing brakes and the nuclear backpack trying to play traffic cop.

It’s a perfect storm of ego, religious mania, and sheer, unadulterated incompetence. When the peace of the world depends on a failed real estate mogul, a guy facing a corruption trial, a beardo theocrat in a robe, and a country that can’t even keep its own Prime Ministers alive long enough to finish their lunch, you don’t need Fareed Zakaria to analyze what’s going on. You need a bunker and a very large bottle of Scotch. The end isn’t just nigh. It’s already parked in the driveway, playing heavy metal music at full blast and asking for the Wi-Fi password.

Have a great weekend, people.

PS: The What Ho! Report will henceforth be sent out Thursdays at 8AM PST.

YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER IS GREATLY APPRECIATED.

Gentlemen, please check out your excess baggage.

Here is something nobody tells you about being a man: at some point in your life, usually around the time you’re old enough to know better, you will find yourself in a perfectly pleasant situation – a family gathering, a reunion, a casual dinner – and you will suddenly feel the inexplicable need to establish that you are, in fact, a man of consequence.

You won’t announce this, of course. You’re not a barbarian. Instead, you will be subtle. You will mention, with a deliberate casualness, that your company’s Q4 numbers were “quite something.” Or you will steer the conversation toward that one topic where you hold an unassailable advantage – your fantasy cricket league, your car’s torque specs, your encyclopedic knowledge of anti-inflammatory foods. You will deploy this knowledge like a chess piece, and you will, for a minute, feel like you won something.

You have not won anything. What you did there is what men have been doing since we first gathered around fires and argued about whose mammoth was bigger.

Welcome to the Male Insecurity Industrial Complex – a thriving, largely unexamined enterprise that runs entirely on the fuel of comparison, the currency of one-upmanship, and the renewable energy of taking things personally that were never about us in the first place. It has no headquarters, no org chart, and no annual report. It runs itself, beautifully, on pure, unprocessed ego.

The remarkable thing about this complex is its sheer democratic reach. It does not discriminate. The man who has made his first million lives in it. The man who has made his hundredth million lives in it too, and is furious about the man making his two hundredth. The fit men are convinced that toned muscles and 10 mile hikes represent the pinnacle of human achievement. Those who’ve never seen the inside of the gym are convinced the fit men are secretly judging them. We are, as a gender, magnificently, exhaustingly, comprehensively insecure.

I should know. I am a charter member.

I spend more time getting ready for a dinner party than my wife. I have a vast array of hair oils, designer shampoos and conditioners, perfumes and colognes, face creams, and at least four different types of hair dryers that would make a teenage girl weep with envy. I also am, if we’re being fully honest, in possession of a pair of mustache-trimming scissors made out of the finest Japanese steel. I carry ALL of these wherever I go in the world. I’ve never been known to miss a casual glance at any mirror in a 2 mile radius. I have strong opinions about the angle of light most flattering for a photograph.

I have taken vanity to an art form. It’s a disease. It doesn’t have a name yet, but I’m sure the experts will get there soon. The primary symptom is a powerful, irrational need to be seen, noticed, and occasionally to receive a second glance from a passing stranger that confirms that yes, at this particular age, on this particular day, I still have it. You know what “it” is. We all do. The mojo. We all want it. Nobody admits it. I’m admitting it. You’re welcome.

And the weight of it all. Good lord, the weight of it.

We carry it everywhere. To work where we talk over people not because we have more to say but because silence makes us invisible. To family dinners where a harmless comment about someone else’s achievement lands in our chest like a small, personal accusation. To WhatsApp groups where we type and retype responses to things that were never directed at us, because some part of our brain has appointed itself the Official Keeper of Slights and it takes this role very, very seriously.

And then there’s my craving for a certain self-image. Somewhere along the way, I decided that to be “mature” was to be emotionally guarded, stoic, and deliberate. The man who reveals nothing, needs nothing, and reacts to nothing. Strong. Silent. Weathered. Unreadable. He is the man we all admire, right?

I have, in my time, laughed too loudly, cried at movies that did not strictly warrant it, and expressed excitement about topics that serious men do not pay any attention to. Too expressive, too enthusiastic, too willing to be delighted by ordinary things. I carefully hid these “flaws.” Immaturity was a sin. And I had no desire to confess to it.

And just like that, one day, I changed my mind.

Joy – by which I mean a genuine, undefended, slightly embarrassing joy — is actually the most mature thing a human being can muster. It takes more courage to be happy than to be unaffected. Stoicism is just insecurity in a nicer suit. A man who has made peace with himself… who can laugh at himself before anyone else gets the chance… who doesn’t need the mammoth comparison to feel adequate — that man isn’t just mature. He’s free. What higher form of maturity can there be than the one that sets you free?

We carry rejections like packed luggage – the teacher who ridiculed us, the boss who overlooked us, the institution that didn’t want us. We carry comparisons like carry-on bags — the sibling who seems to have it sorted, the college friend whose LinkedIn profile reads like a highlight reel, the cousin who moved to Canada twenty years ago and has since become suspiciously wealthy in ways that are never fully explained at family meet-ups. We shove misguided notions about love, life and happiness in our backpacks.

None of this fits in the overhead bin. It takes up the entire aisle. It delays the boarding. The flight crew is exhausted.

But here is the thing that stopped me cold – the people who love us? They have been watching this entire performance. They’ve been on this flight for years. They chose their seat next to ours. Deliberately, with full information. Eyes open. They know about the luggage. They’ve seen it all. They love us anyway – not despite the extra pounds or thinning hair line, and not even regardless of it, but in that complete, slightly bewildering way that good people love other people: wholly, inconveniently, and without explanations.

These people – our people – the ones who stayed — they didn’t sign up for the curated version of us. They want the unabridged edition. They don’t need us to win anything or out-credential anyone or arrive anywhere with freshly polished proof of our worth. They genuinely do not care about the hair situation. Well, my wife would definitely prefer I shaved regularly and not look like a hobo. That’s about it. She didn’t fall in love with my LinkedIn profile.

What our people really want is to see us fly.

And here is the non-intuitive thing about all of this: I used to believe that I owed myself to be self confident. Truth be told, it’s something you owe to the people who love you. When we compress ourselves – make ourselves smaller, defensive, guarded – we think we’re being humble. No, we’re not. We’re quietly making the world smaller for everyone around us. The man who sets the baggage down makes every room larger just by walking into it. The man running the comparison spreadsheet makes every room slightly, indefinably tighter.

Your people – the ones who bought one way tickets to fly with you. They deserve the largest room you can give them.

They want the most glorious version of you – not the thinnest or richest or most impressively credentialed version. The freest one. The one that exists when you finally set it down, stop managing perceptions, and just show up. Fully. Without the rehearsed casualness. Without the chess pieces. And yes, without checking if the mirror agrees. (I’m going to struggle with this one, man).

So here is my unsolicited advice to every man still hauling baggage: Set it down.

Set it down not because it’s some form of maturity. Enlightenment is just a more expensive and time consuming version of confusion. Do it because you owe it to your people to set them free.

Remember, the ones who love you are waiting on the other side of this. They’ve been waiting a long while. And they’re starting to wonder what’s taking you so long.

The mammoth can leave the room now. The spreadsheet can close. Switch your life to Flight Mode. We’re about to take off.

Safe travels.

—

PS: I am aware of the exquisite irony of a man writing an essay about male insecurity and vanity, and then immediately refreshing his phone to see how many people liked it. I contain multitudes. So do you. Hit the like button anyway – my hair and I would deeply appreciate it.

Have a great weekend!

Life’s second act, now with humor.

There is a sound that defines the start of our fifties. It isn’t a temple bell or a poignant sigh. It is that involuntary, dry “oomph” we make when getting up from a low sofa. It’s a sound that says our knees have entered a separate legal jurisdiction from the rest of our bodies.

We are the bridge generation – the last ones who know how to dial a rotary phone and the first ones expected to understand why a “non-fungible token” is apparently more valuable than the gold coins our mothers hid in their cupboards. We’ve spent thirty years playing the Great Indian Hustle, and now, we’ve arrived at a bizarre crossroads where the world is getting louder, our bodies are getting creakier, and the people around us are getting… well, demanding.

The Sandwich of Perpetual Disappointment

At fifty-something, we have achieved the ultimate professional title: Chief Logistics Officer for People Who Don’t Listen.

We are the “sandwich” generation, pressed between aging parents who refuse to even see a doctor and Gen Z children who refuse to put down their phones. We spend our weekends explaining to our fathers that, no, the bank will not call them to ask for their PIN, while simultaneously being “schooled” by our nineteen-year-olds on why our choice of emojis is “deeply problematic.”

We cater to all and please exactly none. To our parents, we are still slightly incompetent children who don’t eat enough curd. To our children, we are well-meaning fossils who “just don’t get it.” We are the emotional shock absorbers of the family, expected to be the pillar of strength while our own infrastructure is starting to show cracks.

The Audit: Bringing the Receipts

Then, there is the Silent Audit. It’s that internal inventory we take when we realize the “future” we were always preparing for is actually Tuesday of next week.

It’s like looking at a restaurant receipt after a three-decade-long meal. You see the charges for the career that didn’t quite hit the stratospheric heights you’d imagined. Or the bank balance – which is fine, really, but pales in comparison to that one cousin in New Jersey who seems to live in a mansion made of spreadsheets.

And then there’s the marriage. For many of us, it has settled into a comfortable, if somewhat “staid,” groove. You no longer gaze into each other’s eyes. You mostly gaze at the Netflix queue, debating whether a documentary about fungi is “too depressing” for a Wednesday. There’s a quiet grief in realizing the “lightning” phase has been over for a while now, and we’re now in the “reliable generator” phase of the relationship.

The Peril of the Mid-Life “Leak”

The real danger of this age isn’t the audit itself. It’s how we handle the results.

I’ve seen it in my circles: the cataclysmic rifts. It starts when someone looks at their life, decides they’ve been somehow shortchanged, and starts looking for a scapegoat. We see siblings who stop speaking over the management of a family flat because it’s easier to fight about property than to admit they’re terrified of their parents’ mortality. We see husbands and wives who, instead of admitting they feel invisible, start picking apart each other’s flaws until the house catches fire.

We are tempted to blame our “unmet potential” on the people closest to us. But burning down the fortress doesn’t make you younger; it just makes you homeless.

The Faces in the Mirror

To get through this, we have to look at the people around us with a bit of dry, compassionate humor and a lot of overdue honesty.

Take the Patient Wife/Mother. She isn’t “old”, though her joints might argue otherwise. She’s still the silent engine of the household, but she’s begun to realize she has become invisible. We see her as a wife, a mother, or a daughter-in-law, but we rarely see the woman. She might have been a talented artist, a brilliant mathematician, or a woman with a sharp business mind, but those versions of her were tucked away into a drawer decades ago to make room for everyone else’s needs.

She doesn’t just want to be thanked for the meal. Maybe she wants to be consulted on the direction of the family. Maybe she wants to be listened to, not just heard. Her wisdom wasn’t found in a text book. It was forged in a fire in which she burned her own self-interests to keep the rest of us warm. Her audit is the most poignant of all. Maybe she wonders if there is still time for her to be seen as herself, and not just as an archetype.

Then there is the Anxious Husband/Father. He isn’t retired; in fact, he’s never been more “on.” He’s bought the home and the car, but he’s haunted by the 11:00 PM math of retirement corpuses and inflation. He feels the hot breath of thirty-year-olds on his neck at the office and carries the quiet, heavy angst of growing irrelevance. He’s grumpy not because he’s old, but because he feels the window to prove he was “great”- rather than just “reliable” – is slamming shut, and he’s still trying to get his foot in the door.

When we realize that everyone is just trying to navigate this increasingly complex world with an outdated map, we can stop being so hard on them. And on ourselves.

Choosing a New KPI

The world is moving too fast. There are new pronouns, new currencies, and new ways to feel inadequate every time you open Insta. My advice? Opt out.

We’re at an age when success needs a new set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

KPI 1: Can you sit through a family dinner without someone storming out?

KPI 2: Does your body allow you to go for a 5 mile hike without requiring a three-day recovery period?

KPI 3: Do you have at least one person who will tell you the truth when you’re being a “grumpy uncle”?

Acceptance isn’t about giving up on your dreams. It’s about realizing that some of those dreams were actually someone else’s expectations. There is a radical, quiet joy in realizing that being “just good” is actually a massive achievement. To have a roof, a “mundane” partner who knows exactly how you like your tea, and a friend who still calls you in the middle of the night – in our generation, that’s not settling. That’s winning.

The Unburdened Path

So, let’s be the generation that stops leaking our disappointment. Let’s be the ones who can laugh at the fact that we need a YouTube tutorial to figure out the new TV remote.

The audit is going to happen. You’ll look at the ledger, and some columns will be in the red. That’s okay. We are weathered wood, and the grain only shows because of the storms we’ve survived. We’ve done our best. It’s time to forgive ourselves.

We are all just walking each other home. We’re trying to figure out which turn leads to the house and which turn leads back to the 3:00 AM existential dread. Put down the heavy ledger of “should have been.” The second half of the game isn’t about the score. It’s about how much you enjoy the play.

And if your knees hurt while you’re playing, well… at least you’re still on the field.

Have a great weekend!

The bold shall inherit the penthouses.

March 20, 2026.

The Oval Office is bathed in the golden light of a late Friday afternoon.

Donald Trump sat behind the Resolute Desk, adjusting his silk tie and checking his reflection in a polished brass paperweight.

He buzzed. “Send him in.”

The door opened and Noah stepped in, clutching a damp roll of goatskin. Trump recoiled, pressing a white silk handkerchief to his nose.

“Whoa, whoa, stop right there,” Trump yelled, voice muffled. “You look like you just swam across the Hudson River, and frankly, that ‘wet goat’ scent is a total disaster for the upholstery. We have the best ventilation in the world, the absolute best, and even it can’t handle this. You’re fired, Noah. Get a shower, and a shave, and maybe we’ll look at the boat specs later. Out.”

As a confused Noah was ushered out, Trump sprayed a cloud of cologne into the air.

“Unbelievable. No hygiene standards anymore. Send in the next one and make sure he’s dry.”

The air grew heavy with the faint scent of desert musk as Moses entered. He looked like a man who had just spent forty days on a very hot mountain. He slammed two granite slabs onto the desk with a thud that made the presidential sharpies jump.

Trump looked the prophet up and down with a critical eye. “You look like you’ve missed a few barber appointments, Mo. Like the Ayatollah. He was a nasty man. We got him. Total victory. I can call you Mo, right?”

“Focus, Donald,” Moses boomed, his voice ricocheting off the gold-leafed ceiling. “We’re here to talk about The Covenant between God and man.”

Trump winced. “Mo, let’s keep the volume down to a ten, okay? My ears are very sensitive, and I have very high-quality hearing. Let’s talk about the ‘Ten’ thing. Ten is too much. It’s a lot of reading. People have short attention spans. They’re on their phones, they’re watching the news. If you give them ten, they forget six and seven, and then you’ve lost the room. How about we cut the shit and go for a Top Five. A ‘High-Five from the Heavens.’ It’s viral. It’s punchy. By the way, I love the stones, I really do. Very artisanal. But, let’s make them gold.”

Moses gripped his staff tighter, his knuckles growing white. His voice boomed again.

“These are the Words of the Lord.”

“Mo, the volume…keep it down. And yeah, He did a great job, really top-tier stuff,” Trump nodded. “But look at this one: ‘Thou shalt not covet.’ We have to lose that immediately. Coveting is the engine of the American economy! If people don’t covet their neighbor’s house, they won’t buy my condos. If they don’t covet the neighbor’s wife, well…that’s a whole different topic. Let’s change it to something more motivational. And ‘Bearing false witness’? That’s a very gray area. Sometimes you have to… embellish. I call it ‘truthful hyperbole.’ And the Sabbath? Sunday is for golf, Mo. Everyone knows that.”

Original Commandment vs The Trump Edit

Thou shalt not covet.

Trump edit: Stay Hungry & Buy Luxury

Thou shalt not bear false witness.

Trump edit: Strategic Brand Management

Remember the Sabbath

Trump edit: Flexible Sunday (Golf-Friendly)

Honor thy father and mother

Trump edit: Depends on the Inheritance

No other gods before me

Trump edit: Loyalty is Everything

“See?” Trump said, beaming. “It’s cleaner. It’s pro-business. We’ll have a launch party at the Red Sea once the war is over. Maybe you can do the water trick again for the press? It’d be a huge photo-op, maybe the biggest in history. We’ll put them on a billboard in Times Square. We’ll call it ‘The Trump Ten (Minus Five).’ It’ll be huge.”

As Moses dropped the tablets on the carpet, leaving giant dents in the floor, and left, the final visitor entered.

Jesus took a seat in a yellow silk chair with a quiet grace that ignored the opulence of the room.

Trump leaned back, arms crossed, surveying the Son of God.

“You look practically clean shaven compared to Mo, but J, the sandals … they’re a total disaster. You’ve got sand all over my carpet.”

“What’s on your mind, Donald,” Jesus smiled.

“Look, J, I’ve been skimming your book,” Trump leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “Tremendous stuff. The miracles? Top-tier. The water into wine? That’s a high-margin business, very smart. But we have to talk about the branding. Christianity is a global powerhouse, but it’s been a little stagnant lately. The messaging is … soft. It’s a bit… low energy and very ‘middle-of-the-road.’ And you know what they say about the middle of the road – you get hit by cars.”

Jesus folded his hands. “What are you talking about, Donald?”

“Well, let’s start with the big one,” Trump said. “’The meek shall inherit the earth.’ I have to be honest – that’s a tough sell. The meek don’t inherit anything. They’re losers who get steamrolled. I don’t want them inheriting anything. I like winners. We should change it to: ‘The bold shall acquire the real estate.’ It’s more aspirational. And this ‘turn the other cheek’ policy? Total disaster. If someone hits you, you hit them back ten times harder. You crush them. You sue them. That’s how you get respect. If you turn the cheek, you just get hit again. It’s a bad look for the brand.”

“The Kingdom I speak of is not of this world,” Jesus replied softly. “It is found in the heart of the one who gives everything away.”

Trump recoiled. “Give it away? No, J, that’s not how we do it here. That’s a tax strategy. But I’ll tell you what. I’ve got the solution. I’ve developed the Holy Bible: The Platinum Trump Edition. The New New Testament. Feel it,” he said, sliding a shimmering, gold-embossed book across the desk.

“Every great book needs a great foreword. I’ve already written it. It’s ten pages – maybe twelve, I might add a section on my 2024 win, which many people are saying was the greatest miracle in history since the loaves and the fishes. Maybe even bigger, frankly, because the ratings were higher.”

Jesus tilted his head. “You want to write the introduction to the Word of God?”

“Not just an introduction,” Trump clarified. “A testimonial. I’ll explain that while the original is a classic, it really pops when you apply the Trump Principles. I’ve added some annotations in the margins. Like in the Garden of Eden – I pointed out that Adam and Eve had a terrible lease agreement. No protection. They got evicted over an apple? I would have had that snake in a non-disclosure agreement so fast his head would spin.”

Jesus set the book down.

“The Word is meant to be written on the heart, Donald, not sold for sixty-nine dollars with a commemorative coin.”

“The coin is silver-plated! It’s a collector’s item!” Trump countered. “Look, J, think about the merchandising. We do a limited run. Signed copies. We put a picture of the two of us on the back – maybe on a gold background. We’ll call it the ‘Prophet and the President’ collection. We can sell them at rallies, in gift shops, maybe even a subscription box. We’ll include a small vial of ‘Trump Holy Water’ – it’s actually just regular water, but we’ll put it in a very nice bottle with a gold cap. We’ll split the whole thing 40/60. 40 for you. We can bring Mo in on this, if you want. I’ll give him 5% for just getting a shave and a shower. We’ll have a signing at Mar-a-Lago. I’ll even have the chef make the fish. No bread needed, I’ve got plenty of that.”

Jesus walked toward the door, his expression one of sorrow mixed with amusement.

Trump watched him go, then sat back down and picked up his gold Sharpie. He began circling the word “Revelation.”

“We’ll call it ‘The Great Reveal,’” he muttered. “Much better for the ratings.”

—

Have a great weekend, folks!

Hey, who pressed that button?

It has been another completely normal week here on Planet Earth, by which I mean we are hurtling through space on a giant rock piloted by people who are, medically speaking, insane.

Let’s take a look at the Middle East, a place currently being managed by Trump with the strategic foresight of a squirrel trying to cross a six-lane highway.

First, we bombed Iran. Why? It remains slightly unclear. Maybe we had a surplus of extremely expensive explosives taking up space in the national garage and needed to clear them out before spring?

Now, Trump wants to move on. He is ready to declare victory, pack up the motorcade, and presumably hand out commemorative steaks to everyone involved.

But there is a minor hitch: Iran would like us to pay them “reparations.” Their core negotiating strategy is to continue violently blowing things up until they get a check. Meanwhile, Netanyahu is cavorting around the region unsupervised, pressing every button on the dashboard just to see what lights up.

The entire diplomatic strategy of the free world right now basically boils down to covering our eyes and hoping nobody trips over a warhead.

The Department of War (not Defense) announced this week that they bombed 15,000 spots in Iran. Now, I am not an expert in military strategy. My primary tactical experience involves trying to avoid my neighbor’s dog on my daily walk. But as a taxpayer, I have to ask: Are there even 15,000 distinct spots anywhere?

If you asked me to find 15,000 spots in my own house, I would give up around Spot 43, which is the drawer where we keep the tangled phone chargers from 2008. What exactly is the military hitting by Spot 14,992? A suspiciously aggressive sand dune? A rogue falafel stand? We are clearly just bombing places because somebody in the Pentagon fell asleep and leaned on the zero key.

To make matters even more comforting, FBI issued a warning to California to be on the lookout for a “surprise” Iranian drone attack launched from an unidentified boat off the coast. The tactical master plan is apparently for a hostile vessel to float all the way to Malibu unnoticed and unleash aerial warfare on a populace whose primary defense mechanism is hot yoga on the beach. Governor Newsom has assured everyone there is no imminent threat, which makes perfect sense. By the time an unauthorized drone successfully navigates the environmental reviews required to enter Los Angeles airspace, the war will have been over for a decade.

Back in Washington D.C., Trump has officially fired Kristi Noem from her post as Secretary of Homeland Security. This came after a week of Congressional hearings where she was asked questions like, “Why did your agency shoot at people?” and “Is it true you’re dating a deputy?” In the ultimate “You’re Fired but I Still Like Your Vibe” move, Trump has appointed her as the Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas, a title that sounds like a Marvel superhero with an honorary title. She’s being replaced by Markwayne Mullin, whose name sounds like two different guys trying to enter a bar at the same time using the same ID.

But the real crisis at the White House is in the area of footwear. According to reports, Trump has developed an obsession with guessing people’s shoe sizes and gifting them $145 Florsheim leather dress shoes. I am absolutely not making this up.

Imagine you are a high ranking official from, say, Gabon. You walk into the Oval Office to discuss a delicate treaty, and the Leader of the Free World stares intensely at your feet and says, “You look like a nine and a half. Get this man some Oxfords!” White House aides report that “all the boys have them now” and everyone is terrified to wear anything else. Rumor has it Marco Rubio was given one size smaller. We are one week away from the entire Executive Branch tap-dancing to Singin’ in the Rain.

Meanwhile, in the San Francisco Bay Area, the tech industry continues its noble mission to solve problems nobody actually has. This week, a startup went viral for securing millions of dollars in funding for a pair of “AI Dating Glasses.” The idea is that artificial intelligence listens to your blind date and feeds you charming, sophisticated responses through the lenses. In a promotional video, a woman asks the user how old he is, and the highly advanced, multi-million-dollar AI simply displays the word: “LIE.” This is what the greatest minds of our generation are working on. We are now mere months away from an app that will charge a subscription fee to remind us to chew our food.

Not to be outdone, a startup in India has built a “begging robot.” A group of tech-savvy youths have successfully trained a robot to beg for money on the streets. Again, I kid you not. Instead of using robotics to perform complex surgeries or explore the ocean floor, they have built a machine that rolls up to pedestrians and asks for spare change. Honestly, I respect the hustle. It’s only a matter of time before the robot launches its own political party and cryptocurrency.

For the weird news of the week, we must, as always, turn to the great state of Florida.

Florida has long been renowned as the global epicenter of rational behavior, and this week was no exception.

In Volusia County, a group of senior citizens engaged in a massive, blood-spattering brawl on a pickleball court.

If you are unfamiliar with pickleball, it is a sport created for people who have had at least two joint replacements. The fight started over a “kitchen” call. In pickleball, the “kitchen” is a zone near the net where you are not allowed to volley. Violating this rule is considered a federal crime by people over the age of 60.

Words were exchanged. An offensive slur was used. And, a 63-year-old man decided the only logical next step was to bash another man in the face with his paddle, splitting his head open, before shoving a 70-year-old woman to the ground.

He is now facing felony battery charges. Because nothing says “enjoying your golden years” quite like doing hard time in the state penitentiary.

Perhaps we can send the begging robot to Florida to raise this dude’s bail money. And if he goes to trial, hopefully Trump will make sure he’s wearing a nice pair of Florsheims.

Have a great weekend, folks!