Author: Justin Lockridge
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The Rise of Slop Culture and the Defense of Human Sweat
Walk into any grocery store at two in the morning and take a slow stroll down the center aisles. What you are looking at isn’t really food. It’s miles of shelf-stable calories extruded through high-pressure industrial nozzles, chemically dyed to look appetizing and shrink-wrapped in slick plastic. It’s food stripped of dirt, season, weather and…
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The Grand illusion of our empty bucket
The ocean covers over seventy percent of our planet, yet we’ve explored a staggering, deeply impressive five percent of it. Maybe five. We’ve barely dipped our toes into our own terrestrial bathtub, yet we confidently stride around pretending we own the place, fully convinced we’ve mastered the depths because we managed to map a few…
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The Duty to Heal and the Right to Witness
It is a truly remarkable feat of modern governance when the state manages to execute a man whose primary professional calling was keeping people alive. Alex Pretti was a thirty-seven-year-old ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA who was apparently so dangerous that he had to be neutralized by federal agents outside a doughnut shop. One…
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The Bureaucracy of Silence and the Terrorist Who Strummed a Shitty Guitar
Sorry for the radio silence. I know, in the age of the algorithmic hot take, a three-day delay is practically an archaeological era. But truth be told, I needed a minute. Sometimes, when the universe decides to rhyme with its ugliest verses, you have to step back and let the sheer, unadulterated absurdity of it…
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The Existential Weight of Pie Selection
G.K. Chesterton once wrote that “Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.” I find this quote mostly terrifying because if we allowed my ancestors to vote on our current dinner menu, we would all be eating hardtack and salted cod while dying…
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From Plymouth Rock to Pragmatic Hope
One must simply adore the Pilgrims. They brave the unforgiving Atlantic, land in a place utterly devoid of central heating, and proceed to define “suffering for one’s beliefs” with an almost theatrical flair. A truly inspirational story, assuming you’ve conveniently overlooked the parts involving mass mortality and, well, indigenous people who were already using the…
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The Quiet Revolution: How Small Shifts in Perspective Change Everything
The world is, as a rule, addicted to the operatic. We adore the seismic break, the sudden, glorious catastrophe, the revelation delivered with a full choir and a dramatic lightning strike. We wait for the big change the one that will finally validate our suffering, fix our government, or, you know, make getting out of…
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The Absurd Theology of Kibble: Why One Woman’s Lawn is Better Than Congress
It appears I’ve just been introduced to a genuine superhero, though one who mercifully eschews the Spandex and capes in favor of, you know, actually doing something helpful. Vicky from Roxz’s Resources & Awareness – that’s a name that should be on a ridiculously expensive, limited-edition bobblehead. The sheer audacity of her volunteering her time…
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Starving for a Safety Net: The Grand, Self-Inflicted SNAP Crisis
It takes a truly unique combination of arrogance and incompetence to manufacture a crisis of basic human sustenance. But here we are, watching the political class engage in a rousing game of chicken with the dinner plates of about 42 million people. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – or, as the more sensitive among…
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What We Owe Each Other: Beyond the Rules Towards a Shared Humanity
It’s truly a marvel, isn’t it? The sheer, breathtaking audacity of some ancient texts and well-meaning manifestos to neatly package all of human decency into a tidy little list of dos and don’ts. Don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t “covet your neighbor’s suspiciously expensive lawn gnome collection.” It’s all terribly convenient, a spiritual IKEA instruction manual…
JUSTIN LOCKRIDGE 