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I'm Megna Chakrabardi, and this is the Jack Pod, where on-point news analyst, Jack Beattie,

helps us connect history, literature, and politics in a way that brings his unique clarity to the world we live in now.

Hello there, Jack.

Hello, Magna.

We are not on a highway. We are on a podcast, but it happens to be episode 66.

So what's your headline?

Calamity howler. Calamity, Howler.

Calamity Howler.

Okay, tell me more.

Well, that's a 19th century locution for what we would call doomsayer.

And it's not what I want to be or even seem to be, especially this week, you know, when we seem to have reached

peak calamity with Musk's beardless commandos rating, now it's 11 federal agencies in what

Heather Cox Richardson labels a billionaire's coup.

You know, it's hard to imagine a calamity that would compel louder howls than that,

unless it be President Trump's idea to indulge his edifice complex and build high rises

all along the Gaza coast and push out the population. that would be a calamity, to be sure,

worth howling into the wee hours about. So it's hard to say that we can come up with anything

...