Bits and Bobs

A précis on the week in culture, for paid subscribers

Welcome back to Culture Club, a feature where David and I write about what we’ve been reading, watching, playing, and listening to, for paid subscribers. Please enjoy this free preview, and consider upgrading to support two struggling journalists at once! — Talia

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So what was up with that coup in Russia, huh? A coup-lite? Little red coup-ette? A fascist hot dog vendor mercenary took over a city and just kinda gave up?

For updates and analysis, I’ve been following the Russian publication Meduza, which has a great liveblog in English monitoring a dizzying array of real-time comms from official and on-the-ground sources. You can find their take on a staggering 24 hours here: “Prigozhin’s aborted rebellion.”

It’s also the one-year anniversary of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, a seismic, tragic setback for the rights and bodily autonomy of millions. We’ll be addressing that — and a broader crisis in feminism — this week. I was very moved Susan Rinkunas’s essay in Jezebel about the abortion stories we don’t talk about: the pregnancies that aren’t ectopic, or dangerously complicated, or feature a dead or fatally malformed fetus — but are simply unwanted. And the massive physical, social, and fiscal impact these unwanted pregnancies have.

The right to abortion is not just in case of life-threatening emergency; the right to abortion should not be apologized for nor reserved for the most sympathetic edge cases. Being forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term is in and of itself a life-ruining violation. Take a look at Rinkunas’s piece here: “The Abortion Stories We Don’t Talk About.”