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Presidents’ Day in this America

Weekend reads for February 14, 2026: Notes on the week that was

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The Ink
Feb 14, 2026
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Happy Saturday, Ink readers! With the long Presidents’ Day weekend ahead, we hope you’ll get some time to rest, reflect, get involved by demanding more from your representatives, and read along with us as we catch you up on some stories you might have missed this week. In today’s edition of Weekend Reads:

  • Do TikTokers care who’s spying on them?

  • Childhood in a show-me-your-papers America

  • Is it time for DIY literary criticism?

  • Who’s to blame when a scam’s victims become its perpetrators?

  • Finding oneself in a country that’s hard to love

  • Is the cryptocurrency era over?

  • Growing up after colonialism

  • What did Bad Bunny teach Democrats?

  • The last yak herders look to the future

  • Who is politics for?

  • What Epstein’s done to us

  • What would George Washington think of us now?

  • …and some fiery sounds from the Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis

If The Ink helps you understand these times and this community keeps you sane, join us today. We can’t do what we do without the support of our subscribers.


A matter of paperwork

Right now in this country there is a fourteen-year-old girl who, like me, is named Gaby and who, like me, was born in Colombia. As far as I know that’s where the similarities between us end, because where I spent that blurry year between childhood and adolescence testing the bounds of my independence, this other Gaby is in a federal detention center. She has been there for three weeks as of mid-January. Some of her friends have been there for more than half a year. [Gaby Del Valle]

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