Free Republic

On October 26, Zohran Mamdani held a rally at Forest Hills Stadium—a venue that sits right across the street from my apartment. It was hard not to despair as tens of thousands of New York’s most caffeinated and clinically unstable activists flooded my quiet, tree-lined Queens neighborhood like a swarm of earnest locusts. I decided to treat the ordeal as fieldwork. Stepping outside with what I told myself was a neutral disposition, iPhone Notes app at hand, I talked to his devotees, observed their rituals, and tried, against all odds, to understand what gospel this man was preaching that could...

A snake eating its own tail has been a symbol of infinity since ancient times. But seeing an illustration of this concept is nothing like witnessing the real-life horror. On rare occasions, mostly cataloged in captivity, a snake really can swallow its own tail. As the reptile guzzles back more and more of its body, the emblem of eternity quickly becomes a spiral of death. If the snake's owner does not intervene, its digestive fluids may start breaking down its own body. Some captive snakes that make a habit of eating themselves show damage on their scales from their acidic...