EarthRise Wellness

Jules Verne’s 1895 novel, Propeller Island, follows a French string quartet that, after being diverted from San Francisco, is booked to perform aboard Standard Island, a colossal artificial, propeller-driven island that cruises the Pacific Ocean. Standard Island is populated exclusively by millionaires—in today’s terms, billionaires. The floating utopia is complete with its own infrastructure and governance.

Tracking everything that Robert F Kennedy Jr is doing to America’s public health system is overwhelming. But sometimes he does something so beyond the pale it’s hard to wrap your head around. Especially when he claims the decision to be about people’s health, while the consequences of his actions are anything but. While campaigning as president and then later, as HHS Secretary, Kennedy promised to protect indigenous rights. He also claimed he would focus on minority health disparities.

We need to talk about this viral post. Not just the conspiracy because there’s a ton of antisemitism masquerading as activism on social media. Jewish conspiracies are quite old. These type of posts distract from actual conversations about Gaza. Instead, let’s focus on how the conspiracy functions and for what purpose, because this particular instance is to drive attention to AI wellness slop.

A March 2026 UMass/YouGov poll found a clear winner in terms of public approval. Dolly Parton scored +65, with 70% of Americans favoring her (and only 5% viewing her negatively). Barack Obama scored +14. Taylor Swift came in at +3. Donald Trump? -18. Even Elon Musk scored better at -16. After Parton passed earlier this week, online tributes dominated the algorithm.

I read a lot of science books for fun, my job, and the satisfaction of understanding how things work. While I always learn something with every new book, How the Internet Disrupted Science by Kent Anderson and Joy Moore dives into an aspect of science I know a little about but had no idea just how deep this rabbit hole goes. The authors write about the terrifying and troublesome world of scientific publishing. You know, journals. The things all the studies I report on go into.

On yesterday’s Conspirituality, I chatted with Mother Jones disability and public health reporter Julia Metraux about her new article, “The Great Inflammation Panic.” Inflammation has been a buzzword in wellness spaces for years.

RFK Jr’s plan to dismantle America’s vaccine program took a giant leap forward on Monday when Trump signed an executive order, “Delivering Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations for Americans.” As you might imagine, there’s nothing gold standard about this, including the shit show of a press conference.

Listen to this interview here. One of my biggest frustrations about the current state of media (and people’s understanding of media) is that the largest critics of journalism still rely on primary reporting done by journalists. On Conspirituality, we do some primary reporting, but mostly we work as analysts. We simply don’t have the resources to travel around breaking stories. Full-time journalists provide important context for our work.

Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash Wildfire smoke is rolling into Portland as I write. Not too bad today—unhealthy for sensitive groups. Over the next two days, however, it’s going to get bad. In fact, Oregon has already experienced the worst wildfire year on record (for most acres burned), and it’s the first week of August. The previous record was set in 2024. What a time to be writing about climate reporting, but here we are.

Originally written for Sonic Grid. Sign up today as the platform launches soon, and we’ll be featuring a lot more in-depth liner notes, new music features, and much more. Some albums hit later on. John Coltrane’s big band instrumentation threw everyone for a loop in ‘61. Fans were craving another Giant Steps or My Favorite Things. Instead they got the mythological tour de force known as Africa/Brass. Downbeat panned it. Most ignored it. Now it’s considered a masterpiece.