Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, trip merrily through the strange and ever-shifting document that is Wikipedia’s List of Notable Sandwiches, in alphabetical order. This week, after a month’s absence where I handed the reins over to David, I climb back into the sandwich saddle and examine the foodstuff most often called “shit on a shingle”: chipped beef on toast. From the dawn of time, and certainly since the much-later advent of recorded history, soldiers have marched on their stomachs as much as their feet.

Mother to Son BY LANGSTON HUGHES Well, son, I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor— Bare. But all the time I’se been a-climbin’ on, And reachin’ landin’s, And turnin’ corners, And sometimes goin’ in the dark Where there ain’t been no light. So boy, don’t yo… ncG1vNJzZmirpa%2Bur7rErKeepJyau2%2B%2F1JuqrZmToHuku8xop2imn6mytHnFq6amZaSdsm6v0bKqrZmcYsC1rcir

Ole Smoky Distillery in Gatlinburg recently launched a new line of moonshine and bourbon whiskey that honors the legendary moonshiner Popcorn Sutton. Facing a prison sentence, he committed suicide in 2009 from carbon monoxide poisoning. He is best known as an outlaw, bootlegger, and storyteller, descended from a long line of moonshiners. It was ultimately his penchant for obtaining celebrity status that proved to be his undoing in the end, but his legend remains.

You know when you’ve been away from something long enough you forget how shit it was and want to do it again? It’s why people keep giving birth even though it hurt the first time, why we go back to our exes even though they suck, and why, even though hell was being a teenage girl, right now she’s all I want to be. As I type this I’m wearing chipped pinked nail polish, a beaded friendship bracelet, and orange jelly shoes.

Technological innovation requires capital. A lot of capital. A giant pile of cash. There are, to a first approximation, only three places you can find of a giant pile of cash. There’s government money. There’s venture capital. And there’s big corporate R&D. Of the three, I would argue that government is clearly the best. The reason is simple: government funding doesn’t come attached to some rich asshole who inevitably screws things up later.