Dez Reads. How the Sausage is Made.

It is the best week of the year, and in the unapologetic spirit of American Dynamism, we thought we’d show you a behind the scenes look at how Dez Reads is created.

Given everything going on in the world [gestures wildly], this has not been a typical holiday week. We’re busy, and as a result I needed some help finding a prompt to write up for my submission. Our header image below shows how the sausage is made with Dez Reads.

I think our newsletter shows the wide diversity of interests and opinions we have on this team. It also shows that our content reflects our moods; if it were the middle of February, I probably would have gone with Chinese humanoid robots murdering us all. Instead, because tomorrow is Independence Day and the vibes are good, I went with bunny rabbits and baseball.

Thanks to Phil Bogdan, Mike Bova, Mark Emerson and William Kim for their submissions this week – they're all good and you shouldn’t need a teaser to compel you to read these chaps’ work.

Happy Independence Day to you all, and thanks, as always, for reading along with us.

Here we go.

Animal Science.

AP. Minor league team in Reno has a rabbit throw out ceremonial first pitch.

I hope I don’t need to explain to you that rabbits are cute and baseball rocks. I also think we all agree that Alex the Great is a phenomenal name for a rabbit.

The key question here is how does a rabbit throw a baseball? Amazingly, it involves a rabbit-sized pitching machine, and thankfully, there is video.

– Josh Culling

AP. Alaska brown bear at Minnesota zoo gets a new metal canine tooth

Late last week – after a considerable period of pain, no doubt – an Alaskan brown bear at a Minnesota zoo got a new lease on life after a veterinary dentist installed a shiny, custom-molded silver canine tooth into its mouth. Now this 800-pound behemoth named Tundra is the relieved owner of the largest, flashiest piece of mouth bling the world has ever seen, allowing him to crunch and chomp whatever he damn well wants in style.

Doesn’t this story make you feel good? There’s only one thing you can possibly say after reading this article in full: “Isn’t our free market economy just amazing?” Free markets are a key reason why so many problems in our society are solved. Got a new computer virus? Norton codes a digital antidote within days. Having trouble using your flimsy plastic utensils at KFC? No problem; break out the almighty spork. Got a giant bear who’s in pain and needs a new tooth? Creature Crowns of Post Falls, Idaho, has just what you need.

– Phil Bogdan

C&EN. Researchers turn plastic into paracetamol

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh might have found a new way to treat headaches, and it may also be a new way of recycling. Scientists have engineered a strain of E coli that relies on small molecules from waste polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottles to survive. The synthetic metabolic process they designed converts nearly 100% of PET-derived substrates into the world’s most commonly used painkiller, acetaminophen.

The team in Scotland performed a complicated scientific process that involved augmenting the biological systems of plastics, making them the first to perform this type of reaction without harming the cells. Now they are a long way from getting regulatory approval, so it won’t be on pharmacy shelves any time soon. But this is a great step forward for finding practical solutions for extending the useful life of all the water bottles we are buying.

– Mike Bova

Credit Card Points.

CBS News. Business owner used 1.8 million credit card points to handle tariff costs

America’s ability to find a loophole never ceases to amaze me. If there’s a rule, a tax, or in this case a tariff, someone somewhere is already working on a way to bend it just enough to keep the money flowing and the books balanced. There’s a certain entrepreneurial grit baked into American DNA that says, No matter what you throw at us, we’ll find a workaround.

This week’s story is a perfect example. Robert Keeley, the owner of a 33-person guitar pedal company in Oklahoma, has been slammed with rising tariffs on a critical Chinese made component he just can’t source elsewhere. Rather than eat the cost or jack up prices, he redeemed over 1.8 million credit card points to cover an $11,000 tariff bill. He turned his reward points into a form of trade policy resistance.

Keeley’s been paying tariff charges with his Amex for months, racking up points as he goes. And when his bill spiked, he flipped those points right back into paying it off. A loophole so uniquely American it feels like it belongs in a business school case study… or a page right out of Amazon’s playbook. Either way, I respect it.

Whether it’s flagrant tax deductions, crypto schemes, Delaware LLCs, or racking up cashback on punitive trade policy, we’ll find a way to protect the bottom line. Policy may change. Presidents come and go. But the American commitment to keeping ours?

Now that’s bipartisan.

– Mark Emerson

Fashion.

CNBC. How Coach got its cool back

When brands fall out of favor, they usually stay that way. This is especially true today when so many new brands are competing for our attention. But in fashion, where trends come and go in cycles, brands have a unique opportunity for revival.

That is exactly the case with Coach, the classic American luxury brand. After hitting rock bottom in the mid-2010s, Coach has now managed a comeback after a strategic rebrand. No longer does it focus on heavily-branded products, cladded in its iconic “C” logo – a trend that died in the mid-2000s. Instead, it now leans on quality, value, and most importantly, customer experience. Coach is not only letting its shoppers customize their purses with broaches and key rings, but it also opened immersive retail experiences like trendy pop-up stores and even coffee shops.

And Gen Z is loving it. Vintage-style clothing has been “hip” for this demographic for some time, and Coach today offers a unique blend of vintage, quality, and brand name, without breaking the bank. More than two-thirds of its new customers in North America in the last quarter were within this age range, and Coach calls them its “timeless Gen Z client.”

This might sound like an oxymoron, but it is a fitting way of imagining a key customer base in 2025, a time in which boundaries between “old” and “new” are becoming more blurred.

– William Kim

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