It’s the last full weekend of summer, Weekend Reader readers, with autumn officially starting Monday. This particular seasonal shift always fills me with a touch of melancholy — the shorter days, the foliage starting to turn, pumpkin spice on everything, that stray cat who has taken a liking to our backyard insisting that he should be let inside. Mostly, though, it’s the sense that another summer is just about gone, and — not to be blunt about it — we only get a finite number of summers. I know, I know; I should learn to embrace all the seasons, blah blah blah, and I will — just I soon as I properly mourn summer.

Meanwhile, you can always count on The Associated Press to keep tabs of the changing seasons, and it does so again in this primer, which includes the origins of the word “equinox” — which turn out to be obvious, if you think about it for just a moment and remember your Latin.

Here’s something cool about these final days of summer (and the first few days of autumn): They are peak migration times for birds. The Oregonian/OregonLive reports that 2.9 million birds are expected to be in the skies Saturday night, with the number rising to 5.3 million by Monday, the first (sigh) day of fall. Most birds migrate by the stars, so one thing you can do to assist is to turn off the lights in your house between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. to drown out the light pollution that can interfere with avian navigation. If you’re not familiar with Cornell University’s BirdCast website, I recommend it. Now, if someone would just tell those starlings at my feeder that it’s time to move on. Wait … I’m being informed now that many starlings remain in North America during the colder months. Well, isn’t that just like a starling?

I’m writing this edition of the Weekend Reader in the hours before the football “rivalry game” between Oregon State and Oregon — with any luck, I could be done before halftime — and I found myself caught up in the very lively debate among Beaver fans about whether the game should continue. As you probably know, the game that used to be called “The Civil War” before the phrase became somewhat less funny will not be played next year but will resume in 2027 — but, judging by the responses to this Angie Machado tweet — many Beaver fans are unpersuaded that the rivalry should continue, at least until the Beavers become more competitive against top teams. Or, more competitive, period. And, to be fair, it probably is asking a lot of the Beaver faithful that they accept the continuation of a series in which OSU is likely to lose nine times out of 10.

But Jon Wilner, one of the best college football reporters in the country, makes a persuasive case why the series should continue — it represents, he says, one of the very few opportunities OSU will have to schedule a game against a Power 4 Conference opponent. (And don’t buy into the idea that the revived Pac-12 Conference will be considered a top-tier football conference, because it will not.)

Oh, and one quick word about the talk to fire OSU coach Trent Bray: Unless OSU is absolutely certain that it has a better candidate in mind — and that candidate is willing to step into the still-unsettled waters of the Pac-12 — I would proceed with considerable caution.

To quote David Letterman, talking about ABC’s decision to “indefinitely suspend” Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night comedy show: “We all see where this is going, correct?” As it turned out, Kimmel’s controversial on-air comments in the wake of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk were factually incorrect — but, as Adam Serwer notes in The Atlantic, the First Amendment also protects incorrect speech from government censorship — and that’s precisely what Kimmel is facing. (Well, that, coupled with the fact that Kimmel’s bosses are not exactly standing up against not-so-veiled governmental threats.)

Jake Coyle of The Associated Press filed this story about the Kimmel affair, and reminded us of comments Jon Stewart made back in 2022: “When a society is under threat, comedians are the ones who get sent away first.”

In what strikes me as potentially a bit of wishful thinking on the part of The New York Times, reporter Jeremy W. Peters has a story about some figures on the right expressing worries that the campaign to punish people saying negative things about Kirk might be leading to the rise of a “woke right.” And that, some conservatives argue, would fly against Kirk’s belief in free speech — yes, even hate speech (which the First Amendment also protects against government censorship). It’s also worth noting that many other conservatives don’t worry about this — as you will see if you go to the end of the story, where Steve Bannon has the final word.

Michael Wilson is a crime reporter at The New York Times who has frequently written about scams. In this terrifying new Times story, he writes about the sophisticated scam that almost snared him.

Rest in peace, Robert Redford. The great sportswriter Sally Jenkins pinpoints in this Atlantic piece a recurring theme in many of Redford’s movies: The hollowness of the easy victory.

Considering the tenor of the times, it’s no wonder that people are turning to higher authorities for guidance. In this case — and in these times — that means people are turning to chatbots for spiritual guidance and the occasional conversation with God. The New York Times has a story about the phenomenon, which raises a question: Does God prefer iPhones or Androids?

Ooh — it’s the end of the first quarter, and the score is tied. The sun is shining. It might not get any better than this moment right now. Enjoy the weekend and we’ll meet here again next weekend. Let me know how it goes.