Opinion | Dads are the best. Dads deserve the best.

Hendrickson’s dad died in 2003, but readers will still feel the keen pain of his loss. The essay doesn’t use the word, but it’s equally clear where Hendrickson’s feelings toward his father land: love.

There’s also Jaswinder Bolina’s op-ed, not a letter to his own father but to one sitting across from him at his airport gate — the one wearing the “Buck Fiden” ball cap whom Bolina never talked to and likely never will. Despite the gulf (and duffels) between them, Bolina still comes to a kind of understanding of this man.

As the man in the cap tenderly saw off the son he was accompanying, Bolina “felt a gutting sadness”; he found it impossible to imagine doing the same for his own small kid one day.

He writes that he hopes political anger on all sides passes, but that we hold on to the shared emotion of fatherhood, and remember that “our paranoia and hostility do nothing to keep each other’s kids safe.”

Finally, columnist Alyssa Rosenberg’s piece addresses all dads: You deserve the support to be the best fathers you can be. Yet family policy too often focuses exclusively on moms.

Alyssa has ideas for ways to change that, such as normalizing pre- and postnatal check-ins on Dad, ensuring better paternity leave and equipping more men’s restrooms with changing tables.

It turns out dads agree they want to dad more: Polling says more than 80 percent of them would “do whatever it takes” to spend lots of time with their kids. It’s worth a little extra cost to give them that.

*Because dads are priceless.

Chaser: In case you missed it earlier this week, read Asia expert Jerome A. Cohen to learn all about Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s relationship with his dad.

The indictment in the documents case is serious business. But first: a game! “Welcome to Mar-a-Lago! Can you spot the state secrets?”

It’s cartoonist Edith Pritchett’s latest comic, and it’s as sharp as it is delightful.

Meanwhile, Republicans on the Hill were playing their own game this week: Pretend Hearing.

Columnist Dana Milbank writes that lacking the official power to call a real hearing, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) instead commandeered a meeting room at the Capitol visitor center to host a “field hearing” during which “he impersonated a chairman,” complete with “You are recognized” and even “I recognize myself [for] questions.”

The purpose? Lionizing a whole list of characters connected to the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Elsewhere in Congress, Dana writes, Republicans were equally unserious. They recommitted to laughable defenses of Donald Trump (see Ann Telnaes’s cartoon on this, too), executed a total about-face on government spending and toyed with impeaching President Biden.

From Fareed Zakaria’s column on not China, not India — but Saudi Arabia, which he writes is the centerpiece of an ascendant Persian Gulf. (Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates are not far behind.)

Don’t expect things to slow down: The world’s continued oil dependency coupled with disruption to many other oil producers means “the gulf will see one of the largest inflows of wealth in history.”

The kingdom’s solidifying links with China, India and even Israel are yet more signs of its growing sway, Fareed writes. Purchasing professional golf is just the start for the country everyone wants to play with.

Chaser: The United States wouldn’t mind improving relations with China and India, either. Columnist David Ignatius charts how that could happen in an upcoming big week for diplomacy.

We know what happens when workers go on strike. (Ariana DeBose has to do some fabulous choreography.) But what happens when the product goes on strike?

Columnist Megan McArdle explains how that’s basically what’s happening at Reddit right now, where volunteer moderators have engineered a blackout of much of the site’s content, which is also, of course, provided by unpaid users.

The situation might be difficult for a non-Redditor to wrap their head around, but Megan has a clever analogy to help. Let her column lay out the problem with Reddit’s being a “kind of giant digital Goodwill store.”

• Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges explains how to determine whether Ukraine’s counteroffensive is working. He says Biden can’t just sit and watch, though.
• Cormac McCarthy’s former editor Gary Fisketjon writes that one didn’t really edit the late author; one simply read him.
• Columnist Kathleen Parker looks at the sorry post-Elizabeth monarchy in Britain and feels a little better about our own messy country.

It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.

Can still soften for precious

Plus! A rhyming Friday bye-ku (Fri-ku!) from reader Florence E.:

Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. Have a great weekend!