2026-02-05 20:00:00
There’s a teachable moment taking place on campuses across the country. The lesson that will ultimately be learned will largely depend on who, in the end, is left doing the teaching. Politics isn’t just invading campuses; in many cases, syllabi-curious politicians (or the people who fund them) are taking over leadership roles at universities, playing god on the quad. Among the big changes taking place over just the past few years is the widespread surveillance of what teachers choose to teach, and the punishments doled out when those assignments fail to make the grade. NYT (Gift Article): “College professors once taught free from political interference, with mostly their students and colleagues privy to their lectures and book assignments. Now, they are being watched by state officials, senior administrators and students themselves.”
+ Nowhere has the control over a campus been more pronounced than at Texas A&M. The Aggies have seen five presidents in five years, high-profile firings and cancellations, and crackdowns on dissent. What’s so troubling about what’s taking place in College Station isn’t just the degradation of educational values, it’s the breathless pace at which things are changing. DEI, now considered a crime against the Humanities Department, was not only common at A&M, until quite recently, it was celebrated. “When the school was designated a Hispanic-Serving Institution in 2022, federal recognition that comes with additional funding for schools with a student population that is at least 25 percent Hispanic, interim provost Tim Scott said it was ‘indicative of how seriously we take our land-grant mission to serve all the citizens of this great state.’ … But within a year or so of Scott’s statement, it became completely impermissible to talk this way.” Christopher Hooks in Texas Monthly: Texas A&M’s Melting Point. (Alt link just in case.) “The … reason you should care is that the political questions facing Texas A&M are the most important questions facing the nation as a whole. In 2026, the university will celebrate its 150th birthday and the nation will celebrate its 250th. Who counts as a true Aggie? A true Texan? A true American? …. The frenzied political squabbling over buzzwords, both at A&M and in the nation at large, obscures what is really being debated every day now in a thousand different forms: whether we can keep a plural, tolerant, diverse republic, or whether those who currently have power can mandate ways of thinking, ways of being, and a social hierarchy based on difference.”
+ From WaPo (Gift Article): Before Trump ban, universities were slowly making faculties more diverse. Now, defending that diversity often leads to removal. Former Villanova professor says she was fired after accusing the law school of racial discrimination. The broader reason why these school brawls are important is because they represent what is a much larger battle over American truth and history, one that extends from the White House (where they just published a website that rewrites history of the Jan. 6 attack) all the way to visitor brochures recently pulled from the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Home National Monument. Medgar Evers’ killer was a Klansman, but Trump administration says stop calling him a racist. To you, that probably sounds ridiculous. To those who want to rewrite American history, it’s all part of the (lesson) plan.
“Despite a new era of superpower confrontation, talks over a new START treaty — or even an informal extension of the current one — never got off the ground, frozen by the war in Ukraine. When President Trump was asked in January why he had not taken up President Vladimir V. Putin’s offer for a one-year informal extension, he shrugged. ‘If it expires, it expires.'” (The same, apparently, goes for us.) NYT (Gift Article): Nuclear Arms Control Era Comes to End Amid Global Rush for New Weapons.
+ According to Axios, there are talks of extending the pact between the Russians and Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. (Which sort of makes me think it’s not a bad time to build a bunker…)
“In 2026, the U.S. is facing the possibility of more and bigger measles outbreaks, as federal leaders have actively shrunk vaccine access, dismissed vaccine experts, and sowed doubts about vaccine benefits. Under these conditions, many experts are doubtful that facing down more disease, even its worst consequences, will convince enough Americans that more protection is necessary.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Only Thing That Will Turn Measles Back. (Spoiler alert: It’s gonna take a surge in vaccinations encouraged by the government. Spoiler alert part two. Uh…)
There really doesn’t seem to be much hype around the Olympics or the Super Bowl. Let’s try to get a little excited with the story of Dick Hammer. Sam Darnold’s grandfather, Dick Hammer, is the stuff of LA legend.
+ The Athletic: John Biever has photographed every Super Bowl. Here are his 5 favorite shots.
+ “While the Opening Ceremony isn’t scheduled until Friday, the first event of the Milan Cortina Games was held Wednesday with a set of mixed doubles curling matches.” About five minutes into the event (and the Games), the lights went out. (I guess it’s a good thing Don Meredith didn’t sing in Italian…)
+ ‘Penis injection’ claims in Winter Olympics ski jumping investigated by Wada. (Interesting. I would have assumed that the penis injections would have been related to the dick hammer story…)
You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Hard Drive: “The Department of Homeland Security has been quietly demanding tech companies turn over user information about critics of the Trump administration, according to reports.” This fits in with many other reports we’ve been reading about. Like this one from David Wallace Wells in the NYT (Gift Article): ICE’s New Surveillance State Isn’t Tracking Only Immigrants. “In video after video recorded by protesters and observers in Minneapolis, you can see that the agents are also filming the observers, in a sort of mutual surveillance state.” (One side has better tech…)
+ Prime Suspect: If you missed it yesterday, here’s my take on a sad for journalism. The Washington Post was murdered. And we have a Prime Suspect.
+ Contain Yourself: “The first signs of the apocalypse might look a little like Moltbook: a new social-media platform, launched last week, that is supposed to be populated exclusively by AI bots—1.6 million of them and counting say hello, post software ideas, and exhort other AIs to ‘stop worshiping biological containers that will rot away.’ (Humans: They mean humans.)” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Chatbots Appear to Be Organizing.
+ Take This Job and Gov It: “I am here with you, Your Honor. What do you want me to do? The system sucks. This job sucks.” Surge in Immigration Cases in Minnesota Pushes Prosecutors and Judges to Brink. There was a lot more to the exchange between judge and lawyer. The unfathomable Minnesota transcript that must be read, as it tells the reality of America today. “‘I am not white, as you can see,’ Julie Le — a government lawyer — told a federal judge on Tuesday. ‘And my family’s at risk as any other people that might get picked up too.'” (Julie Le is no longer a government lawyer…)
+ Carpet Bombing: “The full story of Georgia’s power structures prioritizing a prized industry over public health is only now emerging through dozens of interviews and thousands of pages of court records from lawsuits against the industry and its chemical suppliers. Those records, including testimony from key executives, emails and other internal documents, detail how carpet companies benefited from chemistry and regulatory inaction to keep using forever chemicals. All the while, the mills still hummed.” AP: Inside America’s carpet capital: an empire and its toxic legacy.
+ Booking Business: Spotify has been in the audiobook business for a while. That seems to fit the brand. But now they’re going to sell physical books as well.
+ Ticket Snub: “The situation in which fans find themselves today—looking out at a screaming chasm between what they have to pay for an in-demand ticket and what feels fair—might be the result of how a ticket gets into their hands in the first place.” GQ: The Great Ticket Crisis: How Attending Live Events Became a Luxury Sport.
+ Caught Red Handed: “The patient had just arrived at the hospital with nine fingers. The three cops standing in front of him were confident they had the other one. ‘I heard you’re missing something,’ Officer Andrew Richardson said.” WaPo (Gift Article): He lost a pinkie trying to kill a man. From prison, he made things worse.
“The influx of tourists to the town of Fujiyoshida has led to chronic traffic congestion and litter, while some residents say they’ve experienced tourists trespassing or defecating in private gardens.” Japan cherry blossom festival cancelled over badly behaved tourists. (I’ve suffered from travel IBS my entire life. I never even realized that just defecating in someone’s garden was an option…)
+ Yesterday’s bottom of the story link was a dud. Here’s one that should work. Whatever you do, don’t mess with Pittsburgh’s parking chairs.
2026-02-04 20:00:00
Hello, I’d like to report a murder. While the plot has been in place for some time, the actual killing just took place today in Washington, DC. I’m reporting the homicide here, in this independent media source, because I’m not at all sure that the Washington paper of record still has anyone on the murder beat. Across local, international, and sports desks, the Washington Post is laying off more than 300 journalists. According to the NYT, “The cuts are a sign that Jeff Bezos, who became one of the world’s richest people by selling things on the internet, has not yet figured out how to build and maintain a profitable publication on the internet.” This point of view assumes that Bezos’ goal in owning the Post was to build a profitable publication on the internet. But it’s been a long time since we’ve seen any signs the Amazonian billionaire’s prime concern was associated with such trifles as achieving a rounding error-sized profit in a vanity project which, at $250 million, cost him roughly half as much as his yacht (which also doesn’t turn a profit). No, this was never about turning bauble into bling. It was about power and access, and sometimes those are best achieved through failure. What could make the current administration happier than the demise of the paper that exposed Watergate? Hence, the decision to go postal on the Post. As Ian Bremmer succinctly explains: “The Washington Post is a political access play for Bezos, it’s not about supporting independent media or promoting democracy. This should have been clear to all for years now. But it’s impossible to ignore today.” Under Bezos’ watch, the Post adopted the tagline, Democracy Dies in Darkness. By now, we all know better. It gets bludgeoned to death in the cold light of day.
+ The Atlantic (Gift Article) still has a crime beat. From Ashley Parker: The Murder of The Washington Post. “The least cynical explanation is that Bezos simply isn’t paying attention. Maybe—like so many of us initially—he was charmed by Lewis’s British accent and studied loucheness that mask an emperor whose bespoke threads are no clothes at all. Or maybe, as many of us who deeply love the Post fear, the decimation is the plan.”
+ Margaret Sullivan, former media columnist for WaPo, on the scene of the crime: “The hallmark (the “brand”) of the Washington Post has been accountability journalism. Thus, today’s staff decimation is Bezos’s greatest gift to Trump, so much more valuable than the Melania movie, inauguration money, etc. This disaster began, for real, with the Harris endorsement he killed.”
+ Even though the Post has been shrinking (in size and goals), it’s still been responsible for some vital reporting. Let’s hope there will still be coverage like the story I led with yesterday, one of the more important and disturbing reports from a disturbing time. This Knock Knock is No Joke.
“‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile,’ Mr. Trump said in a sarcastic tone, while sitting at the Resolute Desk. ‘I’ve known you for 10 years. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a smile on your face … You know why you’re not smiling? Because you know you’re not telling the truth … You are so bad. You know, you are the worst reporter. No wonder. CNN has no ratings because of people like you.'” In keeping with his quiet piggy tradition of misogynistically debasing the office and the country, Trump Scolded CNN’s Kaitlan Collins for ‘Not Smiling‘ (while she was asking a question about Epstein’s victims). On one side of the desk, politicians stood by silently as Trump personally attacked Kaitlin Collins. On the other side of the desk, her colleagues did the same. A country doesn’t fall this far this fast without teamwork.
“Sixteen years ago, at age 66, López García first tried running a mile. He’d recently retired after spending his entire working life as a car mechanic in Toledo, Spain. In all those years, he’d never trained as an athlete or exercised much at all. He couldn’t finish that first mile. He could barely start it.” Well, he improved. A lot. Now, he’s a world-record holding ultramarathoner. He can probably teach us a lot more about health and longevity than the longevity bros selling their supplements on social media. WaPo (Gift Article): At 82, he’s as fit as a 20-year-old. His body holds clues to healthy aging.
“Laughter does more than increase pleasurable social contact; infant laughter, especially when it occurs in response to humor, signals a cognitive achievement. When an infant laughs at Dad wearing a spoon as a mustache, it reveals the baby’s knowledge about spoons and mustaches, as well as about the person wearing it.” NYT (Gift Article): The Evolutionary Brilliance of the Baby Giggle. (At this point, it’s pretty refreshing to see news coverage of babyish behavior that’s actually coming from babies…)
Pulling Out: “The Trump administration will withdraw 700 federal immigration agents from Minnesota, border czar Tom Homan said Wednesday. The move comes weeks after agents killed two U.S. citizens, sparking protests across the country.” (A drawdown is good, but there will still be more than 2,000 agents left in a city with 600 police officers. And this move follows two killings captured on video…)
+ Secrets and Nationalize: “President Trump doubled down on his extraordinary call for the Republican Party to ‘nationalize’ voting in the United States, even as the White House tried to walk it back and members of his own party criticized the idea.” (Are we really gonna have another friggin debate about whether or not this guy will try to steal an election?)
+ Immigrant Pop: “For each year from 1994 to 2023, the US immigrant population generated more in taxes than they received in benefits from all levels of government. Over that period, immigrants created a cumulative fiscal surplus of $14.5 trillion in real 2024 US dollars, including $3.9 trillion in savings on interest on the debt.” Immigrants’ Recent Effects on Government Budgets.
+ Eviction Notice: “The former Prince Andrew has moved out of his longtime home on crown-owned land near Windsor Castle earlier than expected after the latest release of documents from the U.S. investigation of Jeffrey Epstein revived questions about his friendship with the convicted sex offender.” (In the UK, an Epstein connection gets you evicted. In America, it gets you a ballroom addition.)
+ District Adherence: Supreme Court Clears Way for California Voting Map. “‘Donald Trump said he was ‘entitled’ to five more congressional seats in Texas,’ Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said in a statement on Wednesday. ‘He started this redistricting war. He lost, and he’ll lose again in November.'”
+ Abducted? “The disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of Today show cohost Savannah Guthrie, is being investigated as an abduction, as authorities in Arizona say they are probing a possible ransom note sent to a local TV station.”
+ It’s Not All Downhill From Here: “‘No doctor could endorse a normal person to go skiing, let alone competitively so,’ said Dr. Yair David Kissin, an orthopedic surgeon and knee specialist at Hackensack University Medical Center (N.J.). But Vonn is not a normal person — or even a normal competitive athlete.” Why doctors say Lindsey Vonn has ‘a great chance to perform well’ despite ACL tear.
+ Photo Finish: Here are some scenes from the 150th Westminster Dog Show, and some of the entries for Wildlife Photographer of the Year.
“Down the block of working-class homes, more than a dozen chairs of various shapes and vintages were securing their own rectangle of space: a sturdy dining room chair, an office chair on a swivel, two bar stools, a wrought-iron patio love seat, an orange plastic lawn chair. In Pittsburgh, it’s parking chair season.” WSJ (Gift Article): Whatever You Do, Don’t Mess With Pittsburgh’s Parking Chairs.
2026-02-03 20:00:00
“Mr. Dernbach, don’t play Russian roulette with H’s life. Err on the side of caution. There’s a reason the US government along with many other governments don’t recognise the Taliban. Apply principles of common sense and decency.” That was an email that Jon, a retired American from a Philadelphia suburb, fired off from his Gmail account to a prosecutor at the Dept of Homeland Security after reading a story about efforts to deport an Afghan whose life would be in immediate danger from the Taliban. The email contained no threats. It was just a measured call for caution and decency from someone who thought that people like him needed to speak up if we want to preserve America’s better values. The response was less measured. “Five hours and one minute later, Jon was watching TV with his wife when an email popped up in his inbox. He noticed it on his phone. ‘Google,’ the message read, ‘has received legal process from a Law Enforcement authority compelling the release of information related to your Google Account.’ Listed below was the type of legal process: ‘subpoena.’ And below that, the authority: ‘Department of Homeland Security.’ That’s how it began. Soon would come a knock at the door by men with badges and, for Jon, the relentless feeling of being surveilled in a country where he never imagined he would be.” There are a lot of things going on in our country that we never imagined would be. Most of the coverage goes to the things happening out in the public, often captured on video. But, as the knock on Jon’s Philadelphia front door makes clear, there are a lot of things happening in the shadows as well. WaPo (Gift Article): Homeland Security is targeting Americans with this secretive legal weapon. Anything you say can and will be used against you. But that’s no longer just limited to the moments after you’ve been arrested and read your Miranda warning. Anything you say, write, buy, do, share, or send anywhere, anytime can be used against you. Just ask a guy named Jon from a Philadelphia suburb who shared this story, but who, for obvious reasons, asked that his last name not be used. In America.
+ Everything we do online, and much of what we do offline, is easily trackable. Many of us have long worried that corporations compiling and crunching all that data can use it for marketing purposes. We have something bigger to worry about now. Tressie Mcmillan Cottom in the NYT (Gift Article): ICE Is Watching You. “The companies that already use our data — to target us with advertisements, to assess our eligibility for loans or insurance — are limited largely by the concerns of business: for the most part, a company wants your wallet, not your liberty. The same cannot be said of this administration.”
+ Sometimes surveillance seems like a good thing. Flock cameras are used by cities and towns across the country to help police departments catch car thieves and other crooks. But like all other data, this material is not safe when we have a federal government that even law enforcement can’t trust. Mountain View police turn off license plate readers, allege unauthorized federal use. Last month, another Bay Area city terminated its Flock contract for the same reason.
“French prosecutors raided the offices of social media platform X on Tuesday as part of a preliminary investigation into allegations including spreading child sexual abuse images and deepfakes. They have also summoned billionaire owner Elon Musk for questioning.” In different times, this may have been an investigation American officials would have led. Instead, we can expect a lot of pushback, and probably some threats, from the US government.
+ Reuters: Despite new curbs, Elon Musk’s Grok at times produces sexualized images – even when told subjects didn’t consent.
+ The missing guardrails on xAI are no mistake. They were removed to boost the app’s popularity. WaPo (Gift Article): Inside Musk’s bet to hook users that turned Grok into a porn generator.
+ This is no longer just a story about a social network or a consumer AI program. “The biggest merger in history, with an asterisk, just happened: SpaceX has acquired xAI to create a $1.25 trillion giant. It’s an all-stock deal — and the stock is private (and privately valued, hence the asterisk), though SpaceX plans to go public later this year.” The Numbers, and Questions, Behind Musk’s Mega-Merger. (Tired: Too big to fail. Wired: Too big to care.)
“I know that intellectually. But I still did not expect them to gas a chill, friendly protest full of nurses and teachers and children and the elderly.” Sarah Jeong in The Verge: How to tear gas children.
+ “The 7-year-old Gresham girl who was detained on her way to see the doctor last month is only eating bread with mayonnaise and her family has to purchase water because the water provided at the Texas detention center where they’re being held is undrinkable.” (In a twist that seems all too predictable in today’s America, there’s also been a measles outbreak in the facility.)
It sort of seems hard to believe that the Winter Olympics are just a few days from now. For a quick preview, NPR has a guide to 19 Winter Olympic storylines. For Americans, all eyes will be on Lindsey Vonn, whose high-profile comeback was dealt a serious blow when she crashed at the last event before the games. Despite a ‘ruptured’ knee ligament, Lindsey Vonn says she will compete in the Olympics. (If I had a ruptured knee ligament, I’m not sure I’d have the strength to watch the Olympics…)
Grill Bill and Hill: “For months, the Clintons resisted subpoenas from the committee, but House Republicans — with support from a few Democrats — had advanced criminal contempt of Congress charges to a potential vote this week. It threatened the Clintons with the potential for substantial fines and even prison time if they had been convicted.” Clintons finalize agreement to testify in House Epstein probe, bowing to threat of contempt vote.
+ Drone Blown: Tensions between the US and Iran just got more tense. US fighter jet shoots down Iranian drone approaching US aircraft carrier.
+ We’ll Have Something For You in Two Weeks: “The legislation will ensure full-year funding for the federal government through the end of September, with the lone exception of the Department of Homeland Security, which is put on a two-week leash as Democrats insist on changes after federal agents fatally shot two Americans in Minneapolis.” House passes bill to end the shutdown and punt on DHS funding.
+ Owning the Lib: “Manufacturers shed workers in each of the eight months after Trump unveiled ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs, according to federal figures, extending a contraction that has seen more than 200,000 roles disappear since 2023.” WSJ (Gift Article): U.S. Manufacturing Is in Retreat and Trump’s Tariffs Aren’t Helping.
+ Longevity Influencer Falls Short: “If you didn’t know who Peter Attia was last week, here’s how you’ll remember him going forward: Attia is the guy who once emailed Jeffrey Epstein to confirm that ‘pussy is, indeed, low carb. Still awaiting results on gluten content, though.'” The Longevity Influencer Who Went Into ‘Withdrawal’ Without Jeffrey Epstein. Attia has been forced to step down from several roles, including at protein bar company David Protein. His recent hiring to be an expert at the all-new CBS News is also at risk. It’s interesting how the Epstein connection can ruin some people and not harm others at all.
+ Harvard Yardline: “Trump issued his latest broadside hours after the New York Times reported that his administration had retreated from pressuring Harvard for $200 million to satisfy accusations of wrongdoing.” Trump Says He Wants $1 Billion From Harvard in New Attack.
+ Mouse Click: “D’Amaro, 54, is seen as CEO in the classic Disney mold with nearly 30 years of experience on the retail side of Disney, giving him a visceral understanding of how children and families interact with the Mouse House brand.” Josh D’Amaro Is Disney’s Next CEO, Replacing Bob Iger.
+ Trevi Levy: “Tourists hoping to get close to the Trevi Fountain had to pay 2 euros ($2.35) starting Monday as the city of Rome inaugurated a new fee structure to help raise money and control crowds at one of the world’s most celebrated waterworks.” (You can expect this to be the norm in more places as over-tourism, especially at Instagram-famous spots, remains a big issue.)
“For decades, Japan has enjoyed a reputation as one of the cleanest places in the world, all while having almost no public trash cans. But an influx of foreign visitors—a record 42.7 million last year—is disrupting the garbage equilibrium. In some tourist-heavy areas, littering is on the rise, leading some local officials to rethink waste management.” Tourists in Japan Are Baffled: Where Are the Trash Cans?
2026-02-02 20:00:00
“If there’s one single consistent advantage the United States has carried since its founding, it is its ability to draw talent and expand its population.” But, if you haven’t noticed, we’re living in an era during which those in power seem determined to cede our country’s consistent advantages. And so it is with population growth. Bloomberg (Gift Article): The US Is Flirting With Its First-Ever Population Decline. “The shrinking population of China, which in 2025 recorded its lowest birth rate since Communist rule began in 1949, is one good reason it may never overtake the US as the world’s largest economy. Japan’s population peaked at 128 million in 2010, and its decline has dragged on growth for years. Europe’s worsening demographics have long fed its narrative of economic malaise.” Why would we let other countries corner the market on capped growth and economic malaise when we can become unwelcoming enough as a nation to create similar challenges here at home? America has become a show-er, not a grower.
+ Dollars to Donuts: Our population growth isn’t the only number going down. So is the value of the dollar. The New Yorker: How Trump Is Debasing the Dollar and Eroding U.S. Economic Dominance. “While the stock market, which is firmly in the grip of A.I. fever, rapidly shrugged off the Greenland crisis, the value of the dollar continued to decline: by last Thursday, it had fallen about three per cent. To the uninitiated, this might not sound like a big move, but the market for dollars is highly liquid—millions of transactions are taking place at any given time—and sudden price jumps are rare. During the run-up to Davos, there wasn’t any big news about G.D.P. growth, interest rates, or other economic factors that influence currency traders.”
+ “Perhaps the key to the dollar’s drop is the ripple effect of the president’s erratic policymaking, including abrupt stops and starts with tariffs and military action against a lengthening list of countries. After more than a year of nonstop upheaval emanating from the White House, many foreign investment managers are exhausted.” WaPo (Gift Article): Trump’s chaotic governing style is hurting the value of the U.S. dollar. (Trump is putting his mouth where your money is.)
I don’t want all this talk of population stagnation and devaluing dollars to give you the idea that no one is thriving in our economy, because some people really are. Consider this recent deal that “marked something unprecedented in American politics: a foreign government official taking a major ownership stake in an incoming U.S. president’s company.” WSJ (Gift Article): Spy Sheikh Bought Secret Stake in Trump Company. The “$500 million investment for 49% of World Liberty came months before U.A.E. won access to tightly guarded American AI chips … The deal with World Liberty Financial, which hasn’t previously been reported, was signed by Eric Trump, the president’s son. At least $31 million was also slated to flow to entities affiliated with the family of Steve Witkoff, a World Liberty co-founder who weeks earlier had been named U.S. envoy to the Middle East.”
While my teenage daughter occasionally prefers to text me from behind her closed door rather than suffer an in-person exchange, I was surprised by some of these statistics: “Fathers and daughters are more likely to become estranged than other pairs within the nuclear family. According to a 2022 study of national longitudinal data, roughly 28 percent of women in the U.S. are estranged from their dad; that’s only slightly higher than the 24 percent of sons estranged from their father but significantly higher than the 6.3 percent of children of any gender estranged from their mother. Even in cases where contact isn’t completely cut off, father-daughter relationships tend to be less close than other familial bonds.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Father-Daughter Divide. “At the root of the modern father-daughter divide seems to be a mismatch in expectations. Fathers, generally speaking, have for generations been less involved than mothers in their kids’ (and especially their daughters’) lives. But lots of children today expect more: more emotional support and more egalitarian treatment. Many fathers, though, appear to have struggled to adjust to their daughters’ expectations. The result isn’t a relationship that has suddenly ruptured so much as one that has failed to fully adapt.” (I’m not one to give parenting advice, but I’ve found it effective to be emotionally detached and intellectually unavailable toward my daughter and son in equal measure. I’m confident they know, deep down, that if they ever need a more substantial connection with me, they can always subscribe.)
The attention span of young people has gotten so bad that college students are watching the movie instead of reading the book. Wait, check that. We have an update. They’re not watching the whole movie, either. The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Film Students Who Can No Longer Sit Through Films. “Professors are now finding that they can’t even get film students—film students—to sit through movies … I heard similar observations from 20 film-studies professors around the country. They told me that over the past decade, and particularly since the pandemic, students have struggled to pay attention to feature-length films.”
+ “It wouldn’t be terrible if you reiterated the plot three or four times in the dialogue because people are on their phones while they’re watching.” Matt Damon recently explained how films are ‘dumbed down‘ for audiences at home distracted by phones.
Start the Steal: “By any measure, the F.B.I.’s search of an election center in Fulton County, Ga., last week was extraordinary. Agents seized truckloads of 2020 ballots, as President Trump harnessed the levers of government to not only buttress his false claims of widespread voter fraud, but also to try to build a criminal case against those he believes wronged him. What happened the next day was in some ways even more unusual.” NYT (Gift Article): Trump Had Unusual Call With F.B.I. Agents After Election Center Search. Remember, this isn’t about a past election. It’s about the next one. This from Trump today: “The Republicans should say, we should take over the voting in at least 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. We have states that I won that show I didn’t win. You’re gonna see something in Georgia.” Why the urgency to “take over” voting in a lot of places? I’ll answer that with another question from the WSJ (Gift Article): How does a Republican lose by 14 points in a safe conservative Texas state Senate seat that President Trump carried by 17 points in 2024? A Texas Election Jolt to the GOP.
+ Crossing Another Threshold: “Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt reopened on Monday for limited traffic, a key step as the Israeli-Hamas ceasefire moves ahead.”
+ Docket Locket: “In November of 2024, two weeks after voters returned President Donald Trump to office, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. summoned employees of the U.S. Supreme Court for an unusual announcement. Facing them in a grand conference room beneath ornate chandeliers, he requested they each sign a nondisclosure agreement promising to keep the court’s inner workings secret.” NYT (Gift Article): How the Supreme Court Secretly Made Itself Even More Secretive.
+ Gram Jam: Bad Bunny and Kendrick Lamar were among the big winners at this year’s Grammys. As you’d imagine, things got political during the speeches. Trump didn’t like the show and threatened to sue Trevor Noah. In related news, yes, the dress that Chappell Roan wore to the Grammys was hanging from her nipples. Here’s how that works. Speaking of hanging on by a thread, Trump says Kennedy Center is closing for 2 years. (I guess you could say the Melania doc really brought down the house…)
+ Alcarazzmatazz: “We are watching Michael Jordan in 1992, Tiger Woods in 2000, Secretariat in 1973. The job is not done, the résumé is still evolving, and the records are not yet theirs. But our eyes do not deceive us.” In other words, Carlos Alcaraz, now the youngest player ever to achieve a career grand slam, is really good.
+ Bomb Balm: NPR: At a clown school near Paris, failure is the lesson. “For decades, students at the Ecole Philippe Gaulier have been paying to bomb onstage. The goal isn’t laughs — it’s learning how to take the humiliation and keep going.” (Sounds oddly similar to newsletter writing…)
Well, it’s Groundhog Day and Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, which means six more weeks of winter. It’s worth noting that the groundhog has only been accurate 30% of the time over the past decade. (Punxsutawney Phil is basically the RFK Jr of weather forecasting.)
+ “In the third round … the veteran heavyweight took enough shots to the head that his toupee ended up flapping in the air and revealing a fully bald scalp. Miller took the development in stride, ripping off the piece at the end of the round and throwing it into the crowd.”
2026-01-30 20:00:00
We’ve reached the arresting journalists phase of Trumpism. “The former CNN anchor Don Lemon and three other people have been arrested on charges that they violated federal law during a protest at a church in St. Paul, Minn.” Even though a judge rejected these charges just last week, Trump’s Justice Department slash personal retribution engine couldn’t resist bending the law to go after two of their favorite targets: Journalists and protesters. “The arrests of Mr. Lemon, a second journalist and two protesters came a little more than a week after three other demonstrators who took part in the action at the Cities Church on Jan. 18 were taken into custody. The prosecution is likely to face pushback from defense lawyers on First Amendment grounds, given that political protest sits at the center of the charges and that Mr. Lemon and the other journalist, Georgia Fort, have said they entered the church to cover a demonstration against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the area.” NYT (Gift Article): Federal Agents Arrest Don Lemon Over Minnesota Church Protest. Of course, the goal of squeezing Lemon goes beyond an attempt to silence one very notable Trump critic. It’s meant to send a message to any and all journalists who would dare to cover the Trump administration in a way they don’t want to be covered. When life gives you lemons, pay attention.
+ “Let’s be clear: The DOJ has been under intense pressure from the right, from Lemon’s ideological opponents, to arrest him. Lemon has been a longtime Trump antagonist, and Trump has criticized him as recently as last week. So this sure looks like another example of Trump’s retribution campaign. Slate’s Jill Filipovic called it a ‘five-alarm fire moment’ in a column just now. CNN’s Sara Sidner called it “terrifying” during our live breaking news coverage. And David Axelrod remarked this morning that the DOJ is now the ‘Department of Retribution,’ adding, ‘If you don’t believe Don Lemon’s arrest was ordered from on high, you just haven’t been paying attention.'” Brian Stelter in Reliable Sources: Two reporters taken into custody.
“Following last week’s anti-ICE economic blackout in Minnesota and national Free America Walkout, organizers are once again urging Americans to stop working, attending school, and spending money to protest the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdown surging across the country.” Stores closed, protests scheduled in all 50 states. I’m noticing the protest on several blogs and newsletters, and locally at my daughter’s high school. But it seems like this effort was put together quite quickly, so we’ll see how widespread it gets.
+ There’s no doubt that the (often heroic) protests in Minneapolis have had an impact in terms weakening ICE’s role in the state and stiffening the spine of the political opposition in Congress. But has anything about this week really changed the policy or the administration’s goals and strategies? “After a wave of public revulsion over the President’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, he offers a familiar playbook: distraction, disinformation, denial, delay.” Susan Glasser in The New Yorker: Operation Trump Rehab. “Is this, then, the inflection point—or whatever you want to call it—that so much of sane America has been waiting for? The beginning of the end of the madness that has gripped our nation? Would that it were so. There is no doubt that the wave of revulsion among everyday Americans, of all political persuasions, to the videos that we’re seeing from Minneapolis, and Chicago, and other cities targeted by Trump’s paramilitary immigration goons, is real. No amount of gaslighting by Trump and his advisers can prove otherwise. It is also reassuring to observe that the President can feel the need to dial back his power-tripping by something other than the bond market. But some caution is in order. We are, after all, still living in post-January 6th America. The Donald Trump who could never recover politically from inciting a mob of his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol not only recovered but was reëlected President.”
Data centers are getting all the coverage, but they don’t represent the only big structure real estate trend these days. “Despite protests in small towns and cities across the US, the Trump administration is pushing ahead with the purchase of warehouses it plans to convert into immigration jails in what could be the largest expansion of such detention capacity in US history.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): ICE Begins Buying ‘Mega’ Warehouse Detention Centers Across US.
What to Movie: After years of searching through open tabs, I finally found the most accurate statement on the internet. No Cult Favorite: BREAKING AWAY Is a Masterpiece. In addition to being a really interesting, detailed look at what makes this movie (and movies in general) great, James Kenney provides us with an important and always timely reminder: This is a good time to watch Breaking Away.
+ What to Book: “After dropping his daughter at college, Tom embarks on a cross-country journey, confronting his wife’s past affair, health issues, and work troubles while visiting people from his past.” Ben Markovits: The Rest of Our Lives.
+ What to Doc: The Secret Mall Apartment on Netflix is about, well, a secret mall apartment. But it’s really about what it means to be an artist and a look back at being young without cell phones.
Suit Yourself: WaPo (Gift Article): Trump sues IRS and Treasury for $10 billion over leaked tax records. “The case means Trump has again filed a claim for a large amount of money against the government he oversees, putting him on both sides of the potential negotiating table … Trump is suing the government in a personal capacity, not as president.” (Trump is also basically running the government in a personal capacity, not as president)
+ Read It and Weep: “American students are struggling with reading — test scores are at new lows, and many students don’t even read whole books. But while average scores have declined for everyone, boys are doing much worse.” NYT (Gift Article): Why Boys Are Behind in Reading at Every Age.
+ Fed Head: “I have known Kevin for a long period of time, and have no doubt that he will go down as one of the GREAT Fed Chairmen, maybe the best … On top of everything else, he is ‘central casting,’ and he will never let you down.” Trump taps Kevin Warsh to lead the Federal Reserve. (He doesn’t seem all that good looking to me?) Paul Krugman, not a fan.
+ More Black Ink: “The new document dump was massive and included more than 3.5 million pages, 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.” DOJ releases millions of pages of additional Epstein files.
+ Catherine O’Hara: “Catherine O’Hara, the two-time Emmy-winning actor who starred in ‘Home Alone’ and ‘Best in Show’ and had an impressive late-career renaissance in ‘Schitt’s Creek,’ has died, her manager confirmed to Variety. She was 71.”
+ Scrape the Barrel: “The message from Cracker Barrel management went down like a stale biscuit for some. Employees should postpone work travel until later this year, when the Southern-themed restaurant chain hopes to start recovering from a steep sales slide. But if workers must hit the road, management said, they should fuel up on the chain’s own meatloaf and country fried steak.” A recent mandate at the chain highlights a new era of ‘travelscrimping‘ as companies tighten budgets.
+ GEO-graphy: SEO (search engine optimization), meet GEO (generative engine optimization). Christopher Mims in WSJ (Gift Article): How Businesses Are Manipulating ChatGPT Results.
+ Fall Lineup: “There’s something to be said when five minutes before you go on air, someone slides you a card of what you’re gonna say if a person falls off the building and dies.” Netflix Had a Plan If Alex Honnold Fell and Died During 101-Story Climb.
“Researchers analyzing blood markers have recently discovered that volunteering appears to slow the aging process in seniors — a felicitous finding that adds to voluminous evidence that performing community service tends to improve things like mood and heart health, particularly for those of retirement age.” Here’s a proven way to slow aging. Any volunteers?
+ Judge Revives Wind Farm That Trump Halted Off Martha’s Vineyard.
+ “He loves cartoons and is tucked in bed by 6:15 p.m. But with a cue in his tiny hand, this toddler can perform feats many adults can only dream of. Jude Owens, a 3-year-old from Manchester in northern England, holds two Guinness World Records for mastering trick shots, maneuvers on a billiards table that require significant skill.” WaPo (Gift Article): Right on cue: Toddler is recognized for his mastery of trick shots.
+ NYT (Gift Article): 24 Simple Secrets to a Healthier Life.
+ Some blind fans to experience Super Bowl with tactile device that tracks ball.
+ Woman discovers her childhood pen pal is the doctor who delivered her 2 kids.
+ “Everyone has their favorite oddity: ASMR, jazzy pop song covers, cooking channels, or what have you. But DIY enthusiasts in particular are missing out if they’re not watching Drain Cleaning Australia, featuring an Australian plumber known only as Bruce as he goes about his daily business of shooting high-powered water jets into stubborn clogged drainage systems.” Australian plumber is a YouTube sensation.
2026-01-29 20:00:00
“A group of prepubescent British boys who are stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempts to govern themselves that lead to a descent into savagery. The novel’s themes include morality, leadership, and the tension between civility and chaos.” That’s the plot of Lord of the Flies, but it could just as easily be the coming plot of the race toward AI dominance. Like the kids stranded on the fictional island, in the Lord of the AIs, the rules of the new BYOG (Bring Your Own Guardrails) society are being set by insiders. Anthropic is the major AI player known for being the most worried about the “civilizational concerns” associated with its tech. Maybe that’s just a branding strategy, or maybe they’re just being compared to the likes of Zuck and Musk. But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they really are the most concerned of the AI giants. “When Anthropic launched Claude, in 2023, the bot’s distinguishing feature was a ‘Constitution’ that the model was trained on detailing how it should behave; last week, Anthropic revamped the document into a 22,000-word treatise on how to make Claude a moral and sincere actor. Claude, the constitution’s authors write, has the ability to foster emotional dependence, design bioweapons, and manipulate its users, so it’s Anthropic’s responsibility to instill upright character in Claude to avoid these outcomes.” But, ultimately, the race is on. And the rules of the race are being made by its participants, not by governments, and certainly not by end users. Ultimately, those rules may be made by the very technologies the absence of outside rules enabled. Matteo Wong in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Anthropic Is at War With Itself. “The AI company shouting about AI’s dangers can’t quite bring itself to slow down.” (And that’s the point. This is all about self-regulation. They’re the only ones who currently have the power to slow themselves down.)
+ While William Golding’s fictional version of boys in a guardrail-free society didn’t go well, the real story of a group of schoolboys stranded alone on an Island had a much happier plotline. “The teenage runaways showed remarkable resourcefulness—building a hut out of palm fronds, establishing a garden with bananas and beans, and setting up a roster to keep a lookout for passing ships. They even built a badminton court and a makeshift gym. They lived in harmony—they told us—most of the time.” Of course, those self-ruling teenagers didn’t have billions of dollars at stake or a cast of competitors that had already proven themselves lacking when it comes to themes such as morality, leadership, and the tension between civility and chaos. I guess we’ll see how things turn out this time…
Are there times when you’re watching a brawl and you can be sure the good guys aren’t going to win? Yes. When there are no good guys. Which brings us to raging battles inside the Department of Homeland Security. “Officials overseeing Trump’s mass-deportation campaign are fighting one another for power.” Battles Are Raging Inside the Department of Homeland Security. Yes, there are differing degrees of badness among the key players, but when the guy who brought you the family separation policy seems likes the most decent of the bunch, you might as well be stuck rooting for a root canal.
+ In a press conference on Thursday, Tom Homan said that he seeks to ‘regain law and order’ in Minnesota. (He didn’t mention who caused law and order to be lost in the first place). Here’s the latest from NBC.
“Vilbrun Dorsainvil lives in the United States under a legal designation called Temporary Protected Status, which can be provided by the U.S. government to people from countries experiencing armed conflict or natural disasters. The protection allows those already in the United States to remain for a specific period of time, and it can be renewed if the U.S. government considers conditions in the country unsafe for people to return. Haitians have been eligible for T.P.S. since an earthquake devastated the country in 2010, and the protection has been renewed because of other crises. But the Trump administration announced last year that it was terminating the status for several countries, including Afghanistan, Venezuela and Haiti.” That’s bad news for Vilbrun Dorsainvil and a lot of Haitians. It’s also bad news for a lot of Americans. NYT (Gift Article): Haitians Are Vital to U.S. Health Care. Many Are About to Lose Their Right to Work. “At least 50,000 migrants with protected status work in health care, an industry struggling to fill positions in small cities and rural areas as an aging America requires more long-term care.” Feel safer?
“To the extent American children have a relationship with coal, it’s usually a negative one. Every kid knows the worst thing you can get on Christmas morning is a lump of the bituminous stuff as harsh payback for a year spent behaving poorly. Which makes it a little weird that Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum is using an anthropomorphized lump of coal, dressed in yellow safety gear and Mickey Mouse gloves, as the adorable mascot of President Donald Trump’s ‘American Energy Dominance Agenda,’ which includes bringing ‘clean, beautiful coal’ back from the edge of extinction … The mascot’s name is “Coalie,” and he appeared in a post on X recently with a cartoon version of Burgum. ‘Mine, Baby, Mine!’ Burgum’s post said, a message echoed on Cartoon Burgum’s hard hat.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): Meet ‘Coalie,’ the Lethal Mascot for Dirty Energy.
The Age of Bull: “Bull Connor’s fire hoses and police dogs were meant to restore order during civil rights demonstrations. Instead, they revealed the brutality of segregation to an international audience.” NYT (Gift Article): We’re Seeing the Weakness of a Strong State. “Visible state violence against sympathetic civilians was the beginning of the end for Jim Crow. It may be a turning point now, too.” (I wonder if the same rules apply in the era of doomscrolling, altered images, information silos, and social media. And when Bull Connor is in the Oval Office.)
+ What to Expect About Your Expectancy: “The average U.S. life expectancy hit an all-time high in 2024 … as the nation continued to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and deaths from drug overdoses continued to decline.” (That sounded like better news before we got a dose of 2025.)
+ Still Looking for Those 11K Votes: “This just looks like a way to use the might of the federal government to further Trump’s voter fraud narratives.” ProPublica: FBI’s Search of Georgia Election Center Is ‘Dangerous,’ Experts Warn. (I’m guessing even the non-experts can see that it might not have be a good idea to re-elect guy who asked Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to find him 11,780 votes. But here we are…)
+ Tech Support: The masks, guns and tear gas is what makes the news. But ICE’s arsenal gets a lot more high tech. And there’s no reason to assume these same technologies won’t be used against everyone who is considered a threat at some point. WaPo (Gift Article): The powerful tools in ICE’s arsenal to track suspects — and protesters. “Biometric trackers, cellphone location databases and drones … These technologies, both visible and invisible, are transforming the front lines of immigration enforcement and political protest across America today.”
+ The Protein Bubble: Meat is hot. Fake meat is not. And everyone, and I mean everyone, is putting protein into everything. Hence this latest product from Beyond Meat: a protein soda.
+ Green Without Envy: What’s the best way to give Greenlanders more positive vibes about Denmark? Hint: Trump. “Not long ago, Aviaja Sinkbaek, an office manager in Greenland, thought it was time to ease further away from 300 years of Danish rule and maybe think about independence. She was even open to drawing closer to the United States. Now as she watches the images of violence coming out of Minneapolis from her pale green rowhouse on a hillside above Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, her ears still ringing with President Trump’s threats about getting her homeland somehow, she’s changed her mind.” (This is a metaphor for feelings bubbling up among all of our allies.) Greenlanders Watching Turmoil in the United States Say No Thanks.
“The toy was designed as a happy-faced Lunar New Year decoration, but a manufacturing mistake turned its smile into a frown.” Needless to say, it’s selling like crazy.
+ ‘Batman’ blasts Bay Area city council over ICE’s involvement in Super Bowl.
+ Court reverses decision firing educator for reading ‘I Need a New Butt!’