2025-10-07 20:00:00
Doug Whitney isn’t living up to his potential. And that’s a good thing. “Before dawn on a March morning, Doug Whitney walked into a medical center 2,000 miles from home, about to transform from a mild-mannered, bespectacled retiree into a superhuman research subject. First, a doctor inserted a needle into his back to extract cerebral spinal fluid — ‘liquid gold,’ a research nurse called it for the valuable biological information it contains. Then, the nurse took a sample of his skin cells. After that came an injection of a radioactive tracer followed by a brain scan requiring him to lie still for 30 minutes with a thermoplastic mask over his face. Then, another tracer injection and another brain scan.” Doug Whitney has been getting poked and prodded for fourteen years. It’s not because of something he’s got. It’s because of something he’s somehow avoided. Whitney is part of the largest extended family to carry an Alzheimer’s-causing mutation. Basically, Whitney should have already died after suffering through years of one the world’s most devastating diseases. “‘Nobody in history had ever dodged that bullet,’ Mr. Whitney said. But somehow, he has done just that.” If researchers can figure out how Doug Whitney has escaped what seemed to be his certain medical fate, it might offer important clues to helping others treat or prevent the scourge of Alzheimer’s. NYT (Gift Article): He Was Expected to Get Alzheimer’s 25 Years Ago. Why Hasn’t He?
There are legal reasons why a president could deploy troops to American cities. But the current battle over this topic, playing out in courtrooms and the court of public opinion, is less of a debate about laws and more of a fight over reality. “The problem … is that many Americans don’t believe the president’s claims. We look at pictures and videos out of Portland and we don’t see ‘war-ravaged’ anything. We look at news reports out of Chicago and see the principal violence coming from federal officers — not being directed toward them. To put the matter directly, there’s a factual dispute about whether resorting to the military is justified. As Judge Karin Immergut (a Trump appointee) put it sharply in the Portland case, in which she ruled over the weekend that there was no legal basis for sending in troops, the president is acting in a manner that is ‘untethered to the facts.'” (That seems to be going around these days.) Stephen I. Vladeck in the NYT (Gift Article): No, Trump Can’t Deploy Troops to Wherever He Wants. “That is what we, and more important the courts, face: a factual dispute more than a legal one.”
+ Texas national guard troops arrive in Chicago amid Trump’s crackdown
+ These cities aren’t war zones. But the administration is doing everything possible to change that. Using helicopters and chemical agents, immigration agents become increasingly aggressive in Chicago.
“Millions of Americans — a third of U.S. adults — are pulled into a nearly infinite variety of niche corners by a recommendation system that we don’t know much about, making it difficult to understand how the constant scroll affects real people.” WaPo (Gift Article) analyzed more than 800 TikTokkers, from newbies to power users, to see how people get hooked. How TikTok keeps its users scrolling for hours a day. (I’m not a TikTok user. But this article warning of its addictive properties sort of makes me want to try it out.)
During last week’s football game against Duke, Cal players wore helmet decals featuring the number 59. The number celebrates the number of Nobel laureates that have been affiliated with the school’s Berkeley campus. Sadly, Duke won the game. Maybe Cal should have been more forward thinking and featured the number 60. Three scientists at US universities win Nobel Prize in physics for advancing quantum technology, including John Clarke, 83, who conducted his research at the University of California, Berkeley. (Go Bears.)
+ “Fred Ramsdell was parked at a campground in Montana on Monday afternoon after camping and hiking across the Rocky Mountains when his wife, Laura O’Neill, suddenly started shouting. He first thought that maybe she had seen a grizzly bear.” His off-the-grid vacation was interrupted by winning a Nobel Prize for research into the immune system. (None of today’s quantum technology winners were off the grid…)
Conversion Reversion: “Since at least a decade ago, a rare consensus has prevailed on a provocative issue for L.G.B.T.Q. people. Professional counseling aimed at changing the sexual orientations of gay teenagers, sometimes known as conversion therapy, was viewed as harmful and widely rejected.” Like so many other subjects about which we thought there was a consensus, there wasn’t. Or at least there isn’t anymore. NYT: A Debate Over ‘Conversion Therapy,’ Once Widely Condemned, Is Back. Which brings us to today’s SCOTUS hearing. “The Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared poised to back a free speech challenge to a Colorado law that bans conversion therapy aimed at young people questioning their sexual orientations or gender identities in a case likely to have national implications.”
+ The Hostage: Two years after the Oct 7 attacks, the NYT (Gift Article) catches up with Emily Damari, who was held captive in Gaza for 471 days. Freed From Hamas, but Not Captivity.
+ Surgeon General Agreement: “Never before have we issued a joint public warning like this. But the profound, immediate and unprecedented threat that Kennedy’s policies and positions pose to the nation’s health cannot be ignored.” WaPo (Gift Article): Six surgeons general: It’s our duty to warn the nation about RFK Jr.
+ Coin Toss: Another lede that manages to perfectly sum up our national moment. “The Trump administration on Monday defended its plan to mint a $1 coin bearing the image of President Trump despite the fact that an 1866 law dictates that only the deceased can appear on U.S. currency.”
+ Friend Zone: WSJ: Our Brains Evolved to Socialize—but Max Out at About 150 Friends. (I’ve always preferred to measure my social life in terms of subscribers.)
+ Lox Smith: “The oldest of three brothers, Mr. Zabar did not intend to go into the family business, which his parents, Louis and Lillian (Teit) Zabar, started in 1934 as the smoked-fish department of a Daitch supermarket on Broadway. Saul had visions of becoming a doctor. But when his father died in 1950 at 49, Saul left college and returned home to help out.” Saul Zabar, Smoked Fish Czar of Upper West Side, Dies at 97.
+ Box Out: America’s latest recession warning is a brown cardboard box.
“Claims about the benefits of cold-water immersion date back centuries. Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and the third American president, wrote toward the end of his life about using a cold foot bath daily for 60 years. He also owned a book published in 1706 on the history of cold-water bathing. While evidence is building around the positive health effects of swimming in chilly water, bathing in ice or taking cold showers, scientific confirmation is still lacking.” Cold-water immersion may offer health benefits — and also presents risks.
+ “Prosecuting attorneys say Whitley was found by police, as he was wearing the same True Religion underwear that was captured on camera during the alleged robbery.” (One more reason why your underwear probably shouldn’t be visible.)
2025-10-06 20:00:00
It was a tale of two economies. America is experiencing a boom-bust cycle. But instead of happening sequentially, we’re basically booming and busting at the same time. In the NYT (Gift Article), Natasha Sarin, president of the Budget Lab at Yale, explains how we’re overcoming a lot of bad policy decisions and attacks on financial norms: “The economy is being bolstered by a remarkable investment boom in artificial intelligence. A credible estimate suggests that A.I. capital expenditures may reach 2 percent of the gross domestic product in 2025, up from most likely less than 0.1 percent in 2022. To provide some sense of scale, that means the equivalent of about $1,800 per person in America will be invested this year on A.I. The coat of A.I. gloss is giving the administration runway to double down on bad ideas: America’s effective overall tariff rate is nearly back to the levels announced in April, the vice president has called for the administration to be involved in the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decisions and Mr. Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after a disappointing jobs report. The situation is worse than having all of your economic eggs in one basket. It’s closer to putting all of your eggs in one basket and stomping on all the other baskets.” (In the humanties department, we call this a total basket case.) There Are Two Economies: A.I. and Everything Else. Basically, it’s Big Tech vs Big Dreck.
+ “Despite mounting threats to the US economy — from high tariffs to collapsing immigration, eroding institutions, rising debt and sticky inflation — large companies and investors seem unfazed. They are increasingly confident that artificial intelligence is such a big force, it can counter all the challenges. Lately, this optimism has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The hundreds of billions of dollars companies are investing in AI now account for an astonishing 40 per cent share of US GDP growth this year. And some analysts believe that estimate doesn’t fully capture the AI spend, so the real share could be even higher. AI companies have accounted for 80 per cent of the gains in US stocks so far in 2025.” FT ($): America is now one big bet on AI.
+ Every day, we see warning signals in terms of inflation, tariffs, jobs reports, etc. And every day we see the other side of the market. AMD signs AI chip-supply deal with OpenAI, shares surge over 34%. The chips vs the dips.
+ What happens if the one industry propping up the economy hiccups? I’m asking you, not ChatGPT… Morgan Stanley warns the AI boom may be running out of steam. And, The AI bubble is 17 times the size of the dot-com frenzy – and four times subprime.
+ For now, the AI boom is making the already massive economic divide even more divided. Consider this problem currently facing San Francisco: We don’t have enough mansions.
The AI growth story is also a real estate story, and I’m not just talking about the mansions being built by founders and investors. We are experiencing major data center growth in many parts of the country. For a glimpse into what that might look like, photographer Stephen Voss takes us to Northern Virginia. WaPo (Gift Article): What it looks like in the world’s data center capital. “Here in the world’s internet hub, residents have long shouldered the costs of powering our insatiable digital demand. The structures are built between baseball fields, schools, homes and historic cemeteries.” And they all play the same tune: An ever-present hum.
“For all the talk of red lines and points of no return, the modern United States has had democratic crises and authoritarian turmoil before. The language of break-glass, fire-alarm emergencies looks at our increasingly brittle existing modes of political organization and cannot see beyond them. But the way through will be to craft new modes of renewal adequate to the landscape of the world in which we find ourselves — forms analogous to the industrial union of the ’20s, and perhaps fueled by the generative civil society engine of the now vast nonprofit world. A century ago, in the forgotten history of a decade just barely out of living memory, we found pathways to a better place. The answer to how this all ends turns on experiments we have only barely begun to launch.” John Fabian Witt in the NYT gives us a history lesson (since for now, history is still legal): How to Save the American Experiment.
“The real catalyst for the ceasefire, meanwhile, seemed to have come about three weeks earlier. On September 9th, Israel launched a strike on a meeting of Hamas officials in Doha. The missiles missed their targets, but left Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy, ‘furious,’ the Times reported. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, whose private-equity firm had received hundreds of millions of dollars in investment from Qatar, and who had been working with Blair on a postwar plan for Gaza, was similarly ‘angry and embarrassed.’ In the end, the strike had the opposite of its intended effect. It brought together leaders of Arab and Muslim countries to an emergency meeting in Doha, during which they worked on a list of demands to be included in a deal to end the war. Netanyahu, who had carried out a string of successful strikes in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, appeared to have overplayed his hand this time.” Ruth Margalit on the events that led the Middle East toward a flicker of hope. The New Yorker: At the Edge of Peace.
You’re Not Welcome: “The state of Illinois and Chicago on Monday sued the Trump administration over its move to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago as the White House targets Democrat-led cities amid weeks of protests against the federal government’s immigration enforcement campaign. The lawsuit opens a new front in the legal battles the White House is waging against state and local officials, coming just hours after a federal judge blocked a similar deployment of the guard to Portland.” Illinois and Chicago sue Trump administration over deployment of National Guard.
+ Thinning Ice: “There’s a jarring disconnect between what I’ve been hearing from supporters of the president who are disappointed with ICE’s pace, and the images on social media each day: sobbing families torn apart in courthouse hallways; a commando-style night raid on a Chicago apartment building; and masked federal officers smashing car windows, slamming people to the ground, and targeting bystanders who dare to question them. The Trump administration has made a show of force by sending National Guard troops to reinforce ICE teams in Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; and Chicago. But a closer look at ICE data shows that the intensity of ICE enforcement nationwide has essentially leveled off.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): As Money Rushed In, ICE’s Rapid Expansion Stalled Out.
+ Immune Response: The Nobel Prize in medicine goes to 3 scientists for key immune system discoveries.
+ Burning Questions: “Police are investigating the cause of a fire that burned down the home of South Carolina Circuit Court judge Diane Goodstein, who had reportedly received death threats for weeks related to her work.” House of South Carolina Judge Criticized by Trump Administration Burns Down.
+ If You Gild It, They Won’t Come: Nearly 20 Percent Fewer International Students Traveled to the U.S. in August. (I wonder what’s keeping them away…)
+ Maxwell Wishes Denied: “The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal of the criminal conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein.” (This could be this term’s last SCOTUS decision that doesn’t depress you, so enjoy it.)
+ Plugged In: “In a bright clinic on the eastern side of Istanbul, a man leans over another man’s scalp. There’s a marker in his hand, and he’s drawing thin, careful lines across the cranium. It looks almost like an art class. Except the canvas here is a human head.” How one country has become a top destination for hair transplants.
“An internet outage that impacted parts of Texas last month was caused by a stray bullet that struck a key fiber optic line.”
+ Paul Davids plays 80 of rock’s most iconic guitar intros.
2025-10-03 20:00:00
“The lyric ‘Are we human or are we dancer?’ from The Killers’ song Human poses a question about free will versus conformity, suggesting that people are either truly individuals with consciousness and choice (‘human’) or are just following societal expectations and performing actions without genuine autonomy, like actors in a predetermined performance (‘dancer’). The phrase was inspired by a disparaging comment from Hunter S. Thompson, who said America was ‘raising a generation of dancers, afraid to take one step out of line.'” It’s notable that I got that description of the meaning of a song questioning our humanity from machine-powered AI. I searched for the lyrics, hoping for a link to the song, but the first result was from AI. I guess that makes me a dancer? Oddly, we’re living in an age when humans are questioning their humanity as machines are being coded to act more and more like humans. In WaPo (Gift Article), Dana Milbank decided to ask a chatbot: How do I regain my humanity “The longer I spent engaging with AI engines, the more I could see them masquerading as human confidants, flattering me and appealing to my human need to be seen and heard, while luring me away from connections with actual humans. I could see why lonely people are falling in love with their chatbots, why vulnerable teenagers might be driven by a chatbot to self-harm.” I asked a machine how to be more human. It was dehumanizing. “Of all the AI engines I asked how I could become more human — ChatGPT, Gemini, Meta AI, Grok and Claude — not one of them came up with what would seem to be the most obvious solution: Stop asking computers how I can become more human. Uniformly, the chatbots would not own up to the harm their creators have done.” Not taking responsibility for damage that’s been done? That actually sounds all too human.
+ So who will win the race between machines trying to be more human and humans trying to retain their humanity? Well, the humans have had a hell of a long head start. But the machines have a hell of a lot more funding. Derek Thompson: This Is How the AI Bubble Will Pop. “Tech companies are projected to spend about $400 billion this year on infrastructure to train and operate AI models. By nominal dollar sums, that is more than any group of firms has ever spent to do just about anything.”
It takes a lot of things to go wrong for the house to lose, and Vegas is facing a lot of issues. Inflation is making visiting more expensive. International travel is down. The once sure thing visits from our friends in Canada plummeted when we stopped treating them like our friends. Oh, and there’s also the little detail that we all now carry around functional casinos in our front pockets. The desert has not been deserted, but Vegas is a lot less crowded. And that worries people in Nevada. And maybe it should worry all of us, because Vegas has often served as a key economic indicator for what’s to come across the country. NYT (Gift Article): What’s Wrong With Las Vegas?
Almost everyone I know is escaping the brain-bludgeoning news cycle by watching an endless string of television series. So it may surprise you to learn that LA’s entertainment economy is not booming. “The entertainment industry is in a downward spiral that began when the dual strikes by actors and writers ended in 2023. Work is evaporating, businesses are closing, longtime residents are leaving, and the heart of L.A.’s creative middle class is hanging on by a thread.” WSJ (Gift Article): L.A.’s Entertainment Economy Is Looking Like a Disaster Movie. “At the end of 2024, some 100,000 people were employed in the motion picture industry in Los Angeles County, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Two years earlier, there were 142,000. The primary reason is that Hollywood is making less stuff.” (This helps explain how my wife and I managed to watch everything on every app and every channel. Please, please, make more.)
What to Doc: “Drawing on over 600 hours of never-seen footage, this is the untold underdog story of Lilith Fair, the women’s music festival of the late 90s.” Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery (Hulu) is a really good documentary about the building of a massive festival tour. But it’s about a lot more, including offering some ominous clues about what was coming in terms of our culture wars. But mostly, it’s about good vibes and good music.
+ What to Watch: The first season of English Teacher on Hulu was one of the better TV comedies I’ve seen in a long time. You can catch up on that season and/or get started on season two.
Gavinizing the Opposition: Trump is threatening to cut federal funding to universities if they don’t sign his highly partisan Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. Gavin Newsom just said the schools will lose state funding “instantly” if they do sign it. California vows to ‘instantly’ cut funding to universities that cave to Trump ‘compact.
+ No Mas From Hamas? Trump gives Hamas Sunday deadline to accept Gaza peace plan or face “all hell.”
+ Temple Attack: “Mr. Telzer said he could hear someone pounding from outside, trying to get in the synagogue. Some of the roughly 20 congregants who had gathered for morning services on Yom Kippur, including the rabbi, used their bodies to barricade the large black doors, he said.” NYT: Shouts and Pounding at the Doors: How a U.K. Synagogue Came Under Attack.
+ Health Nuts: “The health insurance subsidies at the center of the US government shutdown fight disproportionately benefit areas of the country represented by Republican lawmakers, posing a potential vulnerability for President Donald Trump’s party in next year’s midterm congressional elections.” (In a odd twist, Democrats could save health care and save Republican lawmakers from themselves if they win this shutdown.) Bloomberg (Gift Article): GOP Districts ‘Supercharged’ Obamacare Use Is Risk in Shutdown Fight.
+ Bari Bari Quite Contrary: WaPo (Gift Article): Bari Weiss to be named top editor at CBS News. (She has never been a reporter and has no experience in TV news. But her politics are what the new parent company wants.) And related: Incompetence Isn’t an Upgrade Over D.E.I.
+ The War on Dinghies: “It’s the fourth deadly strike in the Caribbean and the latest since revelations that President Donald Trump told lawmakers he was treating drug traffickers as unlawful combatants and military force was required to combat them. The assertion of presidential powers sets the stage for expanded action in Latin America and raises questions about how far the administration will go without sign-off from Congress.” Hegseth announces latest strike on boat near Venezuela he says was trafficking drugs.
+ Bodies in Motion: A weird story from USC: USC sold dead bodies to U.S. military to train IDF medical personnel. “Medical professionals are also raising questions about whether families of the dead have any idea that their loved ones might be used to train soldiers.”
+ It’s Saudi Doody Time: Dave Chappelle Criticizes Free Speech in America at Saudi Arabia Comedy Festival. “It’s easier to talk here than it is in America.” (We are living through the most stupid of times.)
“Sarah Mullally, a onetime nurse who became the first female bishop of London, was named on Friday as the 106th archbishop of Canterbury, the first woman to occupy the post, at the helm of the Church of England, in more than 1,400 years.” After Centuries, a Woman Will Lead the Church of England.
+ Inside a tattoo parlour where hateful images are covered for free.
+ Billionaire MacKenzie Scott gifts $70 million for historically Black universities. And Melinda French Gates launches $100 million push for women’s health research.
+ Japan sets record of nearly 100,000 people aged over 100.
+ “One of those users sent me a message and said, ‘Hey, my mom used this meme on Facebook, she has no idea who you are.’ That’s when I realized it had sort of jumped species from our little video game corner of the internet to the wider mainstream audience.” ‘It just happened to be my face’: The SF man behind an immortal meme who is using his face for charity.
+ Woman makes ‘Wheel of Fortune’ history with $1M grand prize win. (That seems like a lot, but after taxes, she’ll barely be able to buy two thousand vowels…)
2025-10-01 20:00:00
The government has officially shut down. The Democrats are using what little leverage they have to try to save extremely popular health care policies, keep premiums from spiking, and to convince their constituents they have a little fight left in them. The GOP is refusing to negotiate on health care or anything else until a short spending bill is approved. It’s a battle over one of the most important and expensive aspects of American life, but like everything in politics, it’s also a battle over messaging—which is especially complicated in an era of algorithms, deep-fakes, siloed news universes, and a newsfeed that scrolls so rapidly, even something as vital as whether the government is on or off may not consume our attention for more than about five minutes. In this environment, it’s become challenging for Americans to focus on something as personal and critical as their own health. I can barely maintain my focus through a prostate exam without being distracted by incoming news notifications. And those news notifications are coming faster than ever, because the messaging wars, they have begun. NPR: Trump administration uses taxpayer dollars to blame Democrats for government shutdown. “The Trump administration is blaming Democrats for the government shutdown in internal federal agency communications as well as public agency websites, in what experts say could be a violation of federal ethics laws.” (At this point, I’d usually insert a humorous remark to provide some levity to a serious issue. But I can’t really come up with anything funnier than the phrase, federal ethics laws.)
+ Government shutdown 2025: A guide to what’s still open, what’s closed and what’s fuzzy.
+ Semafor: Congress is about to experience a painful reality for the first time in six years: Getting into shutdowns is easy. Getting out of them is a lot harder. (I don’t think any of the old rules apply to our current politics. So who knows?)
+ With the government shut down, maybe we should update the software, and unplug it for thirty seconds and plug it back in. Maybe when it restarts, Kamala will somehow be president. Here’s the latest from NBC, AP, and ABC.
“Over the past three years, babies have been conceived — and at least 20 of them have been born — through clinical trials that involve automation with little to no human intervention. The same algorithmic computer-vision software that helps autonomous vehicles spot objects on the road and finds signs of breast cancer in a mammogram can instantaneously detect the most robust swimmer among hundreds of thousands of flailing, corkscrewing sperm — each one a fraction of the width of a hair strand. It’s a capability that far exceeds any trained embryologist’s eye. A robotic arm can collect that sperm and mix the chemicals required for an egg to stay viable. And it can delicately and reproducibly fertilize an egg, initiating the moment of conception.” WaPo (Gift Article): Robots are learning to make human babies. Twenty have already been born. (When I tried using this technology, the robot said it wasn’t really in the mood.)
+ NPR: Scientists create human eggs in the lab, using skin cells.
“There is a certain kind of Army officer who, after the excitement of company command, finds his career stalled, and who perhaps leaves the service as a major in the National Guard filled with bitterness and resentment. He may then dream of one day being in a position to make all the superior officers who failed to appreciate his leadership qualities, his insight, his sheer fitness stand to attention and hear him lay down the law about what it is to be an officer, and threaten to fire those who do not meet *his* standards. In this respect, and this respect only, on that stage Pete Hegseth was living the dream. In all other respects, however, he was ridiculous.” Eliot A. Cohen in The Atlantic: Pete Hegseth Is Living the Dream.
+ The Hegseth speech to the gathering of military commanders was bad. The president’s was unhinged. Tom Nichols: The Commander in Chief Is Not Okay. “It’s one thing to serve it up to an adoring MAGA crowd: They know that most of it is nonsense and only some of it is real. They find it entertaining, and they can take or leave as much of Trump’s rhetorical junk-food buffet as they would like. It is another thing entirely to aim this kind of sludge at military officers, who are trained and acculturated to treat every word from the president with respect, and to regard his thoughts as policy.”
+ The speeches were laughable. What’s happening inside the Dept is no laughing matter. WaPo (Gift Article): Pentagon plans widespread random polygraphs, NDAs to stanch leaks. (A Pentagon determined to go to war with the American people is now even declaring war on itself.)
“One might assume that Mary Tyler Moore would have wanted The Hat from the opening titles of her 1970s hit series, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” In what may be the most famous freeze frame in television history, Ms. Moore’s character, a Midwestern sunburst named Mary Richards, removes her tufted tam-o’-shanter and, right in the thick of bustling Minneapolis foot traffic, tosses it skyward — as purely ebullient an image as Hollywood has ever produced. The moment has been aped by “Scrubs” and “The Simpsons,” and immortalized in bronze at the site of the throw. In an opening title sequence that was forever being tweaked throughout the show’s seven seasons, The Hat was a constant. So: How did she manage to keep it?” NYT (Gift Article): She Turned the World On With Her Smile. But Where Will the Hat Land?
It’s Mourning in America: “The merging of state power and economic power around one man who accepts that power as his due would not be possible without the algorithmic grift that has so all-consumingly captured our attention. The internet and the people who, for all intents and purposes, now own it have excelled at making Trump good at authoritarianism. They commodified information. They quelled regulation. They escaped blame for degrading collective action while raking in profits for spectacles of violence that degradation predictably produces. Now, via their president, they are using it to crush the First Amendment, to supercharge the Second Amendment, to stand up bot armies and real armed militias to defend their ownership of your civil liberties.” Tressie McMillan Cottom in the NYT (Gift Article) with a really good essay that ties together the administration’s authoritarian leanings, the consolidation of media ownership, and the attack on free speech. Mourn, or Else.
+ No Hook From Crook for Cook: “While the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has repeatedly cleared the way for the president to fire leaders of other independent agencies, the justices have recently signaled that the central bank is uniquely independent.” Supreme Court Allows Lisa Cook to Remain at Fed, for Now.
+ Jane: “Jane Goodall, one of the world’s most revered conservationists, who earned scientific stature and global celebrity by chronicling the distinctive behavior of wild chimpanzees in East Africa — primates that made and used tools, ate meat, held rain dances and engaged in organized warfare — died on Wednesday in California. She was 91.” Jane Goodall, Eminent Primatologist Who Chronicled the Lives of Chimps, Dies at 91. (Might be a good time to watch the documentary Jane, on Hulu and elsewhere.)
+ Familiar Figure of Speech: “The current group is headlined by actor and activist Jane Fonda — whose father, actor Henry Fonda, was one of the early members of the first Committee for the First Amendment, which was founded in the 1940s to oppose the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee.” Hundreds of celebrities relaunch a McCarthy-era committee to defend free speech.
+ We Better Talk About Fight Club: There’s a growing number of Americans who think violence might be necessary to get the country back on track. (And the recent gains are mostly among Dems.)
+ Use Your Noodle: “Doctors are warning of a food trend inspired by the popular Netflix movie “KPop Demon Hunters” that is leading to serious burn injuries. The trend involves children and teens imitating a scene from the hit streaming movie by eating hot instant noodles, but doctors say it has become dangerous.”
“When the bear, nicknamed Chunk, lost two finals in a row, he gained a reputation as a loser. When Chunk mauled and killed the cub of Grazer, last year’s winner, he gained a reputation as a sore loser. When Chunk dragged away the carcass of another dead bear in order to eat it, he gained a reputation as just kind of a bad dude. Chunk is trouble. Chunk is a fat bear; no one denies this. But he reported for competition this spring in a new and unlikely role: that of underdog. Chunk showed up in June with a huge scar across his muzzle, and a broken and dislocated jaw, almost certainly received in battle with another male during a mating-season fight. It’s unclear which bear would dare tussle with the 1,200-pound Chunk, one of Katmai’s largest bears, but for once in his life, Chunk got his sh-t rocked.” Chunk Overcomes Murder Rap, Broken Jaw To Win Fat Bear Week.
2025-09-30 20:00:00
Speak softly and carry a big stick. That was the core phrase behind President Theodore Roosevelt’s Big Stick Diplomacy; an American value that has apparently been replaced by something more like, Look what a big d-ck I have diplomacy, as Pete Hegseth turned a massive gathering of more than 800 military commanders into something that resembled a product launch for a new Low T miracle cure. “In the days before the event, Democratic lawmakers and military specialists questioned the cost and disruption to daily operations caused by the meeting, as well as the security risks of concentrating so many top military commanders in one place. All, it appeared, for Mr. Hegseth to be able to lecture military leaders with decades of combat experience on an enhanced ‘warrior ethos’ in a forum that was televised live.” During the meeting, the president ominously argued that “we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.” And he was referring to American cities. Loud talk and big sticks coming soon to a military theater near you… NYT (Gift Article): Trump and Hegseth Recount Familiar Partisan Complaints to Top Military Leaders.
+ “President Trump did not have many bad things to say about America’s foreign adversaries. He spoke about Vladimir Putin in largely neutral terms (only saying he was ‘disappointed’ in him) and barely mentioned China. He did, however, speak with great moral clarity about certain classes of Americans whom he views as a grave threat: The American left: ‘They’re really bad. They’re bad people.’ Again, he’s talking about Americans here. His own domestic political opponents: ‘They’re vicious people that we have to fight, just like you have to fight vicious people. Mine are a different kind of vicious.’ American journalists: sleazebags.’ Residents of American inner cities: ‘animals.” The most consequential parts of the commander-in-chief’s speech were the sections in which he attempted to prepare flag officers for increased deployment of the military in American cities … He said America is ‘under invasion from within.'” (That’s true, but not in the way Trump means it.) The Bullwark: Trump prepares the generals for what comes next.
+ While Trump is trying to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War, it sure seems like he and Hegseth are mostly preparing the department to fight the culture wars. Trump and Hegseth declare an end to ‘politically correct’ leadership in the US military.
“During the first eight months of his second presidency, Donald Trump has tried to hollow out the federal workforce by any means possible, including paying more than 200,000 people not to work, disassembling entire agencies via the Department of Government Efficiency, and fighting in court any effort by employees to hang on to their job. This week, Trump could try his most audacious move yet: using a government shutdown to conduct mass firings.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Trump’s Grand Plan for a Government Shutdown.
+ The big question for now is whether the Dems hold the line and try to defend health care (and whether or not, in this environment and with their current messengers, that message can even break through). Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries face a big leadership test in the shutdown fight.
“Fever ravaged the body of 5-year-old Suza Kenyaba as she sweated and shivered on a thin mattress in a two-room clinic in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The pigtailed girl who liked pretty dresses was battling malaria and desperately needed medication that could save her life. That medication, already purchased by a U.S.-taxpayer-funded program, was tantalizingly close — a little more than seven miles away. But it hadn’t reached the clinic where Suza was being treated because President Donald Trump’s suspension of foreign aid had thrown supply chains into chaos.The injections Suza needed had traveled thousands of miles to the Central African nation, USAID and other records show, only to be stranded in a regional distribution warehouse in the same city where she was gasping for air. Less than a week after her symptoms began, Suza was dead.” WaPo (Gift Article): Trump’s USAID pause stranded lifesaving drugs. Children died waiting. (Does the Nobel committee have a prize for this?)
Tilly Norwood is an actress looking for representation in Hollywood. That may not seem unusual for a new performer looking for fame. But here’s the twist. Tilly Norwood is AI. Creator of AI Actress Tilly Norwood Responds to Backlash: “She Is Not a Replacement for a Human Being.”
+ “Two years after AI protections for both writers and actors ruled the Hollywood labor strikes, production studio Particle6 is introducing an AI-generated ‘actor’ it hopes can rival real-life human movie stars like Oscar winner Natalie Portman and Oscar nominee/accidental AI symbol Scarlett Johansson.” Vanity Fair: AI ‘Actor’ Tilly Norwood Is Young, Ambitious—and ‘the End of the Industry as We Know It.’
+ Take a look at this video from Particle6 that features Tilly and is completely AI generated.
Godzilla v King Kong “We are no longer in a world where broadcast pioneers like Capital Cities/ABC’s Tom Murphy and local community owners who believed in acting in the public interest have any role. Courage in the face of governmental criticism and governmental power is barely present. Consolidation into behemoths with interests beyond the airwaves and the digital platform now rule. Whether it is Disney or Paramount, Universal or Nexstar, it is all about the bottom line, and the fear of retribution by a thuggish regime means that every value beyond the money goes out the window.” Norm Ornstein: Will Our Corporate Media Godzillas Have the Guts to Defend Democracy? “Five companies—five—now control 90 percent of the media marketplace.” (Here’s one clue: YouTube agrees to pay Trump $24.5m to settle lawsuit over account suspension.)
+ Lookie-Loo Larry: Since only a handful of people are gaining control of nearly all media, it’s worth noting how they think about things. Larry Ellison once predicted ‘citizens will be on their best behavior’ amid constant recording. Now his company will pay a key role in social media. “Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.”
+ Orange Pilled: “The White House is planning to unveil a direct-to-consumer website for Americans to buy drugs, dubbed TrumpRx, while also announcing that Pfizer plans to lower prices on several of its medications in the U.S., according to people familiar with the matter.” White House to Announce ‘TrumpRx’ Drug-Buying Website, Deal With Pfizer. (I guess the domain TrumpRex was already taken…)
+ Job Corpse: “It’s not just recent college graduates who are struggling to find entry-level positions. Out-of-work mid-career employees are taking part-time jobs, and hiring has stalled in industries from professional services to manufacturing. More than a quarter of the jobless have been out of work more than a half-year — the highest share since the mid-2010s excluding the pandemic-era years.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): Millions of Workers Are Left Out of the ‘Low-Hire, Low-Fire’ US Job Market.
+ Switching Sides: “When the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Shamil Lukozhev was sure he’d die. The Russian soldier feared he’d be shot because he wouldn’t be able to pull the trigger on his own gun. He couldn’t bring himself to kill someone who was defending their homeland. More than 3½ years later, Mr. Lukozhev says he has no problem shooting at those he once served alongside.” Globe and Mail: The Russian reversal. A unit of deserters fights for Ukraine and hopes for Putin’s downfall.
+ Binded With Science: “Dr. Agarwal is among more than 20 researchers who have left their work at Meta, OpenAI, Google DeepMind and other big A.I. projects in recent weeks to join a new Silicon Valley start-up, Periodic Labs. Many of them have given up tens of millions of dollars — if not hundreds of millions — to make the move.” NYT (Gift Article): Top A.I. Researchers Leave OpenAI, Google and Meta for New Start-Up. “Periodic Labs aims to build artificial intelligence that can accelerate discoveries in physics, chemistry and other fields.” (Yes, more of this. I can figure out how to write my own emails…)
+ Beneath the Ice: “The move is a striking about-face, just a few days after the Department of Homeland Security released a statement denouncing the officer’s conduct as ‘unacceptable and beneath the men and women of ICE.'” ICE officer seen on video pushing woman to ground has returned to duty.
+ Talking Shop: “OpenAI said it will allow users in the U.S. to make purchases directly through ChatGPT using a new Instant Checkout feature powered by a payment protocol for AI co-developed with Stripe. The new chatbot shopping feature is a big step toward helping OpenAI monetize its 700 million weekly users, many of whom currently pay nothing to interact with ChatGPT, as well as a move that could eventually steal significant market share from traditional Google search advertising.”
“Although consumers have traded down to less expensive private-label versions of coffee, peanut butter, syrup and chips, butter is a different story. Once people have tasted better butters, they don’t want to go back, said Lydia Clarke, co-owner of two Southern California cheese shops that sell specialty butters from brands including Rodolphe Le Meunier, Maison Bordier and Ploughgate Creamery. ‘You realize, ‘I can cut other things out of my life, but I cannot cut this butter out,’ Clarke said. ‘The world is on fire. We have butter and cheese.'” Bloomberg (Gift Article): The Latest Little Luxury: Fancier, Fattier Butter. (I mean, mediocre butter is pretty good, too.)
+ From the Swiss Alps to a solar eclipse: the 2025 Bird Photographer of the Year – in pictures.
2025-09-29 20:00:00
Here’s some good news. Young people are reading more than ever. Well, maybe it’s only good news relative to all of the other 2025 headlines, because what they’re reading isn’t books. It’s subtitles on television content that is being broadcast in their native language. I’ve notice this generational trend in my own household. A recent “poll finds that about 4 in 10 adults under 45 use subtitles at least ‘often’ when watching TV or movies, compared with about 3 in 10 adults older than 45. Those 60 and older are especially likely to say they ‘never’ use subtitles.” (It’s interesting that the worse our hearing gets, the less likely we are to use subtitles.) The question of course is why so many people want to watch television subtitles on shows in their own language. There are a variety of reasons including this: “About one-quarter of subtitle users say they turn on captions because they are watching while multitasking.” Why many young adults turn on TV or movie subtitles. This actually relates somewhat to the model I’ve adopted when it comes to consuming 24 hour cable news panels. I turn off the subtitles. Then I mute the sound. Then I change the channel.
“At least four victims have died and eight others were injured after a shooter opened fire at and set fire to a Mormon church some 50 mi. north of Detroit Sunday morning. Hundreds of people were attending service at a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc Township, Mich., when a man rammed the vehicle he was driving through the church’s front doors, stepped out of the car, and opened fire.” What to Know About the Michigan Church Shooting.
+ Of course the political angling around the latest shooting began almost immediately. There are reports that the attacker “was an Iraq war veteran who had previously shown support for Donald Trump.” Whether it’s this incident or one of the other endless parade of shootings that have plagued America, I don’t find I have much interest in the political leanings or motivations behind them. I am against those who commit mass murder. I am against the wide availability of automatic weapons that make it possible for them to kill their victims much faster. And I am against those who seek to gain political advantage from mass murders, especially those who have supported policies that make these actions more likely.
“Mr. Musk, who spent more than $250 million to help elect Mr. Trump, had celebrity, access to the president and political capital that the budget director could never hope for. But Mr. Vought (pronounced ‘vote’) had something Mr. Musk did not: He had done his homework. In the months since Mr. Musk fell out with the president, Mr. Vought has at last begun to put his plans into action — remaking the presidency, block by block, by restoring powers weakened after the Nixon administration. His efforts are helping Mr. Trump exert authority more aggressively than any modern president, and are threatening an erosion of the longstanding checks and balances in America’s constitutional system. Now, as the government heads toward a shutdown when federal funding lapses on Tuesday, Mr. Vought, 49, is leveraging the moment to further advance his goals of slashing agencies and purging employees.” Russell T. Vought is having a moment. Actually, he’s having a lot of them, and he’s been preparing for them. NYT (Gift Article): The Man Behind Trump’s Push for an All-Powerful Presidency.
+ Meanwhile, Trump is set to meet with Congressional leaders as a shutdown looms (I suppose a day before a shutdown is as good a time to finally meet as any). Among other things, health care hangs in the balance. Here’s the latest from CBS.
Avner Harari was a convicted assassin known as ‘the Terminator’ who spent four decades in prison. But for much of that time, he longed to become a famous singer. So he gave it a shot. When it didn’t go as well as he expected, Harari reverted to his original career. He started targeting those who wouldn’t play his music with car bombs. From the always excellent Jeff Maysh, this is the true story of Israel’s singing hit man. FT: The mafia hitman who dreamt of being a pop star.
Peace Sign? Trump and Netanyahu are meeting at the White House to discuss the latest peace plan. It’s unclear if Bibi or Hamas is on-board with the current framework. It’s also a framework that counters in many ways what Trump has said in the past. Let’s hope this time is different and there’s progress. This is what we know about the peace proposal and here’s the latest from BBC and NBC.
+ It’s Mine All Mine: “The Trump administration on Monday outlined a coordinated plan to revive the mining and burning of coal, the largest contributor to climate change worldwide. Coal use has been declining sharply in the United States since 2005, displaced in many cases by cheaper and cleaner natural gas, wind and solar power. But in a series of steps aimed at improving the economics of coal, the Interior Department said it would open 13.1 million acres of federal land for coal mining and reduce the royalty rates that companies would need to pay to extract coal.” ‘Mine, Baby, Mine’: Trump Officials Offer $625 Million to Rescue Coal.
+ Cup and Saucier: This year’s Ryder Cup was one of the best ever on the course. But, in some ways, the play was overshadowed by the often remarkably poor behavior by fans. With Ryder Cup over, Rory McIlroy admonishes fans over behavior.
+ State of the Arts: “Jared Kushner’s private equity firm and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund are some of the investors teaming up to take the video game giant private.” $55 Billion Deal for Electronic Arts Is Biggest Buyout Ever.
+ Comedy is Not Pretty: “The existence of a Saudi Arabia comedy festival has been on the periphery of my mind for a few weeks, but there’s no more ignoring it. It’s finally here. The Riyadh Comedy Festival kicks off on Friday and runs for two weeks, and judging by the lineup, many famous comedians have no qualms about cashing that check and ignoring the human rights abuses.” Defector: All Your Favorite Sellouts Will Be At The Riyadh Comedy Festival. And from NPR: Marc Maron, Human Rights Watch and others slam Saudi comedy festival. From Maron: “The same guy that’s gonna pay them is the same guy that paid that guy to bone-saw Jamal Khashoggi and put him in a f***ing suitcase. But don’t let that stop the yucks, it’s gonna be a good time!”
+ Hip Hop: Bad Bunny revealed as Super Bowl half-time show performer. This is an especially interesting pick as Bad Bunny has been avoiding any US tour dates because of ICE actions.
+ Black Diamond Run: Polish climber makes history skiing down Everest without bottled oxygen (and it’s not like he took a chairlift to the top, either).
“About 58 million pounds of corn dogs and other sausage-on-a-stick products are being recalled across the U.S. because pieces of wood may be embedded in the batter, with several consumers reporting injuries to date.”