Like many people I’m pleasantly surprised by the overall result, given the dominant narratives going into the election. I’m dreading another Georgia runoff, though I’m optimistic about the outcome (more on that below) and I’m hopeful that the Dems can hold the Senate, and maybe even pick up a 51–49 majority that would diminish the […]
Elon Musk versus Hank Green, the online influencer who is everything Elon pretends to be. Since I left Twitter I’ve been fulfilling my social media dopamine needs elsewhere, which is how I learned that yesterday Elon Musk got in a fight about his new toy with Hank Green. It wasn’t a big fight. Elon is
The Founder and the Fraud Read More »
A letter to the editor in my local paper makes a point that we encounter regularly, and one that I believe holds us back. To paraphrase, the writer recommends a recent book, about the history of racist violence in New York State, be added to school curriculum. I fully agree with the letter writer on this
Redefining American greatness Read More »
Last night I watched the latest episode of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight, in which he did a deep dive on bail reform and the massive right-wing outcry against it. As always, Oliver presented a cogent, well-researched, and even entertaining video essay on the topic, and it’s worth watching if you haven’t already. The alarmist
Selling reform to the uninitiated Read More »
Today I pulled the last of our 2022 crop from our backyard garden. Overnight temperatures have been dipping into the low 30’s recently, and there was still frost on the grass when I went out at 9:30 this morning, so in all honesty it was probably past time. We didn’t get any tomatoes this year,
Last harvest of 2022 Read More »
I assume the New York Rangers’ marketing staff don’t know the significance of language about “The Storm,” and they aren’t intentionally trying to appeal to the QAnon crowd. Even so, it seems strange to use lightning as the motif for a playoff hype video when there is a rival team in the conference called The
“A Storm is Coming” Read More »
Online platforms are not owned by their users, and that’s something the users working to make them special must remember.
Elon buying Twitter is a good reminder about platform ownership. Read More »
The Krakoan era of X-Men comics (sometimes called “The Hickman Era) has revitalized my favorite comic book franchise. Inspired by that run, and by Connor Goldsmith’s excellent CEREBRO podcast, I have been re-reading all the X-books starting around the Australian Outback era in the late 1980s. I’m up to the line-wide relaunch in 1991, which
Rob Liefeld’s Anatomy (X-Men Reread) Read More »
My ballot is already in the mail, and we all know Joe Biden is going to win New York anyway. At least I got to vote for AOC for the first time. Anyway, I figured I’d do something worth my time instead, so I started reading Talia Lavin’s “Culture Warlords,” and let me tell you
I didn’t watch either of the dueling town halls. Read More »
Pete Buttigieg has a talking point he returns to often, in explaining his opposition to proposals that college should be free: He thinks millionaires and billionaires, who can afford tuition, should have to pay for it. He thus supports only means-tested tuition support programs, which are complicated and prone to error–see, for instance, the calamitous
On Free College for Billionaires Read More »
