Existence of Mamdani in the media criticism discourse is so useful because it demonstrates what the media could be doing to Trump if they ACTUALLY thought that he was an aberrant threat to our Republic. Not that you need to do this for Trump but: You can just write negative stories based on nothing!
Going to spend the rest of the evening writing a 3000-word Substack essay on how I asked a flagship AI model to overlay the lines of imperial partition on a map of the 1950s Polish rail network and it invented East-Central Grussia.
This thread -- & the thread it links to, & @jamellebouie.net's original insight -- are super-important to understand. To the average Ivy-educated, DC-centric journalist, the MAGA base is almost entirely theoretical. They don't know any genuine MAGAts, they just construct a Noble Savage imaginary.
Fair play, 'the mad emperor started compulsively buying shoes for his court, guessing their foot size & his courtiers were too scared not to wear them even when they didn't fit' is some classic, on the nose End Days Of The Empire stuff
Had to take AI training today and the example use case was writing a thank you email to your team for successfully completing a project. Listen, if writing a thank you is too hard, try walking into the ocean.
We're bringing back every part of the Y2K zeitgeist, including the grumpy old man "I don't want a mocha-choco-latte, just GIMME A CUP OF COFFEE" energy
Absolutely incredible choice for an op ed in these United States in 2026
I think this deserves at least as much sustained attention from US media as Claudine Gay's dissertation
Rod Serling is probably the coolest guy of the 20th century. Looked cool, sounded cool, fought Nazis, hated John Wayne, wrote the screenplay for Planet of the Apes. Honestly dunks all the hell over any male influencer guy.
It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there
— William Carlos Williams, "Asphodel That Greeny Flower"
“You being / inside / means / you’re already hurt.”
— Isabelle Correa
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.
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This poem appeared in Good Girl and Other Yearnings by Isabelle Correa, published by Write Bloody Publishing, 2025. Shared here with deep gratitude.
Jon-Hamm-in-30-Rock-ass coffee
if you were to write a prophecy of the future back in 2000 that "in 2026, President Donald John Trump has launched a war on Iran with Israel after previously attempting a coup to stay in power in 2020", people would think you've gone insane
Latest substack on Iran by @snellarthur.bsky.social is a must read
substack.com/home/post/p-...
I think about this Tony Benn speech much more than I used to
This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t
I can't fucking believe we're doing this again.
I hate that the debate we are constantly having in the 21st century is "we have to let the most evil fuckers alive do whatever the hell they want VS no we don't"
It’s unreal and I say this as a die hard John Carter fan
What's your personal/favourite crank/conspiracy theory?
Mine is that the weasel that burrowed into and ate wires in the CERN Large Hadron Collider messed with the space-time continuum and ultimately is the cause of a bunch of the wacky, unbelievably awful but obvious shit we've been living with.
everyone loved the tech industry's free music and friendship machines of 20-30 years ago. it's unclear what could be causing people to feel the opposite about the industry's new racism and insanity machine
douglas adams was our most accurate futurist
Change your gender, become a poet, catapult yourself into the sun. There are no rules. You can do anything you want.
Please read this poem
This is the way. When they come at us, we come back at them twofold. Raise that Pride flag every time they take it down. If they prevent that, surround the park with Pride flags. Ruin their petty little lives until they shit rainbows. Never stop. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/n...
I cannot stress enough how much these kinds of notes mean to teachers.
Or anyone, really. If someone has made a positive impact on your life, reach out and let them know. It'll make their week.
Cartoon. Person says to other person „We invented a robot that answers questions.“, adding, „we just have to feed it 10 baby giraffes a day“. The other person asks „But it answers the questions correctly?“ Person responds „Oh my goodness, no. No no no no no.“ By Aram J. French Appropriated due to missing alt text
Finished the winter term by teaching @sweetmachine.bsky.social's "Six Years After Obergefell, My Coworker Asks Me If My Marriage Is Legal in the State of Colorado" (www.limpwristmagazine.com/lw07) and "Escaping / Air" (riotinyourthroat.com/product/we-t...) & my students had great readings!
Bauer, who is 49, struggled to maintain her composure as she described the day early this month when ICE showed up in force outside her school. Agents had been circling the school since December, seemingly learning its routines, and they arrested some parents just before the winter break. But this time, agents leapt out in riot gear and began entering the apartments just across from the school, where many students live. “We had to lock down and keep the kids inside, and parents linked arms to block the school entrance,” Bauer said. “We had a student who was looking out the window and saw them break into his apartment and just sobbed, ‘That’s my house. That’s my home.’ And we shut the blinds, but it was too late.”
The terror that ICE and CBP have inflicted on the children of the Twin Cities is, by itself, a crime of scandalous proportions that will forever stain this country's moral fabric, and all those responsible should never know another day of peace. www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tired ants
Mood in minneapolis right now
part of this is like, conservatives projecting; part of this is conservatives unable to imagine politics without money; and part of this is dudes who are so out of touch with feminized labor that they think children's birthday parties exist as a spontaneous act of parthogenesis
