Chris Van de Ven

Nice. Life goals right there.

If you want the maps to be compared to each other, then they should all have the same range so people can know that dark green means the same thing on all the maps.

I'm so sorry for you and for the loss of such talent to Nat. Geo. Outsourcing maps? What a tragedy.

What musicians did after an executive order on DEI led to the cancellation of U.S. Marine Band collaboration After an executive order ending DEI initiatives, the U.S. Marine Band canceled a concert featuring young musicians of color. Veterans stepped in to mentor the aspiring musicians.

Well done, 60 Minutes.

F MAGA to the ends of the Earth.

www.cbsnews.com/news/concert...

Dear World, (An Apology From Decent Americans) Dear World,

We're sorry to the leaders of the world, who instead of being met by level-headed, measured, intelligent dialogue, are now greeted with the incoherent rantings of a perpetually-furious man-child.

johnpavlovitz.substack.com/p/dear-world...

A two-panel meme featuring characters from *The Simpsons*, with an added image in the top left corner. In the first panel, Bart Simpson looks distressed, saying, "THIS IS THE MOST EMBARRASSING DAY TO BE AN AMERICAN." In the second panel, Homer Simpson, kneeling beside Bart, responds, "THIS IS THE MOST EMBARRASSING DAY TO BE AN AMERICAN SO FAR." The added image in the top left shows convicted felon Donald Trump and weirdo JD Vance in conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in the Whitehouse. The meme humorously suggests that American political moments continue to reach new levels of embarrassment.

The Project 2025 Tracker is an agency-by-agency list of how far Project 2025 has succeeded in its goals. It's an amazing bit of work by people trying to keep tabs on everything - not just the stuff making headlines. Check it out: www.project2025.observer

Changing Labels in Esri Vector Basemaps Esri Vector Basemaps provide the flexibility to make custom changes to map labels on the map by quickly editing the JSON through our VTSE.

ESRI is updating their basemaps automatically to incorporate The Gulf of America starting tomorrow 2/20.
Unrelatedly, here's a workflow that you can use to manually edit your vector basemap labels: www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/...

Ah the scents of rural Wisconsin...

Google officially changes the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America on Maps Portrait of Fernando Cervantes Jr. Fernando Cervantes Jr. USA TODAY

Google Calendar removes Pride, Black History Month, and other events from millions of devices worldwide https://www.gbnews.com/tech/google-calendar-pride-black-history-month-removed

We think they should be powerful enough to afford principles. They think they have a lot to lose (and they lost their "don't be evil" motto a long time ago). Google, you coward, you quisling.

Elon Musk’s rapid unscheduled disassembly of the US government Notes from another week of Musk’s coup.

Just in case you weren't up to date on the last week's activities by Musk & Co. One of my personal most dispiriting quotes "...breaking the law is okay, as long as Trump thinks it’s okay. And since Trump is effectively Musk’s puppet, Musk has carte blanche."
www.theverge.com/elon-musk/60...

Dear Fellow College Presidents: We Need to Do More Than Wait This One Out Why civil society needs university leaders to speak up.

This, from the president of Wesleyan U, is excellent.

“Authoritarians have long known that total control will elude them if they don’t eradicate the autonomous support engendered within civil society by cultural, religious, commercial, and educational institutions.”

slate.com/life/2025/02...

Now do horses per capita

I'm keeping a running list of disappearing federal data in the 🧵 below. If there are others I missed let me know. crampell[at]washpost[dot]com or Signal username crampell.13

I recently reposted a former congressional staffer who said that when an issue got 20-30 calls it would get representatives freaked out and ready to do something. It takes less than you’d think, because so few people actually take that kind of action

What are you doing to prepare? If I may be so bold...