New apt acronym for America’s lamest president: TACO, which stands for Trump Always Chickens Out. He should be hounded about his perpetual lack of spine…this is the sort of thing that really gnaws at fake strongmen.
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The curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull, a disputed femur and a...
The curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull, a disputed femur and a bitter feud over humanity’s origins. “‘This piece,’ he warned, holding it before her: ‘You forget you ever saw it.’” Great read.
This rings true: “Elon Musk is less like Tony Stark and more...
This rings true: “Elon Musk is less like Tony Stark and more like Michael Scott.” The future he’s selling us is Stark Industries but what we’re getting is Dunder Mifflin.
A Disillusioned Urban Planning Glossary. “NIMBY – Stands for ‘Not in My...
A Disillusioned Urban Planning Glossary. “NIMBY – Stands for ‘Not in My Backyard.’ From the Old English nimm bæc yarde, meaning ‘no change shall occur within sightline of my bird feeder.’”
Happy 20th anniversary to Swissmiss, Tina Roth Eisenberg’s design/creativity/positivity blog....
Happy 20th anniversary to Swissmiss, Tina Roth Eisenberg’s design/creativity/positivity blog.
The Great Span: President John Tyler’s Grandson Dies Aged 96
Born in 1790 just a few months after George Washington took office, John Tyler was America’s 10th president, serving from 1841-1845. Harrison Ruffin Tyler, Tyler’s last living grandson, died this past weekend at the age of 96.
As long as he lived, much of the great sweep of...
A recent study: “Ibn al-Shatir was the first astronomer to have successfully...
A recent study: “Ibn al-Shatir was the first astronomer to have successfully challenged the Ptolemaic cosmological system of planets revolving around Earth and corrected the theory’s inaccuracies about two centuries before Copernicus.”
Top 25 Premier League goals of 2024-25 season. I like a good...
Top 25 Premier League goals of 2024-25 season. I like a good screamer from outside the box as much as anyone, but where are the good team goals? Were there any?
Resourceful: “Shooting down a $100,000 Russian drone with an air-defense missile might...
Resourceful: “Shooting down a $100,000 Russian drone with an air-defense missile might cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. Shooting it down with a shotgun from a light plane might cost a few thousand dollars.”
How to Fix Grocery Stores: The Chewy Decimal System
Hank Green believes how grocery stores are organized is broken. (True.) His solution is to take inspiration from libraries and organize the shelves of every grocery store in the entire world according to the Chewy Decimal System.
TIL that maybe librarians don’t like the D...
This a great piece about the challenges many are facing in participating...
This a great piece about the challenges many are facing in participating in activism. “Nothing will feel like enough because everything we know and love is at stake.”
You can play Doom in this NY Times article about how you...
You can play Doom in this NY Times article about how you can run Doom almost anywhere (in a PDF, on an iPod, on a pregnancy test, on a treadmill, etc.) “Doom was developed in a really unique way that lent a high degree of portability to its code base.”
This looks really interesting: Rogue One recut and rescored in the style...
This looks really interesting: Rogue One recut and rescored in the style of a three-episode Andor arc that moves “its energy from emulating the jaunty, swashbuckling [original trilogy] to more in line with its prequel show’s feel”.
We’re witnessing the reversal of Reconstruction. “ICE raids are the new night...
We’re witnessing the reversal of Reconstruction. “ICE raids are the new night rides. Detention centers are the new plantations. The trauma, the terror, the family separations — they’re not unintended consequences. They are the point.”
View of Azalea Garden from Mt. Fuji, Hasui Kawase
I love this gorgeous woodblock print from Hasui Kawase, View of Azalea Garden from Mt. Fuji. Hasui was a significant influence on Studio Ghibli & Hayao Miyazaki.
After all, the influence of Kawase on Ghibli, Miyazaki and his team of genius illustrators and animators ...
It usually takes weeks to climb Mt Everest due to altitude acclimation....
It usually takes weeks to climb Mt Everest due to altitude acclimation. A group of British climbers did it in less than a week by inhaling xenon gas, which allegedly helps acclimatize people to high altitudes more quickly.
The Who Cares Era. “At a time where the government’s uncaring boot...
The Who Cares Era. “At a time where the government’s uncaring boot is pressing down on all of our necks, the best way to fight back is to care. Care loudly. Tell others. Get going.”
European airlines are redirecting flights from American cities to destinations like Canada,...
European airlines are redirecting flights from American cities to destinations like Canada, Mexico, and Brazil as “more passengers [opt] for destinations that offer smoother entry, better seasonal deals, and fewer political complications”.
Owls in Towels
These are owls in towels. That’s it, that’s the post. Nothing in the animal kingdom emotes better than an owl. (thx, david)
Tags: birds
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“Fascism sets in EXACTLY like this. Days go by. Nothing improves. The...
“Fascism sets in EXACTLY like this. Days go by. Nothing improves. The people wait with bated breath for SOMETHING or SOMEONE to help…”
Some photos, videos, and observations from a visit to a West Virginian...
Some photos, videos, and observations from a visit to a West Virginian snake handling church. “Chris Wolford, their pastor, handles snakes, drinks strychnine, brushes fire across his face and hands…”
The Crafters of Andor. Anil Dash has compiled the DVD extras for...
The Crafters of Andor. Anil Dash has compiled the DVD extras for Andor, an expertly crafted action drama about fighting fascism that also happens to be a Star Wars series.
For They Shall Inherit
It’s Friday and so we’ll end the week with a pair of poems. Good Bones by Maggie Smith:
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
This Be The Verse by Philip Larkin:
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
Those are just excerpts…click through to read the whole poems. I’ll see you next week.
Tags: Maggie Smith · parenting · Philip Larkin · poetry
A new offering from Swiss hotels: Bees & Friends. “We’re welcoming bees,...
A new offering from Swiss hotels: Bees & Friends. “We’re welcoming bees, butterflies, insects and hedgehogs with their own charming little homes, nestled right next to our hotels.”
Now on public display for the first time, at MoMA: a collection...
Now on public display for the first time, at MoMA: a collection of watercolor drawings of flowers by Hilma af Klint.
Apple TV+ and filmmaker Rebecca Miller are doing a five-part documentary about...
Apple TV+ and filmmaker Rebecca Miller are doing a five-part documentary about director Martin Scorsese.
The Problem with My City Is That It’s a City. “I moved...
The Problem with My City Is That It’s a City. “I moved to this city as a wide-eyed twenty-year-old, ready to take on the world with energetic abandon. Now, I’m no longer twenty years old. Something really has changed with this city.”
“Today, faced with a president who seemingly has no concern for constitutional...
“Today, faced with a president who seemingly has no concern for constitutional limitations, the carefully crafted restrictions of the Constitution appear to be unenforceable; the courts are ineffective, and Congress doesn’t seem to care.”
Old school food blogger Adam Roberts has a new novel out this...
Old school food blogger Adam Roberts has a new novel out this week called Food Person in which “a young and socially awkward writer takes a job ghostwriting the cookbook for a famous (and famously chaotic) Hollywood starlet”.
The Quilters
The Quilters (trailer) is a short documentary about a group of men in a Missouri prison who spend 40 hours a week making birthday quilts for foster kids and kids with disabilities.
The Quilters follows the daily lives of several quilters inside the sewing room at South Central Correctional Center, a Level 5 maximum-security prison in a small town two hours south of St. Louis, MO. From design to completion, the men reveal their struggles, triumphs, and sense of pride in creating something beautiful in this windowless, sacred space deep within the prison walls.
The Quilters is now available to watch on Netflix.
Tags: prison · The Quilters · trailers · video