Jason Kottke’s weblog, home of fine hypertext products since 1998
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“The future of the Department of Education — and of the students with disabilities who depend on it — will likely hinge […] on the world views of two billionaires who abhor what they perceive as weakness and waste.”
“We, the opposition, are the majority. Take heart,” says Hamilton Nolan. “How do regimes manage to impose minority rule on enormous populations? By getting the majority to give up. Don’t do that.”
Amid shortages of air traffic controllers & fatal aircraft events, the Trump administration has purged several hundred FAA employees. Casual detail: the firing email came from a Microsoft email address, not a .gov one. (But her emails, etc.)
From Heather Cox Richardson, an overview of what the Trump administration is doing in terms of foreign policy. Their war on liberalism in the US is being matched by a war against liberal democracies.
Nathan Zed argues that a lack of effort and vulnerability has made art, media, design, music, and architecture boring — that everything has the “soulless, monotonous no-personality vibe”. But artists like Tyler, the Creator; Chappell Roan; Doechii; and Kendrick Lamar are making trying cool again.
It has become uncool to just try. Like, just to put in some effort. Don’t do too much, okay, it’s embarrassing — just be nonchalant, be cool, be effortless. This has made everything boring! Everyone is too scared to try because that would be vulnerable. I feel like only now are we seeing a shift back to people putting in effort and being rewarded for it.
Tags: music · Nathan Zed · video
man the crazy thing about babies is that like, some people would think that reading a baby a book about farm animals is teaching them about farm animals, but really it’s teaching them about the concept of a book and how there’s new information on each page of a single object, but really, beyond that, it’s teaching them how language works, and beyond that it’s really actually teaching them about human interaction, and really really it’s them learning about existing in a three-dimensional space and how they can navigate that space, but actually, above all it is teaching them that mama loves them.
Allegra Goodman writes about the “life-saving power” of listing to audiobooks (Austen, Caro, Dumas, Voltaire) with her son. “We spent hundreds of hours together and had a respite from each other too.” I *love* listening to audiobooks w/ my kids.
Wes Anderson’s next movie is called The Phoenician Scheme, an “espionage comedy-drama thriller” that will be released in US theaters in May 2025. Stars Benicio del Toro, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, ScarJo, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Willen Dafoe, etc.
Deadline: “Starz has acquired the rights to Miranda July’s buzzy novel All Fours to develop as a TV series.” I wonder if July herself will be starring…
From Nolan RoYAlty (cReAtor of oNE Million chEckBOXES), A globAL CAPS LOCK. “whenever AnYONE running the CLIENt Presses caPs LOck, it PRESSEs for everyone ELsE.” (i wrote tHIS POST WItH IT.)
Really interesting essay about organizing: How Much Discomfort Is the Whole World Worth? “If we cannot organize beyond the bounds of our comfort zones, we will never build movements large enough to combat the forces that would destroy us.”