As much as I hate the attempt to dodge accountability for the things she personally did, I do appreciate someone who flips on the boss and helps roll them up.

The phrase "Left, Right, and Center unite against Tyranny" keeps coming to mind. Not that I know how to make that happen. But wouldn't it be nice.

Doomscroll 15: Quinn Slobodian - Joshua Citarella Artist and internet culture writer. https://joshuacitarella.substack.com/ https://www.patreon.com/joshuacitarella https://www.youtube.com/@doomscrollpodcast Follow: @joshuacitarella

Another one that got me thinking was this interview with Quinn Slobodian, professor of international history at Boston University, about neoliberalism and what it means in our present moment and historically. I disagreed with a lot, but his ideas helped me understand things pca.st/rb64dnp0

Is America broken? - The Gray Area with Sean Illing An exploration of our deepest political divide.

A recent episode of The Gray Area helped me to see our present moment in a light that makes a bit more sense to me - an interview with Alana Newhouse about her framing of the current ideological divide as between "brokenists" and "status-quoists" pca.st/ezb94hkl

I can't imagine trying to put together a cohesive show about our present moment that presents something like a solution; it feels very much (and for the first time in my 44 years on the planet) like we're riding the wave of history without a rudder.

American Billionaires are basically scammer barons. Change my mind.

From "The Old Regime and the French Revolution" by Alexis De Tocqueville

I'm all for the DEI policies. It's the term"buy-cott" that makes me feel like I'm being eaten by worms.

Stop trying to make "buy-cot" a thing. It's never going to be a thing.

Clipping from NY Times article by Noam Schneider that says "A few days after President Trump issued an order urging the private sector to end “Illegal D.E.I. Discrimination and Preferences,” the Rev. Al Sharpton led about 100 people into a Costco in East Harlem for a so-called buy-cott. The idea was to shop and support the company for maintaining its diversity, equity and inclusion policies amid pressure from the new administration."

Look. I'm basically a liberal in favor of well restrained capitalism these days, but this nonsense is cringe even to me.

I see your meme with California, Oregon and Washington joining Canada. Counterpoint; the new border runs due north through Oregon from California's Eastern border, then follows the Columbia River north to where the Okanogan joins it and follows the Okanogan up to join with Canada.

We're on the cusp of five year retrospectives on the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic - January 20 marks five years since the first confirmed US case in Washington. I think we're overdue for a big civic conversation about the lingering psychological and sociological impacts.

My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is still one of the best albums ever recorded.

I wonder whether the prevalence of Ozempic and similar drugs, which seem to operate on a mechanism of making people feel satisfied more easily, will have an impact (or, has impacted) politics. 5% of Americans or more are on these drugs, with higher numbers in more politically engaged demographics.

I imagine that graphic novelizations of literature might be a great accommodation for aphantasic kids who struggle in English classes. For most students, books without pictures are an essential way to connect with the vast world of literature, history, social science, and tons of stuff.

There is nothing wrong with graphic novels - it is absolutely reading and I get tons of pleasure from them. I don't know much about aphantasia but it seems like they're a help and I'm glad of it. My point is that learning to engage with a text that isn't illustrated is important for most kids.

Reading graphic novels is absolutely reading. Also, learning to engage with text without pictures is an important skill that isn't built by reading graphic novels. This is what most of the people you're arguing with are trying to express when they say it isn't really reading.

Apparently The Onion is starting a new service with jokes tailored for cultural elites called The Shallot.

What are your most important values? Here are some of mine in no particular order;

Compassion, nonconformity, authenticity, freedom, cooperation, community, pluralism, self-rule, kindness, forgiveness, joy

As a teen in the '90s I applied for an after-school job at my neighborhood Taco Bell. After filling out the application, they wanted me to complete a several-page personality inventory. I got about halfway through and decided I would prefer not to work for a place that would make me do that.

The fact is, engaging with and showing the inconsistency of a person's ideas is still the most powerful way to limit the reach of ideas you disagree with. I realize that sharing this opinion is likely to get me on some block lists, and that's fine. Nobody has to talk to me who doesn't want to.

On the second point, deplatforming is effective when the person you're trying to oust has less platform than you. Otherwise, rather than starving them of viewers, these efforts will ultimately extend their reach.

On the first point, if everyone is a Nazi nobody is a Nazi. Having the concept of Nazi remain as a strong taboo is important to me, and watering it down has the unintended impact of making actual Nazis seem more palatable to normies.

The only argument for banning them requires two (insane) logical jumps. One, it requires you to think of anyone whose opinion you disagree with on trans issues as an actual Nazi, and two it requires you to accept de-platforming as an effective tactic in public discourse.

I dislike calls for the ousting of people based on their opinions. Like, I'm not a fan of everything @jessesingal.com or @mattyglesias.bsky.social say by any stretch, but nobody's pointed to a single thing either has said on any platform that would justify a ban.

Are we really not reading this as satire? Because to me, it reads like satire.

One way governments try to forestall expressions of popular violence is through the application of state violence (either against the people or in an attempt to slake the people's lust for blood). Just something to remember.

The collective noun for deadline is ulcer.

And that there may be something worth keeping on either side of the "is God real" divide.