bluesky isn't behaving, so all I see is a field of white

gonna go with leukostasis

view looking through wrought ironwork down onto a busy square. there are trains and throngs of people

Public Square, The Terminal Tower at 5 00, as seen through a Willamson Building Grill, Cleveland, Ohio
Margaret Bourke-White, 1928

cover of Kaptain Kool and the Kongs s/t LP (Peter Pan Records, 1978?)

I do not regret to inform you that we are going to win

I can just shuffle the meme cards in the archives and find something that works.

Trump: open the Straits
Iran: no
Trump: you are totally destroyed we won
Iran: we’re good
Trump: we don’t need the damn Straits
Iran: ok cool
Trump: someone help
World: new phone who dis
Trump: the Straits will open themselves
Iran: lol no
Trump: we will blockade the Straits
Iran: um ok thanks

This is such phenomenal news! 🎉Congratulations to the coalition that has been tirelessly pushing the Community Trust Act, which includes @acluofmaryland.bsky.social, @wearecasa.bsky.social, and so many individuals contacting their MD reps every day till this got done.

Whil we’re waiting to see what happens in the Hungarian election, here’s something I wrote in 2013 about Orbán attacking cultural dissenters and handing control of arts institutions to loyalists. Remarkable how much of this has now been replicated in the US www.newyorker.com/books/page-t...

YouTube keeps feeding me anti-DPA ads that are all trying to play on my sympathy to older people who won’t be able to afford their medication deliveries and I’m sorry, but the Duane Reade will still deliver your prescriptions for free. This is about paying deliveristas for the work they do.

Girlfriend (Matthew Sweet album) - Wikipedia

Early-90s CD bloat: If this had been released in 1986, it would have been 45 minutes long and just about perfect. But because it was released in 1991, it's an hour long, and four of the last five songs are weak as hell.

UW graduate student deported through SEA as protesters demand answers A union representing University of Washington graduate student workers says Kennedy Orwa’s student visa was rescinded without explanation.

Our PhD student Kennedy Orwa, who studies applications of AI to health care, was hastily deported today to Kenya along with his 13-year-old son without opportunity to speak to legal counsel.

King 5 reports that he held a valid visa that was rescinded without explanation.

Reclaiming Medicaid from MCOs in Maryland The future of Maryland’s health and our state budget can benefit greatly by removing MCOs. With 1.5 million Marylanders covered by Medicaid and 85% of those individuals enrolled in one of the state’s ...

Narrow networks. Denials. Delays. A 13% overhead rate. Things don't have to be this way.

my what an invigorating cocktail of relief, anger and anxiety

Counterpoint: Every year, "means-testing" across Medicaid, CHIP, SNAP, etc entails a multi-billion dollar transfer of state and federal tax dollars to third party consultants who build and maintain these systems of administrative burden

Are We on the Brink of a Global Debt Crisis? The economic shocks from Trump’s war on Iran are undermining countries’ reliance on U.S. debt and fiat currency. If this snowballs, America has the most to lose.

"Imagine trying to roll over maturing sovereign debt equivalent to 24 percent of your national GDP at the exact moment your fuel import costs are exploding and foreign capital is fleeing for safety."

Sleater-Kinney's Dig Me Out came out the same day. Mixed messages.

Cover of the day

Ravenous Is a New Worker-Owned Food Culture Media Company For too long, food media has felt toothless. Help us take a bite out of it.

We are Ravenous — food media with teeth. Ravenous is worker-owned food and culture media company founded by @francesdoingthings.bsky.social, @aemccarthy.bsky.social, @jayasaxena.com, @shokdiesel.bsky.social, and
@thecourtneyesmith.bsky.social.

if anyone is looking for a primer on this stuff, this (from Feb 2025) is worth your time

if nothing else, listen to the bit starting at around 38:15

I'm a bit of a broken record on this, but usurping the power of the purse isn't just one constitutional violation among all the many others. It is, uniquely and singularly, the death of constitutional government altogether. Game over, end of story, you now live in an autocracy.

“We’ll be able to fire so many of you! And the remaining few will need to do the work of six people while strapped to a hallucinating machine that obliterates your ability to think critically!” Has not been an enticing sales pitch 🤔🤔🤔

Health Insurance Claim Denied? See What Insurers Said Behind the Scenes Learn how to request your health insurance claim file, which can include details about what your insurer is saying about you and your case.

When an insurance company is deciding whether to pay for your medical treatment, it generates a file, which should contain all records associated with your case, including documents explaining why the claim was denied.

You have a right to see this file.

(Published May 2023)

Gavin Butt, No Machos or Pop Stars: When the Leeds Art Experiment Went Punk (Duke University Press, 2022) Yet another excellent monograph to be published by Duke University Press that we’ve indexed recently, Gavin Butt’s forthcoming No Machos or Pop Stars: When the Leeds Art Experiment Went…

Bought this the other day. It's three or four books down in the queue, but looks promising:

The drama's done. Why then here does any one step forth? -- Because one did survive the wreck.

Nurul Amin Shah Alam's death was a homicide County medical examiners announced the ruling on Wednesday. New York Attorney General Letitia James is investigating.

"Instead of trying to assist him, officers tased and arrested him. He was incarcerated for a year before his release, when Border Patrol in effect dumped him."

A single vote for Trump in the birthright citizenship case would be as bad as anything the Court has done since Bush v. Gore. This issue has been settled for more than a century. It is the jurisprudential equivalent of asking what 2+2 is. Any answer other than 4, something is deeply, deeply wrong.

I live down the street from a place that makes 7 million songs a day