What Pittsburgh Lost This Month With the Post-Gazette and City Paper both ending publication, the Steel City will have increasingly few ways of knowing itself.

I reflected on these closures on my Substack:

open.substack.com/pub/allenwar...

So sad to hear about both the @post-gazette.com and @pghcitypaper.com shutting down this week. I’m not sure what Pittsburgh journalism will look like on other side of this.

'Mephisto' Won't Save Us, But It May Keep the Antifascist Fire Burning Klaus Mann's account of the fall of the Weimar Republic is too self-assured, but its parallels with contemporary U.S. politics are hard to ignore.

Klaus Mann's Mephisto may not be the perfect book for the moment, but its parallels with the U.S. today are worth studying: allenwarren.substack.com/p/mephisto-r...

Recommend: KPop Demon Hunters. Stunning animation, a fun take on the hero's journey, and songs that all slap.

Have we had a song of the summer yet? Last year it was so clearly a competition between "360" and "Hot to Go" -- and I don't see anything approaching that so far in 2025. Am I missing something?

What would acting chalant look like? As opposed to nonchalant

I’m reminded of an anecdote I read about Chinese students in America being part of the reason China is unwilling to wage war with the U.S., since Chinese leaders have personal interests in the U.S. with their children. Is it worth testing that theory?

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the US will begin revoking the visas of Chinese students Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the U.S. will begin revoking the visas of some Chinese students, “including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.”

In 2020, a poli sci prof of mine was explaining to the class how who’s president has little effect on our daily lives. He asked if anyone’s life had been directly impacted by any of Trump’s policies. No one raised their hand.

I don’t think that would be the case today

apnews.com/article/inte...

Indie Game Music Contest: TetherGeist (O & Co. Games) — Allen Warren YouTube video by Allen Warren

For years, I've enjoyed writing music I'd imagine in video games. Now, I've gotten a chance to try just that!

I recently entered the Indie Game Music Contest, and you can vote for my entry to win the popularity poll! Check this link out for more: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gF6...

America needs fun names for congressional districts like Canada has for federal ridings. Who wouldn’t want to represent someplace called Notre-Dame-de-Grâce-Westmount or Nanaimo-Ladysmith?

More on the Duolingo Chinese update: you can now see a score for your learning progress, which was something I complained about being missing from this course in my blog post

Of course, a couple days after I publish this blog post, they update the course:

I just finished Duolingo’s Chinese course. What it does right — and wrong While learning Mandarin Chinese on Duolingo isn’t perfect, the app gets users learning grammar, characters, and even slang, with more features being added all the time.

And if you're curious about learning Mandarin Chinese on Duolingo, I recently finished the course! I wrote about it here: allenwarren.me/2025/04/22/d...

I met Duo the owl earlier this month, and he told me you need to do your Chinese lesson.

Officials celebrate new affordable housing in the Hill District Officials broke ground Tuesday on Herron Village Apartments, a development whose three buildings will house 12 affordable units and commercial space.

Is it /good/ we spent four years building 12 housing units in Pittsburgh? This a rate of building we're /proud/ of?

www.wesa.fm/development-...

The Nintendo Music app just published the soundtrack from the OG Legend of Zelda. Check out the Famicom’s version of the title track — the Famicom had additional audio voices, meaning that version of the song is a fuller version of the one North American fans are used to

I had been doubtful that we were going to have a "this is the crisis moment" with Trump, as opposed to "everything about this is a destructive catastrophe."

But the Abrego Garcia case is the crisis moment.

1/

Chart from YouGov surveys shows that 53% (21%) say Signal-gate is a very (somewhat) serious problem, compared in 41% (21%) in 2022 for Hillary's emails and 30% (26%) in 2015 for Hillary's emails.

@gelliottmorris.com's chart of the week shows us that more Americans consider Signal-Gate a serious problem than considered Hillary's emails a serious problem.

Also, why would Republicans want this? Don't they want the ability to be able to succeed a term-limited president? Is all their personal ambition going to remain circumspect to Trump's indefinite reign?

“A lot of people want me to do it” reminds me of Porfirio Díaz, who ruled Mexico for decades as a dictator, saying he ran and ran again claiming he was only doing so because the people wanted him to.

Trump won’t rule out running for a third term

No, there are not methods for running again.

abcnews.go.com/Politics/liv...

And they were so worried about her emails.

Visited some Civil War sites last weekend

#poetry #bskypoetry #harpersferry #antietam

I’m literally on a PRT bus route right now (36 Banksville) that would face elimination

PRT proposes service cuts, fare increases due to lack of state funding PRT has proposed a 35% service cut that will take effect in February of 2026.

Yinz, write your state legislators — this is scary

www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/n...

High-key surprised Jewels Sparkles didn’t call out Arrietty for stealing her jokes at any point during that episode… do I have respect for Jewels now? #dragrace

They’re not sending their brightest on this mission

apnews.com/article/dei-...

Is “prower” the male version of “prowess?”

Tl;dr, while on its face this executive order should not change much of American policy, it is indicative of the direction the current administration wants to take the American popular imagination, orienting it away from pluralistic, poly-cultural, and multi-lingual representative democracy.

Arizona Court Strikes Down Law Requiring English Use (Published 1998) Arizona Supreme Court overturns 1988 law requiring state and local government business to be conducted in English; measure, approved by voters as amendment to state Constitution, has never been implem...

I’d argue, though, that the longer-term impact will be on furthering these othering projects, of creating a culture where English is meant to be understood as the *only* language of discourse. Arizona during the 90s is an extreme example of this impact

www.nytimes.com/1998/04/29/u...