On some whim or other…

good morning Madrid 🌱

Barnes, first page. Please tell me this is on purpose bcse…

What French Romance Novels Could Tell Us About A.I. and Translation Jobs

No thanks. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/15/w...

ICE plans to spend $38.3 billion turning warehouses into detention centers ICE plans to spend $38.3 billion converting warehouses into detention centers, according to planning documents, more than the annual budgets of 22 states.

Not to mention that $38.3 billion could do a lot of good elsewhere. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Highly recommend this book by Carlos Manuel Alvarez (translated by Natasha Wimmer.)

I studied the latest Epstein files. As a woman, this is what I felt They show a hidden world oiled by porn-saturated misogyny. I spent two days reading them

It’s really breaking to keep hearing, reading, learning about this but… read this article by @helenrumbelow.bsky.social: www.thetimes.com/article/3c43...

We’re all already taking deep breaths, so take another and have a read to this article. Alec Russell’s editorial professionalism apparently knows no bounds.

The scaffolding barriers are the perfect touch.

“How to avoid the mistakes of one’s parents, find solitude as well as human connection, survive in a violently polarized country, and deal with the absurdity and pain of life? Shepard could pose these questions in his dramas but could no more answer them than any other artist.”

From the Archive – Trust: Hernan Diaz On Power, Silence & Who Gets To Tell The Story Podcast Episode · Service95 Book Club With Dua Lipa · 07/15/2025 · 47m

If you’ve read Trust, you’ll want to listen to this interview/convo with Hernan Diaz — and Dua Lipa, whose books podcast does indeed live up to the hype. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...

Proving to be the perfect back-to-work-after-a-long-holiday (plus I-need-a-few-minutes-away-from-the-news) read.

The Rise and The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire — JMW Turner

The Gaza bookshop that refuses to shut As bombs fell and famine took hold, Samir Mansour kept delivering books

“The bookshop was open. She went inside, and the wooden shelves were still there, stacked with books. Her body felt quiet. ‘Things we love still exist in Gaza,’ she thought.” giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Sky and sea combo.

Sir Tom Stoppard obituary One of Britain’s most outstanding playwrights famed for the ‘hypnotised brilliance’ of his prose and dialogue

We are so lucky to have this body of work in existence.
www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/n...

How the Web Was Lost | James Gleick The Internet was not meant to suck.

"But software doesn’t eat anything. Tech companies do, when they gain the power to use the levers of the information economy to consolidate and dominate." @around.com on "How the Web Was Lost" for @nybooks.com: www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

I keep coming back to this week @ftweekend.com column from Janan Ganesh re: the cosmopolitan conservative. www.ft.com/content/9875...

Weekday mornings I don’t listen to story formats on the radio because, the news! news! news! But this BBC Witness History episode about Haitian singer, dancer, and folklorist Emerante de Pradines is so interesting… couldn’t switch away: bbc.com/audio/play/w...

Unsubscribing from one newsletter a day for the rest of my life.

Ta-Nehisi Coates on Bridging Gaps vs. Drawing Lines Podcast Episode · The Ezra Klein Show · 09/28/2025 · 1h 9m

This convo, it’s also about the decisions behind when and why we choose to write: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

Segovia on a weekday 💙

Pentagon imposes new restrictions on media outlets The Department of War's new guidelines, stated in a memo to reporters on Friday, September 20, require them to pledge not to cover anything that is not formally authorized for publication and limit th...

This is what it sounds like:

"Information must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified.”

www.lemonde.fr/en/internati...

An Essay Contest Winner Used A.I. Should She Return the $1,000 Award?

“‘Writing is utter solitude,’ Kafka is said to have lamented, ‘the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.’ For students today, it may feel more like a cozy group chat with an algorithm.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/m...

church, parque del oeste

How to be elite in the age of populism, with the FT’s Roula Khalaf Podcast Episode · Mixed Signals from Semafor Media · 09/05/2025 · 44m

Who appointed you to decide our future?

—the Q Roula Khalaf puts to this generation’s tech leaders/scientists who, as a whole, seem to be convinced that they have the truth, that they are building a better future for all of us.

Mixed Signals @semafor.com: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/m...

This FT piece from @faniaoz-salzberger.bsky.social is worth taking the time to read. Gift link: on.ft.com/41xdSYg

The Typical College Student Is Not Who You Think

What US higher education really looks like:

- 43% of undergraduates attend community college
- 20% of undergrads are parents, 1.4 million of whom are single mothers
- 26% of students take classes exclusively online
- 25% live w/their parents
- 10.8 mil owe +$44,000
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/u...

Israel Kills 5 Palestinian Journalists, Dismissing Global Calls For Press Freedom Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the bombing of Nasser Hospital that killed journalists and medics a "tragic mishap."

>> The Israeli military carried out what’s called a double-tap strike: the first missile hit the hospital’s roof and killed a Reuters journalist during his livestream, followed by a second missile that hit first responders and reporters responding to the initial one.
www.huffpost.com/entry/israel...

Recent economics PhDs are having new and unusual trouble entering the job market. May not seem relevant for non-academics but it is —for what it says abt the link btwn education and upward mobility, the structures supporting public research, how policy is informed, and for US competitiveness.