We will be known as a culture that feared death and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity for the few and cared little for the penury of the many. We will be known as a culture that taught and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke little if at all about the quality of life for people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a commodity. And they will say thatvthis structure was held together politically, which it was, and they will say also that our politics was nothing more than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of the heart, and that that hearts, in those days, was small, and hard, and full of meanness.

Mary Oliver
Of The Empire

from her book
Red Bird, 2008

There's something deeply obscene and broken about the fact that Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth are bombing elementary schools in an illegal war of aggression, and there's still a sense among the opposition that it has to be explained in terms of gas prices in order to get American voters to care.

Race as a construct is so powerful that only now are many people saying ‘they are killing us’.

They have been killing us. We have all been us the whole time.

Actually, they wanted the road AND the park. They wanted to share the space, to compromise—two concepts apparently unpopular with absolutists.

Let’s be accurate. It was not a ”freeway.” It was barely a highway. It had traffic lights every two blocks that strictly limited traffic to 25 miles an hour. It was bordered by a wide walking path, and the “highway” was only open to cars on weekdays.
Also, housing is an unrelated issue.

I wonder how much the voters on the North side would be willing to consider closing the Embarcadero or Bay Street?

District elections were put in place by progressives in opposition to downtown business interests. The big-money backers of Engardio do seem to be the 2025 equivalent of downtown business interests.
Sunset voters can’t do “whatever they want” but they can send a message to their supervisor.

There is a larger point. San Francisco instituted district elections for supervisors more than 40 years ago for a reason. Supervisors are elected to support their districts. His constituents told him they were opposed to the closure of the Great Highway. I think it’s called democracy.

Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.

If you're an author and haven't yet signed up for the Anthropic settlement, do yourself a favor (and strike a blow against AI) by checking to see if any of your books were involved.

www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

we gave people a magic device in their pockets with access to all the knowledge in the world and they used it to cook their brains with racist memes.

At least three of President Trump’s Cabinet members call multiple homes their primary residences on mortgages.

www.propublica.org/article/trum...

This is not heroic; it’s criminal. Make no mistake: denying people due process who are not enemies of the United States through extra-judicial executions is repugnant to everything this country is supposed to stand for like the rule of law.

everyone got SUPER mad at rachel zegler when she said this exact same thing

When I think about the fact that universities are ALSO supposed to be repositories of knowledge and expertise you can't get elsewhere (and not just job training or even educational enterprises) I immediately go to ancient languages. I don't think ppl realize you can just lose them

Joseph Haydn / Symphony No. 45 in F-sharp minor "Farewell" (Mackerras) YouTube video by scrymgeour34

Love this narrowly-focused radio station.

Makes everything seem so much more lovely and poignant than would otherwise be the case when going about one’s annoyingly tedious daily errands.

Website: handelandhaydn.org/radio/

Radio Garden: tinyurl.com/y2n5nk7f

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXct...

There's a traditional snack (called koba) made in Madagascar that's exactly the same as one made in Borneo—which helps prove that ancient seafarers from the latter traveled west, across 5,000 miles of ocean, and settled in Madagascar

A story more than 1,200 years old, through a snack

I've now been allowed and asked to share more details about what's going down at the University of Oregon, which involves imminent announcement of firings, among others, of tenure-track and tenured faculty. Given the units impacted (see below), please share this with your professional networks in related disciplines and start getting ready to put pressure (or begin putting pressure already) on the University of Oregon upper admin to abandon this alleged plan before they finalize it. It appears that, with no prior consultations, the departments of Religion and Classics (two separate units), and the programs in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, German & Scandinavian, Judaic Studies, Arabic Studies, and Holocaust Studies (the latter five all parts of a previously-consolidated mega unit called the Schnitzer School of Global Studies and Languages) are facing imminent announcement of elimination (expected the week of Sept 7), with layoffs of pre-tenure, tenured, and career faculty in these units. The reason given is "financial exigency" -- upper administrations of several universities across the country (and in blue states like Oregon also) appear to be giddy to use the context of Trump attacks on higher ed to dismantle the humanities. Faculty at OU won a faculty union not long ago; this may be, in part, a retaliation for that, I've been told. The union is working with AAUP, etc.; my understanding is that the maximum spotlight is needed at this point.

A massive attack on several humanities units (Arabic Studies, Judaic Studies, Holocaust Studies, Classics, Religion, German & Scandinavian, Russian/East European/Eurasian Studies) *and* tenure now unfolding at the University of Oregon (a blue state!). Closure of units and faculty layoffs threatened.

Jimmy Page with The Beach Boys - Philadelphia & Washington DC 1985 YouTube video by Mark Zep

And while looking for something else I found some footage of the show I was talking about earlier. Here's the Beach Boys, Jimmy Page, Joan Jett, the Oakridge Boys, and Christopher Cross with "Barbara Ann", with John Stamos and Mr T on drums and Brian Wilson on keytar.

In solitude the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself
Laurence Sterne

#Photography #Art #BlackAndWhite #Solitude #Nature #QuietMoments #Monochrome

A great-horned owl perches on a fence post in Longmont, Colorado.

#ClassicMono #Monochrome
#BW #Blackandwhite #EastCoastKin
#bird #birds #owl #owls #photography #photograph #photographs #photo #photos #nature #great-horned_owl #great-horned_owls

Black and white image of a weathered wooden gate set into a dry stone wall, with rough-cut stones stacked irregularly and tufts of grass pushing through the crevices. The scene is framed tightly, emphasizing texture and age. The gate is slightly ajar, hinting at passage or neglect.

Posting one image a day from my recent trip to the #cotswolds

Gate and Rock Fence, Cotswolds, UK
#classicmono #blackandwhitephotography #BWphotography #blackandwhite #monochrome

A long stone corridor with a vaulted Gothic ceiling, viewed in sharp perspective. Intricate tracery arches line the left side, casting shadows across the patterned floor. The corridor narrows toward a dark, closed doorway in the distance. The image is in black and white, emphasizing the depth, symmetry, and aged texture of the stone.

Continuing with a post a day from my recent #UK trip

The Cloisters, Gloucester Cathedral, UK
#church #blackandwhite #blackandwhitephotography #photographersunited #bnw #BWphotos #monochrome #classicmono

just imagine you are a dog and then all of a sudden a vacuum cleaner becomes the president

Morning estuary
#Scape
#FridayScape
#LandscapePhotography
#EastCoastKin
#Estuary
#Misty
#Mood

It's sad to know US scientists invented the most sophisticated weather forecasting models in the world, the satellites and instruments to measure atmospheric conditions, and an advanced alert system to warn the public of coming disasters, and the Trump administration is destroying it all.

Imagine the level of impunity you operate with to say this stuff out loud.😡🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🇮🇱

In case you need to send this to some dingus the next time they bring up how using AI is fine + good, actually.