Sam Jack

Kansas House speaker waves white flag on special session as congresswoman considers Senate run • Kansas Reflector Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins said Tuesday that he didn't gather enough support from his Republican caucus to force a special session.

Kansas GOP today gave up on the idea of redistricting Sharice Davids out of her seat. She threatened to run for Senate, which severely diminished the GOP’s enthusiasm for the idea. kansasreflector.com/briefs/kansa...

@joshtpm.bsky.social Why aren’t Democrats pointing out that if Republicans don’t want to negotiate on the budget, they can eliminate the filibuster? That would seem to add clarity to the situation — and the filibuster will need to go anyway when it’s time for a bare majority of Dems to codify Roe.

Meanwhile, Meta’s social networks are glitchy nightmares, as anyone who has to deal with them for work can tell you.

Of course, the fact that this attack was illegal has its own consequences.

In Trump’s social media post, he seems to be at least suggesting that this was limited: U.S. goes in with the bombs, but now it’s out. All back to normal except now the nuke sites are destroyed. Is there any way that can be our reality? Or does this action commit the U.S. to future actions?

The phrasing “not only ___, it’s ___” is a favorite of ChatGPT. I’m seeing this formula crop up in online text and articles with astonishing frequency. Each time I see it now I’m annoyed by the suspicion that I’m reading cruft no one took the time to actually write.

Every time I hear the phrase “Liberation Day,” I think of the George Saunders short story where people are glued to a wall in a wealthy man’s home and forced to sing.

Thank you Anne! :)

Singing 'Ode to Joy' during days of disaster The Wichita Symphony Orchestra presents Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 this Saturday with a community chorus of more than 130 singers. For one chorus member, its famous anthem is a challenge to these dis...

My thoughts on Beethoven 9 and our current moment. I appreciate @awelsbacher.bsky.social’s working with me on this, and The SHOUT’s being receptive to it.

YouTube video by Juicy John 2 ROBLOX VERIFICATION IS OUT OF CONTROL!😡😡😡

Several kids trying to log in to Roblox at my library today ran into this insane 15-step Captcha. I tried to be sympathetic, but honestly… it was pretty funny. youtu.be/Nji8PFRUcsM?...

I started watching “Prime Target,” the new spy show on Apple, with my parents. It’s silly fun. Dad fished out these prime number discovery patents that he wrote and had issued for a Wichita inventor.

The federal dollars that Kansas stood to lose functioned as a form of pressure on Brownback and the right in Kansas; without that I wonder whether we’d have a Kansas Arts Commission today at all.

Yeah… and the destruction to be wrought by whatever they’re going to do to the NEA and NEH is just getting started. It’s not just the direct money that might go away, it’s all the activity and matching funds from state, local and private partners.

And like you said, it’s all interlinked nationally. WNO served as a training ground, commissioned new works, created co-productions with other companies. Alan Held, who’s a WSU professor now, sang Wotan there! All kaput, most likely. Sigh…

This could send Washington National Opera under, and it’s not as though new, big-time opera companies are getting started nowadays. So the end (or radical diminution) of WNO would represent more or less permanent damage to the artform and the opera industry in the U.S.

‘Avian Migrations’ bridges technological, organic modes of expression The Advanced Learning Library centerpiece is an interactive sculpture controlled passively by its patrons.

My latest for shoutwichita.com! Thanks to @johnharrison.cc, Lisa Rundstrom and Tom McGuire for tafor taking the time to chat with me about “Avian Migrations.”

In Ratmansky’s ‘Paquita,’ Worlds Collide to Make a Ballet Big Bang Alexei Ratmansky creates a joyful new “Paquita” for New York City Ballet, giving the dancers a classical frame in which to find new versions of themselves.

Beautifully-written review here.

Health Programs Shutter Around the World After Trump Pauses Foreign Aid (Gift Article) Lifesaving treatment and prevention programs for tuberculosis, malaria, H.I.V. and other diseases cannot access funds to continue work.

“Many of those interviewed broke down in tears as they described the rapid destruction of decades of work.” As a (formerly full time) reporter let me say: There’s a depth behind a dispassionate sentence like that. These reporters have had a close encounter with something truly outrageous and tragic.

New display at Newton Public Library: poetry + astronomy

Re-enjoying this Vasko Popa sequence, especially "The Dream of the Quartz Pebble." It's a legerdemain poem.

Wow, Ian Bostridge? Hi there! Your Rake’s Progress record was the first opera CD I ever bought :)

Contact | U.S. Representative Ron Estes I value all feedback from residents of my district. The best way to reach out is through online messages below or via phone: (202) 225-6216 for my Washington, D.C. office and (316) 262-8992 for my Wic...

Today the president stood up in front of the country and blamed the AA 5342 disaster on minorities and the disabled. Those who live in Wichita, I urge you to phone Rep. Ron Estes’s office today and demand that Estes denounce those comments. estes.house.gov/contact/

The spine of “Schubert’s Winter Journey” by Ian Bostridge. It is white with black text and includes inset footprints as though someone has walked through fresh snow.

I love the spine of this book with footprints in the snow.

If this includes USDOL administrative grants to state departments of labor, it could shut down the unemployment insurance system across the country.

Nice!

Awesome, I will also be there Friday with my parents :)

My latest for shoutwichita.com. Thank you Emily!

Call log showing multiple calls from the dept of justice

Sergeant Gonell @sergeantaqgo.bsky.social sent me this picture. This is his call log. Each call is an automated Dept of "Justice" notification saying "The defendant you testified against is being released from the dept of corrections."
Each defendant assaulted him.

A 2024 calendar in a trash can.

The old year gone. Hello the new

Today, I saw that someone covered up the opossum with white paint. So now, it's a blank sign with an irregularly-shaped splash of white paint in the middle. I think it's funny to imagine the little scene that must have played out when someone finally decided to eliminate this piece of "public art."