Julian Lucas

How Capitalism Took Over the World

I've been reading Sven's book, and it is terrific and groundbreaking. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/b...

TRUMP [after spending 5 minutes with Zohran]: surplus value, it’s a very wonderful thing, very wonderful, and they’re stealing it. Can you believe that?

We’re going to be looking very strongly at the bourgeoisie, what they’re up to

Sanford grandfather, born in refugee camp, nabbed by ICE after 70 years in U.S. Paul Bojerski never gained official residency, but he checked in regularly with ICE for years. Then in July, at age 79, he was detained and sent to Alligator Alcatraz.

79-year-old Paul Bojerski was born to Polish parents in a WWII German refugee camp. His family legally emigrated to the U.S. when he was 5.

He’s been taken by ICE in Florida.

www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/11/16/s...

Trump Administration to Drastically Cut Housing Grants

This is far worse than anyone expected.

Trump's HUD plan would cut *two-thirds* of permanent housing and push as many as 170,000 formerly homeless people back onto the street—redirecting funds to work mandates, forced treatment, and encampment sweeps.

All as mass internment camps are being built.

We gotta have a clear term for people so cynical they become gullible.

Benjamin Lay was out there THROWING FAKE BLOOD on Quakers in the damn EARLY 1700s because HE KNEW that enslaving Africans was a SIN, INHUMANE and should end IMMEDIATELY.

Republicans took away your healthcare. We refused to fight back. Please rush us $3

Europeans recognize Zohran Mamdani’s supposedly radical policies as ‘normal’ Critics of New York City’s mayor-elect have said his pledges of free bus service and universal childcare are unrealistic, but in Europe it’s a given

Quite a headline.

The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands The short documentary “Rovina’s Choice” tells the story of what goes when aid goes.

One analytical model shows that, as of November 5th, the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. has already caused the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/jUzNSc

Statement from The NewsGuild of New York and Condé United on illegal firing of four union leaders who demanded answers about this week’s layoffs at Teen Vogue, other brands Late Wednesday night, Condé Nast’s VP of Labor Relations notified the Guild that the Company was immediately terminating four Condé United leaders for engaging in the protected concerted activity of gathering in their 1 World Trade Center office to demand answers on this week’s abrupt layoffs at multiple brands including WIRED and the consolidation at Teen Vogue. These egregious terminations are a flagrant breach of the Just Cause terms of our contract and an unprecedented violation of their federally protected rights as union members to participate in a collective action. Through these illegal terminations, Condé Nast management is attempting to intimidate and silence our members' advocacy for the courageous cultural and political journalism of Teen Vogue, as well as diverting attention away from the obvious lack of corporate leadership at the company. Condé United members illegally fired are: Alma Avalle: Writer, digital producer at Bon Appetit; NewsGuild of New York first vice president, trans activist, and union leader Jake Lahut: Wired senior reporter covering the Trump White House Jasper Lo: Senior fact checker at The New Yorker and US Army veteran: outgoing first vice chair of The New Yorker Union Ben Dewey: Videographer at Condé Nast Entertainment, former vice chair of the CNE unit “Management’s attempt at union-busting, using intimidation and grossly illegal tactics to try to suppress protected union activity, will not stand,” said Susan DeCarava, president of The NewsGuild of New York. “The NewsGuild of New York has zero tolerance for bad bosses who harass, target and disrespect our fellow Guild members. We represent nearly 6,000 media workers across the tri-state area and we stand firmly in solidarity, ready to fight for the rights of our members illegally fired from their jobs at …

Breaking News: Late last night Conde Nast illegally fired 4 union organizers who asked company execs to explain the downsizing of Teen Vogue and continued layoffs. We’ve filed a grievance.

according to the liberation newspaper, documents dating back to a 2014 inspection by the French National Agency for the Security of Computer Systems reported a staggering detail: "the password of the louvre's video surveillance server was simply " louvre. "

the password to the louvre surveillance server was "louvre"

www.thesocialpost.it/2025/11/02/f...

Zohran Mamdani caught lying that he understood Plato’s allegory of the cave, yet when asked to explain it, he seemed to instead explain Baudrillard’s theory of Simulacra and Simulation where reality has been replaced by symbols and signs, which seems similar to Plato’s theory but is not the same

Donald Trump threatens Nigeria with military action over violence against Christians US conservatives have alleged Islamist insurgents in the country are carrying out a genocide

What kind of fresh hell is this? Trump is taking white, Christian nationalism to... Nigeria, with the world's largest Black population. (Read the quotes.) www.ft.com/content/d0c7...

Grokipedia Is the Antithesis of Everything That Makes Wikipedia Good, Useful, and Human Grokipedia is not a 'Wikipedia competitor.' It is a fully robotic regurgitation machine designed to protect the ego of the world’s wealthiest man.

“Wikipedia has proven itself to be incredibly resilient because it is a project that specifically leans into the shared wisdom and collaboration of humanity . . . That is something that an LLM will never be able to compete with.” www.404media.co/grokipedia-i...

“In the Heart of the Moon” with late kora great Toumani Diabaté is also incredible

the absolute king youtu.be/cQPFijGyZ_E

Judge Skeptical Over Trump Administration Decision to Suspend Food Stamps

Just so we're clear: This administration's blatant, unapologetic choice to deny food to 42 million people—to have the money sitting there and say, "No, we'll let them go hungry"—is simply a more overt display of why homelessness and poverty keep worsening in this country.

Because it's *decided.*

The Spiritual Jazz of Alice Coltrane | Adam Shatz Alice Coltrane reinvented her adoptive Hinduism by interweaving it with the music of the Black church.

I’m not a believer but I very much believe in the power of Alice Coltrane’s work. In the new @nybooks.com I write her musical and spiritual journey. www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

Being historically illiterate costs us a lot.

Makaya McCraven • 4 EPs: The People's Mixtape / Techno Logic / PopUp Shop / Hidden Out!

October 31 • International Anthem

intlanthem.bandcamp.com

Evernote home page with some bullshit about your second brain.

Don't know if any of you have ever been tempted to use Evernote, but any company that eliminates their free tier AND makes current users subscribe to extract their own data is little better than a protection racket in my book.

We Used to Read Things in This Country | Noah McCormack Technology changes us—and it is currently changing us for the worse.

“The elites are ecstatic about imagining a vast, uneducated, and unproductive population forced to pay companies like OpenAI to access the written word and to approximate thought”

thebaffler.com/salvos/we-us...

Again, not the most important here, but I'm begging for a journalist to figure out how/why NPS put up a Confederate statue DURING A GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN. How is this "essential" when food stamps are not?

Jack DeJohnette, the renowned jazz drummer who played in Miles Davis’ electric period band and one of Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time, has died at age 83.

Access the free article here: www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...

TThe first thing you see is a horse’s ass, protruding, upside down, from the thorax of a monster. A man’s arm descends from the beast’s stomach, his gloved hand clutching the blade of a fallen sabre. There’s no sign of a rider’s face, but a head of well-coiffed hair dangles from the creature’s eyeless muzzle. Every part of the work comes from a statue of the Confederate general Stonewall Jackson that was removed from Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2021. It was subsequently given to the artist Kara Walker, who carved it up in accordance with a butcher’s diagram. The finished sculpture, “Unmanned Drone”—on view at the Brick, in Los Angeles, as part of a joint exhibition with MOCA called “Monuments”—is at once an act of carnivalesque retribution and a recognition of the Confederacy’s zombie-like persistence. A rebellion defeated more than a hundred and sixty years ago refuses to stay dead; between the creature’s legs, a horse head emerges from a gape in the bronze, like a new Jackson already foaling.

As the Trump administration pushes for the restoration of Confederate monuments, Kara Walker has turned one an undead centaur. My review of “Monuments,” an extraordinary show that juxtaposes the lies of the Lost Cause with the black histories they eclipse
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Kara Walker Deconstructs a Statue, and a Myth

You should also read @siddharthamitter.bsky.social’s great piece on how this came to be www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/a...

TThe first thing you see is a horse’s ass, protruding, upside down, from the thorax of a monster. A man’s arm descends from the beast’s stomach, his gloved hand clutching the blade of a fallen sabre. There’s no sign of a rider’s face, but a head of well-coiffed hair dangles from the creature’s eyeless muzzle. Every part of the work comes from a statue of the Confederate general Stonewall Jackson that was removed from Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2021. It was subsequently given to the artist Kara Walker, who carved it up in accordance with a butcher’s diagram. The finished sculpture, “Unmanned Drone”—on view at the Brick, in Los Angeles, as part of a joint exhibition with MOCA called “Monuments”—is at once an act of carnivalesque retribution and a recognition of the Confederacy’s zombie-like persistence. A rebellion defeated more than a hundred and sixty years ago refuses to stay dead; between the creature’s legs, a horse head emerges from a gape in the bronze, like a new Jackson already foaling.

As the Trump administration pushes for the restoration of Confederate monuments, Kara Walker has turned one an undead centaur. My review of “Monuments,” an extraordinary show that juxtaposes the lies of the Lost Cause with the black histories they eclipse
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

NOVEMBER 3, 2025 THE ART WORLD RECONSTRUCTED In "Monuments," the Confederacy surrenders to nineteen artists. By Julian Lucas 6:00 AM Picture is the statue described in img 2

•he hirst thing you see is a horses - ass, protruding, upside down, trom the thorax of a monster. A man's arm descends from the beast's stomach, his gloved hand clutching the blade of a fallen sabre. There's no sign of a rider's face, but a head of well-coiffed hair dangles from the creature's eyeless muzzle. Every part of the work comes from a statue of the Confederate general Stonewall Jackson that was removed from Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2021. It was subsequently given to the artist Kara Walker, who carved it up in accordance with a butcher's diagram. The finished sculpture, "Unmanned Drone"—on view at the Brick, in Los Angeles, as part of a joint exhibition with MocA called "Monuments" —is at once an act of carnivalesque retribution and a recognition of the Confederacy's zombie-like persistence. A rebellion defeated more than a hundred and sixty years ago refuses to stay dead; between the creature's legs, a horse head emerges from a gape in the bronze, like a new Jackson already foaling.

well this kicks ass www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Residents climb up the wall with ladders during the annual replaster of the Djinguereber Mosque, also known as Djingareyber or Djingarey Ber, in Timbuktu on October 12, 2025. The 2025 replaster marks the 700th anniversary of the construction of this mosque, erected in the 14th century during the reign of Emperor Kankou Moussa. (Photo by Hameye Capii/AFP)

Building up: The annual replastering of the Djinguereber Mosque, also known as Djingareyber, in Timbuktu. It was erected in the 14th century during the reign of Mansa Kankou Moussa and is 700 years old.

Photo: Hameye Capii/AFP

Opinion | What Happened in Gaza Might Be Even Worse Than We Think

The whataboutism on Gaza really rankles, especially for those of us who have spent our careers reporting on the crises Israel's defenders cynically invoke as so much worse than Gaza. I wrote about how it actually compares, and what the true toll may be. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/23/o...