Raul Gutierrez

apple.news/ALFNuZvSCQ0y...

A Two-Headed Coin That Always Comes Up ‘Trump’

Even Roman emperors had the humility to limit themselves to one side of the coin. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/09/u...

I picked the last tomatoes of the season from our tiny Brooklyn terrace garden. The blustery day was the perfect sendoff.

Hmm. Do we want a device with basically one app and one interface and everything else embedded inside? I feel stifled just thinking about it.

Shhh. Let's not make the lines too long.

I agree, but also I think it's also worth noting that in our fragmented media environment, there's no journalist in America with anywhere near his stature or reach. Gone are the days when we had trusted voices of reason that were almost universally trusted.

The bot phenomenon is both obvious and terrifying. If you track them they seem to run on regular outrage cycles of 2 / 3 major stories and a few subplots per week. Recent topics: the rapture, witches, magic bullets, crime in Europe... basically anything to promote outrage.

@picturestudio.bsky.social

Quick tour of tonight's socials:
-Tiktok: it's all about the rapture. Happening tomorrow apparently.
-X: people are in a lather about Trump's elevator (not joking)
-Threads: Kimmel and Tylenol
-NextDoor: as per usual porch pirates dominate
-and on Facebook it's some rando's birthday.

I read the capitalized Gasoline in Mad Max voice.

Secret Service traced swatting threats against officials. They found 300 servers capable of crippling New York’s cell system | CNN A Secret Service unit set out to unmask the layers of burner phones, changing phone numbers and SIM cards that were swatting American officials. It ended with the largest seizure of SIM servers and ca...

Detailed explanations of the recently uncovered cell network:
www.cnn.com/2025/09/23/u...
apple.news/AJgADLZxuQR6...
I'm curious how this story plays out.
Was it:
Garden variety spam network sometimes used to swat people?
or
Sophisticated state actor priming for chaos and testing the gates?

Graffiti on a pillar in 34th Street subway station: "We live in a time of perpetual disappointment. Find grace in yourself."

It's interesting to compare the models to photos of the places he was looking at....

It's sort of hard to believe Trump has *any* latino support at this point. I mean they are arguing out loud for straight up racial profiling. I have family in South Texas whose ancestors lived there since Texas was Tejas who now feel the need to carry a passport and birth certificate at all times.

I'm genuinely baffled by the world as presented by TikTok. Are we roiling in nihilistic hatred, or is this algorithm tuned to inspire despair?

Fun to see it come around again. That kid is 20 now btw!

Someone outside my window in Brooklyn:

"But if you don't love me who you love?"
long pause
then
"Ok. I guess I understand. Bye."

How the United States became a science superpower — and how quickly it could crumble US global dominance in science was no accident, but a product of a far-seeing partnership between public and private sectors to boost innovation and economic growth.

How the United States became a science superpower — and how quickly it could crumble

I’m going to try to escape this hot, humid, gloomy bad news day by doing good work, fixing stuff, and hanging out with old friends for dinner.

Tiktok is schizophrenic tonight.
1: a teen in Tehran picking oranges in her backyard as jets fly above
2: Pedro Pascal lookalike contest
3: Israelis dancing in bomb shelters
4: BBQ techniques
5: A backpacker eating a yak burger
6: russian disinfo re ukraine
7: A tank shooting hungry people in Gaza

‘I’m not a criminal’: Military wife detained, deported at Honolulu airport U.S. border officials denied entry for Nicolle Saroukos, who says she was "treated like a criminal."

This performative cruelty is a gross inversion of our values: www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2025/05/24/i...

In the last few weeks I’ve seen a) a car hit a pedestrian on the sidewalk b) a bike hit a mother carrying a baby in a sling and c) a bike hit a dog.

I was hit by a motorized bike.

All were running red lights. Everyone would benefit from slowing down a bit.

I'm being targeted for ads by Hobby Lobby's new Tribeca store. Every single part of that sentence is an abomination.

It is 3:18am. Brooklyn is finally quiet. Even the mockingbird in the oak tree out back has finally given up.
I am WIDE AWAKE. I don’t know why. Usually I sleep like a baby…
Actually I do know why… some people I care about are sick and I’m far away. It is these moments I miss a sky with stars.

Same with books btw.

When a group of people is railing against empathy you know they've lost the plot.

One of the small pleasures of a midtown office is looking out the window into the other windows and trying to figure out what's going on. I love witnessing moments that will never sense, but that will linger for long time in memory.

I just saw a a striking older woman woman gliding down Madison Ave in a silver dress that made her look like she had beamed in from another planet where everyone wears silver shimmery things and hover rather than walk. Everyone noticed her, but nobody turned their head, only their eyes.

You are kind. I wrote these as a series adding one each year, as my kids grew from 1-12. The only other one still online is here. www.mexicanpictures.com/headingeast/...
I miss blogging as part of my daily routine. www.mexicanpictures.com/headingeast/...
www.mexicanpictures.com/headingeast/...

It’s funny I posted this about 17 years ago as a blog post and every few years it comes around. It seems to have a life of its own.