Marc Hogan

Ok NC, who's seeing Wooden Wand today?

YouTube video by MyRhythmNSoul TV Wilson Pickett - Love Will Keep Us Together (Soul Train 1976)

#RIP Neil Sedaka
My favourite Sedaka song is "Love Will Keep Us Together".

Here are two outstanding versions:

Wilson Pickett on Soul Train, 1976
www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY1T...

The Captain & Tennille on The Midnight Special, 1975
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivJq...

Epstein Received Sensitive Military Intelligence Amid Gates Foundation Polio Campaign in Pakistan Justice Department emails show that Epstein helped the Gates Foundation gain access to the Taliban—and received confidential reports and intelligence on Pakistani military operations.

It will be lost in today's news, but @dropsitenews.com is doing amazing work digging into the Epstein files, and its revelations that Epstein involved himself in the polio eradication campaign with the cooperation of the Gates Foundation is just jaw-dropping. www.dropsitenews.com/p/epstein-se...

look, i don’t want to tell folks how to “do bluesky correctly,” but I’m begging you to add an avatar image and not use numbers in your name.

[Lee was]a man willing to walk away from things, so it made sense to be curious why Lee had walked away from the religion that was once tethered to him. And it's not like Lee was obligated to discuss Scientology with me; he could have said no comment, and that would have been it. But once he did start talking about it-and talking about talking about it-at length, on the record, with the tape recorder running on the table in front of him, it became part of the story. The subtleties of politeness in interviewing public figures can be debated, but the obligation to honestly recount what takes place in those interviews, both pleasant and unpleasant, cannot. He took us on that path together and there was never any going back.

Sometimes as journalists it’s helpful to explain how the job works:

-Interviews are voluntary! (tho you could argue elected officials have a moral obligation to answer a reporter’s Q’s)

-An interview subject can’t unilaterally decide certain topics are limits. What they CAN do is decline to answer

yesterday Conde's biggest cover story of 2025 (I think it's safe to say) got nominated for an ASME: a cover story about a trans woman, produced by a team that i helped guide as a trans person. and in the 11 months since it came out, they got rid of almost all of us

One question interview with Heavenly By the time the great British band Heavenly first rattled my ears in the late ’90s, their music seemed to have become synonymous with the word “twee.” I loved the sound, but the language felt too tigh...

Everyone calls HEAVENLY “twee” but I wondered if they like harsh music

substack.com/home/post/p-...

Worth remembering that Ellison’s foray into college football ended with Michigan missing the playoffs and losing to its arch rival Ohio State for the first time since 2019

Not Yet Rated In a tumultuous month for private credit markets, another potential concern for asset allocators looms from perhaps an unlikely source: the umbrella group representing state insurance regulators. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners is working on a new framework for due diligence of credit rating providers, said Nathan Houdek, insurance commissioner of Wisconsin and chair of the NAIC’s financial condition committee, in a recent webinar by S&P Global, With Intelligence’s parent company.     The regulatory group is working to determine how suitable the ratings from credit rating providers really are, according to Houdek. “We often like to say that we’re moving from blind reliance on CRP ratings to informed reliance,” Houdek observed. A new NAIC procedure will allow state regulators to challenge credit ratings that differ from the group’s valuation assessment by at least three notches. Set to take effect in January, the challenge process has been delayed pending system updates, said webinar moderator David Knutson, head of industry outreach for S&P Global’s chief client office. “The demand for private credit literally could materially change overnight, depending on an NAIC policy,” Knutson told The Allocator  in an interview.    

As the NAIC develops its new framework, chief investment officers — at insurance companies and beyond — are left to play wait and see. “I don’t know what the outcome is going to be,” Knutson said. “It creates a lot of uncertainty.”     In the meantime, a representative of a big GP group is urging the NAIC to be open about the next steps.    “The CIOs of insurance companies really have a strong aversion to what they consider uncontrollable or unpredictable risk,” said Joe Engelhard, Americas head of private credit and asset management for the Alternative Investment Management Association, in the webinar.  Engelhard continued, “We believe it’s very important for the NAIC to implement this new authority in a very clear and transparent manner that will reassure insurance companies and investors [and] at least remove the expectation of significant unpredictable outcomes.” One non-U.S. regulator, the Bermuda Monetary Authority, recently dropped ratings firm Egan-Jones — an early leader in the private credit market — from its list of recognized credit rating providers. With some investment industry observers lately speculating that Blue Owl’s shift on redemptions might be private credit’s “canary in the coal mine,” LPs allocated to private credit surely have more urgent worries. But as the year goes on, they may want to keep an eye on the NAIC, too.    As they (used to?) say in the television business, it’s all about the ratings. —Marc Hogan

More work I can share without a paywall: As concerns about private credit hit the mainstream, a group of regulators is working on changes that, I'm told, could shift the demand for the asset class "overnight." My latest for The Allocator/S&P Global. pardot.withintelligence.com/e/284832/l-2...

G. G. Santiago Obituary February 21, 2026 - Billing Funeral Home View G. G. Santiago's obituary, send flowers, find service dates, and sign the guestbook.

Sad to read that G.G. Santiago, creator of “Rainbow Brite,” has died. Her obit is quite moving. ♥️ www.billingsfuneralhome.com/obituaries/g...

I feel bad for everyone who says "I asked ChatGPT for advice" instead of just adding "reddit" to whatever what was their search term or topic

YouTube video by DRAGUNOFF Heebie Jeebies-Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five

cut in Chicago 100 years ago on this date: a wonderful, joyous, swinging record. Armstrong was far from being the first to scat, but he did it masterfully here. Nothing would be the same afterward for Armstrong, for jazz, for US pop music: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksmG...

Gotta tip your cap to @sollenbergerrc.bsky.social for scooping everyone on this.

He was also in the band Rooney?! people.com/ned-brower-r...

The Tinkers fought for free speech in public schools These Iowa siblings were suspended for protesting the Vietnam War at school. They took their case to the Supreme Court — and won — in Tinker v. Des Moines.

“we have to be willing to pay that price to be uncomfortable sometimes, otherwise, we don't have education and we don't have democracy.”
www.iowapublicradio.org/arts-life/20...

"'King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizards'? I thought it was King Gizzard and the Lizard *Wizard*." - the 7-year-old listening to KEXP again, mishearing the DJ

turns out Lucid Express is On Here ™
@lucid-express.bsky.social
I have updated my starter pack accordingly
#shoegaze

I don't know that any social media platform is good for you but the stated intention of the owner of twitter is to make you worse and studies are now showing that he's having some success with that. This isn't esoteric, everyone knows it. So at this point being judgmental about staying there is fine

The 7-year-old, after hearing my ponderous explanation about a Numero Group reissue that Eva Walker is currently airing on KEXP: "So, it's as good as new."

Just made an internet appointment with Google and it didn't even show up in my Google Calendar, what even is the point of this panopticon

I am never going to get over the fact thar so many Americans died that corpses stacked up in nursing homes and hospital morgues, that refrigerator trucks had to be brought in for the overflow, and that the big takeaway from Important Pundits is there should have been *less* mitigation.

The Iowa State student government has rules that say you cannot use your elected position for personal gain. The President of the student government took a paid position that was dependent on being president and signed an NDA to try to hide it. He was impeached.

YouTube video by KEXP Angine de Poitrine - Full Performance (Live on KEXP)

After seeing this in my feed repeatedly I'm finally watching it and... it could not possibly be more My Kind of Thing. Points of comparison: Magma, Lightning Bolt, Tune-Yards... maybe Bastro? A groovier Ruins? That one super-distorted 1970 video of Fairport? www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ssi...

In 2025, Democrats Flipped 21 Percent of GOP-Held Legislative Seats The party secured strong gains reminiscent of 2017, our annual review of state legislative results shows. They won multiple new seats in New Jersey, Virginia, Iowa, and Mississippi.

Iowa Republicans last year lost their supermajority in the state Senate, which means they can no longer confirm appointees of Governor Kim Reynolds on a party-line vote.

never close your tabs /thread

A Peanuts comic strip from 1973, by Charles M Schulz.

I regularly see people wondering how it's possible that there are so many musicians and writers and film makers and artists from a tiny nation like Iceland.

And the answer is really simple: State funding for art education and artists. I literally get a salary from the government to write books.

Once every six months I log on here to tell everyone why this place sucks compared to Twitter and start crying when people don’t welcome me with open arms.

Still slightly blown away by this the morning after. Hints of the live band that was Ladies and Gentlemen era Spiritualized, nods to the HEY WHAT Low tour. Basically no-one else is putting a bass-clarinet into a ton of effects to make slowcore hyperpop breakdowns that audibly rattle an entire venue.

I don’t know who needs to hear Jesse Jackson leading the kids on Sesame Street in this beautiful call-and-response reminding them that every child is somebody, but here it is