Andrew 🧮

(my brain is not working today-- the building's correct name is El Palacio de Bellas Artes, not "del Bellas Artes")

**25% is not neglible by any means** and one's positionality changes this estimate (also, the data is from 2021), but perversely this was "small enough" for many Americans to shrug and overindex on prevention measures they perceived as disruptive pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

grim, this but strikes me as correct-- aside from certain exceptions (e.g., high-density places like NYC, & front-line HC workers), the toll of the pandemic wasn't experienced as mass-death. It was experienced stochastically; sometimes coworkers were sick, est. ~25% of people lost a friend/relative

Sign: "<< ELAVADOR AL MUSEO" The typeface could be said to belong to that of the art-deco movement, but it seems unique to me-- it's characteristic feature is the use of sharp angles and redundant lines within each glyph to accentuate the glyph's form.

Sign: "ENTRADA"

I would like to share one of my favorite things we found in CDMX, specifically the beautiful typeface used within the palacio del bellas artes

In 1854, after watching the federal government deploy 2000 federal troops and spend $40,000 sending Anthony Burns back into slavery, Boston's Amos Adams Lawrence said “we went to bed one night old-fashioned, conservative, Compromise Union Whigs and waked up stark mad Abolitionists.”

A stencil, featuring a depiction of a female statue/bust, captioned "NO QUEREMOS MUNDIAL ¡¡QUEREMOS AGUA!!" (we don't want the world, we want water)

Murals that encircle the monument to Benito Juarez while it's closed for maintenance. From left to right: 1. A man with butterfly wings, captioned "HOMERO VIVE". 2. The flag of Venezuela, with an obscured tired portrait looking outwards, captioned: "La Revolución Bolivariana NO SE VA" (the Bolivarian revolution is not going away). Below, more writing: "VIVA LA POESIA... MUERA LA POLICIA" (Long live poetry... death to the police). 3. A portrait of Renee Nicole Good, captioned "Justicia FUERA ICE" (Justice from ICE). 4. The Palestinian and Venezuelan flag side by side, captioned "VENEZUELA Y PALESTINA UN SOLO CORAZON" (Venezuela and Palestine, a/of one heart). 5. An outline of the country of Venezuela, colored according to the country's flag. An eagle (captioned with "USA") has torn off a shred of the red section of the flag. It is captioned "NO A LA GUERRA CONTRA LA REPUBLICA DE VENEZUELA" (No to war against the republic of Venezuela).

A cross-street view of the monument to Benito Juarez, surrounded by panels to keep visitors out (I assume during a period in which it's being maintained). The panels have been emblazoned with murals (including the ones mentioned in the prior two pictures).

last day in CDMX

- True believer - It is revolutionizing business and you need to use it now or be left behind - Allegories - It is a new kind of programming language, a higher level language - It is like automation in other industries, you must get behind it. - Economic theories - It will unlock productivity which will be rewarded - It will reward new categories of people who have not been rewarded, like ideas guys and people with existing wealth - Convert - I was skeptical, but after using it I love it - My very smart friend was using it, and now I do too - I have realized that it lets me do what I love, being an ideas guy, and coding was tedious - Wisdom-maxxer - The easy stuff has always been easy, the hard stuff will always be hard, etc - Skeptic - It drains meaning out of life - It is causing climate change - It is built on large-scale copyright theft - It encourages children to commit suicide - It is used by the facists

working on a typology here

A law enforcement officer leading a handcuffed man on a sandy ground, with others and a vehicle in the background. Transcribed Text: LAWSUIT FILED We are suing ICE, the FBI, and state and local police for the civil rights abuses that occurred in Wilder, Idaho on October 19.

We are going to court to seek justice and demand accountability after the unconstitutional, military-style operation in Wilder, Idaho on October 19.

No one is above the law.

nighttime view of a promenade in Ciudad Mexico many stories above the street; the skyline is illuminated by several skyscrapers and the traffic below

it is pretty here

Yavapai Point, Grand Canyon National Park

Yavapai Point, Grand Canyon National Park

#NPS #NationalParkService #GrandCanyonNationalPark

Dancing In My Dreams, by The Memories from the album The Memories - Home Style

bongbasticrecords.bandcamp.com/track/dancin...

heyitsfrog.bandcamp.com/track/you-kn...

The No Kings protests are vital, of course; they’re what I call ‘index protests.’ Mass manifestations whose purpose is to show attendees that their views are widespread, introduce them to each other, and then to give them multiple onramps to other, more locally involved forms of activism, rather like an index or the yellow pages of old. The daily necessity is something like the anti-ICE patrols and spontaneous uprisings that greet their predations in residential streets across the country. What links all of these protests is their fundamentally peaceful nature: not a gun in sight that isn’t being wielded by the enemy. It is the refusal of fear that has led to such terror among the terrorists, that sends ICE agents fleeing, that leads to breathlessly outraged Truth Social posts from Trump, and that is fuelling the desire of his various viziers to escalate the situation.

"Index protests" is also an excellent term I feel like I've been looking for

It’s noteworthy that of all the things Minnesotans have taught America about resistance, guns are not part of the equation. Indeed, the lack of a suicidal armed revolt is driving the federal government mad; how else to explain the right’s quixotic ranting about extremist “gangs of wine moms”? If this wasn’t so effective, they wouldn’t be trying to do everything in their power to tarnish Renée Good and Alex Pretti’s names; they wouldn’t be trying so hard to cast peaceful protest as an insurrection. Stepping away from the temptations of arming yourself is not about “taking bait,” but about respecting yourself and your community. It is a selfish, fearful individualism that underpins the myth of the gun in America, a myth thoroughly alien to this moment of truly collective, spontaneous resistance. It is a moment that is not so much about individual heroism as standing together as a community in the face of terror. Not a battalion of rifles, but of phones; faceless, nameless people with voices that they’re raising against seemingly unfathomable power that has proven itself even more cowardly than we thought.

"Stepping away from the temptations of arming yourself is not about 'taking bait,' but about respecting yourself and your community."

Don't Buy a Gun Confrontational but nonviolent protest is more effective than the solipsistic comfort of an assault rifle.

Katherine Cross's writing is consistently great, and this piece is extremely timely. I feel so much admiration for the courage being shown in MN, and (as Cross details) it's nonviolent, unignorable, and having real impacts www.liberalcurrents.com/dont-buy-a-g...

CHARLES RAFFERTY The Problem with Early Warnings People don't like to leave a party unless the house is actually on fire. Even then, if the flames are far enough away to be pretty, they'll finish their drink, take one more pass at the hors d'oeuvres. How things happen has always been unclear. Hurricanes begin in a place where no one lives. Agents of the government start to wear masks. Fascism is a word my neighbors won't use yet. They are following the law, they say, and the sirens are coming for someone else.

This hit so fucking hard today.

I arrived in Minneapolis 11 days after an ICE agent shot Good in the face. Her picture was hanging like a religious icon on windows and walls all over the city. To many who had not already become involved, her death was a call to action. One of those latecomers was a 46-year-old documentary filmmaker named Chad Knutson. On the morning after Good was killed, he was at home with his two hound dogs, watching a live feed from the Whipple Building, where ICE is based, a five-minute drive from his house. A protester had laid a rose on a makeshift memorial to Good. As Knutson watched, an ICE agent took the rose, put it in his lapel, and then mockingly gave it to a female ICE agent. They both laughed. Knutson told me he had never been a protester. It seemed pointless, or just a way for people to expiate their sense of guilt. But when he saw those ICE agents laughing, something broke inside him. “I grab my keys, I grab a coat, and drive over,” Knutson told me. “I barely park my car and I’m running out screaming and crying, ‘You stole a fucking flower from a dead woman. Like, are any of you human anymore?’”

“I grab my keys, I grab a coat, and drive over,” Knutson told me. “I barely park my car and I’m running out screaming and crying, ‘You stole a fucking flower from a dead woman. Like, are any of you human anymore?’”

Voting NO on the DHS funding bill is the bare minimum.

Backing Kristi Noem’s impeachment is the bare minimum.

Holding law-breaking ICE agents legally accountable is the bare minimum.

ICE is beyond reform. Abolish it.

Protests happen, but most of what is happening in Minneapolis isn’t protesting.

More accurate terms:
- observers
- witnesses
- volunteers
- neighbors
- residents
- people

a herd of remorseless wild pirates and inhuman atheistical devils were infernally cheering him on with their curses

This is a lot to take in. But the underpinning thesis of the speech is that we have shifted from a relatively open world with low trade frictions but weak/asymmetric governance, to one that can only be open to the extent that governance binds.

A large torii (gate) that appears to be floating on water with a shrine complex in the background.

'Torii at Itsukushima' from the series ' Views of the Famous Sights of Japan' - Kobayashi Kiyochika, 1896.
#ToriiTuesday #ukiyoe #JapaneseArt

this is Minnesotan for "I am mad enough to bite through rebar"

PCA is one of those techniques that sounds unreasonable (yeah sure we all want to fit a p-dimensional ellipsoid to our data) but turns out to be a reasonable solution to a wide range of problems.

Also: I do hope stackexchange has been archived, because it is my gen's library of alexandria

The Wall Looks Permanent Until It Falls On the optimism of preparation in a time of democratic decay.

This beautifully written piece by my pal @adambonica.bsky.social is worth your time today.

A bit of light amid the darkness.

open.substack.com/pub/data4dem...

january again

thankfully things are looking a bit more normal up there

This is my blood I marvel at the design of our weapons. So sophisticated that they can transform any man woman or child into a terrorist. Writing in their flight between launch and concussion an entire alternate history of a life. Just as the cop's bullet convicts you of a crime. Its presence in your body evidence enough that it always belonged there. A violent transubstantiation.

Masked ICE agents, it seems, are now killing American citizens on American streets.

Any Democrat who doesn’t support abolishing ICE should be instantly primaried and run out of the party.

This is non negotiable. You cannot support the continued existence of this fascist murderous secret police.

No, don't do it. I did it and it has seriously fucked me up. The important part is that it exists, not that you've personally witnessed it. A digital hairshirt does nothing but hurt you.