Joe Wright MD

I don’t expect the New York Times to be representative of me or my politics. I do think it’s fascinating when folks on here treat it as the spearpoint of fascism and then later breathlessly cite its reporting as proof of something. It’s an unsustainable way of thinking about a complex institution.

do voters in Barcelona consider themselves “Spaniards”? and how do they define “immigrant”? and what are the contours of social/public housing vs the private market there?

OutKast is inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame:

“We started in a little room. Great things start in little rooms”

She’s incredible. There was some brief moment when the national press was like “oh wow SF politics is actually not cute but dismissable liberalism but actually a brutal and constant battle and anyone who rises there has to be a master politician, and Nancy Pelosi was a master” but then they forgot

But, dear NYT headline writer, I don’t think there was a lot of “oh my poor gay soul, darkened by death, given the light of hope by Nancy Pelosi”. Again, truly with no disrespect to Pelosi. It just wasn’t her role.

I don’t say any of this to diminish Pelosi but instead to celebrate what actually makes her great—she was extraordinarily good at her job, not just as a Speaker but in repping her district. This story is just one part of that: doing the awful emotional work of repping a district devastated by death.

Another more interesting question to me: how did she balance repping her district even when it was out of step with the Democratic Party mainstream, with her rise within the House and the national party? That’s a question I don’t know the answer to at all—and part of her genius that I don’t.

A congressional rep who was anything but strong and clear on AIDS and gay rights compared to the national mainstream would have been an absolute loser. There was no political risk from a district point of view to anything being described in this article. Memorials were table stakes.

A Light in Very Dark Days: Nancy Pelosi and AIDS

I don’t doubt she was deeply affected by AIDS—her district was devastated + she wasn’t a f-ing ghoul. But she was also a strong voice against Chinese human rights violations. And put those things together (with others) as a story of how San Francisco politics work.

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/u...

sir

sir

sir, i’m going to have to ask you to move

no sir, i’m not aware of the promises made by—

i understand sir, i wouldn’t mind a little dance contest now and then myself but i do have to ask you to leave

because this is private property

that’s the

dine

discover

gather

connect

Blue Cross plans to target doctors for overcharging. Physicians are furious. - The Boston Globe The move has angered some doctors, particularly those who often see older, medically complicated patients in need of more care and time. The insurer says it's crucial to tame costs.

My patients need me to know their complexity, listen to their histories and understand their priorities. They need time to negotiate a collaborative path instead of me just telling them what to do. I will not cut my visit times down. I will bill for time. Thanks

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/24/b...

Harm reduction programs give out vitamin C tablets for this purpose.(Ascorbic acid.) But Andrew Cuomo is using the word “crack” for a reason and it’s not b/c he has inaccurate information about drug use it’s because he wants to have a particular rhetorical effect that “cocaine” just doesn’t deliver

smoking is usually safer than injecting, for those who do inject vitamin c is better than lemon juice to dissolve crack from its base form into an injectable solution… but he’s not wrong because of that, he’s wrong because he’s using “crack” as a racist dog whistle

www.catie.ca/sites/defaul...

That flag is good on its own but is clearly most especially a primary race subtweet / subskeet. Heard, Ed.

they are RIGHT THERE ON THE CARTON which is PROOF

I know exactly why leftists aren't celebrating this ceasefire Why not celebrate the ceasefire? Because, while it's a relief, it won't undo all the suffering and death of the past two years.

forward.com/opinion/7754...

I feel like the Midtown section of wikipedia is extremely underdeveloped and also contains NO MENTION OF LADY BIRD and ALSO NEGLECTS to discuss the historical FLOODPLAIN as a determinant of the design of the Victorians
and…
well I guess I still really am from Sacramento, 35 years after leaving it

it’s like the end of Blues Brothers but in reverse

I mean this is definitely where we are heading, he’s not wrong about that, but it is so dark when someone says that and is like, so, GREAT INVESTMENT

famous nerdy MD (to other nerdy MDs anyway ) paid by a number of capitalists who ask him if they can use AI to make money in healthcare. Famous MD has an answer: yes, by using robots for the poor you can focus your high labor costs on people who are ready to pay substack.com/inbox/post/1...

ah… an important step to consider in my unpublished writing career :-)

what’s the first?

constrained supply means higher per transaction commission; they don’t make money off the market as a whole but only per individual transaction; even the most productive real estate agent can only be involved in a tiny number of transactions

Whether it’s popular culture I’m not sure, but the protagonist of the Quiet American?—a detached cynic whose cynicism and detachment hides some actual moral feelings. And that “eh I don’t give a shit, but actually I secretly very much give a shit” is something a lot of people connect to

Everyone makes fun of "gentle parenting" until you encounter a four year old with a higher emotional intelligence than all of the adults in your life.

The Art of the Impersonal Essay, by Zadie Smith In my experience, every kind of writing requires some kind of self-soothing Jedi mind trick, and, when it comes to essay composition, the rectangle is mine.

It is hard to top Orwell’s Why I Write but on a first brisk and excited reading, I think Zadie Smith may have just done it.

The Art of the Impersonal Essay www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

all my best pictures including the one on my profile are taken by my kid because i get nicer looks on my face when i look at her

…which a more liberalized pro density ADU policy would not require