Dan Mielcarz

I agree. I only get upset at *screenshots* of headlines from the Op-Ed page, not the actual stories. 😜

if you ask the average American to describe what they think a tougher immigration system should look like, they will describe something a degree of magnitude softer and more generous than the current reality.

The lesson here is that people are both better and dumber than they appear.

You know you are getting old when research that was pretty new when you first started working in science starts winning Nobels. This is well-earned and incredibly important.

One day early in the 1940s, a little wild-haired man breezed into the tiny 46th Street studio and plopped right down on the floor. "I'm Woody Guthrie,' he said in a dry twang. "I'm a Communist.' He carried a Gibson guitar; Asch peered at a printed inscriptions stuck to it: "This Machine Kills Fascists.' The stickers, produced for war workers, were normally seen on lathes and drill presses. Shrugging at the fools he suffered, Asch set up his recording gear and listened. And listened. Not only were the little man's songs riveting, but he wouldn't stop! Guthrie was incredibly, unendurably prolific. "He had more songs than you'd ever want to listen to,' says Bess Hawes. Some, like the workers' hymn "Pastures of Plenty were quiet and terse. Some, as when Woody whooped his paean to "that wild and wasted stream,' the Columbia River, in "The Grand Coulee Dam,' burst with a Whitmanesque prolixity:

I found an obit for Moe Asch in Smithsonian that mentioned the origin story in 1987. Of course it may still be an urban legend!

Citation:

Scherman T. This man captured the true sounds of a whole world. (Moses Asch of Folkways Records). Smithsonian. 1987;18(5):110.

So gross. Instant block.

Screenshot of a NYT review written by Orville Prescott of Woody Guthrie's autobiography "Bound for Glory." Text reads: "Recently his songs have been anti-Nazi and anti-Jap. To make the point even clearer, Woody has fixed a sign on his guitar that reads: "This machine kills Fascists." Source: Books of the Times By ORVILLE PRESCOTT New York Times (1923-); Mar 22, 1943; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times with Index pg. 17

Books of the Times By ORVILLE PRESCOTT New York Times (1923-); Mar 22, 1943; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times with Index pg. 17

I found a slightly earlier reference in a review of Woody's autobiography published in the NYT on Mar 22, 1943 mentions the sign on his guitar but nothing about it in wartime factories. (Second screenshot is the full review for anyone interested)

The Trump administration’s Soviet approach to autism policy A strange and largely forgotten U.S. delegation to the USSR in 1963 offers lessons about autism, diagnosis, and politics, writes Ari Ne’eman.

"...declines took place in the use of “intellectual disability” and “learning disability,” suggesting that a process of diagnostic substitution was taking place rather than a real increase in autism prevalence."

www.statnews.com/2025/09/30/r...

YouTube video by iiKizmit THE YANKEES........ LOSE!!!! #DoDamage #RedSox #RedSoxNation

Let’s go Red Sox! youtu.be/zk-2_Z9bRds?...

Jerry Remy voice: “YOSHIDER”

This is a really small matter in the grand scheme of things, but the fact that preprints are open access but the peer-reviewed versions of the same articles often under paywall is pretty bad too.

Aren't the people on the border technically CBP and not ICE?

In any event, I think ICE needs to go, whatever comes next needs to have a new name and a vastly curtailed mission that doesn't appeal to the worst people.

"The Emerging Democratic Majority" theory but instead of a multiracial coalition it's just people who don't die of measles.

If your elderly relatives started telling you about AI videos they had watched saying that "medbeds" would fix everyone's health problems, you'd start to look into assisted living and power of attorney. Trump has the nuclear codes.

Dave Matthews has the opportunity to do the funniest thing.

Sorry, didn't notice you were still going, good thread so far!

“I think the approach starts with compassion. Compassion for transgender people. Compassion for families, especially young people who are going through this. And also empathy for people who aren’t sure what this means for them, who say ‘wait a minute, I got a daughter in a sports league Is she going to be competing against boys right now?’ Just taking everybody seriously. “I think when you do that, that calls into question some of the past orthodoxies in my party, for example around sports, where I think most reasonable people would recognize there are serious fairness issues if you just treat this as not mattering when a trans athlete wants to compete in women’s sports. “I think these decision should be in the hands of sports leagues and school boards and not politicians—least of all politicians in Washington who are trying to use this as a political pawn. “I think that chess is different from weightlifting, and weightlifting is different from volleyball. And, you know, middle school is different from the Olympics.”

Pete Buttigieg got dragged here on Bluesky for his comments and while they weren't perfect I think they were a pretty good example of how to approach the issue in a way that can bring people along, rather than simply dismissing their concerns as bigoted. (Quote via: www.msn.com/en-us/lifest... )

Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!

If you are wondering why history's biggest narcissist seemingly cares (in his gross way) about autistic people, I had a theory here.

And I am not one to throw this term around lightly but there is more than a little misogyny involved in this proposed Tylenol explanation. Early in the history of the diagnosis, mothers were blamed for autism because they were "cold and distant." Sadly it seems like mothers are being blamed again.

A large study in Sweden including 2.4 million children used sibling-matched controls for Tylenol/acetaminophen/paracetemol use during pregnancy and the result was NO increased levels of autism, NO increased levels of ADHD, and NO increased levels of intellectual disabilities.

Are we vaccinating under 2s more than a generation (30 years) ago? We used fewer vaccines, protecting against 8 infectious diseases. These complex vaccines, containing over 3000 antigens, were good, but there was room for improvement.
1/8

Great recap, @saewitz.com !

Douthat is indeed a joke worth laughing at but Obama did do this in 2019 (and perhaps earlier).

There's a couple more stars now, but if the American Flag was good enough to march under to end slavery in this country, it's good enough for the present moment.

The Age of Corporate Capitulation Won’t Work Donald Trump came for Jimmy Kimmel. Disney folded immediately. It’s not just bad morals. It’s bad business.

It did seem like he was mostly speaking from the standpoint of a friend of Kimmel's whose main goal was to pump Kimmel up after his firing. But Simmons did say that "this isn't cancel culture, this is censorship" among other things. And the story on The Ringer doesn't pull any punches:

Yes he can!

Republican governor?

People from New Hampshire looking at this and worrying about if they can get a COVID shot: fear not, Walgreens will just give you one if you tell them you have a risk factor. Ever had a cigarette? Boom, you are now a former smoker.

Let’s be clear about what happened to Jimmy Kimmel Trump’s most brazen attack on free speech yet.

After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.