Stuart Myles

Wow. More info via Instagram:

THIS is what makes my head spin: The president is not a moral figure in any idiom, any land, any culture, any subculture. I'm not talking about the liberal enlightenment that would make him want the country to take care of the poor and sick. I mean he has no Republican values either. He has no honor among thieves, no cosa nostra loyalty, no Southern code against cheating or lying, none of the openness of New York, rectitude of Boston, expressiveness and kindness of California, no evangelical family values, no Protestant work ethic. No Catholic moral seriousness, no sense of contrition or gratitude. No Jewish moral and intellectual precision, sense of history. He doesn't care about the life of the mind OR the life of the senses. He is not mandarin, not committed to inquiry or justice, not hospitable. He is not proper. He is not a bon vivant who loves to eat, drink, laugh. There's nothing he would die for - not American values, obviously, but not the land of Russia or his wife or young

son. He has some hollow success creeds from Norman Vincent Peale, but Peale was obsessed with fair-dealing and a Presbyterian pastor; Trump has no fairness or piety. He's not sentimental; no affection for dogs or babies. No love for mothers, "the common man"" veterans. He has no sense of military valor, and is openly a coward about war. He would have sorely lacked the pagan beauty and capacity to fight required in ancient Greece. He doesn't care about his wife or wives; he is a philanderer but he's not a romantic hero with great love for women and sex. He commands loyalty and labor from his children not because he loves them, even; he seems almost to hate them — and if one of them slipped it would be terrifying. He does no philanthropy. He doesn't - in a more secular key - even seem to have a sense of his enlightened self-interest enough to shake Angela Merkel's hand. Doesn't even affect a love for the arts, like most rich New Yorkers. He doesn't live and die by aesthetics and health practices like some fascists; he's

very ugly and barely mammalian. Am I missing an obscure moral system to which he so much as nods? Also are there other people, living or dead, like him?

Virginia Heffernan wrote this shortly after the 2016 election and it still holds true

Democrat Danny Ceisler ousts Fred Harran in Bucks County sheriff’s race Ceisler defeated incumbent Sheriff Fred Harran, promising to end an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement the Republican signed this year.

My local sheriff defeated the incumbent sheriff who signed an agreement with ice

whyy.org/articles/ele...

The AP tracked down details of some of the people killed in President Trump's military strikes on drug smugglers he describes as narco-terrorists.

They were, with one exception, not high-level criminals. One was a fisherman. One was a bus driver; another a taxi driver.

apnews.com/article/trum...

And maybe it goes back behind the paywall after a year or something? Arguably topical and historical are the most valuable.

Seattle No Kings from the monorail

Hitler committed suicide. Mussolini was shot and then his corpse was attacked and hung. Pinochet died under house arrest, while facing criminal charges in Europe and in Chile. Idi Amin died in exile. The Shah of Iran died in exile. Pol Pot died under house arrest. Mobutu died in exile. Ceausescu and his wife were executed by firing squad. Saddam Hussein was hung. The Dominican Republic's Rafael Trujillo was assassinated. The last Somoza dictator was assassinated in exile after being overthrown. Paraguay's Alfredo Stroessner, Colombia's Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, and Marcos Pérez Jiménez all died in exile. Argentina's Jorge Rafael Videla died while serving a fifty-year sentence. Ferdinand Marcos died in exile. Only last winter Assad fled Syria; only last summer Sheikh Hasina fled Bangladesh. That hasn't been the fate of all dictators but for many of them the chapters after their power crumbled were not what they would have written. Nor is this reassurance that justice or democracy always wins or dismissal of the damage each of them did. I was just thinking and then decided to compile a list.

In a handicraft moment, I made this little list for you. I hope you enjoy it.

It is a britishism

ABC - always be charging

When your neighbor on the left is being dragged away by masked men and your neighbor on the right can't get an X-ray for their child, be sure to quickly explain that "both parties are the same" and whatnot.

"i asked chatgpt" yeah well i went to the doctor, i went to the mountains, i looked to the children, i drank from the fountains there's more than one answer to these questions pointing me in a crooked line and the less I seek my source for some definitive closer I am to fine

America is now characterized by dangerous stupidity. We’ve taken people who think their ignorance is more valid than the knowledge of experts and put them in charge of everything important.

Healthcare, trade, education, defense, national security, etc. All in the hands of the dangerously stupid.

A group of Quakers are marching more than 300 miles to demonstrate against the Trump administration's crackdown on immigrants. Organizers of the march say their protest seeks to show solidarity with migrants and other groups that are being targeted by the administration.

In my evangelical days we were told over and over that “liberal mainline” churches were “dead” and “not preaching the gospel.” Now, I look at the Lutherans and Episcopalians and Quakers and think they’re the ones preaching the gospel while the evangelicals are saying empathy is a sin.

Today's Gender is: Gritty

Friends: I have good news from the recent action of Friends.

NEW: a federal judge sided with the Quaker religious groups, temporarily blocking Trump's ICE from immigration raids in places of worship, protecting 1,700 places of worship in 35 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

The unexpected poetry of PhD acknowledgements After reading hundreds and hundreds of PhD theses, we accidentally discovered how to write the perfect PhD acknowledgement: it's a kind of poetry.

Behind every PhD is a quiet chorus of gratitude, love, and struggle. This scrolly interactive reveals poetry hidden in acknowledgements - where thanks become memoir, emotion meets academia, and humour sneaks in. A lovely study of this unexpected literary genre.

science.anu.edu.au/news-events/...

A.P. Sues Trump Officials Over White House Ban (Gift Article) The wire service sued three of them for denying its reporters access to press events. The White House has objected to The A.P.’s references to the Gulf of Mexico in articles.

AP sues "to prevent the executive branch from coercing journalists to report the news using only government-approved language." Which is exactly what Susie Wiles' very unwise email demands. This is going to be be a cracker www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/b...

Goran World - yesterday As someone who grew up under an authoritarian regime, I can offer one crucial piece of advice: time is everything. If you don’t stand up now—if you don’t protest, resist, disrupt, and refuse to comply—you may lose your country forever. Authoritarianism thrives on silence, hesitation, and fear. The longer people wait, the more entrenched the regime becomes, making resistance exponentially harder. Every moment of inaction is a moment the regime uses to tighten its grip. History has shown that those who act early have the best chance of reclaiming their freedom. The time to fight back is now.

Top comment on the recent NYT story on DOGE’s young aides

www.nytimes.com/shared/comme...

A vital thread for Democrats, from @therickwilson.bsky.social.

It’s not 2011, and we’re not arguing over whether the capital-gains rate should be a few points higher.

Our government is on the precipice. Time for them to act like it matters more than anything else they’ve ever done in their careers

A fork in the road for Tesla Clean power versus white power

A fork in the road for Tesla

https://www.ft.com/content/f2ba8a34-f101-4e5d-9e64-28cddc79bec4

Hell is empty,
And all the devils are here.

"Stop asking why schools don't have bulletproof glass and metal detectors at all the doors. Ask why schools have to. That's the question that needs to be asked,” Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes