David Sewell

24-291 APACHE STRONGHOLD V. UNITED STATES, ET AL. The petition for rehearing is denied. Justice Gorsuch would grant the petition for rehearing. Justice Alito took no part in the consideration or decision of this petition.

And also the Apache Stronghold appeal on the grounds of religious freedom of the permit allowing Resolution Copper to destroy Oak Flat. Gorsuch in his outlier role as an upholder of tribal rights.

This may have been the very last chance to prevent the destruction of Oak Flat. I'd be happy to learn I'm wrong.

Done.

It is not clear that Mr. Trump's image can be featured on a coin. An 1866 law enshrined a tradition that only deceased people could appear on U.S. currency to avoid the appearance that America was a monarchy.

Well then I can see why Trump would want his face on a coin. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/b...

Positive Obsession A magnificent cultural biography that charts the life of one of our greatest writers, situating her alongside the key historical and social moments that sha...

New biography of Octavia Butler! Avoid Amazon by ordering direct from the publisher (at a discount), or bookshop.org, or your local indie bookstore.
www.harpercollins.com/products/pos...

As if irony isn’t already dead, the Hatch Act violation on the DOJ website, which blames Democrats for the shutdown, appears on the page advising DOJ employees they are subject to the Hatch Act. joycevance.substack.com/p/a-note-abo...

Last night, the ADL took down its "Glossary of antisemitism" which included an entry for the term "globalist," describing it as a far-right codeword for Jews.

Hours later, the official DHS account authors a post with a common far-right meme, saying that "globalists" will be denied entry to the US.

I really sympathize with anyone who has to perform simultaneous translation of Trump. Considering that even native speakers of American English can't figure out what he is trying to say much of the time.

“Agent provocateur” in reality or in effect.

YouTube video by TopPop Redbone - We Were All Wounded At Wounded Knee • TopPop

This one's for Pete Hegseth. "We Were All Wounded at Wounded Knee" by Redbone, 1973. youtu.be/AvZbmLJlSoM?...

The logic of Trump's tariff collocations increasingly resembles that of Borges' Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge or Terry Pratchett's Abominations Unto Nuggan wiki.lspace.org/Abominations...

Meet NARA's Leadership Management Team Archivist of the United States (Acting) Marco Rubio Senior Advisor to the Archivist James Byron Deputy Archivist of the United States Chief Operating Officer Jay Trainer jay.trainer...

Marco Rubio just got a promotion! From "Acting Archivist of the United States" to "Archivist of the United States (Acting)", on the website. Actually all the "actings" got edited, maybe to make it less obvious that permanent appointments aren't happening at NARA. www.archives.gov/about/organi...

Aoun at the UN: 'Lebanon has made its choice... don't abandon it!' President Joseph Aoun took to the podium on Tuesday to address the 80th United Nations General Assembly in New York for the first time since his election in January, and urged the international...

At least one president gave a speech at the UN yesterday that didn't make his country's citizens want to hang their heads in shame. #Lebanon today.lorientlejour.com/article/1478...

Lebanese village mourns children and father killed in Israeli strike A village in southern Lebanon has buried five people, including three children and their father, killed in an Israeli strike over the weekend.

A telling detail in this reporting is that no Hezbollah flags were in evidence during the funeral for the family members. Just another tragic outcome of an IDF ceasefire violation.
apnews.com/article/leba...

Did Trump pound the podium with his shoe, by any chance?

Big Jim: Low riders They have been described as “butterflies with transmissions.” Their aesthetic is best stated as “low and slow, mean and clean.” What are they? Low rider cars.

The late Tucson folklorist James "Big Jim" Griffith had a chapter in one of his books tracing the lineage of lowriders back to the Spanish baroque. This newspaper piece is a short version of the history. tucson.com/news/blogs/b...

Sad to see a Tanum petroglyph (west coast of Sweden) turned into white supremacist merch. I came away from the gift shop there with a nice linen dishcloth with versions of the ship plus runestones and warriors and such. Somehow I managed not to turn into a Nazi as a result.

The White House Peace Vigil, after standing for decades, is dismantled Parts of the vigil were removed earlier this month after Trump ordered, “Take it down.” On Thursday night, only the vigil volunteers and some signs remained.

DC's streets
spick and span
Just like those
in Pyongyang!

www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...

Always be kind An unexpected wartime slogan

A moving essay by Timothy Snyder. About Ukraine, but also about the human condition.
open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p...

I was reading up on the Perseverance Mars rover today, a propos a news story about samples it took suggestive of ancient life, and learned that its landing site was officially named for Butler. Would be amazing if the first solid evidence of extraterrestrial life ends up connected to her.

I was the same age, living in Los Angeles to boot. I used a clock radio set to KNX news to wake up, and for a long time I would be anxious every morning about what I would learn.

SCOTUS: considering race as one factor in a college applicant's file is blatantly unconstitutional

ALSO SCOTUS: considering race as one factor in targeting whom to detain and deport is cool cool cool

What are the vibes at the festival this year?

Even if it is pure trolling so far as the use of troops is concerned (I guess we'll know soon), revelling in the cruelty of deportation should be disqualifying for anyone occupying the White House. But we've long past the disqualifying stage.

The associated website is already live.

The first thing that occurred to me was the Chekhov principle that if you introduce a gun on the wall in Act 1, it needs to be used later in the play. Of course it's not as if Hegseth hasn't been signaling his lust to use it.

Babylon, South Dakota From the author of the Carnegie Medal in Fiction winner The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu comes a tantalizing, American West saga about a Chinese American fami...

Good news: Tom Lin (@tom-lin.bsky.social) has a new novel coming out! Publication is nine months away, ah well. www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/tom-l...

Florida plans to end vaccine mandates statewide | CNN Florida will move to end all vaccine mandates in the state, Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo announced Wednesday.

These days I keep thinking about Jared Diamond's book "Collapse" and wondering what the chapter about the US is going to look like when someone writes it a century from now. www.cnn.com/2025/09/03/h...

Photo of an aging Skeksis

Anyone who has seen Jim Henson's "The Dark Crystal" will be reminded of the aging Skeksis draining the life essence of their captives and underlings to seek personal immortality.

€84 is steep. Our meeting library has all of Corbett's published work but this would break the budget. Does Moon discuss Corbett's shift from nomadic goatwalking to settled and communal "Cowbalah" in his later life and writing?

And ignoring robots.txt makes you want to scream "stupid stupid bot creatures" when they pass up a sitemap containing pointers to full site content in order to crawl a zillion facet links that lead to the precise same endpoints. Wasting their own time as well as yours.