Jeff Loeb

My 11-year-old sitting with her pile of Halloween candy, sorting it into a bar graph

We have progressed from data collection to data analysis.

I think you made him think. Thank you.

Meiselas: Right now, this idea of the bully has been glorified, and we have to disabuse people of that notion and say, “Nah, that’s weakness.” Stop blaming your problems marginalized groups.

We have to proudly support communities that have been under attack—’cause they’re human beings, dammit.

It's odd/amazing that grunge, a genre known for distorted electric guitars and a loud sound, had some of its greatest moments on Unplugged. I didn't appreciate Alice in Chains until I saw their performance there. Pearl Jam, STP, and Hole also had amazing moments on the show.

From autism to beards, the Trump regime wages war on ‘the different’ | Will Bunch The Trump regime's disturbing views on everything from autism to transgender people have a scary "master race" vibe.

1. Will Bunch’s recent column in the Philadelphia Inquirer has stayed with me, because it weaves various threads of history and politics into a clear and compelling tapestry with which ordinary people can act.

www.inquirer.com/opinion/trum...

The Global Polytunity Yuen Yuen Ang sees cascading crises as a rare opportunity for the transformation of development institutions and ideas.

"The polycrisis is a Western-centric narrative masquerading as global... The conversation on polycrisis rarely, if ever, acknowledges the agency of the non-Western world or the solutions it has offered" www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/p...

YouTube video by YoYoMaVEVO Silkroad Ensemble, Yo-Yo Ma - Heart and Soul ft. Lisa Fischer, Gregory Porter

My students in Burma / Myanmar are having a tough time at the moment. So in class, we've been listening to this nugget of utter joyousness from Yo-yo Ma and the Silkroad Ensemble. I love the interactions, the sense of shared delight. I feel like a lot of us needed this today.

YouTube video by Noetic Films Viktor Frankl: Self-Actualization is not the goal

The great Victor Frankel
- if you don’t know him congrats on meeting a master
youtu.be/OL8DyVusLeE

"Conversation is when you don’t know what the next thing the person you are with is going to say."
– John Cage

Important read - economics is always about politics, and pretending otherwise is an ideological and, yes, political act.

The Korean article on the Hyundai raid explained MAGA as a movement seeking to overturn the civil rights movement and I still haven’t found a better description

I have a very bad feeling about this...

AI of a Thousand Faces What happens now that AI is everywhere and in everything? WIRED can’t tell the future, but we can try to make sense of it. Behold: 17 readings from the furthest reaches of the AI age.

🎇New package alert @wired.com! This one has been in the works for months. If WIRED was going to tackle AI -- something we cover daily -- we had to go big. So here are 17 different stories about the way AI is changing us, even as the technology itself keeps moving www.wired.com/ai-issue/

Trump’s Campaign to Defund the Arts—and Rewrite History "The campaign to defund the arts, capture our museums, and rewrite our history is a prelude to silencing dissent."

“Authoritarians always target art first. They do so, because art and history are enemies of the myths a regime needs to survive." From my new TIME piece on Donald Trump’s campaign to defund the arts and rewrite our history. The stakes could not be higher.

"This assault threatens our ability to think critically, remember our past honestly, and imagine a future that is not dictated by the state. This is a battle for the American soul, and for the sake of the freedoms we are guaranteed, it is a battle we must not lose."

The Jolly Roger flag

Apparently some folks are playing real dumb about skull symbols so let’s play a little game I like to call “Nazi skull or not a Nazi skull”

First up, the Jolly Roger. This is a pirate skull, not a Nazi skull. It means you might get robbed, but prolly not genocided.

With me so far? 1/x

Totenkopf

Finally, this is a Totenkopf, popularized by the SS costume department.

This is a fucking nazi skull. Notice how it’s not any of the other skulls in this list. The bearer of this skull is a fucking Nazi or dumber than a bag of hammers. Probably both. They will try to genocide you.

Game over! 7/7

The richest man on earth owns X.

The second richest man on earth is about to acquire TikTok and his family could soon own both Paramount and Warner Bros.

The third richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

The fourth richest man owns The Washington Post.

See the problem here?

No pasarán.

Death Star

A very offline cousin sent this to fam group chat. This story is breaking containment.

White House ballroom donors:

Altria Group, Inc.
Amazon
Apple
Booz Allen Hamilton
Caterpillar, Inc.
Coinbase
Comcast Corporation
J. Pepe and Emilia Fanjul
Hard Rock International
Google
HP Inc.
Lockheed Martin
Meta Platforms
Micron Technology
Microsoft
NextEra Energy, Inc.
Palantir

Holy Warrior Pete Hegseth is bringing his fundamentalist interpretation of Christianity into the Pentagon.

Hegseth on "spiritual readiness" as essential for US military:

“... wherever we can, we invoke the name of God; we invoke the name of Jesus Christ. We want that spoken and talked about inside our formations.”

This should send a chill down your spine.

www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...

Trump Is Wasting No Time in Tearing Down the East Wing

It is shocking that Trump is quickly tearing down a portion of the White House. But isn’t the bigger story that this action is of a piece with his autocratic presumption that he can unilaterally destroy public goods without any public consultation or explanation?
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/22/u...

This thread is a pocket master class on the art of the insidious reframe. Read it.

Tech’s Love Affair with Trump Grows Stronger By the Day | TechPolicy.Press The tech industry is selling out to a dangerous political force, writes Paul M. Barrett.

Since the United States election in November 2024, the technology industry has distinguished itself in the race to capitulate to and enable the Trump administration, writes Paul Barrett. No gesture of obsequiousness or loyalty has been too great or trivial for the moguls of Silicon Valley, he says.

For years, the people who work for tech monopolies have been given the benefit of the doubt. Time and again, they have done nothing but take us further into fascism.

I am not willing to tolerate shallow excuses and dithering any more. You shouldn't either.
vichy.associates

"Russian warship, go fuck yourself."

AI’s Invasive Species The slop is winning.

Hi. I wrote an essay about AI slop: How it feels like an invasive species for the internet. How its boosters describe building a future that’s devoid of craft. How frictionlessness can be nihilistic & how this stuff seems to leach part of our shared humanity out of the world. I hope you'll read it.

🚨 Give this man a microphone. Speaking truth to power! ✊🏼
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