Andrew Varnon

We woke up with military strikes on Iran. Why? we asked, phone out, still in bed. The possible answers swim in my head like fish. It is all cynicism.

Critical thinking skills I’ve got, for all the good it’s done me, or us. But, yes please!

Where did those 23 years go? That was 5 years before my daughter was born.

How long ago was Lost in Translation? I have a father-daughter dynamic, too. Which maybe has distracted me from seeing the other two films?

Interior: The Suburbs There is no rest for the mind / in a small house. It moves, looking for God,

Today’s poem of the day is much older than I thought. “There is no rest for the mind,” begins the poem “Interior: The Suburbs” by Horace Gregory. poets.org/poem/interio...

The media and academia have an obligation to not remain neutral in the face of authoritarianism. These institutions need liberal institutions to exist in any meaningful way. Authoritarianism is an existential threat. Our devotion to "neutrality" will keep us from fighting for our own survival.

JooYoung Choi and the Multiverse of Gladness As her latest works vividly demonstrate, the Houston visual artist is the perfect balm for our era of polarization and bullying.

"JooYoung Choi and the Multiverse of Gladness." www.texasmonthly.com/arts-enterta...

Internet outage exposes frayed equipment, relationships in Greenfield Earlier this month, the internet went dark for customers of Greenfield's GCET. The resulting mess revealed broader power struggles between the municipally owned internet provider and city officials.

Internet outage exposes frayed equipment, relationships in Greenfield — by Jonathan Gerhardson and in collaboration with the Montague Reporter. theshoestring.org/2026/02/26/i...

Saw this painting by JooYoung Choi in an exhibition at the Meade Art Museum at Amherst College today. www.jooyoungchoi.com/cover-galler...

I shovel at my parents' house when it snows. It's been a long winter.

The richest shouldn't control everything.
They shouldn't be able to bribe all the Governments.
They shouldn't be able to run pedophile islands and never go to jail.

Being a Billionaire should be impossible, taxes should be so high you can't do it.

Same here in Greenfield.

The term low information voter comes to mind.

That seems advanced.

I agree. We should get their voices in front of others who might still be persuadable.

It does seem more than flurries right now!

I hear that. I’ve had a chance to sit in on a couple of civics classrooms over the past year and it seems very tricky in a public school setting. Even teaching democratic norms feels like taking a political stand — which I endorse, while also understanding the risks.

Why is that?

Yes!

🚨 Tell your Senators to vote NO on the GOP’s so-called “SAVE” Act”, which would:

Require continuing voter purges w/ NO PENALTY for erroneous purges.

Subject election officials to potential PRISON TIME & citizen suits for mistakenly registering a single voter—even if the voter is a citizen! 1/

Louis XIV of France, self-styled the Sun King

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...

Why Trump wants Minnesota’s voter rolls — and the high stakes reason it matters to Mass. Legal experts say states have constitutional authority over elections as the Trump administration seeks sensitive voter information from nearly every state.

Good reporting from MassLive on what the Trump administration's request to states for voter rolls means, and why it matters. www.masslive.com/politics/202...

Right, but everything he says is proximate and reflects only what he thinks he needs to say in the moment to get what he wants.

Thanks! It’s amazing!

Wow! Where did you find this?

Burn Out Everything is fine: a means to endure / news cycles, historic cycles, menstrual

Today’s poem of the day at the Academy of American Poets: “Burn Out” by Amy Alvarez. poets.org/poem/burn-ou

Correction: World Economic Forum, not UN.

It's been labeled as "pragmatic" and Carney is getting cheers for being willing to say out loud the challenge that the US under Trump presents to the world. As an American who has long been a fan of our neighbor to the north, I have mixed feelings.

Canadian PM Mark Carney gave this speech at the UN, where he talked about the rupture in the world order and what middle powers like Canada need to do.

Cool!