Andrew Varnon

Bookbinding in Glasgow.

Lighthouse north of Tobermory, Scotland, on the Isle of Mull.

There was supposed to be heavy rain that day. We thought about not taking the ferry. But I’m glad we did.

My family and I were there a couple of weeks ago.

Tobermory, Scotland, on the Isle of Mull.

More than we can bear, it feels like sometimes.

I haven’t reached a conclusion about the argument, but my guess is that I’m going to struggle with it.

We Have Never Been Woke How a new “woke” elite uses the language of social justice to gain more power and status—without helping the marginalized and disadvantaged

My daughter has started reading “We Never Have Been Woke” and now she’s talking non-stop about Symbolic Capitalism. press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

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...