Ted Lott

The Transformative Power of the White ‘Race Traitor’

"The first person to be executed for treason in the US was not a spy or someone who sold secrets to a foreign government. It was not a Confederate general who took up arms against his government. It was an abolitionist named John Brown." from @nhannahjones.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/m...

Bless you all Minnesotans great and small.

I said a year ago Trump was not choosing political martyrs wisely and not accounting for what tools defendants are accorded.

I want to triple down on that. I think we're about to see revenge of the defendants--starting with Marimar Martinez.

Marimar is a Montessori teacher. And holy hell, a hero!

definition of Peverse Incentive...

Rock on good Doctor.

This is a post about animal excrement and the English language.

bull$#!% = nonsense/lies
chicken$#!% = petty or cowardly
horse$#!% = nonsense/lies
dog$#!%= low quality
ape$#!% = wild
bat$#!%= crazy

Ordered above from oldest to newest: bull$#!% (1914), bat$#!% (1971).

As god is my witness…

This image is strikingly similar to the famous photo of a young Dilma Rousseff in front of a Brazilian military court also too cowardly to show their faces.

Godspeed. #veryverymetal

"I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done."

final written words of abolitionist John Brown - Dec 2nd, 1859

“If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer… And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind…And with such a people you can then do what you please.”

Hannah Arendt

Don’t let this housing crisis go to waste Overly restrictive zoning, cautious lending and anti-development politics created a long freeze in housing production.

New year, new op-ed from me and Vincent Reina on the need for aggressive multifaceted action to address the housing affordability crisis:

It’s not simply a zoning story!

thehill.com/opinion/fina...

The Power Broker

Many Americans Are Open to Car-Free Living — Human Transit Is Americans a “car culture” or are they “car dependent”?  Do they drive because they love driving, or are they in an unhealthy relationship with a substance it would be happy to do without?  Obviousl...

An astonishing percentage of Americans are open to car-free living.

The problem isn't attitudes. The problem is the failure to invest in viable options.

humantransit.org/2025/12/many...

#comfortnazi

Defending slavery, however, required invasive uses of power, such as banning antislavery literature and returning escaped Black people to bondage. Many white Americans in the 19th century began to understand that the “Slave Power” curtailed their freedoms as well. And this is what many people forget: Systems of domination rarely spread their blessings widely. The Redemption-era revocation of Black freedoms didn’t result in prosperity for white people writ large, but a Gilded Age in which the upper classes gained unfathomable wealth and economic crises left millions destitute. The nation may have held on to white supremacy, but it also got low wages, a threadbare welfare state, and a society dominated by the rich. Everyone else was too divided by race and class to challenge them.

Read @adamserwer.bsky.social on the Roberts' court's attempts to "to turn the guarantees of the Civil War amendments back into what James Madison called "parchment barriers.'"

www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

Star Wars

#LOLGARYBEARS

Things #patriots do...

The Grand scheme This is the downtown that Frank Gehry wanted. When will LA's leaders give it to us?

Grand Avenue has LA's best architecture clumped haphazardly along a very bleak street. Yet Frank Gehry had a vision to change that.

"You close that piece of Grand Avenue, put some chairs out there and you've got something special," he said. "We're not just building buildings, we're building places"

Frank O. Gehry, the architect who changed the civic landscape of his adopted hometown of Los Angeles, has died Frank Gehry, known for ebullient cultural buildings like Disney Hall who helped invigorate the field of architecture at a moribund time, has died.

RIP Frank Gehry.

One of my fave things of working at LAT when it was downtown was looking up Bunker Hill and seeing the sun hit the stainless steel sails of Disney Hall.

Obit by Chris Hawthorne with additions by me.

www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

Frank O. Gehry, Titan of Architecture, Is Dead at 96

Golly gee, damn. Our architectural David Bowie. A designer that made you need to sit down. A Lion.

Rock on, Frank.

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/a...

The Real Problem With Trump’s Cheesy Neoclassical Building Fetish Sure, it’s a dog whistle for “retvrn” types and the results are tacky—but that’s not the worst part.

We need to say, 'No'...

www.thenation.com/article/cult...

Trump hires new White House ballroom architect Although the two had clashed over the size of the project, the decisive factor was the small firm’s limited capacity to handle such an enormous project.

Well, Jimmy, at least you got out before it got too ugly... I'm sure it will be different for the next guy... and the next guy...

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

New developer taking on Huff Park housing plan attempts to win over neighbors Indigo Design + Build plans to introduce a “light density” townhome project that is in the early planning stages but already stirring opposition.

This is why we have a #housing problem... 'We understand we need housing... just not this housing, in this place, at this time...'

www.crainsgrandrapids.com/news/real-es...

Stately quarters or royal mess? Polarizing Grand Castle embodies developer’s dream for luxury living GRANDVILLE –– Amid an apartment building boom across West Michigan, the Grand Castle stands out in ways few other projects do. Standing 198 feet tall –– just shy of the […]

Whatever we can do to share this @nickrmanes.bsky.social with the world...

www.crainsgrandrapids.com/news/real-es...

Dec. 2, 1859: John Brown Executed Abolitionist John Brown was executed by the state of Virginia for leading the infamous Harpers Ferry Raid.

"I believe that to have interfered as I have done — as I have always freely admitted I have done — in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right." -- abolitionist John Brown, executed #tdih 1859

Read about Brown + the other Harpers Ferry Raiders ⬇️
www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/jo...

Developer says Grand Rapids housing study ‘not based on history, facts or common sense’ Dan Hibma, of Land and Company Apartments, says the projected housing need doesn't align with expected population growth and questions Grand Rapids' use of tax subsidies to fund new projects.

This is why we have a #housing problem... Giving air to an entity that clearly has an interest to limit supply without identifying that interest... Giving air to the guy that brought us "Brutal Disney by The Freeway'...

www.mlive.com/news/grand-r...

@aiaofficial.bsky.social RE: the @washingtonpost.com story why are you guys relying on concerned members to write letters to #JimmyMac about the #AIACodeofEthics? Why aren't you addressing the professional ethics of this demolition let alone the lawless destruction of a public property?

Why?