JW Mason

I think this deserves at least as much sustained attention from US media as Claudine Gay's dissertation

still your view?

Sometimes I think about Jamie Leigh Jones, gang raped in Baghdad when she was 19 by a bunch of KBR employees who never saw a day in jail because contractors had carte blanche for crimes in Iraq. KBR even sued her for $2m in court costs.

Anyway, I guess Iran bombed their regional HQ in Basra today.

You may be right.

Yes. My point is that Trump and his coterie are criminals, personally, in a way that top officials of some past administrations have not been. But similar - albeit mostly smaller scale - attacks have happened under those administrations, and were just as wrong.

Even if every official in the government followed US laws and norms to the letter, that would not give them any right to attack other countries.

Map of Israeli airstrikes in the Beirut suburbs over the last few hours (6 MaRCH 2026). Image from https://israelpalestine.liveuamap.com/en/2026/6-march-13-the-israeli-raid-that-targeted-the-southern-suburbs

Israel is extensively bombing the suburban area of Dahiya, south of Beirut. This is the namesake of the 'Dahiya Doctrine', a strategy whereby the IDF targets civilians and civilian infrastructure to put political pressure on governments they don't like. It's literally the definition of a war crime.

Ah gotcha. We want people to pay to rent parking spaces, not to effectively own them.

ah ok that makes sense

This is a surprising take to me. I would think that by causing parking spaces to turn over more rapidly, charging for parking would lead to more free spaces, making it easier to convert some parking to other uses.

Who’s that news bad for?

Yeah, Grim is not the best source, I agree. Should have posted info from elsewhere.

Where do you get the information that it was armed?

This new cycle of violence was all too predictable. For months, Israeli officials had signalled an escalation of their campaign against Hezbollah. Despite a ceasefire that ended a devastating 13-month war in 2024, Israel had continued with its bombing of Lebanon almost every day, saying the group was trying to rebuild its capabilities. Hezbollah, however, had remained quiet, aware that any move would inevitably be met with a powerful retaliation.

Interesting admission by BBC

Lots of other sources saying the same thing.

Or if you don’t believe Grim: www.middleeasteye.net/news/iranian...

What’s false?

Yes I know it’s normal now. Just never happened before to me.

Epilogue: when I finally made it to Tompkins Bagels, where I often go after dropoff, there was a tv news crew there interviewing people about the city’s best bagels. New York, man.

After waiting a while a half dozen families decamped for a coffee shop down the street. The kids didn’t mind; they clambered on the furniture while the grownups checked their phones. After an hour or so the whatever it was was resolved, and the school opened up, with no explanation of what it was.

What do you think, I asked one of the other sodden parents. “I think the school is going to be closed for some indefinite period,” she said, “and then it will reopen, and the sooner we accept it’s going to be a shitty day and there’s nothing we can do about it, the better off we’ll be.”

Showed up at the 8 year old’s school: doors closed, a bunch of parents standing in the rain. Security guard pokes their head out - the building is on lockdown, no, they can’t tell us anything. A text message: due to abundance of caution, the school is on shelter in place. Parenting in 2026 America.

This is a nice way of putting it.

me too

*new reason

A colleague of mine was complaining last night that I wasn't on twitter anymore. Said I should come back, that you have to be there to debate, that it's where the people are. But, no. Every day there's a no reason to not.

No matter what's happening in the world, we have to keep doing the work. And if you want to study economics in order to help build socialism in New York City, I can safely say that John Jay is the place where it's getting done.

Mayor Mamdani Announces Six Appointees to the Rent Guidelines Board

A big if belated congratulations to the two, count 'em, TWO recent graduates of the John Jay MA program in economics who Zohran Mamdani just appointed to the New York Rent Guidelines Board. Well done, Lauren Melodia and Sina Sinai!

www.nyc.gov/mayors-offic...

The deliberate, premeditated destruction of an entire society? Versus indiscriminate murder for its own sake, as a kind of macho entertainment? I don't know. Both are horrible.