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Jamelle Bouie: The Founders Were Afraid for the Country, Too (NYT) — Bouie quotes Franklin, Hamilton, Washington and Madison on their fears of despotism and and hopes for the enduring freedom of their new country. He ends on a note of cautious optimism:

We have a would-be despot in the White House. But even with a rotting Constitution on the verge of crisis, this is still a Republic, and the people are still sovereign. The task, then, is to make this clear to those in power who would like to pretend otherwise.

Hamilton Nolan: Seeing Things For What They Are — The US political models that have been useful for the past 40 years have fundamentally changed. Democratic leadership in Washington, D.C., is hopelessly mired in the past.

Extreme things—things that sit completely outside of the mental framework that too many of our political leaders are still using to govern their decisions—are happening now. And they are going to happen more. And they are going to get more extreme. This does not mean that we are in a hopeless situation. It does, however, mean that we must adjust our interpretation of the world, or be left behind.

Not just political leaders. Every American needs to realize that the rules we operated under until 2024 are obsolete, and we need to reconcile with the new order.

New 'Starship Troopers' Movie in the Works from 'District 9' Filmmaker Neill Blomkamp

Borys Kyt at The Hollywood Reporter:

Blomkamp’s take is not a remake of the Verhoeven movie, and sources say the goal is to go back to the source material.

Not my favorite Heinlein. I guess I’ll see if if it looks good.

I’d love to see a movie or prestige miniseries of my favorite Heinlein: “Citizen of the Galaxy," “Starman Jones," “The Star Beast,” “Double Star” and “Methuselah’s Children.” “Orphans of the Sky” wasn’t a great book but it could be a great movie or series.

You want to bring back American ingenuity again? Make education and healthcare accessible to everyone. Make “right to repair” codified in the Constitution. Make Net Neutrality the law of the land. A person’s chance of surviving and having a roof over their head shouldn’t depend on “generational wealth”. Once those things happen, American ingenuity will return in full force again. It’s not Canada, Mexico, or Europe’s fault we’re here. It’s our own fault. But we can still do better.

— Scott Williams
@vwbusguy@mastodon.online

It Isn’t Just Trump. America’s Whole Reputation Is Shot (David Brooks / NYT) — The world now sees the US as a dangerous rogue superpower, Brooks notes. “I don’t care if Abraham Lincoln himself walked into the White House in 2029, no foreign leader can responsibly trust a nation that is perpetually four years away from electing another authoritarian nihilist,” he says. But Brooks ends his column on a hopeful note; when Trump and his movement inevitably self-destruct, that will be “an opportunity and rebirth.”

You Are Not Free to Move About the Country (Lisa Schmeiser / So What? Who Cares?) — Southwest Airlines' announcement to start charging for luggage points to more significant issues in the U.S. Lisa quotes NYT reporter Nelson D. Schwartz, who coined the name “Velvet Rope Economy;” for everything from getting coffee to going to Disneyland, the top 10% get to pay to cut the line ahead of the rest of us.

In my lunchtime web wanderings, I stumbled across this 1900 historical image from the town square in Newton, New Jersey.

I know that area very well—I lived a two-minute walk from that very spot for four years in the late 1980s, and worked as a reporter at the New Jersey Herald, whose offices were behind the courthouse.

Nearly 90 years later, the view from that spot was the same as in this photo, and I’m told it looked the same six years ago, too.

I got a follow request from a woman on Mastodon who wants me to be her sugar baby. I’m up for that.

The missus and I watched another episode of “Columbo” last night. The guest stars were Eddie Albert as a heroic Marines general who murders a fellow officer to cover up embezzlement, and Suzanne Pleshette as the sad, ditzy woman who witnesses the crime. I was unable to suspend disbelief — every second they were onscreen I thought, “That’s the guy from Green Acres and Bob Newhart’s wife.”

Also, Suzanne Pleshette’s character seemed sexist in a low-key ambient 1971 sort of way. She lives alone with her mother; they are both sad and the mother is bitter. It seemed to be the assumption that two women over 30 living alone without men would lead of course lead empty and sad lives. I am possibly overthinking this.

We’re slowly watching a few 1970s crime shows that were massive hits in the day, including “Columbo,” “The Rockford FIles,” “McMillan & Wife” and “McCloud.” Of them, my favorite by far is Rockford. I want to be Jim Rockford when I grow up and live in a trailer on the beach and go fishing off the pier with my father, whom I call “Rocky.”

"Fascism always fails. It is destructive and it is awful and not everyone lives to see the other side, but it always, always fails."

A brief history of George Dale, who fought a quixotic battle against the Ku Klux Klan in Muncie, Indiana in the 1920s — and won.

The Klan had millions of members and controlled whole states in the 1920s, spewing racism, anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism and other hatred. But decent, courageous Americans like Dale pushed back.

What Felt Impossible Became Possible dansinker.com/posts/202…

The More You Have, the Less You Fight.

Institutions — businesses, the Democratic Party, the courts and universities — won’t oppose Trump because they have too much to lose.

Grassroots movements made up of regular people are where the resistance has to happen…. If you and I sit around waiting for all of those Respectable Institutions to take the lead, we will be spending the next few years doing nothing except being crestfallen by the inaction from above. I guess we might as well get to it, then. Don’t be sad you’re not rich. Be happy that you’re free."

www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/the-mor…

Apple Readies Dramatic Design Overhauls for iOS 19, iPadOS 19, macOS 16. By Mark Gurman. bloomberg.com. I don’t want to learn to use my phone and computer again.

Musk’s Empire Is Looking Even More Shaky: He’s sabotaging his own business by insulting and alienating customers, even as competitors catch up with his companies' leads. “… if you don’t like Musk … get ready to enjoy a rich harvest of schadenfreude.” ianwelsh.net

I have a reminder to prepare for a meeting to prepare for another meeting to prepare for a project. I have reached a kind of corporate nirvana here.

How It Actually Feels To Live With Face Blindness

Daisy Jones at British Vogue:

“Oh my God, heyyy”

Four words I dread hearing, delivered this time at a train station. I spin around. There’s a girl in front of me: similar age, dark hair, face that could be described as “vaguely familiar”. Or maybe she just looks like someone I should be friends with.

“How are you doing?” She says that last part as if she’s dying to know.

“Oh heyyy,” I respond in the same tone. “Yeah, great thanks, you?”

“Really well. I just got the keys to my new art studio, so that’s quite exciting.” I make a mental note of “art studio”. She makes art. My first contextual clue.

“It’s so important to have your own space,” I reply. “I would actually love to have my own office one day.” If I keep talking, I think, she’ll never know. She’ll never know that I have no idea who she is.

I have encounters just like this on a regular basis. Last week I was at a professional conference and had several encounters like this every day. Fortunately, people at conferences wear name-badges.

Your Local Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina on the measles outbreak and how RFK and other authorities are spreading dangerous misinformation. Also: Hantavirus, Medicaid popularity and opiod and HPV deaths decline. yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com

In ‘Dark Winds,’ things are about to get even darker: Zahn McClarnon, who stars as Joe Leaphorn, on the new season. nytimes.com

The Digital Packrat Manifesto. “DRM and big tech’s war on ownership has led me to make my own media libraries, and you should too.” — Janus Rose. 404media.co

The War on Memory: Learning from the Jewish Labor Bund — Molly Crabapple. The Bund was a Jewish anti-Zionist political organization that flourished in Poland between WWI and WWII. thefunambulist.net

“The critics panned [Mickey] Spillane, but he didn’t care. He said, ‘Those big-shot writers could never dig the fact that there are more salted peanuts consumed than caviar.’ He said he never had a character who drank cognac or had a mustache, because he didn’t know how to spell those words.” — Garrison Keillor [writersalmanac.publicradio.org]

James Davis Nicoll reviews “Galactic Empires,” a two-volume 1976 science fiction anthology of stories about (you guessed it) galactic empires, edited by Brian Aldiss. I loved those books. [jamesdavisnicoll.com]

Patti Davis, on her father, Ronald Reagan: My Father Spoke to Me Only Once About Why He Led This Nation

Davis writes about a conversation with Reagan in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House the night of his 1981 inauguration. According to Davis, Reagan told her:

“I really believe I can make this world a safer, more peaceful place. That’s why I ran for president.” When he left and the stillness of Lincoln’s bedroom folded around me, with all of its history and stories, I was struck by the fact that he spoke about the world, not just America.

I’ve thought about that night a lot lately, as America becomes more isolated, as we back away from allies and tensions grow. I’ve thought also about the lessons my father imparted to me as a child. He taught me at an early age about the Holocaust and that no country is immune to horrors like that. He told me that America’s democracy, while strong, is also fragile and to remain strong, we had to recognize that. He believed our democracy was a “grand experiment” and as such, it should be treated carefully.

A Haunting Coda: The 7 Days Gene Hackman’s Wife Could No Longer Care for Him: The exact details may never be known, but Mr. Hackman, 95 with advanced Alzheimer’s, was alone for about a week after his wife and sole caregiver died. [nytimes.com]

These expert tips on how to care for a loved one with dementia assume a level of financial and social resources that many caregivers just won’t have: Set up a caregiving team of at least five friends and family. Hire a geriatric social worker or nurse. Etc. [nytimes.com]

About 60 trans athletes play organized sports in the US. Sixty. Politicians and influencers trying to stir up outrage about this are distracting you while they steal from you.

The view from my hotel window, in one of the most ancient and beautiful cities in the world.

A view from above shows a curving road beside industrial and commercial buildings, with a cloudy sky and open landscape in the background.

Barcelona really is all that — truly ancient and beautiful. However, my neighborhood does not partake of that legacy. It’s fine, though. Comfortable and reasonably close to Mobile World Congress.

The great thing about AirTags as you get instant reassurance when you get off the plane that your luggage is in the same airport that you are. The frustrating thing is you can see that your luggage is 3/10 of a mile away from you and hasn’t moved in a long time.

JFK airport is a shitshow, particularly if you are unused to flying through it and trying to make a connection from one side of the airport to the other. But the random people who work there that I asked for guidance were extremely helpful – and I’m not kidding about that.

Quest Bars are an exceptionally great travel snack to pack in your go bag. They’re satisfying when you don’t have time to get real food; they’re just tasty enough to enjoy while eating them, but not tasty enough that you’re ever tempted to eat them recreationally.

I got this recommendation years ago from a podcaster named CGP Grey on the Cortex podcast. 100% correct, extremely useful.

RIP Joseph Wambaugh, 88, ex-cop and writer, who wrote brilliant police procedurals and true crime, including "The Onion Field."

I loved his books. His cops were sometimes heroic, sometimes bad and dirty, sometimes both at once. He wrote lovingly about them and about cold-blooded murderers.

He had a remarkable life, continuing to work as a policeman years after his writing career took off, quitting only when he became too famous for police work.

Robert D. McFadden at the NY Times::

“I’m very interested in the concept of the sociopath, very interested, because my conscience has bothered me all my life,” he told The Los Angeles Times in 1989. “Talk about regrets – I have about 20 every day. I was educated in Catholic schools, and they did that to me. So I have to cope with a conscience all the time. And I’m interested in a creature who has none of that.”

I’m at the airport at the gate waiting for a flight out. There’s a guy here sitting in a chair literally playing the trombone. I’m pretty sure he’s a passenger — I don’t think he works for the airline as an onboard trombonist.

At least it’s not a tuba.

How could they have named the company “Anker” when “Wanker” was right there?

I’m getting ready for a six-day business trip and I’m packing light .

Startup Lonestar Data Holdings is catching a ride on a SpaceX rocket to put a mini data center on the moon — a proof-of-concept for the real thing. I get the technical and legal benefits of putting a data center in space, but why the moon? Why not in orbit, where it would be closer to home and more easily serviced?

Burritos, AI art, corporate fascism

Ryan Broderick at Garbage Day: “You ordered a private taxi for your burrito.” Also: " … AI art is the aesthetic of 21st-century fascism the same way Italian Futurism was in the last century."

Also: “The Washington Post as a tool of fascism:”

As Juniper wrote on Bluesky, “I think everyone needs to stop framing what’s going on as ‘bending the knee’ and what’s really happening which is ‘they’re finally feel free to do what they’ve always wanted to do.’”

Oh, and by the way, totally unrelated. I’m still working my way through The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I just got to the section where all the German industrialists that supported Adolf Hitler’s rise to power because he was anti-union get their companies nationalized and they all get thrown in jail.

Prominent military contractors, including former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, pitched a plan for mass deportations calling for ‘processing camps’ and a private citizen ‘army’.

“The idea of forcibly removing 12 million people from the United States is not just operationally impossible — it is a moral and economic catastrophe in the making,” said Jason Houser, former ICE chief of staff in the Biden administration.

RIP Michelle Trachtenberg, 39. She played “Dawn,” the younger sister on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and also appeared as a villain on “Gossip Girl.” Her death is apparently from natural causes. She recently had a liver transplant.

I downloaded about 250 of my purchased Kindle ebooks, roughly a third of my collection. And now it appears Amazon has shut that option down.

I’ve been a loyal Kindle customer for 14 years, and Amazon gave me (and its other customers) a “fuck you” in return.

(Relatively) easy instructions for downloading Kindle ebooks before the deadline, which is today or tomorrow

From the Department of Doing Thing at the Last Minute: I think I was able to successfully use these instructions to batch-download all my Kindle books before Amazon switches off that capability tonight or tomorrow. The instructions require installing the Tampermonkey Chrome extension, cutting-and-pasting a script into the extension’s configuration window and then letting the script run in the background.

As I type this, the script has been running for four hours and is only a third of the way through. That’s OK; I can just let it run in the background until it’s done.

I had previously found these instructions, which require more advanced command-line skills than I possess.

Sucks that Amazon can get away with making this change. I am far less likely to buy more ebooks from them after this rugpull.

Monitors at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development were hacked [Monday] morning and made to display an AI-generated video of President Donald Trump licking Elon Musk’s feet."

— Ryan Broderick at Garbage Day

Broderick theorizes that Trump lets Musk gets away with what Musk does because Musk has convinced Trump that Musk bought the election.

Also from Broderick: Yes, the far right did pretty well in Germany, but it was an equally big showing for the Left party. My $0.02: This underscores the theory that we might not be seeing a global swing to the right in democracies, but rather global ouster of incumbents.

And: “A crypto trader that went by the username @MistaFuccYou killed himself on a X livestream over the weekend, telling viewers, ‘If I die, make me a memecoin.'”

Rep. Mark Alford tells fired Kansas City federal workers “God has a plan." Alford’s constituents, are suffering and angry and Alford is laughing at them.

Alford is a former Fox News host because of course he is.

How an obscure advisory board lets utilities steal $50b/year from ratepayers

Cory Doctorow at Pluralistic: Americans served by privately owned electric companies saw their rates increase 49% over inflation over the last three years. Americans served by publicly electrical utilities saw rates go up at 44% below inflation over the same period.

Cory:

Power is that much-theorized economic marvel: a “natural monopoly.” Once someone has gone to the trouble of bringing a power wire to your house, it’s almost impossible to convince anyone else to invest in bringing a competing wire to your electrical service mast. For this reason, most people in the world get their energy from a publicly owned utility, and the rates reflect social priorities as well as cost-recovery. For example, basic power to run lights and a refrigerator might be steeply discounted, while energy-gobbling McMansions pay a substantial premium for the extra power to heat and cool their ostentatious lawyer-foyers and “great rooms.”

But in America, we believe in the miracle of the market, even where no market could possibly exist because of natural monopolies. That’s why about 70% of Americans get their power from shareholder-owned companies, whose managers' prime directive is extracting profit, not serving their communities.

Your Local Epidemiologist: “The overlap between medical and scientific professionals and pro-vaccine positions is nearly universal–because vaccines work” The Trump administration is undermining our public health infrastructure as flu and measles are rising.

The coup has failed

The Coup Has Failed. Also: The Democratic Brand Has Tanked. Trump Is Doing the Same to the Republican Party. And: James Carville says the Trump administration will collapse within 30 days. Democrats just need to “play possum,” Carville says. All may be true; but Trump has more lives than a cat. He repeatedly teeters on the verge of destruction and bounces back stronger than ever.

I’m not counseling despair — Trump and his movement are beatable. But don’t take anything for granted.

Looks like Dave Winer is doing valuable work on Wordland, a simple, web-based front end for Wordpress. It appears to be an implementation of the WordPress for One idea he talked about last year. No Mastodon or BlueSky integration, just RSS. I love seeing more simple, easy-to-use blogging platforms.

News that got my attention today

Conservatives won the German elections but the far-right AfD doubled support.

What is Long Covid: A beginner’s guide. By Julia Doubleday.

Your kink is health care? Good luck, babe: When Chappell Roan spoke out to ask the music industry to offer health benefits to struggling musicians, the industry struck back to shut her up to protect their oligopoly. In the music industry, a few big companies dominate everything — recording, distribution, publicity and performance. Musicians and fans have no freedom to take their business elsewhere." [For] a capitalist society to function, there has to be competition. And if everything’s connected and all the interests are shared on one side, there’s no way to compete,” Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney said.

The New Antitrust Consensus: The Trump administration is maintaining the merger guidelines that Lina Khan co-authored, and big business is angry.

Hamilton Nolan: Don’t look for a governing philosophy in the White House and Republican Party — Donald Trump is a crime boss. “The goal of all this is not ‘remaking the government in a conservative image’—it is ‘if you want anything, you have to ask me for it.’ The rules that governed how the government works are tossed out and replaced with ‘Trump’s will.’ That’s how mob bosses rule.”

Sources: The Guardian First Thing, Pluralistic

Something I saw while walking the dog: This “Blessing Box” in front of a church, stocked with small food donations A white outdoor cabinet labeled Blessing Box, stocked with items, with a sign reading 'take what you need, give what you can.'

Today's news and links that got my attention

Pope Francis is in critical condition after a respiratory crisis

Measles outbreaks in Texas and New Mexico sickened nearly 100 people, with the number of cases is expected to rise. Only five of the victims are known to be vaccinated.

A Democratic trustee at Chula Vista Elementary School District in San Diego ran for a different seat on the school board in order to unseat another Democrat, who the first trustee and a board ally opposed. This set off events that led to a Republican being appointed to the board, changing a 4-1 Democratic majority on the board to 3-2. The county Democratic Party is not happy. This whole thing is more complicated than a season of “Slow Horses.”

A self-described American Christian missionary, Daniel Martindale, went undercover in Ukraine to spy for Moscow. He’s part of a growing ultraconservative American embrace of Russia and rejection of the US.

Six things E.R. doctors wish you’d avoid: Don’t wear crocs in ice and snow. “Don’t trust trampolines.” “Don’t ignore sudden symptoms … If you experience something like severe chest pain or paralysis of a body part, come to the E.R. immediately….” “Don’t pet strange dogs.” Fuck that last one; I am absolutely petting every dog I can.

In 2011, Ray Richmond, his brother and sister discreetly deposited their mother’s ashes (her “cremains”) in Clifton’s, a Los Angeles cafeteria. This short essay has one surprise after another.

The perfect girl next door: How do you live your mediocre life in the shadow of a hipster goddess?

Man, it was so great to be horrible, back when I was young and pretty! In fact, I want to urge every young and youngish woman out there to take advantage of their hotness for as long as possible, because it’s fun and it’s good for you and everyone should literally be punished by how amazing you look. You need to grind their faces into the shag carpet of what an unbearable smoke show you are. Because so many complete dolts are going to make you pay for so many stupid reasons moving forward — for being interesting, for having a brain in your skull, for being bored by them because they are objectively boring, for growing into a mature adult with firm boundaries and clear expectations. So smear your raw hotness all over their dumb-dog faces for as long as you possibly can.

I did not note the byline so I had to read the whole thing to get to the tagline at the end, which told me the writer is the talented Heather Havrilesky.

More from Heather on the perfect girl next door:

Being stubborn about trivial things is sometimes a way of protecting yourself from acknowledging far more important things that you want but can’t admit to wanting. If I had more compassion for myself, I would’ve figured out that what I wanted very badly was to be understood, to be seen clearly, to be recognized as a loving person in spite of my resting bitch face. But I didn’t respect my own core needs – I was raised to ignore and ridicule my core needs, quite honestly; that’s just how my people do it – so I couldn’t stop inflating the importance of absolutely trivial irritations and superficial obstacles.

Additional source: The New York Times Today’s Headlines

News that got my attention today

Trump dismissed four-star Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the joint chiefs of staff, a fighter pilot, and replaced him with a retired white three-star general loyal to Trump, passing over the usual chain of command. The chief of staff traditionally spans administrations. The change included a purge of six Pentagon officials, including a woman, and furthers the Republican white supremacist, anti-women, sexist, authoritarian agenda.

Protesters confronted California Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones, of Santee, Calif., who is pandering to white supremacy and xenophobia by restricting California’s so-called “sanctuary city” law.

School shooter Brenda Spencer, 62, was denied parole for the sixth time. She opened fire on a San Diego elementary school in 1979, killing two and injuring nine others, and later explained her reason: “I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.” The shooting became the inspiration for a song, “I Don’t Like Mondays," by the Boomtown Rats, an Irish band, written by Bob Geldof and Johnnie Fingers. It is a lovely piano ballad. The video is a perfect capsule of cheap, cheesy 1979 music videos. Geldof later said he regretted writing the song because it made Spencer famous.

Also:

An 87-year-old widower went viral for hand-delivering party invitations door to door that read “4 pm unitl the cops arrive.”

A 94-year-old woman reunited with a toddler she saved from drowing 64 years ago. He’s now 66 years old.

Authorities seized 303 cocaine-filled ceramic bananas.

9.3% of US adults identified as LGBTQ+ last year, up from 7.6% in 20230. This is the kind of thing that means TRUMP-DOGEism will have a short shelf-life. Trump came into office with the slimmest of margins; only about a third of eligible voters supported him. Those LGBTQ+ people make up a big part of the population, and they have plenty of friends, families and allies in the cisgender-heterosexual community (like me). Trump-DOGEism will continue to lose popularity as their stupid and dangerous policies harm more and more people.

Additional source: 1440

I’m planning my first international travel in more than five years. I just bought a couple of power banks for the trip, and for emergency preparedness here at home. I may have overdone it.

I can now fly five times around the world nonstop and binge-watch Law & Order the entire time.