In 2017, Criselda Vasquez painted this portrait of her parents and titled it "The New American Gothic." Last month, her father, the man in this portrait, was abducted by ICE after being in the US for 30+ years. The family is now struggling with bills. A GoFundMe has been started: gofund.me/456d8a193

Read this whole staircase of quote posts, such delightful innocent embarrassment 👇

Really feeling this today

"The oligarchs want a permanent ruling class. The extremists want a permanent underclass to grind a boot into. The deal between them is straightforward enough: the oligarchs get captured courts and permanent tax cuts, the extremists get their hierarchy of human worth written back into the law"

"If she has her own house, what will she need me for?" I don't know, dude, maybe be cool and fun to be around and be happy for her success instead being whiny little sad-ass troll about it? www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Loser Convention cancelled

Also doesn't achieve anything. Prices are going up because supply is going down; artificially lowering the price just incentivizes more demand, leading to supply going down faster -- increasing the price higher than it would be otherwise It's Econ 101-level stuff bsky.app/profile/bexo...

Reminder: none of these people have any underlying principles they believe, except the will to power They cannot be negotiated with. They cannot be reasoned with. They cannot be appeased. They must be crushed, like vermin. thehill.com/policy/energ...

Have you been tempted to use a chatbot to help deal with your medical bills? Here’s a rundown on how well these tools are working — along with an update on AI scribes in the exam room:

half the stuff I read about political media these days is like “hey man, if you’re not at the fart factory with the Fart King no one’s gonna smell your farts”

Local Loser Convention

I put adulting clothes on today because I was expecting a maintenance guy to drop by to fix a thing, but here it is 5pm and he’s a no-show and nothing makes me madder than to wear my adulting clothes all day for fuck-all.

For Denver & Colorado peeps:

To be clear, this is only for those trans people who now qualify for obtaining Canadian citizenship by virtue of having a Canadian ancestor, but it's not nothing.

Some AI tools are getting dumber and more expensive.

but the truth is erotica, especially surrealist erotica, and ESPECIALLY queer surrealist erotica, still has a long road to go before people recognize it as legitimate art. i have been fighting over a decade for that and will continue to fight, and it is really encouraging to see posts like this

Here’s what I wrote for the Guardian after my vasectomy. (NHS vasectomies are free, but you have to write a piece for the Guardian about it) www.theguardian.com/stage/2020/a...

I’m embarrassed to say I was careful about the amount of mustard I put on my burger the other day, worried I’d make it too hot… what can I say, I was raised in the south on fried chicken, mashed potatoes, overcooked & heavily salted meats & veggies (in lard), banana puddin, & buckets of sweet tea

So glad I get this newsletter because I too thought I must be the only one who initially thought he was playing Roberts…

Oregon hospital wins fight against private equity takeover, yay! youtu.be/Kclk9HFnvi8

The Pike’s Peak Humane Society has a social media manager who is very good at their job

Except for one, I found each be boring and shallow human beings, completely out of touch with what most of the world experiences, bereft of curiosity, and extraordinarily self-centered

In my long career, I’ve had the opportunity to work with on the order of two dozen billionaires. A couple of them even offered to hire me for embarrassingly large piles of money. I was flattered, but I turned them both down.

Love this description

Years ago I wrote a piece on my site about how every MFA writing program should have at least elective courses on the business aspects of writing/publishing (how to read contracts, get agents, current state of the industry, etc). I got some pushback on that, which I thought was... odd.

Why is our most rabid and bloodthirsty cracker literally named Tom Cotton from Arkansas

Brilliant

Just fyi do NOT go to Costco the Fri-Sun of a Mothers Day weekend unless you enjoy being elbow to elbow with folks buying flowers, potted plants, and trying to skirt around all the popup tables selling jewelry and other gift items.

We've reached the point where one party has so obliterated the rule of law that everyone else continuing to abide by it will only hasten the end of our democracy. That's a recipe for chaos and violence. It's terrifying, and I don't know what we do about it.

Might be time to retire the phrase “They’re saying the quiet part out loud” because there’s no longer a quiet part

This is a very good thread about AI.

Oh goddammit that IS me how embarrassing 🤦🏻‍♀️♍️

insanely smug English majors are the only ones who haven’t rotted their brains too much to do investment banking. our time

The replies are priceless. I find myself looking back and wondering about how my dad always seemed to have chips but when I went to get some I could never find any…🤔

A fun life hack if you have children is to put a loaf of bread or package of tortillas on top of the package of cookies, because they’re so lazy they won’t lift up the top item and then you get to keep the cookies for yourself

This is Spear. He is being forced to leave his grandma's house against his will. You know who would never do this to him? Grandma. 13/10 (TT: daddymaddy19)

Remember: Wealth cannot be separated from power. We're seeing in real time how the extreme concentration of wealth is distorting our politics, rigging markets, and granting unprecedented power to a handful of people. Taxing the rich isn't just an economic issue, it's a defense of our democracy.

Dawkins spending his entire career berating basically pretty normal people for being so stupid as to believe in God and then immediately giving himself Roko's Basilisk Derangement Syndrome after talking to the AI catgirl waifus is just the funniest shit.

This is the first of two videos on men’s mental health in these professions. Harry’s, our ad partner, conducted this study alongside Riverside Community Center. Really interesting, albeit sad, stuff. I hope you’ll come back for the second video.

Miners, fishermen and construction workers all have this in common.

This is Wynn. She insists on her human's full attention before jumping into the water. Not gonna do anything fancy, just likes an audience. 14/10 (IG: wynn_thegolden)

On a software project, I used dummy text as a placeholder to be replaced later with actual descriptive error messages. Predictably, not all instances were fixed before release, and bemused corporate clients reported "Error: There is sauerkraut in my lederhosen".

Holy Hell 🤣🤣🤣👏👏👏

The Last Incorruptible Thing

May the 4th Be With You

HOLD OFF ON STOCKING UP IMMEDIATELY UNLESS YOU HAVE IMMEDIATE NEEDS Otherwise you'll push a shortage that might impact immediate needs. Wait a couple of weeks and then buy some if you're going to. DO stock up some. Just don't rush the doors.

“Morels cannot be recorded by Ring or tracked by GPS. They are immune from AI chicanery… Morel hunters guard their secrets in the analog world: in the depths of the forests and the recesses of their minds. Morels are escape artists, and you escape with them.” - @sarahkendzior.bsky.social

attempting to buy my senator over the table like a pound of cheese. wonderful stuff

And of course his poor wife can’t divorce him because his brain-damaged ass would probably call ICE on her in a fit of rage. Next time someone says “oh we love each other and we don’t need a prenup” just say FETTERMAN. People fucking change.

New rubbish dialogue reaches me every other day on wadges of pink paper—and none of it makes my character clear or even bearable. . . . I must off to studio and work with . . . Tennyson (that can’t be right) Ford. Ellison? (? — No!)—well, a rangy, languid young man. —Alec Guinness, diary, 1976