Currently reading:

Books recently finished: Ordinary Men, Chris Browning: Best thing I’ve read about the social and psychological conditions of the people who murdered Jews The Lighthouse of Stalingrad, Ian MacGregor: a riveting account of Stalingrad told from the battalion/company level.

Anyone ever read this?

I’ve had such great fun with COBI’s 1/72 scale mini tanks, I decided to take a bigger one for a spin.

Finally gonna give a GLP-1 a try for a month. Can't really find any better options than going to HIMS or Ro, at least for the first month, but if anyone has recs, lmk.

Finished my second reading of Tooze’s Wages of Destruction. Excellent. Now for some easy reading:

“So she said, ‘I think the worst part is that this will tear us apart at home.’ And I disagree.” “You do?” “Yeah. I said I thought it was the genocide!”

I’ve started spending real money on MTG Arena and it’s becoming a problem.

Has anyone read anything by Charles Tilly? I’m thinking about reading Coercion, Capital, and European States, but don’t know his deal.

Welp, I’ve finished another one (When Titans Clashed) and don’t have one on deck. Any recs? Still pretty much only interested in world war 2 nonfiction. Attaching my “to read” list in case anyone has recs!

“…and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

Got a new shirt

Scheduling an emergency meeting with the director of Ruth’s school because she won’t say “Go Wolves” anymore and will only say “Go Knicks”

Since last winter when I fell down my world war 2 rabbit hole, I’ve read or listened to 23 books, including 3 over 1,000 pages. While Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is still my favorite, Prit Buttar is, by a wide margin, my favorite writer and historian.

was thinking today about when I staffed Keith Ellison, circa ‘14, ‘15 etc, and how at the time Keith was the most outspoken defender of Palestinian rights in Congress, and it was still too politically risky for us to do events with JVP. It’s wild how much the world has changed.

Sounds familiar.

I’m turning 35 at the end of the month and as a present to myself I’m staying stone sober for the whole month. I feel absolutely terrible.

The city of Minneapolis estimates the federal immigration enforcement surge from December 2025 to April 2026 cost the city, residents and businesses $700 million.

On the other site:

Friends who are on GLP-1s: what are your recs for what to get and where to get it? All my Instagram ads are for, like, Ro and Hims, should I just order from there? I don’t need to lose weight but all the other benefits are pulling me in.

Antony Beevor is a schmuck of a historian, but he’s a great writer. If you’ve got the history to identify when he lets his anti-Soviet attitudes into his writing, both this one and Stalingrad are fantastic reads.

Finished Kershaw’s fabulous Hitler biography. Next one up:

I’m reading Ian Kershaw’s Hitler biography rn, specifically about Hess’ one-man peace mission, and chuckling thinking about a modern version of such a thing.

Bari Weiss out at CBS before the midterms. Book it.

Reading as a supplement to my current book

Axios: Mpls Council floats end of Office of Community Safety as “failed experiment.” I supported overarching public safety dept concept (beyond just MPD, to boost other public safety efforts) but Frey made it a $330,000 flak-catcher & responsibility-dodger for him. www.axios.com/newsletters/...

Think I will fuck around and build this tn

All this gerrymandering insanity just drives home how much we need to implement my idea: a new, unicameral legislature made up of mixed member districts with a representative to constituent ratio of 1:10,000 and 7,000 delegates. I call it MegaSenate and it’s the only fair option.

How do I learn to play Hearts of Iron 4?

A Florida wildlife biologist was summarily fired for *reposting* an Instagram joke about Charlie Kirk’s death. LibsofTikTok complained. A state official’s false statements in legal proceedings led to sanctions. And now the state will settle by paying her $485,000. www.aclufl.org/press-releas...

Hasn't even been a year and Zohran's governance is having a massive impact on my family. Our daycare was able to open a 15-seat 3K program because of the 2,000 extra seats the admin funded. Everyone we know got in somewhere they wanted. This is gonna save us almost 50 grand.

Ru is getting into one of the 3Ks we wanted so starting in September we'll no longer be paying $43,000 a year for daycare.

I haven’t seen anything good written about the proliferation of 7-hydroxymitragynine at smoke shops. I might have to put something together myself, cuz this stuff is absolutely bananas and I can’t believe you can buy it at the gas station.

So far the Kershaw biography is stellar, but I’m finding it hard to hold my attention through the early life stuff, like WW1 through 1930ish. A lot of Hitler’s life was desperately boring. He spent a long time as what essentially we’d understand as a mediocre niche poster.

This honestly bugs me a bunch re: Odyssey critique. A lot of the Iliad and the Odyssey is Goofy Fun. People turn into pigs! Nestor gives long speeches about how he doesn't give long speeches! Trying to treat them with reverence is itself a desecration.

Someone had a point and shoot digital camera from 2005 at the function this weekend.

New project

It’s wonderful how happy Ru is to run and play at the park, and let me read in the sun about the destruction of Army Group Center

Has anyone read Ian Kershaw’s Hitler biography? I’m gonna read it next, but can’t decide if I should read the abridged single volume, or go for the full deal.

It’s wonderful how happy Ru is to run and play at the park, and let me read in the sun about the destruction of Army Group Center

If I was a Member of the United States House of Representatives, I would simply not try to fuck my interns.

You, years later: Hope what I said didn’t come out wrong. Oh god what if they thought I mea United States Representative to employee: suck me off real quick?

Reading The Making of the Atomic Bomb and it’s the first time I’ve heard the metaphor that world war 1 was a machine which’s product was corpses. Couldn’t tell if that was an original line or a reference, but found it arresting.

All my love to the homies who recommended this one. It’s intensely moving.

The best bagel in nyc is the sesame seed at Apollo Bagels by One WTC.

A lot of people recommended When Titans Clashed by Glantz & House for my Eastern Front rabbit hole, and I’m now almost halfway done and tbh I don’t really like it. I’m gonna finish, but it’s superrrrr dry. Maybe it’s just the audiobook narrator or something.

Help me build a commander/brawl deck for this guy

Hilarious anecdote in the book I just finished about a Soviet military delegation who was invited to by the Germans in 1938 to a demonstration of their tanks, and were so convinced the Germans were lying to them about not having any heavy tanks, they were *offended.*

Now reading:

When I told my family this game was “basically just Risk,” I guess I was lying.