But when the pangram becomes too obscure, cracks appear in the structure. MICRO cracks.* So from now on, any pangram's shadiness can be calculated using its Microcrack Factor™* *(See? Doesn't that seem more natural as two words? Yes, it does) **(Still not a real trademark!)

I laughed when I saw what my missing pangram was in yesterday’s NYT Spelling Bee. I missed the day with MICROCRACK last year, so it remained wildly unfamiliar to me. Wiki says you need a microscope to see a microcrack in a rock.

Hand puddle in the sidewalk. It’s nice when the sidewalk waves hello!

I remember the olden days when the news would report that someone was censured in Congress. The Chuy Garcia stories I've seen today use the words admonish, chastise, condemn, and rebuke. Has the terminology changed, or are reporters no longer sure their readers will understand the word "censure"?

is the white house correspondents’ association a functioning org? the mango moron poked his finger in a woman’s face yesterday and called her ‘piggy’ and the whca - which is currently led by a woman - hasn’t said shit in case you need another example of how fcking useless legacy media is

I am once again asking white people to handle their Nuzzi/Lizza business in the privacy of their own pumpkin spiced brunch table and leave the rest of us the fuck alone with this poorly written bullshit

If you’re looking for a variety of millennial-coded crosswords that don’t mess around with cutesy clues for fascists, arrive frequently, can be played online or printed on paper, are reasonably priced, and have a great response, I strongly recommend @avcx.bsky.social

I don't know who's taking the boat out on Lake Michigan in November! The harbors are empty, the boats stored elsewhere for the winter.

to have an affair with one longshot presidential candidate twice your age that you’re profiling may be regarded as a misfortune; to have two looks like carelessness

Rip Oscar Wilde you would have loved Substack

Alright alright alright ALL RIGHT YES! I ate the goddamn plums that were in the icebox. It isn't as if you were saving them for breakf— oh, you were? … well, fuckit. p.s. They were so cold and sweet

Remember those national guard troops sent to Chicago by Texas Gov Greg Abbott? They went home after sitting at a suburban training facility doing nothing for a month. Abbott's little stunt cost taxpayers at least $12M. What an abuse of power. wgntv.com/news/wgn-inv...

People getting mad here about anyone saying it's good that MTG and Trump are fighting. I teach democratization every semester. The first slide says 'elite fracture.' That's always where it starts. It's good when people with bad politics are fighting one another.

I wish @merriam-webster.com included a definition and etymology for “groyper”. It’s such an alien term.

I got a tip a few months ago that ICE was planning to use tribal airports for ICE flights. I spent a few hours scouring flight data, found no evidence of this, and let it go. But perhaps they all just said no? If anyone has more info, hmu on signal at gbrockell.44!

For the fifty billionth time: I don't want society to shut down. I want you to mask at the fucking hospital, bus, airport, school, and grocery store, if you can. If you cannot, I want everyone else to, to protect you.

I’m training sword every week now! ⚔️⚔️

dystopian ass weather report

she better run

If you see this, post a bird

"White House of Dynamite" (2025): Director Kathryn Bigelow takes you inside a tense White House Situation Room as top aides have only 20 minutes to stop an incoming Epstein email from annihilating Donald Trump's presidency

My thing is that 15 is not “barely legal.” It is, quite comfortably “Statutorily ILLEGAL”

Notice how nobody in the Trump regime ever asks, “But how will we pay for it?” when it comes to priorities that benefit them?

"You know us...So please trust us now when we say that what is happening in the Chicago area is wrong." Powerful letter from retired Chicago broadcast journalists about what ICE/CBP is doing to our city: "it is terror" www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/13/l...

If **Jeffrey Epstein** thinks you're a evil and demented sociopath, the odds are overwhelming that you are, in fact, an evil and demented sociopath.

NEW: @propublica.org investigated the Chicago apartment raid where kids were zip-tied and citizens detained for hours. They find: - NONE of the arrested were criminally charged - NO evidence the building was "filled with TdA terrorists." - ZERO legitimate reason for DHS to rappel from a Blackhawk.

8:45ish, Belmont Harbor

Sr sosige is deeply committed to wild strawberry season.

This is a VERY interesting read, now that I've had time to sit down with it, and it has me thinking about the interactions of learning abilities, especially dyslexia, with how we teach reading.

What's from Chicago, hates Illinois Nazis, and is holy as fuck? It's the Pope in 1982.

there are whole generations of men whose idea of How Men Are Cool was formed by, like, rock stars casually sleeping with 16 year olds and writing hit songs about it. confronting the inherent predation of those powerful men feels like such a personal attack on their own construction of masculinity

Epistemic violence against sexual abuse accusers—smearing them as deluded, crazy, or incompetent—is something rapists know works, and they conspire to do it.

You love to see it: “Seven years ago, left-leaning politicians opposed a plan that would have given incentives to Amazon to build a headquarters in the same neighborhood.”

I have no words for editorial jokes.

Cummings describes a sampling of Midway Blitz arrests: 54 were arrested while at work. 20 landscapers, 4 Uber or taxi drivers 2 street vendors 20 were commuting to or from work 9 arrested at Home Depot or Menards 11 in public places, including a Dunkin Donuts drive thru

A reminder to get your shots and that if you’ve not been masking around people outside of your household, now is an excellent time to start

Typewriter visual art, to pair with Brendan Quigley’s Typewriter Orchestra

My son captured the northern lights from Hollywood Beach in Chicago.

Does anyone else who watches Apple's "The Morning Show" find the the theme song intolerably annoying?

Saying “reading books in public is performative” is a very quick and simple way to communicate to me that you are a stupid little pig I do not need to listen to and in that sense I appreciate it

a new genre of photo in the last year is federal agents working for ICE pointing guns directly at photographers

I think five different times since daylight savings I’ve looked up from my work to see that it’s dark out and said “oh damn it’s getting late, must be like 8 o’clock” and it was like 4:30 💀 I’M NOT HANDLING IT WELL

a few months ago I said "having generative AI handle absolutely anything with regards to healthcare is a nightmare and should be banned" and a bunch of people made fun of me and called me stupid. anyways,

Gregory Bovino‘s Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago has hit a new low. www.jezebel.com/dhs-just-pep...

For my first piece back from vacation, I blogged about the people who moved from Texas to Russia to escape gay people and then found out living in Russia kind of sucks: www.chron.com/culture/arti...

this is the kind of thing that makes a difference

I also wrote a message on Dick Durbin's website. www.durbin.senate.gov/contact/email

schumer: don't worry, I've got us right where they want us