This afternoon a small pod of Orca swam through the Ucluelet harbour then past the lighthouse. I missed them in the harbour but caught a few clips from the Wild Pacific Trail before they disappeared #Ucluelet #Tofino #VancouverIsland #killerwhales #PNW

Long before “A Room of One’s Own,” Virginia Woolf wrote a trio of fairy tales about a woman named Violet. This early experimental fiction, rediscovered in 2018, is now being published for the first time, showing Woolf in a startling new light.

We face an open open question as to whether the president, anywhere, anytime he pleases, can execute or round up people he says are terrorists—without due process. That we are even entertaining such a discussion tells you how far Trump has damaged democracy open.substack.com/pub/contrari...

USC faculty members denounce Trump compact that would shift university to the right

Lead us not into assumption temptation…

The American people are with Democrats on this. They don’t want their health care ripped away from them or jacked up.

Someone needs to tell John Roberts that being the last Chief Justice to serve in an American democracy won’t look good on his Wikipedia page

A Trump-appointed federal judge has, for the second time in two days, blocked President Donald Trump from sending National Guard troops into Oregon, ruling that the administration appeared to defy her Saturday order that Trump lacked a legal basis for sending the military into Portland.

'Miss Collins.' (1924) William Beckwith McInnes won the Archibald Prize (Australia's prestigious award for portraiture) seven times. Writing in defence of his style of realism: 'in Australia we have not been bitten by Cubism or Futurism or other isms … and I am glad of it'.

An emergency hearing now underway before Judge Immergut over whether the Trump administration has engaged in contemptuous evasion of yesterday's TRO by calling out California national guard units rather than Oregon units.

“The statute under which the president dispatched the troops — Section 12406 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code — specifies certain conditions that must be present to justify the action. Judge Immergut found that those conditions were not present in Portland.” 👇👇🎁 www.nytimes.com/2025/10/05/u...

Judge Karin Immergut: 👏👏👏 “…this is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law. Defendants have made a range of arguments that, if accepted, risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power — to the detriment of this nation.” 👇👇 apple.news/A-qX-biVpRXu...

Republicans are losing ground with their own base as the government shutdown drags into a third day.

The rare feel-good gov't shutdown story: I talked to some Bronx 8th-graders on a field trip to DC whose tour of the Capitol was canceled bc of the shutdown - and who ended up getting a personal tour from @aoc.bsky.social instead: www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...

A great young guy that the Yankees didn’t have to buy… 👏👏👏

Journalist Mario Guevara is being deported because the American government punishes reporters to protect its own power. We should all be outraged. freedom.press/issues/mario...

ICE is running around Chicago harassing people for not being white. Just a year ago, that was illegal in the United States and now it’s commonplace. That’s not making America great again.

Obviously, no institution of higher education should sign any such authoritarian “deal”…

We continue to demand accountability for the Saudi government's killing of columnist Jamal Khashoggi 7 years ago. Impunity imperils all who use their words against injustice. Saudi Arabia is the 3rd in the top jailer of writers globally. More in the #FreedomToWrite Index: pen.org/report/freed...

#USA: PEN International joins over 100 others to call on the Department of Homeland Security and Customs Enforcement to immediately release Mario Guevara. Read our joint letter ⬇️ @penamericas.bsky.social

What do autocrats dread? Nonviolent courage… 👇🎁 “Opposition figures need courage to unify and lead. Judges, business executives, lawyers and journalists need courage to withstand intimidation. Voters need courage to participate in elections, protest peacefully…” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o...

Gilbert White’s enchanting account of the flora and fauna of a village in Hampshire helped start a “quiet revolution in natural history”, a new book observes

48 hours left to show support for our campaign. As President of PEN International, Burhan Sonmez reminds us, truth must survive against repression. Your support can help us protect the writers who keep those ideals alive. www.justgiving.com/campaign/sum...

“Every war has two losers” —William Stafford, American poet

Lower court judges keep getting it right… www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/u...

I was hoping it was wine and cheese… “Ms. Chopin has slowed down as she’s moved further into her 100s. While she used to do yoga daily, she now only practices during the three classes she teaches each week.” 👇 www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/w...

You and I may need a Beethoven break… “But instrumental music is not “about” anything. It stirs the emotions despite — or maybe because of — its inability to reference our lived experience in any literal way.” 🎁 👇 www.nytimes.com/2025/09/28/o...

The United States is refusing to participate in the #UPR, a review of each country’s human rights record at the UN. No government is above this process. We join 40+ organizations in calling on the U.S. to engage and all countries to defend the UPR. www.theadvocatesforhumanrights.org/News/A/Index...

President Trump's executive order that aims to decimate the 14th Amendment is blatantly illegal. We will continue fighting to protect the right to birthright citizenship.

“One of poetry's great effects, through its emphasis upon feeling, association, music and image – things we recognize and respond to even before we understand why – is to guide us toward the part of ourselves so deeply buried that it borders upon the collective.” -- Tracy K. Smith

I wrote about internet men having big feelings about my little philosophy columns wellreadherring.substack.com/p/on-writing...

I didn’t think we’d go from “what are the humanities for” to “what are universities for” to “what is the right to free speech for” quite so quickly

A strong NYT editorial: “He has removed any pretense that the law is blind. As despots have done for centuries, he is persecuting people he considers his enemies, with little justification other than raw political power. It is reminiscent of the old royal notion ‘L’état, c’est moi’: I am the state.”

“I’m emotionally shellshocked right now,” said one professor in the Texas Tech system. “What does it say about academic freedom? It says we don’t have it.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/u...

Some news from me: Hekate, my verse novel is a top 5 Sunday Times bestseller this week. It’s my first ever time on the list and it’s still quite rare for poetry to make this bestsellers list - especially verse novels, so feeling incredibly grateful to be here.

“… the court’s conservative majority said the president’s ability to conduct foreign affairs appeared “to outweigh the potential harm” faced by foreign aid recipients.” What’s starvation compared to not hurting the president’s authoritarian feelings? www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/u...

“I saw what’s possible when we choose genuine intellectual engagement. She wasn’t retreating into an echo chamber or dismissing liberal arguments out of hand — she was grappling with ideas that challenged her own, embodying the spirit of inquiry…” 👇👇 (a gift read) www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/o...

"If I am deported, I will leave with my head held high, because I am convinced it will be for doing my work as a journalist..." Today, Mario Guevara spends his birthday in ICE detention and could be deported at any moment. Read his letter from ICE detention.

Vaccinations have been so successful that “there's been a collective forgetting that measles, and mumps, and rubella—these used to be diseases that would kill people in fairly large numbers,” the Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna tells Jeffrey Goldberg. Watch more: bit.ly/46a5DUE #TAF25

Superb essay by @jamellebouie.net on how the hyped-up unitary executive theory is built on a distorted conception of the President’s superior democratic legitimacy, and why it’s extreme application would fundamentally upend our constitutional order. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/o...

Jimmy Kimmel broke his silence on Tuesday in an emotional return to ABC’s airwaves, by turns defiant, joking and somber as he addressed the controversy that temporarily sidelined his late-night show and set off a national debate over free speech. Read more: nyti.ms/42C0P8k

Some anti-war history: a protest against the draft & Vietnam War in Milwaukee, Wisconsin…

Well, the nation does generally agree on one thing…

More GOP censorship on the horizon… in Michigan… “But the bill has larger designs. Its definition of the prohibited materials is written broadly enough to ban literature with sexual themes, video games and movies with sex scenes, hand-drawn erotica, and much more.”👇

#Egypt: We welcome reports that British-Egyptian writer, activist & PEN's case Alaa Abd el-Fattah has been granted a presidential pardon after 6 years unjustly imprisoned for his words. We await his release and will be monitoring the situation in the coming days. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

“Kimmel's return is a vindication for free speech... When people speak out to hold the powerful to account—it matters. We must all channel the same energy to fight the many assaults on free speech underway, including against those with less reach & resources"—Summer Lopez, PEN America interim Co-CEO

“American politics is no longer a fight over policy; it is a fight over the character of the nation itself. The task of this moment, then, is to defend the old vision of a more perfect union— of a more democratic and egalitarian American republic….”👇👇 www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/o...

Jimmy Kimmel will be returning to his late-night show tomorrow, after what ABC described as ‘thoughtful conversations’ about his Charlie Kirk controversy.

A victory for free speech…👇 “In the days since ABC’s decision, at least five Hollywood unions, collectively representing more than 400,000 workers, publicly condemned the company.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/b...

Splendid piece by David French, who makes brilliant use of Frederick Douglass & former SC Justice Robert Jackson… a gift for all… 👇🎁 www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/o...