Great shows don’t tell the whole story. Century II’s limitations drive up costs, restrict programming and require constant workarounds—often invisible to audiences, which can make the problems feel less urgent than they are. ✍️ Sam Jack 📸 Selena Favela

What public interest is served by giving a White House source anonymity just to say that Nicki Minaj is lying?

A couple of weeks ago, Yo-Yo Ma made a quick visit to Wichita and the Maven Gallery, and I got the chance to cover it for The SHOUT.

@joshtpm.bsky.social Why aren’t Democrats pointing out that if Republicans don’t want to negotiate on the budget, they can eliminate the filibuster? That would seem to add clarity to the situation — and the filibuster will need to go anyway when it’s time for a bare majority of Dems to codify Roe.

The phrasing “not only ___, it’s ___” is a favorite of ChatGPT. I’m seeing this formula crop up in online text and articles with astonishing frequency. Each time I see it now I’m annoyed by the suspicion that I’m reading cruft no one took the time to actually write.

Every time I hear the phrase “Liberation Day,” I think of the George Saunders short story where people are glued to a wall in a wealthy man’s home and forced to sing.

My thoughts on Beethoven 9 and our current moment. I appreciate @awelsbacher.bsky.social’s working with me on this, and The SHOUT’s being receptive to it.

Several kids trying to log in to Roblox at my library today ran into this insane 15-step Captcha. I tried to be sympathetic, but honestly… it was pretty funny. youtu.be/Nji8PFRUcsM?...

I started watching “Prime Target,” the new spy show on Apple, with my parents. It’s silly fun. Dad fished out these prime number discovery patents that he wrote and had issued for a Wichita inventor.

My latest for shoutwichita.com! Thanks to @johnharrison.cc, Lisa Rundstrom and Tom McGuire for tafor taking the time to chat with me about “Avian Migrations.”

Beautifully-written review here.

“Many of those interviewed broke down in tears as they described the rapid destruction of decades of work.” As a (formerly full time) reporter let me say: There’s a depth behind a dispassionate sentence like that. These reporters have had a close encounter with something truly outrageous and tragic.

New display at Newton Public Library: poetry + astronomy

Re-enjoying this Vasko Popa sequence, especially "The Dream of the Quartz Pebble." It's a legerdemain poem.

Today the president stood up in front of the country and blamed the AA 5342 disaster on minorities and the disabled. Those who live in Wichita, I urge you to phone Rep. Ron Estes’s office today and demand that Estes denounce those comments. estes.house.gov/contact/

I love the spine of this book with footprints in the snow.

My latest for shoutwichita.com. Thank you Emily!

Sergeant Gonell @sergeantaqgo.bsky.social sent me this picture. This is his call log. Each call is an automated Dept of "Justice" notification saying "The defendant you testified against is being released from the dept of corrections." Each defendant assaulted him.

The old year gone. Hello the new

For years there's been a wooden sign at an intersection near a trailer park outside Goddard, KS. And for years, the only thing on that sign had been a smallish painting of a weird-looking animal -- maybe it was an opossum?