If US wealth were spread equally over all households, the poorest 50% of households today would get *$1.2 million* richer on average. The next-poorest 40% of households would get $300k richer on average. Only the richest 10% of Americans would lose any wealth, at all. Calculations and data source:

I got a new Kafka tattoo while I was in Prague, but now I'm back in Pittsburgh and am looking for someone who can do good color work. I'm talking about a realistic image built around a man in a suit. Do you have any shop or artist suggestions? Thanks.

That amazing cover is a variant of “L’oeil du silence” by Max Ernst and has been on at least one other notable book — Ballard’s THE CRYSTAL WORLD

Happy Mother's Day

Along the Charles Bridge in Prague at sunset, crossing from Old Town

My Mom painted this in the 40s, probably. Before she did the furniture, candles, birthday cakes, lighting & the jooleries that made her famous. #MothersDay

I appear to be in The Economic Times, which I did not see coming. economictimes.indiatimes.com/us/news/quot...

The bad guys are desperately going after what they think are the foundations of multiculturalism: universities, schools, libraries. Multiculturalism is more sustainable than apartheid. But when they get back into power, the good guys need to go after the bastions of apartheid in the Deep South.

Koji Suzuki! A massive influence on horror and horror-adjacent work around the world, his writing was far darker and more subtle, complex and nuanced than the popular adaptations. He was a master, and will be greatly missed.

My PhD advisor just got elected to the National Academy of Sciences, couldn’t be more proud. Stevan Arnold stands in stark contrast to those purveyors of pop science we always see in the news. His brilliant work genuinely moved evolutionary biology forward. science.oregonstate.edu/impact/2026/...

If something actually happens that would make Altman think he has to retreat to his bunker, he’d better not. He better be right there in the thick of the misery using his billions of $$ to alleviate other people’s suffering. Otherwise, no bunker is dug too deep to protect him from what awaits him.

it's the return of owlet season in my neighborhood!!

Consider that a cruise ship just anchoring at some harbors destroys marine habitat.

Good riddance, everything about it was an abomination. Incarceration should never be taken lightly. It should be treated as a necessity of last resort, a somber responsibility of government. That an American president would gleefully attach a cute nickname to such an awful place turns my stomach.

I so desperately want this to be a world where people as cool as Mamdani and AOC win a presidential election *because* they’re cool in the ways that they are.

Our plane is full, yet we seem to have no pilot, so great start to this final flight home.

😭

#scifi #booksky

So tax the fucking rich

I get along financially, I’m pretty happy & comfortable. You could seize 90% of the assets of somebody who’s got $10 million and he’d be left with, in practice, 1 million more dollars than I have. You cannot hurt somebody that rich by taxing them, under any reasonable definition of the word “hurt.”

John Langan new novelette is now up on Reactor: reactormag.com/this-fleshy-...

Well, here’s an emergent effect of Bluesky: after reading posts about Thomas Kinkade and Richard Dawkins in quick succession, I realized that I kind of keep those guys in the same bin, in my mind.

Now I want to know more about this lapel pin he always wore.

painter of white i mean light

It’s not too late to GiveBIG! Want to stand up for the arts and help @common-area.bsky.social transform the El Rey building into affordable, accessible, creative space? Donate to our GiveBIG campaign—even a little goes a long way: bit.ly/4eUfi6t

Kids would rock stats in grade school and they should be taught it there

Every single thing in the world is downstream of the fact that humans suck at statistics.

I've created the second Venice photo gallery: the (spooky) Flooded Crypt of San Zaccaria pulpsabotage.zenfolio.com/p341537145

omg @annaleen.bsky.social is a Don Martin fan??? I read all of his books, but the only one I kept was Captain Klutz, and tbh if I could only keep one superhero, Klutz would be the one.

Just because we can do something doesn't mean we should. And we shouldn't here. AI is a giant data-stealing plagiarism machine. Nothing more.

The resolve in this great article is inspiring

While listening to a Trump appointee lying to Congress, I realized something that applies to all of them & Trump too, which is that being dumb & being a clever liar go hand-in-hand. They lie to cover up their dumbness, & the lying makes them dumber. The more cleverly they lie, the dumber they get.

I reread DRACULA once a year, I’ve been doing it for so long I forget now why I do it, but I’ve closely annotated that first entry and for someone who *ought* to have been a hack, Stoker does an amazing formal job of ramping up the uneasiness in the reader, paragraph after paragraph. It’s genius.

We New Yorkers always remember what a special person Rudy is: harpers.org/archive/1999...

I listened to Kelly's conversation with Rebecca Solnit and I recommend it. I was particularly struck with what Solnit says here: truthout.org/audio/hope-i...

Star Wars. They were not very good, you were just children when you enjoyed it, and that's OK. George Lucas had a great idea but lousy execution, and him being given unlimited money to "fix mistakes" only made it worse. The original movie was saved in the edit, and even then it's still just "fine".

*Here's a link. Thanks, Mike @mfwestphal.bsky.social! fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com/p/heavy-meta...

The new Field Notes (“Heavy Metal Herons”) by @christopherbrown.bsky.social is a great read, make sure you listen to the audio, it will haunt your dreams

X-Files? You mean the Vancouver show?

Which is why I included it in the Nuremberg Caucus plan. But packing the court is just table stakes. In his latest video, Jamelle Bouie lays out a detailed plan for denazifying the Supreme Court: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRzS... 24/

Endorse

That's not true: antitrust is the most consequentially political regulation (with the possible exception of regulations on elections). Every fascist power defeated in WWII relied on the backing of their national monopolists to take, hold and wield power. 8/

I finally visited the Alex Pretti memorial. Damn, Minneapolis, we've been through a lot. A lot of things touched me, but this kid's letter broke open a bunch of things I've been keeping in tidy boxes to deal with later. We need to win, for them.

In some of us, the bacterial cells are smarter than the human ones, too. Not naming any names, yunnerstan. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

"She found a cheap loft, in a building on the Bowery owned by Andy Warhol. (She lived there until her death.) It was across the street from CBGB, the dingy rock club that became the epicenter of punk …" Stephanie Chernikowski, 84, Dies; Photographed the ‘Rough Magic’ of Punk (gift link):

Honestly, Dawkins the skeptic being flattered by his own narcissism reflected back to him by automation is absolutely on-fucking-brand for that asshole.

WTAF is the matter with these people?

A wonderful, innovative, delightfully quirky cartoonist, and an underrated pioneer of alternative newspaper cartooning.