Hard to read Epstein's banal, name-droppy conversation with Steve Bannon w/o thinking about the implications of the fact that lots of our business, political, and educational elite evidently thought this sort of dorm-roomy "intellectual" stuff was unusually smart. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

MacKenzie Scott has the chance to do the funniest thing right now.

Time capsule: Nobody--well, almost nobody--would ask the questions to a leading African-American artist that 60 Minutes asked Miles Davis in 1989. The look in his eyes as he hears them... sheesh.

Somehow, I don't think folks like this are arguing for truly traditional classical Greek casting, in which Helen of Troy would be played by a man in a mask. Not to mention that Helen herself was not even fully human--her father was a supernatural swan.

There is absolutely nothing about this chart that's good. Indeed, the more you look at it, the worse it gets. www.axios.com/2026/01/22/m...

“'Project Panama is our effort to destructively scan all the books in the world,' an internal planning document said. 'We don’t want it to be known that we are working on this.'” Fine WaPo update on how AI firms went about grabbing, scanning, and destroying zillions of books.

WSJ: "About 62% of [US home] buyers last year purchased a home below the original listing price. That was the highest proportion since 2019..." archive.is/rbt4X

“A dictator comes from below and then throws himself in an even deeper hole.” A historian of European fascism compares Trump and Mussolini. They aren't the same, but they aren't that different, either. (Gift link)

So, now they're asking . . .

This is very well done: www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/0...

Man, LA supermarkets are the best.

LA, CA. Sign of the times.

We made a book! And so far the reviews are simply smashing!

Totally thrilled that my pal @kiliiiyuyan.bsky.social got a rave in Kirkus for his wonderful new book, available Feb 15. "Our Verdict: GET IT." They ain't wrong: www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews...

Warm, elegant piece from Julian Noisecat on the long--*very* long--love story in the Pacific Northwest between people and salmon: placesjournal.org/article/farw...

The Constitution needs an upgrade. Trump has made clear that the US Constitution & overall system have significant security flaws + traits that benefit extremism. We need structural changes, inc. multiple Constitutional Amendments, to improve resilience to future authoritraians. A starter list: 🧵

A century ago, tens of thousands of US houses were built from factory-made prefab kits sold by firms like Montgomery Ward. They were inexpensive but nice starter homes that launched many young families. Lots are still around. These guys are more or less trying to bring this back--good luck to them!

I know it's mean to laugh at the incompetent, and I know I shouldn't post things from Over There, but... but... oh, the hell with it, this is too good.

Led by Professor Jane Langdale @biology.ox.ac.uk, the C4 Rice Project builds on decades of interdisciplinary research working to ensure global food security. Discover the incredible story of the multi-decade battle to make better rice ⬇️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3RY0vxzFpg

@davidwengrow.bsky.social, tartly, on what "the collapse of the rules-based international order" actually means:

Fine Alma Guillermoprieto piece on the bizarre incoherence of Trump's Venezuela "policy" and the Venezuelan government's reaction: www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

Charming story about an inventor who made every driver's life just a little better--the guy who thought up the little arrow by the gas meter that tells you which side of the vehicle the gas cap is on. archive.is/qptKP

It’s looking likely that 2025 may have had the lowest homicide rate in OVER A CENTURY. Perhaps since 1900. An absolutely staggering decline, and a huge—and for now poorly-understood—policy success.

TIL Jack ("Call of the Wild") London was bonkers.A proud socialist (he wrote "What Socialism Is" at 19), he believed that socialism was a means "to give more strength to those certain kindred favored races so that they may survive and inherit the earth to the extinction of the lesser, weaker races."

100% tickled that the first review for my pal Kiliii's great photo book just came out, and it's, well, about how his "hopeful, transcendent photo essay casts a glorious vision of climate optimism told from the voices of 12 different indigenous peoples across the globe." booklife.com/booklife-rev...

Fascinating proposal for the existence of a seventh kingdom of life--in addition to plants, animals, fungi, protists, bacteria and archaea. The @sciam.bsky.social article below is quite worthwhile, but here's the original paper: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Just had lunch w/ a pal in the oil industry. He tells me today the US seized its SEVENTH Venezuelan oil tanker. They're all heading for China/Russia/Cuba. "What happens if China starts stationing soldiers on them?" he asks. "Sure glad that Trump and Hegseth have gamed this all out so carefully."

Last summer's measles outbreak in Texas was the biggest North American measles epidemic in several decades. That dolorous record may be overtaken by the current outbreak in South Carolina.

Gary Larson, zoological prophet.

Remember those bad stories about microplastics in the body? Maybe not so fast. Turns out detecting them is tricky--it involves burning samples and examining the fumes--and researchers have often failed to account for big error sources, esp. that body fats, when burned, produce the same chemicals.

Leave aside the free-speech implications for a moment. Musk, an immigrant who came to N America at 18, may not know it, but the claim that the "US is built on stolen land" is roughly true--it's just a fact. Take California (Musk's home). The US acquired it via the 1848 Treaty ...

Thought this was interesting. This slide is from a talk I gave in 2013 about our research on vaccine exemptions in AZ. Even then, one of the hotspots for exemptions was Colorado City AZ, and as denoted by the masked emoji I just added, this is where the current AZ measles outbreak began.

A few striking images that capture much of what has happened to US publishing in the last 30 years.

Mind-boggling stuff: ICE has detained 4 Oglala men and is apparently demanding the Lakota--a nation of the continent's original inhabitants--“enter into an immigration agreement with ICE." www.twincities.com/2026/01/13/i...

@jvl.bsky.social, pertinently: "Tell me: Is there a single Republican in America willing to say, 'Well, if the protesters refused to comply with orders from the Gasht-e Ershad [Iranian morality police], then they should expect to be killed'?"

I should add that whenever the Journal has commissioned me since then there's been no political push one way or another. To wit: www.wsj.com/economy/slav...

the short-term potency of the kinepox inoculations (which were made up of ground up scabs from persons infected with cowpox) meant there was a whole global network of infected cowpox patients used for this purpose, who were shipped all over the globe www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

TIL that Thomas Jefferson instructed Lewis and Clark to carry with them smallpox vaccine--technically, an earlier form that used cowpox--that they were to offer to native people they encountered. Jefferson was by no means a friend to native people, but he was an ardent proponent of vaccination...

1. There's a new FluView report from #CDC. Let's dive in. CDC was informed of 7 more kids who've died from #flu, bringing the season's toll to 17. Sadly, this number is going to rise. Vaccine uptake among kids has been declining. As of this week, flu vaccine is no longer rec'd for all kids.

The key to being really good at competitive clientelism as a political model is to do while in office the things you would rage at when in the opposition. www.ft.com/content/8d20...

Yes, JD. Let’s ask them if they think a stay at home mom, avowed Christian, and widow of a veteran deserved to be shot in the face and left to bleed out in her own car after dropping her 6-year-old off at school, for the crime of looking out for her neighbors. Let’s ask everyone running for office.

Fascinating paleoDNA analysis of the consequences of the 17th-c. Russian conquest of the Yakuts, the biggest Indigenous group in Siberia. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

As a pal notes, the long US policy of not recognizing the Chavista president and denouncing the regime has just ended with Trump's recognition of Delcy and his dumping Machado to the curb hard. How is that not a giant retreat?

Marfa, TX.

Santa Elena Canyon, Big Bend National Park, SW Texas.

@joshtpm.bsky.social: "The stock story about Iraq was that the U.S. successfully decapitated the Iraqi state but made few plans for how to govern Iraq once it had overthrown the existing regime. We have a parallel situation in Venezuela, **only the U.S. hasn’t even overthrown the current regime."**

"What," I asked as we approached Marfa, "attracted a minimalist like Donald Judd to this place, anyway?"

Old windmill, new windmill. Whiteside, NM.

I exaggerate but is this like invading Nauru for the Guano, but after the Haber-Bosch process was discovered?