"Can you imagine being made to wash the dishes used to feed the men who are waiting to kidnap you or worse?" @lukeoneil47.bsky.social:

There's a similar thread here to the whole "everyone must return to office full time or else there will be a commercial real estate crisis" meltdown circa 2022, where major companies seem to have decided they should get to invest billions of dollars risk free

student journalists continue to step up. from yesterday's daily tar heel:

Once again I find myself asking the invigorating question “Is it 1933 or 1938?”

“In 2025, then, the acceleration of eugenics at home and abroad has put me…a little uptight. The death-worship thing—it’s never been for me.” ← @scheinman.bsky.social on 2025 themorningnews.org/2025-the-yea...

this is indistinguishable from a half-assed digital media pitch from the pivot-to-video era that would have been rejected by thrillist's senior video producer for being pointless and corny

I wrote about Renee Good, Venezuela, Greenland, and what it means to be a human being. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Hannah has been a top, top reporter on all things DOGE and the federal government. Hard to see this other than anything but an attempt to chill journalism and the First Amendment protected right to a free press. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/14/u...

“One day, a woman wrote to me on Signal, asking me not to respond. She lived alone, she messaged, and planned to die that weekend. Before she did, she wanted at least one person to understand: Trump had unraveled the government, and with it, her life.” @hannahnatanson.bsky.social essay:

Hard to neatly summarize the career and impact of Miles Davis but @scheinman.bsky.social gets there. Restraint as a creative force, growth as a personal ethos, exploration as a life philosophy.

if you need a break today, you can read my little tribute to Miles Davis, which opens this month's issue of @smithsonianmag.bsky.social: www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture...

the only MCU that matters is the munch cinematic universe

This is some real, Severance-level dystopian corporate behavior…

You should be embarrassed to be a member of congress and issuing anything other than impeachment resolutions. You're in the model UN. They should give you legos and a propeller hat

As it happens, I have experience with high-level government demands to stop an explosive, accurate story from running, and I also have experience with 60 Minutes spiking a story I was involved in, so I have thoughts about the travesty at CBS. If you want some journalism anecdotes, here are a lot:

Merry Christmas, friends

WHAT’s up guys its Plato welcome back to the cave. Guys we’ve got some CRAZY shadows for you today you are not gonna want to miss this! But first I have to thank our sponsor OnX Backcountry

I wrote about things going from bad to worse for the people who actually make movies. alt headline: The Dream Factory Turns Nightmare

merry christmas! 'camp austen' makes a delightful stocking-stuffer for any of your loved ones who delight in books, dancing, frivolity, and (literal) gallows humor. do your friends + family a service and buy some copies 🎩📚😇

really enjoyed this piece by ellen wexler, which quotes some of my favorite folks around. on the letters of jane austen: www.smithsonianmag.com/history/jane...

Rachel Aviv on Oliver Sacks, WHEW.

For @niemanstoryboard.org: Tell me your favorite stories, #longreads, podcasts, nonfiction books, and documentaries of 2025! And because every journalist loves a deadline... Submit your picks by Friday, Dec. 5. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... #podcasts #booksky #documentary

have a piece in the new issue of the @smithsonianmag.bsky.social about Akira Kurosawa's SEVEN SAMURAI, how its director melded American and Japanese storytelling sensibilities, and the long cultural legacy of that melding. www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture...

A few months ago @thelocal.to got a promising pitch from a writer with bylines in whole bunch of reputable publications—The Cut, The Guardian, Dwell, Architectural Digest, etc. Then I started investigating. Here's a story about fabulists in journalism's AI slop era. thelocal.to/investigatin...

we're hiring a senior politics writer at @wired.com -- come work with me!

"Sexism has two pillars: the insistence that female biology is moral destiny, and the insistence that female moral destiny is inferior. Andrews accepts both pillars. Sargeant challenges the second but accepts the first. True flourishing lies in rejection of both."

this beautiful book is out today. bravo to @johnlingan.bsky.social. wise readers will purchase two copies — that way you can form a Louie Bellson-style double bass drum! www.simonandschuster.com/books/Backbe...

BACKBEATS is out tomorrow! And you can read an excerpt of the Charlie Watts chapter at @rollingstone.com, including one of my fav interviews, Steve Albini. www.rollingstone.com/music/music-... As always, preorder at johnlingan.com

nostalgia for mass death is really fucked up

latest jessica winter is great: www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

This entire piece is very, very good and well worth your time to read — but this bit had me rolling lithub.com/maybe-dont-t...

Come check this out if you're in the neighborhood!

We’re running out of titans, man bsky.app/profile/jazy...

d.c. friends, come hear @lukeoneil47.bsky.social discuss his new collection with @patrickreis.bsky.social at @busboysandpoets.bsky.social in brookland on nov. 5! rsvp below. additional inducements: readings by @iamchrisscott.bsky.social and @dwdavison.bsky.social and me 📚

Hello here is a thread of some book tour dates I have coming up soon. Nov 5 at @busboysandpoets.bsky.social in DC with @patrickcreis.bsky.social @iamchrisscott.bsky.social @scheinman.bsky.social + @dwdavison.bsky.social (flyers by the great @tylerlittwin.bsky.social)

'backbeats' is a beautiful book, by one of my favorite writers (and favorite drummers), @johnlingan.bsky.social.  it swings, it bops, it rocks, it skanks. do yourself a kindness and preorder: www.simonandschuster.com/books/Backbe...

there are good & worthwhile historical & legal arguments for why the unitary executive is nonsense but to my mind the most straightforward argument is that it makes no logical sense that the president has absolute removal power over the people whose job it is to keep the executive branch accountable

It's pub day for The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2025, and the whole Best American series. I'm so proud of this book and all the brilliant, beautiful writing @susanorlean.bsky.social selected for it. bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

carving out a sensible middle with my “some kings” rally this weekend

carving out a sensible middle with my “some kings” rally this weekend

Pre-order The Public Scholar here. Pay zero shipping from @bookshop.org. I tried to write it real good for you! bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

Thinking about how human cloning technology could be used to not only revive famous musical acts, but make them even better. Just imagine Crosby, Crosby, Crosby, Crosby, Stills, Stills, Nash, Young & Young

My latest in @smithsonianmag.bsky.social about newly discovered Frederick Douglass letters. www.smithsonianmag.com/history/hist...

in our new print issue, richard grant delivers an exclusive about cormac mccarthy's personal library — and about the devoted cormackians who have been cataloguing it, lovingly and discreetly: www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture... via @smithsonianmag.bsky.social

these ppl’s basic premise has been that anything is permitted as long as it is against wokeness. now they have boxed themselves in.

Brian Eno's "Ambient 1" only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it went on to start an airport.

Among many scary things happening, this is scary. Having reported in countries without a Times v Sullivan, we do not want to go this route.

On another note, I really needed to think about something else this weekend. So, for Flaming Hydra, I finished something I've been mulling over since December: the weird horny profiles that men's magazines used to run all the time. flaminghydra.com/what-was-the...