I used to see wonky, left-leaning people tweet about how horrible Bari Weiss was when she was just a columnist, and I thought this was “inside baseball” talk that didn’t matter to anyone who didn’t work in news media. Well, I was wrong. The wonky, left-leaning media people were right.

When did people start saying “crash out” for “go crazy,” “freak out,” etc.? I feel like I just noticed it in the past couple months and now I see it everywhere.

I thought I was accustomed to the randos who pop up to defend Republicans and billionaires on Facebook comments threads, but I’m surprised to find randos defending David Brooks’ right to not disclose that he had gone to a dinner with Jeff Epstein. David Brooks has superfans?

You should read this. www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

I’m disappointed in Cheap Trick for playing the Kennedy Honors thing, even if it was just to honor their old comrades in KISS. I still hold a grudge against Beyoncé because Destiny’s Child played Bush’s inauguration in 2001.

I know people can get paid for engagement on Twitter, TikTok, etc, and that explains a lot of the right wing garbage posts, but I want to know how many right wing jackasses in the comment threads on Facebook are paid. I kinda hope they are paid, because volunteering to do that is pretty sad.

Went to bed Saturday after reading headlines about a mass shooting at Brown University. Woke up Sunday to headlines about a mass shooting at a Hanukkah celebration in Australia. Woke up Monday to news of Rob Reiner and his wife being murdered. Yesterday was anniversary of Newtown school shooting.

Considering that it’s not officially winter for another 10 days, it’s too early for me to be as tired of winter as I am right now.

I don’t think anyone has ever played Ebenezer Scrooge as well as Michael Caine does in The Muppet Christmas Carol.

I need a feature that allows me to mute any Facebook post that says “You’ve heard of Elf on a Shelf …”

My 14-year-old walked in the door saying, “My Spotify Wrapped says my listening age is 78!” I’m so proud. (I’d be prouder if he didn’t use Spotify, but I’ll take this win.)

I’ve been missing San Francisco anyway (tends to happen at this time of year) and then I read (and enjoyed) the very Bay Area novel “Sourdough, or Lois and Her Adventures in the Underground Market” AND THEN I read about the death of Claude the albino alligator at the Steinhart Aquarium. Sigh.

Put on my puffy coat for the first snowy day of the winter, went out to do a few errands and realized during Errand 2 that one of my cats had barfed on said coat—probably last winter.

This is the oldest complete song (with words and musical notation) ever found. m.youtube.com/watch?featur...

Introduce yourself with 5 concerts you’ve seen: The Clash (with the Who, Oakland Coliseum, 1982) Husker Du (The Fillmore, SF, 1987) The White Stripes (Bottom of the Hill, SF, 2000) Sleater-Kinney (upstairs at La Luna, Portland, OR. Before Janet joined) The Muffs (Barely Brothers Records, St Paul)

Thanksgiving is weird for many reasons, but I still think it’s good for us to take a little time on a Thursday (how many holidays always take place on a Thursday?), have a feast and think about the good things in our lives. Happy Thanksgiving, friends!

If this situation ever comes up for you, now you know how to say it in French. Thanks, Duolingo.

Just thinking about how GHWBush’s White House Chief of Staff John Sununu got a ride in a White House limo to go to a rare stamps auction and the news media treated it as a major scandal for weeks.

Obligatory Middle Aged Minnesotan Post Re: The Replacements. Unlike the “Tim” box set, which radically remixed that album (to good effect, IMO), the “Let it Be” set keeps a great album as it is (also a good idea IMO). The alternate takes are interesting, if only to show they got it right in ‘84.

I ran across this online somewhere and I’m convinced it was written by a skinny, pale ancient Egyptian with a pompadour, who called himself Mor-Osiris.

IMPORTANT HISTORICAL RESEARCH Number of past members of long-running but now defunct UK bands, according to Wikipedia: UFO: 27 Whitesnake: 42 The Fall: 43

They say the coverup is worse than the crime, but sometimes the crime is really, really bad, and the coverup is just embarrassingly obvious.

Epictetus: “It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.” Insane Clown Posse: “Magnets, how do they work?” The POTUS: “Nobody knows what a magnet is.”

My social media last was full of Northern Lights photos from Twin Cities people, including some in my St Paul neighborhood, but when I looked out my window, I couldn’t see anything remarkable. What am I doing wrong?

I thought it was an Insane Clown Posse joke, but no, the POTUS really just said nobody knows how magnets work.

Found in an old box in my Storage Closet of Despair

This is the kind of messaging Democrats need.

Just saw the term “hopescrolling.”

It seems like Mike Johnson holds a press conference at least once a week during this shutdown. Is Hakeem Jeffries doing this, and I’m just not hearing about it? If he and Chuck Schumer are not doing this during the shutdown, why the hell not?

I’m a lifelong news reader. I used to like Sunday mornings, because I could have time to relax and read all the news. But these days, reading the news just makes me feel worse. I’m starting to dislike Sunday mornings because I have too much time to read the news.

I saw John Waters speak tonight and he talked about going to Hearst Castle for a fundraiser that was honoring his friend Patty Hearst. He was chatting with a man at the reception and he asked, “So, how do you know Patty?” The man said, “Oh, she robbed the Hibernia Bank that my parents owned!”

Just thinking about how when Lloyd Cole sings “she looks like Eva Marie Saint in ‘On the Waterfront,’” he pronounces it like “Eve Marie Sawnt.” youtu.be/gSc46sEZdl4?...

My favorite sculpture at the Minneapolis Institute of Art has got to be “Naked Man Drunkenly Propositions an Eagle”

A good 200-300 people came out for No Kings in lovely Grand Marais, Minnesota.

You gotta just block these accounts without interacting. They're doing this the night before No Kings so they can selectively grab quote posts and replies about how nasty people are being. It's extremely transparent. Just block and move on.

Currently looking up inflatable frog costumes for the inevitable deployment of the National Guard to Minneapolis

Describe your Bluesky account with a single image

[Michael Stipe voice]

After last week’s stupid manufactured outrage about Bad Bunny, I braced myself for people getting mad about Rush choosing a woman to play drums. But so far, I have not heard anything negative about it. Well done, nerds. Well done. I’m proud of you.

One minute and 53 seconds of power pop bliss, including the abstract outro. Turn it up. youtu.be/-IF0OKHcLYY?...

Hi, it’s me, the guy taking a couple minutes away from a busy work day to correct a Star Trek meme page for some inaccurate information it posted about Mary and Percy Shelley.

Some day, I’d like to loosen up and be the kind of person who doesn’t care that Black Sabbath rhymes “masses” with “masses” in the first line of “War Pigs,” but at this advanced age, I guess it’s not gonna happen.

Post a concert photo.

Man, if I thought it was a waste of time arguing online with people who want to defend the Jimmy Kimmel firing, well, that had nothing on arguing with people who want to argue about Tylenol. Social media was a mistake.

Asperger’s syndrome (now known more broadly as autism spectrum disorder) was named after Hans Asperger, a German scientist who studied autistic children in the 1930s and 40s. Tylenol (acetaminophen) wasn’t used therapeutically until 1950.

I’ve been rewatching the Coen Bros filmography this month and while drawing a Barton Fink illustration, it struck me how much their films feel like Far Side cartoons: funny, strange, clever, yet frequently inscrutable. Anyway here’s a thread!

Write a letter -- an actual paper letter -- saying what you think of ABC bowing to government censorship, and send it to: Disney-ABC Home Entertainment and Television Distribution 500 S. Buena Vista St. Burbank, CA 91521-3515

I usually believe in "slow news" and tend to write about things the next day, but this Kimmel shit is such a mess, I put this together quickly. Key points: 1. Most people are pretending Kimmel said stuff he didn't. 2. SCOTUS just last year said that you can't do shit like this.