One of my favorite annual traditions (a bit belated this time since Paul left showbiz) is this podcast where we share our favorite Wikipedia pages with each other

Discursive, self-indulgent, and inconsiderate of the audience’s time or interests, it’s everyone’s favorite Brutal South tradition: The exchange of rare and unusual Wikipedia articles with my pal the sportswriter @baumann.bsky.social New podcast episode: brutalsouth.substack.com/p/wikifest-2...

Listening to "Wear Black" by the @themountaingoats.bsky.social for the umpteenth time and got chills at John's delivery of the line "wind in the evergreen cypresses," somehow doing a pitch-perfect impression of the great Bruce Cockburn for a moment themountaingoats.bandcamp.com/track/wear-b...

"Loving you is not separate from the struggle for liberation. It is liberation itself."

I kept seeing this doodle at an event with my kids, and as I was staring at it, 3 different kids walked up and said "Is that hyperpigmentation?"

This is still Peak Romance, to me

"Georgia state Sen. Ed Setzler, a Republican who sponsored the 2019 law, said he supported Emory’s interpretation." apnews.com/article/preg...

Our country provides weapons, money, and unwavering diplomatic support for a campaign to starve children on the other side of the world. www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle...

🎧 "Sentiment" - Un unvibes.bandcamp.com/album/sentim...

Nuclear weapons are a threat to all life on earth and we will never know peace until we dismantle them. www.npr.org/2025/05/06/n...

summoned this riff from a hazy memory of a metalcore show at the american legion hall, circa 2005

🎧 "Dull Knife pt. II" by Planning for Burial

Happy May 1st. The value of your labor belongs to you and the actions of the state are best understood as as a coordinated effort to distract you from this. The state fears an organized and unified proletariat like it fears death and rightly so. Power to the workers and power to the people

On Tuesday, 4/29, at 10:30 a.m., SC lawmakers will consider H. 4123, a bill that would criminalize teachers and school librarians. We need everybody who can make it to show up in the Blatt Building (1105 Pendleton St., Columbia), Room 110, to speak out against this bill.

No new law enforcement agencies had to be created to carry out this year’s mass deportation campaign. The departments spawned during the George W. Bush administration — Homeland Security & ICE — are now in the hands of an even less accountable unitary executive. brutalsouth.substack.com/p/rehearsals

Please take a few minutes to read about what ICE did in Milwaukee and think about where we're headed as a country. www.jsonline.com/story/news/b...

Listening to some vintage South Carolina emo music and came across this little time-capsule lyric from before our state legalized tattooing. sequoyahprepschool.bandcamp.com/track/ill-fi...

"We do what the government tells us." www.cbsnews.com/amp/boston/n...

DOGE is a criminal conspiracy to defraud the people of the United States

One fun thing about living in an old house is gradually discovering the, uh, ingenuity of previous residents

"Beast of the Southeast"

"When the report drops, it won’t be a scientific review—it will be a political weapon." open.substack.com/pub/erininth...

"He spat again and thought how in this world the only abundance was of evil and trouble, and with these words he was overcome by bleak and vague forebodings."

Been a good year for new music from the Drive-By Truckers diaspora

Seen by a friend at Goodwill

"... as if he expected the profusion of azalea blooms to have a lethal effect on him." – Flannery O'Connor, "The Partridge Festival"

Rebecca Hall acted the hell out of this movie

“I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Come out for a family-friendly afternoon of music, food, and community to connect with the local organizations building organized working-class power in the Lowcountry. Join a campaign, find a political home, or just make a friend – the Lowcountry needs you! Register at tinyurl.com/left-fair

ACLU's Lee Gelernt, in court just now, addressing the question of whether this is a constitutional crisis: "I think we're getting really close to it."

MUST-WATCH: This is the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil from the perspective of his wife, who is 8 months pregnant. This is federal agents in plain clothes dragging a man from his home as punishment for his speech. @nyclu.org @ccrjustice.org @theimeu.bsky.social

This arrest is a moral stain on our country. Free Mahmoud Khalil. www.reuters.com/world/us/wif...

The last person to be killed by a firing squad in the United States was Ronnie Lee Gardner, in Utah in 2010. I met his brother Randy in 2021. This is the picture I took of Randy at a death penalty abolitionists' meeting at an old house in Columbia, SC:

Either transgender Americans are important enough to warrant year after year of breathless coverage questioning their healthcare and existence, or they're so insignificant that destroying their rights is the "least consequential" action of a presidency. www.readtpa.com/p/not-exactl...

seeing the sights

finally recorded a riff video that's short enough for bluesky

Ok we now have a second Nancy Mace photo opp with a Catholic Bible translation. The only church I've heard of her visiting is Seacoast, a vaguely Protestant nondenominational megachurch. Did she quietly convert, or is it just a prop and I'm reading too much into it?

The South Carolina State House and its offices are the most spiritually unwholesome places in the state but at least there's some nice architecture 🤍

The House Ways and Means Committee takes up anti-diversity legislation today (2/18) at 3 PM. Link to livestream here: Livestream link: www.scstatehouse.gov/video/stream...

I've now seen this AI-generated campaign slop, for a candidate who may or may not exist, on two platforms (IG and Twitter).

WRITTEN TESTIMONIES NEEDED! Remember our conversation on S.62? It’s back, and it’s in the house now. The education and public works committee is taking testimony NOW. Details: www.scstatehouse.gov/agendas/126h... Submit to [email protected] by Tuesday at 12pm. #scpol

A *Fifth* International Posadist? In this economy?

We applaud the AG's decision to distance SC from this despicable attack on some of the most vulnerable Americans. That said, we find it concerning that the AG is apparently joining lawsuits against the United States without so much as reading the pleadings. www.postandcourier.com/education-la...

Deeply unwell country

I want to brush up on my Spanish language skills (reading, writing, and conversation). I was a Spanish minor in college but am sorely out of practice now. Are any of the apps good?

We only know this man is in Gitmo because Noem tweeted a propaganda photo that included him and his sister saw it. He has no criminal record. He entered the US in January and immediately made an appointment with CBP to claim asylum. They sent him to a concentration camp bc of his basketball tattoo.

"Berkeley County School District continues to suffer some of the largest losses to tax abatements in the country, averaging more than $70 million per year since 2017." goodjobsfirst.org/the-cost-of-...

Excited to read this new book by my college friend and fellow twin dad Dr. @jamesngilmore.bsky.social, who always has brilliant insights on the "datafication" of everyday life. I was moved by this, in the acknowledgements: "I will leave it to you gracious readers to decide what, if anything...

🎧 "Colors" by Between the Buried and Me youtu.be/gOhzsOLO7cI?...