As the laid off Middle East News Editor, I concur. Management eliminated the positions of every single staff correspondent and bureau chief in the Middle East.

It's Dermatology Day on Bluesky.

Me, reading this farewell Facebook post by the cinema at the Lincoln Mall: 🥺🥺🥺

That one coworker who is constantly interrupting your focus.

Ah, yes. Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame inductee Michael Flynn. Class of 2025!

Frankle is such a reaction meme

I dimly recall a time when this wasn't the sort of thing Cabinet members said

Phew, glad that's settled. www.reuters.com/world/middle...

An unserious country.

“I have no idea what happened to these cables. These allegations are baseless. I am but a humble IT professional. If the cords are tasty, that sounds like a manufacturer issue.” #cats #BlueskyCats #gato #CatsOfBluesky

so far i think in the last 48 hours trump has called - michael scherer at the atlantic - jonathan karl, abc - jake tapper, cnn - axios - bret baier, fox news - the new york times - the washington post just noting that when he wants to sell a war, suddenly theyre not "fake news" anymore

Tomorrow night -- Tuesday, March 3 -- I'll be talking about News Media in the Misinformation Age at the Jamestown, R.I. Philomenian Library. Will part-time Jamestown resident James Taylor attend? Join us to find out!

"War is hell," says the guy whose whole schtick is being unabashedly horny for war.

$300 million mistake That's the same cost as 25,000 Head Start slots

I'm sorry I engaged in discourse first thing in the morning. Here's a cute goat to make up for it.

Nothing is worth this.

"I believe the media can be the greatest force for peace on earth. Instead, all too often, from the Vietnam War to Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Syria, it is wielded as a weapon of war. That has to be challenged.” -Amy Goodman, "Democracy Now! Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America"

Everything about this story, including/especially the framing by the local CBS affiliate, is wild.

The inherent problem with this fucking terrible framing is its implication that if the cost of living was coming down all this would be fine

Peter O'Toole and a cat 1962

My partner and I watched some of SNL to see how Connor Storrie did. And, oof. Connor's performance aside, that show is strikingly unfunny these days.

Went for a walk last night and ran into a couple of street toughs

These people are out of their goddamned minds.

Call me crazy. But I think you're supposed to make the case for going to war before you go to war, not after.

Another photo from my walk.

Providence.

Darkest huggies

The Department of Education has hung a massive banner honoring a racist college dropout who built a lucrative career out of targeting professors for harassment

Britney Spears bonus track.

"American innovation" now refers to making a kind of atrocity cronut by combining insider trading with war crimes.

Btw I am doing this bc there's a lot of other stuff I can't do anything about but I wanted to do something about something

I love this quote from @ladyofsardines.bsky.social, which I hadn't seen b4. Another from DB: "One cannot level one’s moral lance at every evil in the universe. There are just too many of them. But you can do something, and the difference between doing something and doing nothing is everything."

Update: I could be wrong. See my full thread, with input from @jrosevear.bsky.social, to see how the mayor's estimate is possible.

The city has certainly been out there doing a lot of work. But I just don't see how it's possible that the Smiley administration has removed "tens of thousands of truck loads of snow" from Providence streets, as he's claiming on Instagram. Words mean things? www.instagram.com/p/DVUUxPwEXV...

Social media created this nonsense idea that not exposing yourself to hatred is isolationist. Choosing to not spend your free time with bigots isn’t living in a bubble. I don’t need to know what’s going on at X. I won’t be smarter or more knowledgeable or empathic by being there. Neither will you.

"Ladies and gentlemen...it's March."

Steve (@steveahlquist.bsky.social) was, as always, on hand to document our local protest in Rhode Island.

the incentives here are so obscenely terrible that the entire thing should be illegal by default “I am sabotaging negotiations because I stand to make piles of money on Polymarket” is absolutely in play, what a horrifying clusterfuck

This passage remains evergreen.

The great @antoniafarzan.bsky.social tells the story of Pixie, the East Providence kitty who spent two days during the blizzard stuck in a tree. Thankfully, she survived. 😭😭😭

One week from today -- Saturday, March 7 -- I'll be chatting with @billkole.bsky.social at @symposiumbooks.bsky.social about his excellent, timely book, "In Guns We Trust: The Unholy Trinity of White Evangelicals, Politics, and Firearms." The event is at 4 p.m. Join us!

I think about this Tony Benn speech much more than I used to

A United States senator from the president's own party, one who serves on the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, has no idea what's going on as America goes to war with Iran.

Historically, these are TERRIBLE polling numbers for day 1 of a major US use of force, particularly against a well known and disliked adversary. Usually it only goes down from the start

Wayland Square, in Providence.

When there are no consequences for the last bad thing, you'll get a next worse thing.

A crazy time to NOT HAVE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS!!!

objective 1: pull the USA into a war with Iran objective 2: ok have fun bye :)

“We are absolutely on it from the middle of this golf course”