ultimately i like getting extremely worked up about something that doesn‘t affect me very much and then forgetting about it promptly

“A curse is one way of saying someone in the past has done something that will affect you. Biology is another way of saying that.” Beautiful piece by @kal-pana.bsky.social

tip: if you raise your kid among all different kinds of people you’ll never even have to have a “conversation” they may or may not be “ready for”

Pete Hegseth came to national prominence and to Trump’s attention specifically for his defense of men accused of war crimes by their fellow American soldiers.

The number of organs available for donation has risen massively in the past five years. It seems to be the result of technological advances in preserving organs after circulatory death. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

One day in the future, this is going to hang on the wall of a museum exhibit people visit in silence.

I’m teaching a weeklong creative nonfiction seminar in Paris this coming spring. More info here : www.wice-paris.org/paris-writer...

congrats to @ilyasomin.bsky.social , long my single counterexample to “there are no consistent libertarians”

Congrats to BART rider and Oakland legend Alysa Liu on winning a gold medal at the Olympics and making the Bay Area proud!

If you take two seconds to imagine the life of an individual undocumented immigrant in this country, it becomes clear that *voting illegally* would not be high on the to-do list

The season of self-sabotage

Get in losers we’re doing central planning without the planning

thinking about the bit in BOTTOMS UP AND THE DEVIL LAUGHS, in which @kerryhowley.bsky.social writes that surveillance is made of dogs

Hey, my name is in the Epstein files! I've told the story before, but should probably re-up. TLDR: never met the guy, never took (or asked for) any money from him, never visited the island. I was invited to the island, and said no. It's not that hard to just say no.

When I worked for Reason magazine during Trump's rise to power in 2016, I was explicitly forbidden by the editor in chief from writing about Trump's racism, or the violence and racism at his rallies. It was a "sideshow," I was told.

I’m looking forward to teaching a weeklong workshop in creative nonfiction this spring in Paris. Registration just opened. More here: wice-paris.org/paris-writer...

What is the narrative exactly ? A white house staffer who has unfettered access to the president’s account with no safeguards was casually watching videos in which the obamas are portrayed as apes, and then accidentally hit post?

New from 404 Media: the FBI has been unable to get into the iPhone of raided Washington Post journalist because the phone had Lockdown Mode enabled. Apple markets Lockdown Mode mostly to stop spyware like NSO. Here, a real world example of it stopping access too www.404media.co/fbi-couldnt-...

This is the business in Uptown that got randomly tear-gassed by ICE a few weeks ago. Guess they didn’t like it

The fact that competent people have too much dignity to do this work gives me as much hope as anything

Yesterday, five-year-old Liam and his dad Adrian were released from Dilley detention center. I picked them up last night and escorted them back to Minnesota this morning. Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack.

Midwestern earnestness carries with it a real intransigence.

Eight great reads (and one listen) about the miracle of Minneapolis: www.headsupnews.org/p/people-pow... includes @adamserwer.bsky.social @erikhane.bsky.social @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social @kerryhowley.bsky.social @mollycoleman.bsky.social @jamellebouie.net @pkrugman.bsky.social @brucespringsteen.net

A moment of silence that ends with someone shouting "fuck ICE!" and the crowd roaring in response

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara: "People have had enough. This is the third shooting in less than 3 weeks. The MPD went the entire year last year recovering about 900 guns from the street, arresting hundreds of violent offenders, and we didn't shoot anyone ... this is not sustainable."

I mean it’s true that there are “paid agitators” in Minneapolis. There are 3000 of them and they’ve assassinated two people.

Normal cops would have been furious at the first shooter just for opening fire into a fucking dogpile of cops.

the way they used to go on about federalism …

i don’t know what i thought i would be doing right now two weeks ago, but it definitely wasn’t worrying about Will Stancil

the video i just saw from minneapolis is a public execution, full stop.

In the Other Place the distinction between the phrase “white woman” and “race traitor” has basically been erased

It absolutely hurts to be outside. I don’t know how you quantify motivation like this.

Superb reportage on Minneapolis from one of the all time greats.

If the admin's strategic goal was to break public resistance to immigration enforcement activities, it was a tactical mistake to go to the Twin Cities.

I wrote about Minneapolis. nymag.com/intelligence...

"it’s unclear when or whether Liam will be able to return for his stuffed turtle, his hat, and his W worksheet" sahanjournal.com/education/ic...

I bought a doll here last week and my daughter hasn’t let go of it since

This piece is very well reported and written. It’s clear-eyed, precise and gives important context. And yet it’s a great illustration that there’s this fundamental, unbridgeable formal constraint that makes it essentially impossible to plainly call this what it is. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/11/u...

These goofy billboards were up when i lived in Myanmar. They explicitly justify authoritarian force by blaming everything on “external elements” and “foreign nations.” Just something to think about when they use the words “foreign invaders” to justify assassinating an American poet.

The best political feature I read last year was @kerryhowley.bsky.social on Pete Hegseth in @nymag.com nymag.com/intelligence...

I'm not great about tooting my own horn. But as an independent journalist whose work is reliant on contributions from my readers, it's part of the job. So here's a post and thread on my work over the last year and beyond -- and why you, reader, should subscribe. (Plus, shameless dog photos!)

I responded to the film differently, and a good deal more positively, but this is a fantastic essay. defector.com/one-battle-a...

“prices work” is left-coded

thinking for no reason at all about my very first job, which was at a censored newspaper in Myanmar and seemed very distant from my life and my country

When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.

CATO INSTITUTE: Despite DOGE slashing jobs, government spending in every month of 2025 “was greater than in every other year .. An observer who did not know when DOGE started could not identify it” on a chart. 🤡 www.cato.org/blog/doge-pr...

Hello, at the University of Minnesota, we're hiring a visiting creative nonfiction writer for the next 2-3 years to teach a 1-1 (one grad class, one undergrad class) and potentially sit on some MFA thesis committees. This job will give you time to write you next book: hr.myu.umn.edu/jobs/ext/371...

Not that it will but the willingness of Americans to obey is a very funny contrast with our self-image and should probably prompt some reflection bsky.app/profile/jonf...