How AI fails low-resourced, culturally distinct (from Western) contexts. Brilliant article about how AI misreads the Persian art of ingrained politesse ("taarof"). arstechnica.com/ai/2025/09/w... TY @susannepari.bsky.social for this. I often wonder if Iranian diplomats are misunderstood this way.

Just to piss off Nexstar, Sinclair, and Trump. Linking to the Kimmel YouTube video which has nearly 3 million views. www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1tj...

Charlie Kirk: “Buy weapons. Buy ammo. If you go into a public place, bring a gun with you.” And someone did.

LA friends, a week from today, join me at Beyond Baroque for my LA book launch for “Some Final Beauty and other stories.” I’ll be sharing the evening with Adolfo Guzman-Lopez and Daniel Olivas. Saturday Sept. 5. Doors open at 7:00. Reading starts at 7:30. $10.00 www.eventbrite.com/e/la-book-la...

"It's a killing field, live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars... our form of communication is gunfire." www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

If you feel an inchoate itch to preorder a book, you can scratch here: bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

The Trump Iran-Israel ceasefire was a lie: Netanyahu has just attacked Tehran. This is so f**€ked up. 😂😅🤣

#SenatorBernieSanders is a live flame going directly for the liars & con artists corrupting our geopolitical landscape today. Netanyahu is hit with #Bernie’s sharp points. #Netanyahu is a war criminal. One day, hopefully soon, he will be held accountable for his crimes youtube.com/shorts/C6eLS...

1. This organization is disgraceful… it serves to bolster Reza Pahlavi, the fail son of the late Shah. Please read this thread.

🔥🔥🔥 Everyone should be a paid subscriber to Democracy Docket. No one is fighting harder than Marc Elias. No one.

This was not a full-page ad I was expecting to see in the Sunday NYTimes today

Duckworth to Hegseth: "You are blowing through money like my fellow cadets and I did in our first liberty after basic camp. Luckily I didn't end up with a questionable tattoo ... you're just an unqualified yes man who can't tell the president how to keep Americans safe."

NYT Musk’s xAI getting sued in MEMPHIS: “Near predominantly Black neighborhoods, xAI has been operating natural-gas-burning turbines without the proper permits, NAACP alleges.” Rep. @justinjpearson.bsky.social : “Shut down the turbines, use clean energy.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/c...

Saffron harvest, North Khorasan province, Iran, Photo by Morteza Amin

My first over-protest. Menlo Park, CA above freeway 101 today. Joyful, peaceful neighbors waving the flag for democracy and against autocracy. #nokings

Favorite sign of the day

Israel aggressively bombing Iran—unlike two incidents of strikes in 2024, which followed Iranian missiles launches against Israel—is in part another consequence of a weak, chaotic US president. Worth noting that this didn't happen under Biden, Obama, or Bush, despite Israel talking about it a lot.

Senator Ted Cruz posted a dramatic video of LAPD cars on fire with the caption “this… is… not… peaceful.” What he didn’t mention? The footage was from 2020, not 2025. His post on X falsely implied it was current, part of a broader effort to spread lies and manufacture a crisis.

Oh, SCOTUS conservatives: you have no idea what you’ve done to the people of this country. Your ignorance about tech’s bad actors is deeper than your corruption.

For info and help regarding the new travel ban on Iranians, this site is the most useful and trustworthy: niacouncil.org/travelban/

'...wildly illegal...your agency will be broke by July' says Senator @chrismurphyct.bsky.social to the parasite Kristi Noem.

“DOGE’s latest efficiency is halting $500 million in food deliveries to the nation's food banks.” @joshtpm.bsky.social bsky.app/profile/josh... bsky.app/profile/davm...

The Creator, in her immaculate generosity, provides us a myriad of magnificent moments, to help us recalibrate our hearts — and reset our spiritual trajectories.

THE HAKAWATI in numerous translations 🌍📖 Congrats to our beloved hakawati Rabih Alameddine, recipient of the Publishing Triangle’s Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement! @rabihalameddine.bsky.social @aaknopf.bsky.social @wwnorton.bsky.social 📸 Second and third photos by Andres Otero

💥 BREAKING: Levi Strauss shareholders voted today to reject a proposal calling on the company to cease / abolish all DEI efforts (tally TBD). LEVI Board: “Diversity and inclusion principles are critical in ensuring that our products reflect and are relevant to our diverse global consumer base.”

Monsters

Hey 🥚adoptee folks- here’s another podcast if you’re interested

PLEASE don’t buy into Amazon’s booksale this week. They are intentionally trying to eat into profits from Indie Bookstore Day this weekend, a really important annual event for our important community institutions. Check out your local fave or bookshop.org.

Su Blackwell, UK artist who creates paper artworks out of discarded books #WomensArt

Exactly.

The reason that the US is locking up tourists for weeks in hellish detention centers rather than letting them book tickets back home is because the detention centers are owned by corporations. They are charging the taxpayers fortunes to cage these people, and making bonanzas off their suffering.

So thrilled to have an excerpt from my book A Greek Tragedy in @literaryhub.bsky.social.

So many Meta-bullies.

The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 800,000+ federal and D.C. workers (i.e. people directly impacted by a government shutdown), is urging senators to vote no on the House GOP's CR. In other words, AFGE is saying a government shutdown is less bad than this GOP bill.

@schumer.senate.gov If you vote for cloture you are a stain on this country’s history that will never go away. You are willingly passing power to a tyrant in waiting, and you are a disgrace to every oath of office any senator has ever sworn. Your legacy will be one of cowardice and contempt.

In the aftermath, Meta will be remembered as a ‘collaborator’.

Thank you to the wise voters of Germany.

Be brave.

😖

More of this please. #civildisobedience #couragetodisobey

Good advice ⬇️

Heartbreaking news… Tonight, many of our friends were let go, and tomorrow, even more will follow. Word is that all probationary employees at NPS will be let go. 😭

A disconcerting jolt here on the SF Peninsula. #earthquakesky

Silicon Valley execs are absolutely watching what's happening in DC w horror. No tech company wld allow inexperienced 20-somethings to start rewriting their code, without a plan, reviews, & testing (to make sure they didn't mess up royally) What's happening in DC isn't "efficiency." It's a coup.

My 101-year-old dad just informed me that the word Elon translates to Snake in Azeri Turkish. Sounds about right.

Coming in September!!

Trump issued a sweeping directive to the FAA mandating the elimination of DEI programs citing compromised safety : “Keeping Americans Safe in Aviation” — and then Trump fired the head of TSA, eliminated all the members of a key aviation security advisory group.