Are there women in Ross Douthat’s life?

So what was the verdict. DID women ruin the workplace?

If I ran HR for an enormous media corporation I would simply not illegally fire employees who came to my office to ask me questions about layoffs. I would also not make statements to the press saying that the employees had threatened me by asking me questions.

Breaking News: Late last night Conde Nast illegally fired 4 union organizers who asked company execs to explain the downsizing of Teen Vogue and continued layoffs. We’ve filed a grievance.

Condé Nast's actions are in direct violation of our contracts and of labor law. Solidarity with our unjustly fired colleagues across the company. This is not over.

very excited for this man’s consigliere era

It feels so good to see that some things can’t be bought

I have been trying to figure out the source of Sliwa’s charm and I have figured it out. Physically he is thicc George Clooney. I’m sorry but this is correct.

Got mad at my bank account today like “where did all the money go” and then remembered that I made some really splash-out bulb purchases last week.

A splinter group of my cute New Moms chat was formed to vent about returning-to-work stress and there’s a very high level of mutual radicalizing happening as everyone shares their overwhelm and tales of unbookable pumping rooms and rigid in-office rules… what if we all quit and form the Mommy Lobby

MSNBC Grandmas in Skechers seamlessly reclaiming the frog from 4chan Nazis in about six weeks has gotta be the political upset of the century.

Damn a bunch of New Yorkers actually went to Times Square, this is serious.

Respect

Dahlia update

Drop Site confirmed this morning that our journalist Alex Colston has been released from Israeli detention. Alex has been imprisoned since Thursday as one of 462 participants in the Global Sumud Flotilla, which Alex was covering for Drop Site. He was among 131 deported to Jordan today.

Will never get over the happy baby hanging out in Happy Baby

Dahlia report

Timeline cleanse, here is my baby looking at a pond

Yesterday the Missouri state legislature carved up my home congressional district, Kansas City, into 3 new majority-suburban distracts to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Black and urban voters. Really sad and angry today.

The Marketplace reporters speaking soooo slowwwwly as they explain the relationships bt inflation, interest rates, and the bond market, like they are addressing Trump himself

A very bodybuilder in a fluorescent net tank top with a mean look on his face rhythmically flexed his pecs for several stops while everyone pretended not to look. When he got off everybody burst into laughter and chitchat.

morning garden update

They’re here!

Living in a rent-stabilized $2300 1BR in Queens is relatable, chic. Cuomo rents an $8000/month 2BR in Midtown, a disqualifyingly bad combination of choices.

Everyone interested in calling Zohran a nepo baby please meet me at the Cuomo bridge I just wanna talk.

Washington DC has 702,000 people, is 45% Black and has 0 senators Wyoming has 590,000 people, is 86% white and has 2 senators DC needs a state with proper representation, not a military takeover

There is just no precedent in recent world history of an advanced industrialized country sabotaging its own scientific establishment, and destroying the base of scientific knowledge necessary for basic policymaking. An avowedly, actively anti-knowledge regime.

That's how you can tell human authors from AI. AI will put in some em dashes, then apologise and take them out when told off. Human authors will climb the filing cabinet, hissing, and defend their right to em dashes with a loaded stapler.

Flower report

have achieved summer gardener nirvana (the green bean vines are climbing up the tomato plants)

Brad Lander became iconic by being a boring establishment bureaucrat who nonetheless has a soul and the ability to read the room. We stan this accountant(?) non-narcissist king

Garden update

Brian Wilson’s death has me listening to Beach Boys songs I loved obsessively as a child and I just remembered being 5 or 6 and making my poor Dad explain the concept of playing the field to me after a long interrogation about the “leave the best girl home on Saturday night” lyric. RIP to 2 legends.

Some personal news

Become ungovernable

applying for jobs again

All winter/spring I have been starting seedlings indoors to make a beautiful economical garden that would make my dirt-farmer forebears proud but then May comes around and as soon as I enter the big hardware store parking lot I become the cartoon “ah-oogah” wolf

There are aphids all over my rose buds so I sprayed water on them to rinse them away but I oh man can’t wait to come back with ladybugs and just use the power of the food chain to demolish those little fuckers

I just emerged from a long and forking thread of furious historians fighting about whether Ancient Agrarian Life was better than Screen-Based Late Capitalism, and I think it started with all parties involved making the same point about needing the FDA. BlueSky has truly come into its own.

if you're intrigued by this question you shouldn't be writing about tech, honestly

I think that the crowd at the Knicks-Pistons game was just chanting BAS-KET-BALL and maybe I’m wrong but I really hope not. Great vibe.

One of the wilder political things in recent history is that Project 2025 publicly released a 900 page document laying out their plans to roll back 100 years of human progress and then during the campaign Republicans just said "no we're not :)" and then they won and now they're doing it all.

Two headlines in the New York Times today.

Keeping my garden:politics posting in balance. Here are some recent developments.

I know Vance did not technically murder the Pope but imagine spending your life advocating the care and love of the poor and you end up using your deathbed energy to make smalltalk with Hillbilly Elegy

Conclave was a good movie but I am not ready for the March Madnessification of the papacy

Heartbreaking injustice www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/n...

Bone chilling. A court ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia to stay in the United States. The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that he was illegally removed. Trump is pretending he won the ruling 9-0. 1/ You may not think this case means anything to you. But let me tell you why it does.

Yes, exactly, why hoard up 400 years’ worth of up Fuck You Money if not to spend it on the perfect Fuck You

America has been sleeping on Bridget Jones 4 and I’m here to tell you it’s a properly good movie. Maybe not exactly as good as the original but close! Don’t be dissuaded by the unfortunate 2 & 3.