An Anthony Stewart Head story. Some of you might recall the name of my TV site at the Chicago Tribune was The Watcher. Because I watched a lot of TV, but also because of Giles, of course. So the story involves me making a total ass of myself in a fairly harmless way. Long ago in the Before Times,

Wow spoiling the fire making challenge by doing a live audience Survivor finale. Multiple people (higher ups) should get an earful. Hope this proves they don’t do the finales with an audience again.

Rec! @blairbraverman.bsky.social is, among other things, one of my favorite recurring guests on @yourewrongabout.bsky.social. I just devoured the first two episodes of her new podcast, What to Carry, What to Burn, and learned about the amazing Ada Blackjack, who I’d never even heard of before now.

Binged Running Point because of @extrahotgreat.com’s recent Patreon episode and loved it. Also, just finished season one of EHG fave Southland, which I never had gotten around to. So great. Old rec or new, always watch what @taraariano.com and @sarahdbunting.bsky.social recommend is the lesson.

Let it be known that Katherine Johnson was the reason for the first astronauts in space. And now Vanessa Wyche, head of the Johnson Space Center and NASA's highest ranking civil servant, is the responsible for the longest manned space flight in history

The went to the moon and didn’t blow it up? CANCEL THEIR MONEYS!

As the Integrity crew splashed down TO THE MINUTE of their estimated arrival and hit the BULLSEYE, this is a reminder that Katherine Johnson was an absolute genius. My God. #NASA #ArtemisII

Turns out that even astronauts have to deal with tarmac delays

Four women “One member of Swalwell’s staff said they quit immediately after receiving CNN’s detailed list of questions about the allegations.” www.cnn.com/2026/04/10/u...

Meanwhile on the water www.flickr.com/photos/nasah... #Artemis 🔭🧪

Watching the Artemis reentry is so intense and amazing. The blackout period is stressful! But watching the calm, capable scientists and astronauts work doing something so incredible is such a great reminder of what cool things we can do.

some things are just impossible to visualize like traveling 24,600 miles per hour what even

An absolute must-read. Chavez's impact is so entrenched in California and especially Los Angeles, where his name and face adorn streets and murals across the region. Seems like that's about to change. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/u...

Way back when, before social media really existed as it does now, I met Dan and a bunch of other cool people in the active comments section of a pop culture blog. Many of us have remained connected in one way or another and let me tell you we are all SO PROUD to say we knew him when!

A reminder that the Academy shamelessly and wrongly fired a lot of its archivists variety.com/2024/film/ne...

A personal note: I was very touched to hear Best Editing winner Andy Jurgensen thank his aunt Barbara Hall. As an Academy archivist, she took an interest in my research and, miraculously, found me George Stevens's pocket diary. A miracle. Five Came Back would not have been what it was without her.

FIRST WOMAN TO EVER WIN BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY. FIRST BLACK PERSON TO WIN BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY. FIRST FILIPINA TO WIN BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY. ACADEMY AWARD WINNER AUTUMN DURALD ARKAPAW.

The entire generation of film icons who made their bones in the 60s and 70s are going to be leaving us in the coming years and every Oscars will have an In Memoriam as jammed with icons as this one, so it’s nice to see they’re finally starting to get it right

There has never been an In Memoriam as well done as this, good god

That was an elegantly handled In Memoriam, probably the best ever. One of the only times in Oscar history that it actually felt like the show was asking people to stop, think, remember, smile, and mourn.

It is really cool to have PTA and Coogler’s first Oscars back to back.

Delroy Lindo got his first nomination this year, but he's probably deserved at least 4 (Crooklyn, Malcolm X, Da 5 Bloods), maybe 5 if you count Cider House? That's a lot, but I bet it's not the worst ratio. What actor has the lowest number of actual nominations to highest number of deserving ones?

Y’all she had a HIP REPLACEMENT IN DECEMBER.

I feel it's my duty as the Last Print Subscriber to let people know this. The staff critics are running in the Book Review, not the weekday paper, which is a big change, and cuts down on the number of reviews. And features like the death of mass market paperbacks also run in the book review.

As I’ve been saying, by the end of the year, you can expect that ChatGPT will be selling a product that lets people generate child sexual abuse material on demand. They will then say “oops” about it violating their TOS, and repeat until everyone caves. Because their leadership is largely ex-Meta.

Goldman: "Will the survivors and victims who are here please stand up one more time. By show of hands, how many of you or your loved ones actually have met with the DOJ? None ... How many of you were ignored by the DOJ? All of them." (Bondi responds by smearing Goldman.)

Likely-historic photo by NBC News of all the Epstein victims asked to raise their hands if they've not yet been asked to meet with the DOJ as Bondi testifies in foreground

RIP, James Van Der Beek. And fuck cancer.

A dresser inside a museum in New York City has been discovered as a secret stop on the Underground Railroad — the first of its kind discovered in Manhattan in over 100 years

Traister, 2017: "We’re not only learning about individual trespasses but for the first time getting a view of the matrix in which we’ve all been living: We see that the men who have had the power to abuse women’s bodies and psyches throughout their careers are in many cases also the ones in charge."

Y'all, the fabulous @fuggirls.bsky.social have created the best post about the #BenitoBowl. Treat ya'self! www.gofugyourself.com/the-super-bo...

ICE has now spent over half a BILLION dollars just on purchasing warehouses around the country to convert into detention camps. If these mega-camps are utilized to the full capacity ICE intends, they'll be the largest prisons in the country, with little real oversight. www.ajc.com/politics/202...

"TikTok’s Terms of Service now explicitly include tracking of location and citizenship status (among other identity markers, such as sex)." newrepublic.com/article/2059...

over the next 3 years, be ready for seeing a lot of coverage of Republican lawmakers, business leaders, university leaders who did absolutely nothing to stall Trump (on the contrary) — about how *actually* they were wringing their hands all along. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/u...

If Jeff Bezos could afford to spend $75 million on the Melania movie & $500 million for a yacht to sail off to his $55 million wedding to give his wife a $5 million ring, please don't tell me he needed to fire one-third of the Washington Post staff. Democracy dies in oligarchy.

Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again. #Pinks #ProudBlue

Spanberger is a moderate Democrat who used to work for the C.I.-fucking-A. It should put the actions of Schumer and Jeffries into perspective for everyone. Are they Republicans? Because they sure act like it. They need to get the fuck out.

People often disparage the press — and we often get it wrong — but almost everything you know about this administration is not because pundits go on tv or social media and pontificate but because of relentless reporting from real journalists at institutions that give them resources to do so.

Our founders, though deeply flawed, understood that democracy requires an informed citizenry and a government accountable to it people. That’s why the press is the only profession protected by the Constitution. It’s also why autocrats and oligarchs seek to control and destroy it.

For those looking for freelance work in the wake of WaPo layoffs: I'm an editor at large overseeing Ideas & Culture at Bloomberg, including our Books coverage. Find me at [email protected]

I was laid off from the Washington Post today, along with hundreds (!!!) of incredible colleagues. If you need a data journalist, chart designer, or wacky-idea-specialist, give me a shout!

If you are able, The Post's union has started a layoff fund for those fired by the world's fourth-richest man today. gofund.me/a310d0286

Aside what these layoffs mean to the Washington Post as an organization, the toll on the people who lost their jobs is awful. The dread and the anxiety of now having to find a job, of figuring out bills, insurance. And for those who kept their jobs, the stress of working even more to paper the gaps.

For so long Amazon has had a monopoly on selling self-published books. Good to see that @bookshop.org is ready to compete in the space! www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...

Whatever you think of the Washington Post at this moment, here's a chance to support the dedicated, hard-working journalists who were just laid off. If you have the means, your donation is most welcome. If you don't, a kind thought and maybe spreading the word to others is support enough 💙

Besides the splendid @roncharles.bsky.social and @johnwilliams.bsky.social and Becca Rothfeld, I'm thinking about former editors Nina King and Marie Arana and Jabari Asim and Michael Dirda. Book World has long had a unique and often surprising voice. What a terrible loss.

These are the last words in the last column I wrote for The Washington Post, titled "When institutions crumble, strongmen step in". www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

"Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of The Washington Post, and Will Lewis, the publisher he appointed at the end of 2023, are embarking on the latest step of their plan to kill everything that makes the paper special." www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

The Post killing its Books section (one of the best around) is so fucking bleak