I am a man of years and taste and perspective who does not indulge in something as crass and vulgar as a reality-celebrity crush. That said, Rob on The Traitors.

Relax, bread department

I am tired of writing posts that essentially serve as obituaries for decency, quality, and merit. I hope we all survive long enough to write obituaries for the other stuff.

Just wanted to salute, one more time, The Washington Post books section. I was fortunate to have all three of my books reviewed by the Post and I always knew they were in the hands of expert and experienced writers and editors. It was an honor.

This is extraordinary. I will miss Colbert so much, but he is going out blazing.

It's very strange that there are people here who are arguing that these demands amount to nothing.

I know it feels better to think we've all been screwed by an evil mastermind than by an arrogant weasel with Big Divorce Energy and a wildly inflated sense of his own abilities and skill sets, but...take a hard look at Jeff Bezos.

For everyone who's insisting that the Post's decline is part of a pre-planned plot.

Jeff Bezos destroyed the Washington Post because he couldn't admit that he didn't know how to run a newspaper, and also because he felt entitled to turn it into his personal plaything. Both are functions of his ego, his greed, his heedlessness, and his insecurity. What a dark day.

I just rewatched William Wyler's Detective Story--it's based on a 1949 Sidney Kingsley play that ran for 15 months on Broadway with, insanely, a cast of 34. NY really needs an Encores series devoted to unrevivable plays, which this is, even though it basically invented the police-precinct TV drama.

Not one reporter in the room willing to ask to be treated with respect. Not one.

You never know what you might learn from a quick Wikipedia search.

Harry Haun has died at 85. In the world of New York theater, he was the last of his kind--a great old pad-and-pen reporter who'd interviewed everyone since John Wilkes Booth. At openings and events, he knew how to forage for an item, a line, an iota of news, and wouldn't let you go until he got it.

This is a fascinating, deeply researched and reported story that goes well beyond "Isn't A.I. terrible?" while keeping one foot firmly planted in "Yes it is."

Uhhh...Why is Tulsi Gabbard's office in charge of deciding how a serious complaint against her can be examined?

I love how every year the Grammys get into hour 4 and the vibe is "Everybody get comfortable, we still have 8 or 10 more weird things we wanna do."

Just one more thing the miserable idiot took over, slapped his name on, and drove out of business in record time.

I'm not sure I have ever seen a more savage movie review headline than the Guardian's dismissal of Melania as a "trash remake of The Zone of Interest."

Melania reviews are in. Not sure I've ever seen this from Metacritic before.

I mean..."crabapple." She was unsurpassed. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVoj...

I am heartbroken to share this. From the time I first saw her on SCTV, I loved Catherine O'Hara. She was simply one of the funniest actresses who ever lived. deadline.com/2026/01/cath...

There are 14 great choices in this favorite-Sondheim-song roundup, and together, they still represent just a tiny fraction of his brilliance. Come for the wonderful picks; stay for the guy in comments insisting that he's a "fraud" and that musicals died 60 years ago. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/28/a...

Watching everybody who doesn't read mysteries simultaneously learn from Netflix that there is a popular detective named Harry Hole.

We should keep fighting for the abolition of ICE because A) ICE should be abolished and B) It's important to push defunding onto the midterms agenda. But the truth is, these numbers are not high enough to enable a minority party to break a majority party at this moment. >

I can't think of anything less useful than sitting here yelling "Don't be fooled by Trump's change in tone!" at each other. This is Bluesky. Who here is under the impression that this app is full of people who are easily fooled by Trump?

It's a good day to call your Senators and tell them that you are watching and that you will not forget what they do, or fail to do.

From vacant preeners like Weiss, the big address to the troops is always "You are the best gosh-darn team in the world, but none of you morons understand the new realities." I'm pretty sure the journalists whose working day she interrupted for this intestinal avalanche will now loathe her even more.

This is a perfect synthesis of every blustery, dumb, in-over-their-heads "We all need to learn to pivot" presentation I ever had to sit through in my years at AOL Time Warner Turner AT&T Discovery, Co., Inc. Squint and you can see her future golden parachute.

Love to these people and to this city.

One simple thing Senate Democrats could demand is: ICE agents cannot under any circumstances be masked. (No, that is not the only thing. No, that is not enough. Yes, I want ICE abolished. Yes, I know "they won't" is a distinct possibility. I hope that saves some of you some time.)

I personally don't tell people who have been fighting their hearts out daily for weeks not to celebrate wins of any size. I certainly don't do that when I've been nowhere near the place where the fight has been happening and have done little more than make some donations from miles away.

It doesn't matter. It's not good enough. It won't change things. It's just cosmetic. It should have happened years ago. It doesn't mean anything. It's too late. It doesn't make up for the fact that... Pissing on glimmers of hopefulness isn't tough-minded. It's just wallowing in a comfort zone.

On CNN, Anderson Cooper using the sentence "That was a lie" over and over tonight regarding the words of Noem, Miller and Bovino.

I'm getting "Don't be so ridiculously cheerful!" in response to THIS POST. Bluesky, never change. Actually, no, change a little.

The President of the United States appears to have begun a journey toward deciding that federal thugs murdering innocent people does not make the great TV he assumed it would. I wish we did not live in a world in which this counts as encouraging news, but it does.

I cannot tell you how many people, including me, have been seriously screwed by this. Both sides deserve to be locked in a room without food, water, heat, or mercy until a deal can be reached.

This is from the NYT masthead editorial about the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. The highlighted line invalidates not just the editorial, but the very idea of newspaper editorials crafted by the consensus of a board. Better to publish nothing at all than to publish a line like this.

This administration is never more dangerous than when it knows it's losing a public-relations war, because the only two responses it ever makes are 1) pretend it won but quickly pivot or 2) double down. It's hard to know which way these bottomlessly evil people will go. We're in for a fateful week.>

These monsters have worked for decades to create an America in which it's perfectly okay for civilians to walk around with a loaded weapon, and now they're saying if you have a gun at a protest, the state can murder you.

For anyone out there who wishes I would stay in my lane: I would LOVE a world in which I can just post about old Columbo episodes and Ross Macdonald novels and the history of best supporting actress and my next book. I just need several conditions to be met first. Let us work toward them together!

Kare 11 local news just read, in full, this statement from Michael and Susan Pretti, the parents of Alex Pretti. "Please get the truth out about our son."

I hope Democratic senators and congressmen understand, out of pure lizard-brain self-interest if moral decency happens to be unavailable, what is at stake for them if they don't handle this the right way. This is a true "If not now, when?" moment.

No. They do not "appear to" contradict it. They contradict it.

Alex Pretti, the man killed by federal agents today in Minneapolis, appears to have been a registered nurse, an athlete, a son and a brother, with ties to Colorado and Wisconsin. Here is a photo he used for several accounts.

I'm seeing a lot of "This is exactly what Trump wants" about Minneapolis. I don't believe that's the case. He and Vance and Miller had the racist daydream that video of black Somalis being snatched off the streets of nice white Minneapolis would play well. He got this instead. >

"Just stay cool and don't make trouble until the midterms" is not going to cut it as an opposition response to a murderous regime whose masked thugs are killing people in the streets and then attempting to round up witnesses and destroy evidence.

BRB, getting my Time Machine out of storage.

The entire range of my interests in a single photograph.

This is a stirring rebuke to the part of the American government and the American electorate that has chosen to scorn and reject basic human decency. Never forget, never forgive.

It would be a good thing for all of us to stop insisting that culture of interest to queer people is only truly worthy of attention if it is "universal" or "relatable" enough to win the attention of straight commentators. This is not 1995.