Portland's city attorney's office got back to me about a public records request, saying that applying a filter to the dataset I requested took less than an hour of work, but not applying the filter to the same dataset will take more than an hour of work

this new years eve I'm reminded of an old Soviet toast: Here's to another average year - worse than the one before it, but better than the one ahead

This means they’re shifting tactics

Writing longform all day and discovering finite aptitude for clarity of expression

Since the late 90s I’d been tracking the decline of “traditional” religious affiliation and belief and the corresponding rise of unregulated spirituality, though my first irl run-in with contemporary astrological fluency happened in Portland and it hit me like a tsunami. I’m pretty sure I laughed

Sometimes wonder what degree of good faith and legal compliance would be enough to rob these malicious dipshits of crises to exploit. The answer is nothing is enough. But even so I wonder

This year Angelita Morillo has gotten so much good, humane policy passed that capital is having brain hemorrhages and lining up a bunch of awful people and some really dirty lies to try to make her stop. She’s one of our best posters and brutal in replies but needs cash to run again so kick her some

2025, the year I tried the least. Year of least striving

Are people taking medical advice from a TV guy again

Left the crows a bowl of treats and half an hour later heard the bonding clicks, that wood block chattering sound

Mbembe’s “Necropolitics” reveals the political will guiding our national response to everything from climate change to COVID. Carve out an afternoon for some essential reading

The US atomic program clearly benefited from the US taking in a lot of scientists from other countries. Specifically, a lot of Jews like Miller's own family. But Stephen Miller would probably prefer they had all died instead.

Do you have any idea how horrifying it is to see a person lying in the street, or to see a human body move like that

I sat down at a restaurant and saw somebody lying in the street outside. Right outside. The driver stopped. A crowd rushed up to help. The person struck was conscious when paramedics arrived and was taken to the hospital. Please pray for them

We have to elect centrists (•︵•)

Takeout and a puzzle with the parents today. Nice Christmas

He has a kind of “now this is sketchy but bear with me” style and I like it

brb reskilling to join the free money industry

it's incredible to contemplate: these people don't have enough. they look at your rickety remaining safety nets -- maybe some employer provided health insurance, maybe even a 401k -- and they think: i need to get my greasy lips around those dregs and drink them dry too

It is offensive to have to think about a governor

🚪👀

Why is she running as a Republican? lol If she doesn’t distinguish herself sufficiently to Drazen she might as well give the race up now.

Fun factoid for your holiday mealtimes: a chamber of commerce is not “official” in the sense that it’s a government agency. Because it’s not a government agency. Not even if their operations depend on public money or the de facto property tax that partially subsidizes the Portland Metro Chamber

Always read Clare Coffey

Early in the year a friend said I could stand to be 10% more of an asshole. I think I’ve gotten up near 5-6%, regretting I am unlikely to close the gap before NYE

Picked up Nirenberg’s Anti-Judaism to read alongside a contemporary Jewish theology, a story collection, Ovid, something for a reading group, and many of your posts

Makes me wish someone had mentioned the shelter-to-slavery pipeline in public testimony at city council in front of the mayor

I like to joke that Welcome Home Coalition is one of the few nonprofits that has had 0% turnover this year. Part of that is because we’re small, but the other reason is that WHC is a great place to work! I’m moving to a different role, so apply to my old job! ✨✨ jobs.macslist.org/job/8chq9t/v...

Why does CityTeam get a property tax exemption on their brand new $4.7M property to supply a labor force to the shoe factory guys under threat of incarceration?

Floor underrated as a sitting place

Apple cobbler deficiency

You’re gonna read the first page of my novel, put it down, and say “Yeah I’m not doing this”

Gadamer laser eyes

There are no correct interpretations of texts or consensus exegetical strategies that would make LLMs “very good at summarizing texts.” There is no interpretive tradition with a constant, unchanging answer to the problem of a text. There are no texts posing only one problem. This isn’t arithmetic

I keep reposting instagram posts on accident trying to expand the caption

The French government is building open-source office software lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/en

One of my ancestors arrived in 1638 and is depicted in a mural in Staten Island Borough Hall and another shared a grandfather with Benjamin Franklin so I suppose I’m one too. Release the captives and let the oppressed go free

I drank two hot chocolates and burned my tongue on each one

The two things that convinced me to skip the PhD were 1) an assessment of the academic job market as it was then and was prone be in the future given liberals’ continued good-faith handling of conservative complaints, and 2) acceptance that I’d be competing with classmates who could do nothing else

Character gets stuck in an episode of Cheers. Enjoying this

Clicking into this I abandoned all hope that TNR’s framing would transcend the liberal fetish for identifying the problem with the current administration, ignoring those swathes of the culture trending this direction for decades, and I was not disappointed. We’re still in hell and not exiting soon

Tempted to start attending events

In twenty years I’ve written two poems. I read them both out loud to people and they liked them

Coyote trotting through the neighborhood in daylight, 2pm. Crows rightly putting it on blast. We protect us

he also kind of gets everyone's asses again in this follow up with the washington post

Walter Peck was clearly the result of a right-wing government hollowing out the EPA, replacing qualified scientists with belligerent new hires who attempt to prove themselves with flashy takedowns because they don't have the training or temperament to perform real public service.

A culture with a mature relationship to authority would not have spent decades attacking its educational ecosystem but instead be clamoring for academic research into AI before industry was allowed to unleash it on us Kudos to Mozilla for promising to put it on a toggle. TBD what that means exactly

None of you can make me read or care about David Sedaris

Might read poems tomorrow at a place. One old and one new poem