Do You Want to Go Down to the Pits of Yourself All Alone?

The shittiest people in the world hate and fear Zohran Mamdani
The shittiest people in the world hate and fear Zohran Mamdani
The shittiest people in the world hate and fear Zohran Mamdani
The shittiest people in the world hate and fear Zohran Mamdani
The shittiest people in the world hate and fear Zohran Mamdani
The shittiest people in the world hate and fear Zohran Mamdani
The shittiest people in the world hate and fear Zohran Mamdani
"If you’re wondering why Andrew Cuomo is so soft on ICE—and why he hasn’t called for Brad’s release—you can just follow the money"
The shittiest people in the world hate and fear Zohran Mamdani
The shittiest people in the world hate and fear Zohran Mamdani
➥	"This is one of the most deranged things I’ve ever seen in American politics. Invoking Hitler, the Holocaust, and concentration camps to attack a progressive candidate for municipal office is just absolutely out of control on every level.
The shittiest people in the world hate and fear Zohran Mamdani
The shittiest people in the world hate and fear Zohran Mamdani
The shittiest people in the world hate and fear Zohran Mamdani
The shittiest people in the world hate and fear Zohran Mamdani
The shittiest people in the world hate and fear Zohran Mamdani
No, Zohran Mamdani is not going to save you even if he's elected
Todd Rundgren turned 77 yesterday and this is one of my 25 most listen-to albums (and C's, we listened to it LOTS on her college tours 16 years ago which I think about when I hear a song now)

"Just some creepy armed Mad Max guys trying to gain entry to Dodgers Stadium. ICE says it wasn’t them. DHS says they were Border Patrol. But honestly who the hell knows? They’ve given permission for any psycho to put on a ski mask, point a gun, grab people & throw them into an unmarked vehicle.
Masked ICE agents spotted swapping out license plates this morning in Bell Gardens, CA
"Rümeysa Öztürk wrote an op-ed critical of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. She was arrested by ICE and was in detention for six weeks. This white nationalist student wrote a paper that argued the Constitution applies only to white people. He won an award"
"Wild how the Fed chair saying that *entire regions of the United States* won’t be able to get a mortgage in the next decade barely registered as a news event"
A Story of War, Lies, and Holy Hypocrisy
➥	"When it comes to war, even Trump's biggest critics suddenly believe every word. And they're using the Old Testament as their targeting map"
Manufacturing consent? What consent? What manufacturing?"
➥	"It’s as if the more we’re active online, the more plugged in we are, the less power we have over the real world. And the assholes who run this place, old and decrepit as they are, seem to grasp this"
World War III and Other Simulacra
➥	"“America” is not the empire. “The Zionists” do not control the world. The USA and Israel are components of the global-capitalist empire. Israel is the empire’s Middle East HQ. The US military-industrial complex and its international partners are the empire’s muscle. The empire is conducting a global clear-and-hold op, neutralizing internal resistance, “restructuring” the territory it conquered and now occupies"						⮯
"The Israeli garrison state has made clear that it is not satisfied with overwhelming regional military superiority; it also seeks the permanent incapacity of its neighbours. Israel and its patron-in-chief will not tolerate a sovereign, independent Iran capable of constraining, however modestly, their freedom of action. This is not a diplomatic failure. It is the calculated foreclosure of diplomacy. Not a deviation from standard policy, but the logical culmination of a decades-long consensus in Washington and Tel Aviv: that no independent power in the Middle East should be able to escape the architecture of subordination"
➥	"Israel attacked Iran because it feared diplomacy might work. A nuclear deal could lead Iran to be integrated into a new Middle East and allow the United States to pull back from the region. The outcome that would most benefit America is the outcome Israel acted to prevent"						⮯
Israel’s War on Iran Is the Frontline of a US War on Multipolarity
"The violent new world being born is going to horrify you"
Israelis discovered international law after bombing 36 hospitals in Gaza
"Israel is a terror state. Boasting to the international community that you've distributed millions of meals to the starving population you keep in a giant concentration camp, and then shooting at them when they try to get to the food, is a daily atrocity beyond all moral comprehension"
The Key Nuclear Allegation that started the Iran-Israeli War was Coaxed from a Palantir Counter-Intelligence Algorithm
"Israel’s terror chiefs have been hiding in a tunnel built beneath a hospital"
TACO BOMBS IRAN	➥	"As best I can tell, the attack was ineffective and did essentially no damage. Even if it had, Iran’s highly enriched, 60% stockpile, had already been moved. I’ve seen Israeli claims they know where, but there’s a good chance they’re lying and if the Iranians are smart, they’ve split it up and made sure that only a few people know where each package is, and no one knows where all the packages are, which doubles as “if you hit it, you lose your spy
➥	Driving to Woodsboro yesterday morning I listened to Hegseth's presser, the Trump-drooling, by both him and Chair of Joint Chiefs, embarrassingly slobbering in praise for TACO, and knew at that moment that the mission failed
"NYT has more confirmation that Trump's decision to bomb Iran was motivated in large part by the way the Israeli strikes were "playing" on Fox News, which drove him to want credit for it"
➥	I think it has as much if not more to do with Trump, post-masturbatory parade ridiculed and mocked at G-7 and generally insulted more than at any time second term, wagging his dog
"It's hard to focus on Israel's airstrikes in Lebanon due to Israel's invasion of Syria, which is hard to focus on due to Israel's atrocities in the West Bank, which are hard to focus on due to Israel's genocide in Gaza, which is hard to focus on due to Israel's war on Iran"
Mike Huckabee Is A Deranged Armageddon Cultist
"This is one of the most sick, twisted, depraved massacres yet. Israel fired tank shells into a crowd of starving people waiting for food, killing over 50. They're not even denying it"
Today in Necessary Rhetorical Questions
Motherfucking professional Democrats hate this guy too
"It is important to understand that the Democratic Party is terrible at everything - enacting good policy, winning general elections, resisting Republicans etc - but it is the absolute world-historic GOAT at crushing anything & anyone who tries to change the party from within"
I HATE MOTHERFUCKING DEMOCRATS
➥	"By failing to adequately push back against Mr. Trump, Mr. Schumer and Mr. Jeffries are not only alienating an already alienated Democratic base. They’re squandering a unique opportunity to lure part of the MAGA coalition to their side"
"A secret group chat reveals that Democratic strategists plan to support the pro-crypto GENIUS Act for political gain, despite acknowledging it’s a Trump corruption giveaway"
➥	"18 Dems joined Republicans for a Crypto giveaway that endangers consumers, empowers Big Tech & literally legalizes Trump's crypto corruption. 18 Dems voted to give Trump the ability to profit off Crypto as President. Remember that when you see them at the next 'No Kings' rally"
"Another cop has been convicted of pedo sex crimes, but there won't be any panels on CNN or Fox News to talk about it because it doesn't fit their narrative, they're too busy punching down at immigrants, Arabs, and trans people"
*Late Capitalism* is an ambiguous term
I'm a late-end baby-boomer, born 1959, and my generation fucked, is fucking, and will continue to fuck this country up more than all other generations combined
"This is a long quote, but with the Democrats and Liberal-Centrists totally failing to understand right-wing populism and mottos like 'support our troops,' the quote is worth reading through
Supreme Court Not Sure Why You Thought the Equal Protection Clause Meant Anything
"if you want to get rich here is what you have to do. get elected to a local position as a republican somewhere, carpetbag if that's what it takes. and start making statements about executing ilhan omar and rashida tlaib, propose legislation to make donald trump's birthday a national holiday/Purge"
A 22-year-old college grad with no security experience is now leading a government terror prevention team
"Listening to WTOP radio this morning & they have a piece about the “dangerous heat” coming today. It’s going to hit 110-115 real feel temps in the Tidewater region & DC. No mention of climate breakdown. Never. Instead it’s framed as a rare event. We are being failed"
Finance and the Far Right					Over the brink
"Now more than ever, we need to break the New York Times' hegemony by relentlessly driving traffic to precisely the articles we most object to"
Is Mathematics Mostly Chaos or Mostly Order?
Maggie's		Semicolon Death			{ feuilleton }
"The Ocean Vuong takedown is its own art form, and this piece by Tom Crewe in @LRB is effervescent with contempt: "[Vuong's] language is not poetic, but ridiculous, sententious, blinded by self-love and pirouetting over a chasm.""
➥	"Time spent on unpacking ocean vuong’s already over marketed and relatively measly prose is time wasted. Much as I love a takedown, I’ll never understand what makes critics think they’re doing constructive work when their subject matter can be found on the front table at any B&N"
about the heart, but different; or the space given by silence
Anne Carson on Language, Beauty, Words, Love, and More
A vouch regarding my Something/Anything claim to be one of my 25 most listened-to albums, said event was 45 years ago plus or minus

GRIEF LESSONS

Anne Carson

There is a theory that watching unbearable stories about other people lost in grief and rage is good for you—may cleanse you of your darkness. Do you want to go down to the pits of yourself all alone? Not much. What if an actor could do it for you? Isn’t that why they are called actors? They act for you. You sacrifice them to action. And this sacrifice is a mode of deepest intimacy of you with your own life. Within it you watch [yourself] act out the present or possible organization of your nature. You can be aware of your own awareness of this nature as you never are at the moment of experience. The actor, by reiterating you, sacrifices a moment of his own life in order to give you a story of yours