It’s tempting to ignore the former President’s expressions of rage, but the stakes for American democracy demand that attention be paid.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/trumps-bloody-campaign-promises
According to human-rights organizations, Duterte’s extralegal rampage killed more than ten thousand people.
Over time, Donald Trump has been no less truthful about his intentions than Rodrigo Duterte
Link:
In one small Mexican city, journalists who tried to expose cartel violence and government corruption became swept up in the murders devouring the country.
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/03/magazine/mexican-journalists-assassinations.html
But the man on the other end spoke in a way that was instantly familiar. Linares had come to know that pitched, menacing tone from years of run-ins with every kind of Mexican gangster.
“This is Commander Eagle,” the voice said. “I’m from the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.”
The rifle is a consumer product to which advertisers successfully attached an identity—one that has translated to a particularly intractable politics.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/how-the-ar-15-became-an-american-brand
Watching the video last summer, I couldn’t help recalling, given Aldean’s association with a mass shooting, that one thing that was tried in a small town in recent American history was the massacre that killed nineteen children in Uvalde, Texas, last year; that law enforcement in that small town waited in the halls for an hour without confronting the shooter; that the small town’s only pediatrician later testified to Congress about identifying the dead by the cartoons on their clothes because their bodies were too damaged. Considered in this light, “Try That in a Small Town” becomes an allegory about posturing over perceived threats to national integrity while ignoring the lived reality of a horror too disturbing to mediate.
His new graphic novel, “Monica,” is a mother-daughter tale steeped in counterculture and cataclysm.
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/books/review/daniel-clowes-monica.html
What happens next is the weirdest, wildest thing in this book — and that’s saying something.
Material WB’s
via Trent.Photo: https://trent.photo/best-of-the-week/week-392023
Her: And so I would be a source and you would be a non-source. There’s fillers and players. So I would be a player and you would be a filler. Because you’re on a movie set type thing.
Me: Yeah.
You got it. You should look into it. It’s a real thing. And people are playing, they’re gamers. And they’re playing games with people’s lives. And it’s real. I’m not okay with it.
And then there’s, I think the non-source people are robotic. With skin and they have no soul. I mean just check it out. Like I, I believe some of it, but I can’t believe that it would be so extravagant like this. Do you know what I mean? If it was a movie set, like come on. But it’s weird because at night I can see almost like people in the background like and there’s lights lighting like, like it would be a stage or a set. It’s crazy.
So would it, would a non-source person know they were a non-source person?
Yeah, and the source person doesn’t know.
So I, I wouldn’t know that my life is a movie?
Okay.
But you would. Wild. I gotta look into this.
Man, you do. And then there’s a thing called Pareidolia where you see faces in trees, in dirt, piles, wherever you look. It’s a real thing. Haven’t you ever looked and seen like, like people, like I see, sometimes I see people in trees. Sometimes I see people in places that there really shouldn’t be and they’re blended in with whatever it is, wherever they’re at.
Like I, I drove up and sat behind the LDS conference. Where it goes up that hill. And I sat on the hill and I, I, I would give you my life that it was real. There was a person dressed exactly how the back of the building was and he was just, you couldn’t see his head, but you could see his shirt and it had a black stripe. And I could tell it was a freaking person. Just standing there. Just standing there.
Whoa.
And I, I don’t know what their thing is or what the motive or agenda is. You want to see something really weird. Go to 8th South and 2nd East. And halfway down there’s a Catholic church. Drive into the back and pull in and start watching the plants. I shit you not, I would have gave up my life once again and my soul that that was real. They’re people and they’re all doing nasty pornographic shit. You can see their faces, their arms, their movements.
Whoa.
And dude, I would have gave up my life that very moment. And I said, I’m going to find out what’s wrong. I got out of the van, walk towards the plant and there was nothing but heat. So like is it when you get close, it goes away.
How do they get out? How do they get away?
There’s a door there that they can go. I feel like there’s doorways to different realms. Okay, right next to us that we can’t. That’s why all these weird paranormal creatures are coming into play and shit. I’m not I don’t know what to believe but really ultimately I have faith in God my creator and I want to believe that but so many things down here at the grass. When you have your eyes open, you’re looking you’re looking around. So you’re seeing How about how’s that saying go believe 90% of what you see and 10% of what you hear? Or something like that.
Well, let me ask you this. I’ll look into the source non-source. Is there anything you can do to protect yourself or or what is what do you do there?
No, I really I really don’t know. That would probably be something very I think would be dangerous to even try and find out because if they know, you know, I mean, you know, I don’t know if I believe it. I mean, it’s just too extravagant. This is all too extravagant. But what if what if I’m smart enough and intelligent enough to implement what if you know and it’s just so crazy, you know, I want you to go over there tonight. I want you to I’m going it right after that.
I’m going to go check out that conference center.
You got to do it in the dark. You got to do it when it’s dark. Okay, and I’m telling you sure as I’m standing here. You’re going to see what I saw. And I really maybe get my number and call me after you know, yeah.
Would you give me your number?
Okay, and just text me what you saw because I’m about ready to go completely viral. Okay, it’s real but I found out the plant is a devil’s snare. I found out the name of the plant and there was this drunk guy and he fell by the stairs. But as he was laying there, I should you know, I’m not lying. I tell you that on my daddy’s grave when he was laying there where I turned and looked at his head it his head turned into a pig. Whoa, you can see the two ears. And his snout and now when you go over there and look where he was plant is dead. There’s something I don’t know what I don’t know what is going on.
Yeah.
I’m telling you something going on. We went to Home Depot to get something and it was really late at night. Yeah, it was closing time and we walked out and there was a semi there with a loading truck and he was loading up about 25 cars. Where in the fuck’s all the people? Where are all the people?
Right.
I don’t get it. I need I need somebody.
I’m sure you’re level-headed.
I’m a level-headed person. I don’t need drugs. I do Xanax. Yeah, my anxiety. But other than that, that’s why I put my life on it. That’s real and I’ll put my life on it that you’ll see the same shit.
I’ll check it out.
It is fucking crazy. And if you don’t feel comfortable take take a buddy with you. Take a buddy always have two people because if you don’t if if you are alone, how are you going to explain? It’s hard. It’s hard to explain. So it would be cool to have a buddy see what you saw and don’t say anything of what you’re seeing. Wait till wait wait until he says. Oh my God. Just show up just show up and let them experience it. Yeah, and see what they say. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because that’s the best way to verify that shit. Wow, and if I’ve seen it my friends seen it. When you show the picture people are tripping out on it.
Yeah.
Now if you do see it, it’s real right?
IN CHIȘINĂU, MOLDOVA, ON THE CRACKED asphalt of the wide but empty central street, a wrinkled old man sold a hammer, a rusty screwdriver, two Soviet
via Orion Magazine: https://orionmagazine.org/article/ukraine-invasion-meaning-in-war/
N CHIȘINĂU, MOLDOVA, ON THE CRACKED asphalt of the wide but empty central street, a wrinkled old man sold a hammer, a rusty screwdriver, two Soviet history textbooks, an old VHS tape, and a bunch of rainbow-colored rubber balls in a crinkled plastic bag. The objects, arranged at an even distance on a red tablecloth, looked like Inquisition torture tools, surgical instruments, or an exhibit of communist artifacts.
His portrait of Obama sparked a nationwide pilgrimage. Now he’s establishing an arts empire of his own.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/02/how-the-artist-kehinde-wiley-went-from-picturing-power-to-building-it
The paintings begin life in Photoshop. Wiley sends initial shots of models to a graphic designer, along with decorative motifs and detailed instructions for creating a backdrop. After the mockup earns his approval, assistants trace it onto the canvas, then begin their painstaking work on the fashion, the flora, and the filigree. Individuals focus on particular works, but also serve as floating detail specialists. The bird painter was brought on for her knowledge of Japanese landscape painting; the clothing expert, who has worked at the studio for seventeen years, doubles as a quality-control inspector, insuring that every Wiley looks like a Wiley. The process has become intuitive, she told me: “I’m his hand, almost like a human printer.”
Sasha Solomon, a software engineer, joined others in the media business who lost their jobs this year after publicly taking on their employers.
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/23/style/twitter-elon-musk-sasha-solomon.html
On Nov. 10, during a week of frequent meetings on changes at the company, Ms. Solomon tweeted: “we will be scheduling multiple all-hands every day until morale improves.”
The Ukrainian President’s trajectory is often cast as surprising, but what makes him compelling as a political leader is the former comic’s talent for exposing the crux of the matter.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/volodymyr-zelenskys-critical-visit-to-washington-dc
What had made everyone laugh was that the Presidents’ initial responses—and, indeed, the reporter’s question itself—had been obscene: they exposed what is usually hidden. The United States and its allies have not done enough to stop the war in Ukraine. They could, but they have not, and so for ten months Russian troops have tortured and executed Ukrainians, erased entire towns from the face of the earth, and targeted civilian infrastructure in order to deprive civilians of heat, light, and running water in winter.
I misjudged the Web site, which can be a pleasing oasis of text-based communication.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/2022-in-review/my-year-of-reddit-and-relaxation
On a bleak day, the signs are everywhere. Books are chiefly useful insofar as they generate source material for podcasts or streaming shows. Those streaming shows are most successful when they generate gifs and memes for social media.
