“What can I say? There’s an ingrained and often stifling politeness that’s bred into us in the American South. Even though I knew I was talking to a machine, I couldn’t not be nice to it.”
“I’ll go down this thread with [Chat]GPT or Grok and I’ll start to get to the edge of what’s known in quantum physics and then I’m doing the equivalent of vibe coding, except it’s vibe physics.” Note: “Vibe physics” is not a thing. Not even a little bit of a thing.
“The first real question is about Epstein’s personal fortune; it’s never been clear how, exactly, he got so rich.”
“You think I showed up with ChatGPT? Mary Shelley used me… gratuitously. Dickinson? Obsessed. David Foster Wallace built a temple of footnotes in my name. I am not some sleek, futuristic glyph. I am the battered, coffee-stained backbone of writerly panic—the gasping pause where a thought should have ended but simply could not.”
“The truth is, none of these companies ever really cared about the ideals they once proclaimed to be their guiding lights. It was all a charade; good business for a while, bad business now. And that is why a basic truth of these troubled times must be recognized: The corporations will always knuckle under to Trump. Silence and complicity are good business under a MAGA regime.”
“First, eggs were breaking the bank. Now it’s beef.”
“A 40-year-old prophecy has finally come to pass. Pee-wee Herman’s beloved bicycle is making its way to the Alamo. Per CBS, the Alamo has acquired Pee-wee’s red Schwinn at auction for a reported $125,000. The bike won’t be hidden in the Alamo basement, if such a thing exists. Instead, it will sit alongside Davey Crockett’s gun and General Santa Anna’s sword in the museum.”
It’s hard to know how much of this is Trump being racist, Trump being a grumpy old “back in my day” sports loudmouth, Trump throwing around his power because he can, Trump trying to distract from other things, or who knows what else.
“In the past 20 years or so, “y’all” has gone from being a Southernism to become America’s favorite way to use the second person plural”.
RIP, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Emmy-nominated actor best known for The Cosby Show.
“A federal appeals court on Monday overturned the conviction of a man in the killing of 6-year-old Etan Patz in 1979, a crime that alarmed parents across the country and changed the experience of childhood for generations.” As a 13-year-old in NYC in 1979 who read the newspapers every day, I was very aware of Etan Patz and the mystery surrounding his death.
“In short: It’s a fiction that the court is untouchably powerful. And now, more than ever before, the high court is pretending to be omnipotent when it’s not; it’s all just green smoke, cracked mirrors, and big words.”
“In the five months since President Trump first announced sweeping tariffs, Amazon quietly raised prices on low-cost products such as deodorant, protein shakes and pet care items, a Wall Street Journal analysis of nearly 2,500 items found.”
“So there will be a next time, and the next recissions may be even bigger. Any bipartisan agreement is worthless. Trump and the Republican majority will determine the final budget. Why should Democrats provide a wisp of bipartisan cover?”
RIP, Ozzy Ozbourne, legendary heavy metal singer. This is my favorite image of him. And bless the Alamo for putting out a lovely statement about him. More on that and his history with San Antonio here.
“One response to this anxiety — this “uneasy conscience” — is to seek to do good. Another response is to seek to be perceived as good. The former leads to repentance. The latter leads to rebranding.”
Four good life lessons from Ichiro Suzuki.
RIP, George Kooymans, guitarist and co-founder of Golden Earring, rock band best known for “Radar Love” and “Twilight Zone”.
Y’all, all this Jeffrey Epstein stuff is making the president sad. Why can’t we be nicer to him about this?
“This part of the narrative is pretty straightforward and uncontroversial. Why did things go wrong [at the Washington Post] when Bezos got involved and started making big changes? A big part of the answer is the consultants, the particular ones a guy like Bezos would gravitate toward. In short he gravitated toward the ones who speak billionaire. Which is to say, the language of leverage, commercial paper, efficiencies, disruption, innovation, the big idea, etc. Why would he go to those people? Because that’s his social world. To the extent Bezos has peers they live in that world, work with those consultants, think in that way. It all makes sense.”
RIP, Chuck Mangione, two-time Grammy-winning composer and trumpeter/flugelhorn player, who had a big hit with “Feels So Good” and whose music was featured on several Olympics. When I was in middle school and a baby saxophone player in the late 70s, my buddy and fellow newbie sax player Jon spotted Chuck Mangione at a Yankee game. We went up to say hi to him, and while he declined to give us an autograph, he was kind enough to talk music with us for a few minutes. We thought that was cool, and obviously I’ve never forgotten it. Rest in peace, sir. (BTW, said buddy Jon is now a professional jazz musician in his own right. Check him out if you’re into that sort of thing.)
RIP, Kenneth Washington, actor and last surviving main cast member from Hogan’s Heroes.
Also, Hulk Hogan has died.
“The Atlantic recently received a tip from a person who had prompted ChatGPT to generate a ritual offering to Molech. He’d been watching a show that mentioned Molech, he said, and casually turned to the chatbot to seek a cultural explainer. That’s when things got extremely weird. He was alarmed by the results.”
“After months of cowardly capitulation to this Administration, Paramount finally got what it wanted. Unfortunately, it is the American public who will ultimately pay the price for its actions.”
Paramount also paid Trey Parker and Matt Stone $1.5B for streaming rights to South Park. That 1st episode was quite the Howitzer shot right into their bow, giving the brutal mocking of both Trump and Paramount’s appeasement.
I don’t know which part of which episode this is, repost of tictoc on threads, but I watch it over and over …
https://www.threads.com/@maddpiink_/post/DMk8EmNxcvm?xmt=AQF0JVnb_ScJW1EhG-Skihg6kAJaLNKlKdTAajpHxJULTw