We are here for a reason. Not by accident. Not by mistake. We chose this time, this place, this life.
But what will we do with it?
The world is loud, full of fear and division. It wants to pull us into its drama, make us forget why we’re here. But we are not here to fight battles that were never ours. We are not h…
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My dad called me this afternoon to tell me that the field between our houses was covered with robins, that it wasn’t just one robin that arrived as a sign of spring but a whole field full.
What he didn’t say was that birds were my mom’s thing. She would have been the one to notice. He did in her stead and made sure to bring them to my notice, too.
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I love talking Vulture's annual stunt awards with Brandon Struessnig. Lots of fun stuff this year about FURIOSA, THE FALL GUY, those ads during the Oscars that featured stunt performers, and more.
Hello Substack, I’m an acquisitions editor at Baker Books and would love to connect on here. Feel free to shoot me an invite and send me a pitch any time.
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You always own your intellectual property, mailing list, and subscriber payments. With full editorial control and no gatekeepers, you can do the work you most believe in.
Not sure if I’m supposed to say this here, but here goes:
Lamenting the loss of what once was on another site, I love “following” people here simply because I cannot get emails on the regular from all the ones whose wonderful work I want to see.
I also love that there is no follower/following count here (at least that I can see—I’m inept at such things). Who cares?
I also noticed recently that I can’t see how many likes, etc. there are on a note without a further step.
MICKEY 17 is, sadly, not very good. It's neither funny nor fun nor exciting, the central metaphor is unbearably belabored, and the movie jettisons all the interesting ideas from the book in favor of tedious timeliness.
A reminder: Vladimir Putin could end the war in Ukraine right now, just by ordering his soldiers to go home. No need for treaties or negotiations.
You made it, you own it
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Norway has just decided to increase its support to Ukraine for 2025 from 35 to 85 billion Norwegian kroner ($7,81 billion). Compared to the size of the population, the Norwegian aid equals $483 billion from the USA.
When you’re 85 you are sometimes astounded by the way everything has changed
For example, hotels used to accommodate travellers, but now they are conference centres and event centres and luxury spas, where people actually staying at the hotel take second place to the big money makers
And I can remember when Heathrow Mall was an airport, and British Airways was a decent airline, and not a downmarket version of Ryan Air
And even when the BBC used to do funny comedy shows
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‘Green men - or ‘foliate heads’ if you want to be academic about it - are one of the strangest mysteries of the ancient English church.’
This week, our pilgrimage takes us to Iffley church, Oxfordshire: home to a medieval anchoress, a 1600-year-old yew, and a very mysterious green man. Also, a lot of windows.
WITH NO CONSTITUTIONAL POLICE TO ENFORCE our nation’s basic laws, the most practical check on a tyrannical president is Congress’s power of the purse. And for the last couple of weeks, as the March 14 deadline for passing a government funding bill approaches, congressional Democrats have been moving toward asserting that power.
Both my grandmothers have seemed to live vicariously through me for most of my life, but especially as I went off to college and graduate school and moved to the big city for professional work. At one time I thought it was weird (“Why’s she so obsessed with me?”). I remember, still with frustration, the night I told my maternal grandmoth…
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Last night, here in Washington State, the Neah Bay High School girls and Lummi Nation High School boys won the small school state championships in basketball. Both are reservation high schools. Multiple rez high school teams have won the Washington State small school basketball championships over the last 15 years. My rez high school, Wellpinit, won the boys championship in 2023 and 2024. In earlier generations, there were more than a few anti-Indian referees. They’d walk into the gym and all t…
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Lent isn’t just about repenting from our private sins or getting our individual souls in shape for heaven. It is about standing with Jesus over and against the satanic enticements of empire and to worship any Caesar who sets himself up as God.
This Lent, we must reject all temptations of empire and Emperors. Lent isn’t personal. It is pol…
"They don't read it the way you and I do, which is this guy is weirdly enamored by this dictator...they think all the Russia stuff was a scam. They don't think Trump is a Russian patsy. But they don't like Russia still."
Trumpism is synonymous with draconianism. Even then, the deportation campaign manages to stand out: It is indiscriminate, malicious, secretive, and disdainful of the law. Its entire purpose is to rid huge numbers of foreigners living here and instilling fear in all the rest.
For seven months, Natalia, a chimpanzee at Bioparc Valencia, carried the lifeless body of her baby. She held him, protected him, as if he were still alive. Bioparc let her grieve in her own time. On September 21, she finally let go—not of a corpse, but of what was still, in her heart, her child.
You always own your intellectual property, mailing list, and subscriber payments. With full editorial control and no gatekeepers, you can do the work you most believe in.
In responding to the backlash about their handling of the Citibike Karen story, Jesse made two statements: we didn’t get anything wrong factually or made a final verdict, and this is a nothing story.
For the nothing factually incorrect and didn’t make a final verdict remark...what the hell is a final verdict? This is a podcast, not AP News. That’s some moving the goalpost bullshit. As far as factually correct, there have been dozens of episodes on this podcast about narratives creating facts.
The reason this story is so infuriating to me is that an actual real person was hurt. She is on leave from her job, possibly fired. A hospital lost a valuable caregiver. Did she lose her health insurance in the last weeks of pregnancy over this mess? Those are real harms. And what is the end result? Women are being told to shut up and accept being bullied on the street or they might go viral and their lives will be destroyed. That is really fucked up.
And, for the record, if my 17 year old son did this, I would be furious at him and demand that he issue a public apology. Acting like shits to a pregnant adult is inexcusable. I teach HS. I am the parent of a teen. THIS BEHAVIOR IS NOT OK. Why are people excusing it? I’m not saying it’s abnormal. Teen boys are morons. But the adults in the world need to say that they were being total assholes and that is not acceptable behavior in NYC or anywhere else.
Yeah, it’s a nothing story to Jesse because people are mad at him. It’s behavior that reminds me of how the teenager and his family were trying to spin the story. No one forced the teenager to post the video of him being an asshole to the woman. Once there is some blowback, then it’s “why is everyone mad at me, everyone is racist, here’s my gofundme.”
No one forced Jesse to go half cocked at this story. Once there is some blowback, then it’s, “why is everyone mad, the community that supports me …