Dan Watson

Du Bois: The North was not abolitionist. But there was a minority who hated slavery with perfect hatred; As the abolition-democracy gained in prestige and in power, they appeared as prophets, and led by statesmen, they began to guide the nation out of the morass into which it had fallen.

baseball fans breaking out the “what else is on, where’s the tv guide” guys from the truman show

I think we underestimate the appeal of antigambling politics because every problem gambler is surrounded by 3-10 people who are absolutely sick of their shit.

big news, sometime in mid to late september we hit the "out-of-pocket maximum" of $8,550 (not counting premiums). (mostly) free healthcare (but not dental) for 3+ months (if covered and in-network) and then it resets again on new years. this system rules

getting partisan official emails from social security and the IRS, in the days before an election. accountability for this stuff would be like an NCAA scandal from the 90s where an entire program would get banned for years. like give the republicans a timeout until 2045 to think about what they did

today at 1 pm: “Latvian bass-baritone Egils Silins stars as Wotan in the most famous chapter of Wagner’s epic Ring Cycle. This production of Wagner’s Die Walküre was Pietari Inkinen’s debut at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) in Beijing, taking place in April 2025.”

Replay review is bad!

Delighted to see that Baltimore City is no longer accept leaves and yard trimmings in plastic bags and hope that at home leaf cycling and zero waste landscaping practices will be encouraged (and modeled by the city). Click on the link for the new regs www.baltimorecity.gov/publicworks/...

recalling that the actual quote from Max Weber about "slow boring" is 180 degrees away from limp dishrag centrism. he explicitly says you have to be a hero who reaches for the impossible

there weren't any good choices for governor so I put The Other Wes Moore as a write-in

Nathan: Do you understand why this scene is scary? Elizabeth: The girl is sick? Nathan: Sorta. The girl’s head is on backwards and she says the priest’s dead mother will perform fellatio forever in a burning afterlife. Billy: [listening to Mein Kampf at 3x speed]: The 19th Amendment was a mistake

once again you're not actually allowed to ignore the made-up due date at the library for a book with no holds on it. they should simmer down with this

this is clearly what's going on with hermes bags, rolexes and ferraris, anything where the brands have to pretend there's scarcity so rich people have to expend some effort to buy a thing and can't just immediately write a check and get what they want

Somewhere away from "We'll just win elections and make the big platforms behave!" and "All that matters is winning so we should just use whatever platform gets us the most eyes!" there has to be a recognition that Meta/TikTok/YouTube/X are permanent thumbs on the scale until we crush them.

boy is this kind of ideology common in this country. FAR more prevalent than any kind of working-class identity. it's why voters in 2022-24 took the first seriously full employment in 20+ years completely for granted, but threw a shit fit over inflation that was partly caused by labor shortage

Alone, Together

todd monken offensive masterclass

very confusing that the ravens/browns game is on fox instead of cbs

there’s a zizek bit i like to puzzle over where he says christianity is the most advanced form of atheism

a recurring theme

been desperately trying to avoid the SNL takes content cycle, but this one actually is funny, even if “telling on yourself algorithmically” is also old news ca. the mid 2010s “why are women barefoot all the time these days? and why are they always sitting on cakes?” etc

i was thinking "it seems quaint that they played this game at 1 pm on a thursday. is the idea that cleveland/tampa, nobody gives a shit anyway?" but it turns out: "Thursday's game was moved up to a 1 p.m. start because of rain in the Cleveland forecast later in the day."

i had a funny ping of satisfaction recently because more than one gambling platform emailed me to say my account had been dormant so long that it’s going to be deleted

i started playing a similar game recently but after a certain level it was getting too hard to keep playing without the "watch an ad for another life" or waiting for a timer. i went to see if there was a fee you could pay to never see ads (some games do offer this), and there isn't.

This is such important work, and the thing to keep in mind is that when AI people tell you that games will be personalized for you, this is the kind of thing they are more likely to mean.

this is bananas

driving on loch raven i saw a sign for a play but unfortunately it doesn’t sound like it is about lonely men in the army in hawaii in 1941

(drinks river water) i must say, damn good stuff sir

tua turndaballova

lame throw from huntley set andrews up there giving the defender time to hit it out

i was thinking about this before they scored, but if you’re down 2 after a Td in the third quarter, kick it to be down 1. it’s not really that important to be tied instead of down 1 with that much time left.

bizarre end of half sequence for the ravens moving backwards for no reason to make the kick longer

Someone asked r/askhistorians a question on Ancient Greek amphibious warfare, specifically as depicted in Troy. I wrote a quick answer. www.reddit.com/r/AskHistori...

i don’t believe in romanticizing small businesses, farms included, but otherwise this is remarkably well framed. a “revaluation of value”, here called “wellbeing economy” or elsewhere “solidarity economy”. that’s the most plausible path out of the big mess

feels weird to see a trailer for a climbing documentary with hilaree nelson if you know she died four years ago.

NYers can see an anne carson translated play next month

having to fight so hard just to get people to stop inhaling black smoke from burning medical waste. imagine being able to apply that energy toward building something good instead ...