Literate smartypants still hopeful about education and only once considered voting for a Republican. Only partisan when the other side is STUPID. Interests are popular music and film, art, aesthetics, novels, romanticism and ancient history not in order.
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Uh what was that song or Eddie Murphy riff that showed up in the late 70s or early 80s before western representative democracy got sold down the river by Thatcher and Reagan? Kill tha Land ... Yup the DKs did that song, Kill the Poor but that was Black Comedy from the Bay Area.
This thread on how to understand housing costs and landlord squeals is brilliant
I cannot say what I think should happen to your landlord. #realestateisascam
My neighborhood farmers market a couple of weeks ago. Just horrible.
I'm Jewish and I think about antisemitism all the time. I can't tell you how fucking weird it is that Homeland Security posting literal neo-Nazi propaganda generates less discussion about the threat to Jews than a mayoral candidate who believes Palestinians are human beings.
You are a lawyer, you know they are not that exciting. But I am sure a lot of folk got happy endings that they will not talk about.
I finally feel safe
Fox News falls for it hook, line, and sinker.
I have to say no product made anywhere near Hollywood evah smacked down Scientology like they did. And they kinda explained Mormonism in a way that makes it seem less like a Cult to us southern-informed but lapsed but maybe we are back but not as Evangelical because raised Episcopal tend to think.
Note to Kristi Noem: It is far better to be mocked in a cartoon for how you look than to be shoved into the back of a U-Haul and kidnapped for how you look.
If REM is Joy Division but US southern and more Protestant Christian (white southern division) informed, then Sunny Day Real Estate is REM but grungy PNW, mysty Christian, but as sincere as the original band (JD) and the influence (REM). The throughline is sincerity and dare I day it, honesty.
A Golden Oldie and still relevant (and crazy) after all these years.
Apparently 20 years ago we wrote a headline about this website.
Governor Pritzker is right. No more blank checks for Netanyahu’s right-wing government and its military. No more blank checks for war crimes against Palestinians. forward.com/fast-forward...
Fucking Karl Rove got his start electing Nixon. All downhill from there for the Rs.
Correction. What he said! Strength for the struggle.
So I thot I guess I should watch Naruto because it is in the family tree. I should have just watched Hunter x Hunter first. I would have stopped at the first Naruto arc inoculated by Togashi. But #theneedtofindoutwhathappens locked in and I did watch all 220 episodes. Never again. Peace!
Think animé is stupid, basically the Justice League with martial arts stylings. But of course I prefer Gundam and Fate to shonen battle animé and only am even considering watching Dragon Ball Zero because it influenced JJK and Chainsaw Man which are both exquisitely elegiac and quite funny to boot.
@thomaswolfe.bsky.social Looking homeward? I say this as I am a Tarheel thru-and-thru, though I have the only non-Chapel Hill degree out of the eight achieved by my family. MA Pittsburgh, AB Carolina (it is a Public Ivy!)!
His takes on Christianity are so stale it is ridiculous. Of course he does not know that Girard plagiarized Bataille and then got him wrong. Go Stanford!
Peter Thiel is Silicon Valley’s most dangerous power broker — a billionaire spy-master pulling strings from the shadows. He co-founded Palantir to put the world’s data under government surveillance, sunk early money into Facebook to shape its algorithms, and now bankrolls extremist politicians
I say this in so much love You are trying to make sense of it and that’s the problem You have to accept that Cuomo doesn’t want to be right. He wants to be humiliating and emasculating to a Brown man using the words and structures of a Black one While respecting neither
This is a Self-Own?!?
Also this tweet by Andy can be considered potentially stroke-inducing to folk (especially male) around my age. Do not quote The Greatest if you cannot even Google the quote to quote it correctly. Boxers do not Fly! That is was t'ai-chi masters do!
More like stuck like drone bee!
well someone is having a stroke
And he mangles the quote! Uggh.
Sad but I had to laugh. We live in transitional times so things are going to get weird.
The South Park guys are Good Guys!
I am not attending to Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans like I should but it does seem charming. And the ED theme is great, world-class! On the other hand, I aggressively dislike the OP song but I get who they were trying to reach. It's a Gundam for the Kids!
Isn't that clown a killer? #ionlyknowoperathroughseinfeldandbugsbunny
Uggh
Anyway, it is a very well-written so and one that is cosy and has worked on making the mysteries puzzles to be solved, and also self-conscious that it is very Christie in its take--the detective writes, not just solves, puzzles!--and set in Cambridge but not as obsessed about it like Morse honestly
Pull the other one: It has bells on it. Mart was a great stylist but oh did he like to pontificate. You do not catch Pynchon, DeLillo, Barth, Barthelme or Coover doing that. Such a Realist Pose!
Gege is as good as mangaka get. Glad I have been in the audience for all of JJK in all its fierce but resilient tragedy executed with grace (and gravity) and good humor in spite of all the nonsense that surrounds us.
Uggh. Truth & Reconciliation gonna take a decade at least. James you did not deserve the task of documenting our moral decline but you have done it very well!
Great to know. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/o...
I note, incidentally, that this very deep concern about “erasing history” seems not to apply to purging books or classes that focus on unlovely aspects of that history. Just monuments honoring treason in defense of slavery.
This is the most infuriatingly witless talking point. No history is “erased” by the removal of a monument. What he means is “we want to celebrate and honor racism,” but that sounds bad, so we’re supposed to pretend this illiterate goon has some deep interest in the study of history.
Didn’t want to believe this was true. It’s true.
The USA is now officially a danger to the human species, they are a very real threat to our continued survival.
Head of NASA Sean Duffy intends to destroy a satellite that collects key data on carbon dioxide and plant health, by causing it to burn up in the atmosphere. The U.S. Dept of Agriculture and private agriculture firms use the data to forecast crop yield, drought conditions and more.
Stalin off anymore than do people--especially the British--do not love a good joke about Hitler. Last note: anytime a writer or intellectual says laughter or irony is dead because this happened, tell them to pull the other one: It has Bells on It. Peace.
Treatment by the critics rather than the savaging it should have. Because in making it about Stalin and about communism qua ideology, Amis' only really flatters the Blimpie Legacy of Kingsley rather than truly do anything interesting. And I am not sure why he thinks laughter is somehow letting
But why he gets to publish it is quite impersonal, since he has proved while he is a popular novelist, he can move units in non-fiction especially if it is a bit personal--Kingsley was a Commie, Hitch is a Trot--so Mart's book report on Stalin's Terror gets published and a soft if dismissive
Why Amis a novelist, not a scholar, is attracted to Stalin's USSR is he can make it about Josif and make it into a Story. One he thinks has not been told which is odd since Conquest and others had told the story YEARS before Koba was published in 2002. So why Amis published it is quite personal
for power "anti-communism" had become. What is sick and wrong about Amis' Stalin pamphlet is just how trivially personal he makes the political. Forces for sure were shaped by people, just like the British East India company enthralled the Raj or British liberalism starved Ireland but
For the so-called margins. No wonder inspired by Russia and Marx, they woke up to their exploitation. Amis' bleeding father's conversion to a rigid anti-communism occurs just when Vietnam really quags into a mire and truly shows just how much BS the domino "theory" was and how naked in its reach
Gov't, Britain and Germany, with cousins as monarchs, could not figure out how to avoid a war that would kill nearly 8 million people and end by spreading a global flu pandemic. Whatever you want to call European Imperialism pre-WWI (and the US was catching up) it was a real horrorshow
And family was warranted when in fact the Tsardom was palpably a mess and barely could withstand opposition by a bunch of intellectuals; European and especially British Imperialism was a force of immiseration for people on six continents, and the so-called representatives of Western representative
Amis jejune hindsight from 1995 is somehow something they could access in the midst say the worst global conflict to that time, WWI, and (2) exhibits absolutely no even curiosity about why these people felt socialism, real wealth distribution and yes communist revolution including killing the Tsar
And exactly how old was Lenin when he read it five times one summer? Like fifteen! Which is what fifteen year-olds due. Amis says the book--Koba the Dread--is about Stalin but it is snide about Marx, Lenin, the Webbs, Shaw, a real attempt at declaring <> which (1) imagines that
Amis being tiresome in his political judgments masquerading as literary, claiming that Chernyshevsky's What is To Be Done is "insuperably talentless" when in dates from 1863 and clearly has more in common with Uncle Tom as a powerful populist expression of revolt that an aesthetic landmark
Just a reminder:
Wow!
I do use this space to get thot off my chest and in intemperate or cryptic ways. It is partly for the sake of therapy! I am by no means expert or have the secret solution. But I know an ef lot more about some stuff here than the average denizen, and I also know who know more than I do.
Nope
On the show, it is fun, but it is slow--for me--at least in the middle. I love the vibes, and have reached the point that certain musical themes will invoke certain feeling, a sure sign that I love an animé. But you can tell they had an episode order before it was plotted.
Watching Mobile Suit Gundam the 1979 series and I have to ask, are women normally named Mirai--"future"--in Japan? The name sounds pretty to my ear, and kind of poetic but it seem even more portentous than calling a daughter Linda--"pretty" in Esp--to call her "future"! And expectations, much?!?
It was a mistake to think ever at its core the gov't in Tel Aviv was not capable of such behavior. The ugliness of Golda Meir against Palestinians will do for this.
There are multiple ongoing conflicts that are equally as disastrous in terms of humanitarian suffering and countless examples in recent memory. Israel’s actions in Gaza aren’t really outside the norm in conflicts. But it is far outside the norms of what we expect from governments we support.
Characters have kept their nordic names. Which is not necessarily an issue for a series set in Scotland. Except maybe Sonnenberg pushes the limit a little.
Ghislaine Maxwell is objecting to the release of grand jury transcripts. Full Filing: bit.ly/3H91ruL
Dept Q lives up to ScandiNoir in being indulgently cruel to its characters and to prestige TV pacing--I think the culprit could have been caught in episode 3 if the mystery is bigger--but the acting and writing are good. Oh and it really is Scots, some eps require subs for me.
There are two things I do not get with Miyazaki, fascination with pigs and he seems to actually like watch dogfights which I am done with, so I do not think I am ever going to watch Porco Rosso. Also the romanticism of being an anti-fascist, not really on point when it is actually happening.
If only the internet had, like, a search function www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
Jessica: Before this deal, we essentially were paying 1% on imports with the EU. 15% is more than 1%. I wish Gasparino was sitting here to explain to Jesse how tariffs work because it is a tax on the consumer.
Anyway, it is a very well-written so and one that is cosy and has worked on making the mysteries puzzles to be solved, and also self-conscious that it is very Christie in its take--the detective writes, not just solves, puzzles!--and set in Cambridge but not as obsessed about it like Morse honestly
in the way that sometimes the portrayal of friendship between sexes can be because they can bicker, undermine but also support in ways that are coupley in a cosy way. And honestly it is a little "idealistic" even now men and women being friends.
wanted to see. The genius is that Maxwell's character is so genuinely still attached to a husband who may have left that even if she harbors very familial feelings her husband's twin, she is not Ludwig's or rather John's one. So there male/female byplay in the series but never is it romantic except
Every episode, because any woman foil to Morse could become the fated one. I truly was unhappy when Grayling, burdened with an equally odd name by a parent, just could not be squared with Morse because well she was twenty years his junior and would want kids and Morse as Dad was something no one
with reason, she can radiate good sense with eccentric verve naturally and can exude moral authority easily over charming affable men without seeming bossy. She just is head of this particular class. But her addition provides Ludwig a femme aspect that Morse had to reinvent every series, even
gets a close to John Thaw in portraying a character who is genuinely exasperatingly pedantic but charming and sometimes via pedantry sees the answer obscure to his foils--three here, as well as his brother's wife, Maxwell. I say, she seems the first call for lead middle-aged women for Britbox and
And David Mitchell and Mary Maxwell Martin are just so well-cast in somewhat fantastical roles, a genius puzzle-solver and a wedding photographer slash just good solid mum who herself is sweetly still convinced the twin she did not marry was her friend in a way her husband was not. Mitchell
That is not Cosy, it is Fantasy and Morse never would be put in a position to be heroic this way, nor should a detective ever be shown this way. It is Wish fulfilment, how popular art tumbles into pure propaganda and ideology. But perhaps BP does not rely on tricks like that. Ludwig does not.
And its precursor should be told that men do this but not ordinary decent car mechanics who make one bad decision but depressed and sociopathic suicidal men who are not talked out of their horrific ideas because they do not carry them out in ways that can be stopped by a bumbling but good detective
doing actually happens, no less than an half-hour development in an essentially comic program is going to treat the horror we face knowing the male of the species does make that decision. No happy ending or cute fake out will redeem taking on that topic even if I suppose loyal viewers of that show
idea that the show has something to say about society. Which is why an episode which alludes to family annihilation as Beyond Paradise is indeed emphatically NOT cosy. That episode does do something I am sure the writer thought was clever but since men doing exactly what the father seems to be
I think in doing for Cambridge what Morse and Lewis did for Oxford and amplifying the cosy, puzzle-solving aspect of the detective, Ludwig in effect shows just how cosy the Morse series was. Getting development for the main character is not antithetical for the cosiness of cosy, what is bad is the
Glad to see the Twitter habit of the incoherent but brief and dismissive reply to a long thread that did involve much thought and much writing still obtains. If you do not have ANYTHING TO SAY, then JUST DON'T SAY IT. 'Kay? Or explain what this means because it means NOTHING to me. Peace.
The greatest trick that Ninjas ever played was making people believe there was such a thing as Ninjas. No such bands of dedicated fighter monks ever existed. Samurai without masters and mercenaries harbored by warlords yes but no Virginia, Ninjas are not very sneaky, they are imaginary. Peace #ninja
Why Naruto is ultimately at least in the US an embarassment for the medium. Peace. But it did take back the IP that the Turtles stole! At least in the moneys and really kids you underestimate how much entities like Shueisha, Sony and Crunchyroll like MONEY first before everything.
Commercial to sell merch to kids. Fun and artistic stuff happens in it, but oh it is so mid and by the end mediocre that really should be stuck in a bin somewhere. Even SoA at least does not overstay its welcome, and gorgeous animation helps the shit go down. Naruto to a noob will make people
Based on its ability to sell deodorant, admit you like COMMERCIAL ART and just deal. It is not Selling Out to like Crap and some great work of course can sell the shit out deodorant but that is accidental not fundamental aspect of the work. Hunter x Hunter is a work, #Naruto is one very long
People who prefer Austen or Woolf-world but there is no good way of comparing them. Even trusty things like character and plot simply are irrelevant if within the world of the Art, what is conveyed makes internal sense. Just do not rank things if you think they are. If you are picking something
Then the US and what is most ANNOYING is how it caters to the eternal US fourteen-year-old boy tendency to rank EVERYTHING. Ranking Art is, if not a War Crime, is silly. Picasso is not Matisse is not Michelangelo, you are choosing Worlds when you choose Woolf or Austen over Joyce and I do not blame
ANNOYING having to power animé review and explanation because even folk who know film theory and history of animation kind felt the need to allude to #theBigThree when that has NOTHING to do with the quality of the shows and EVERYTHING to do with how Shonen Jump marketed first to Japan and
Whereas you kinda have to watch at least three hundred of #Naruto to know how mid it is. Well you know pretty soon in the first few seasons but some skipping ahead makes one see just how American saturday morning cartoon the writing and fucking art can get in the anime. And that was what was most
is just over 200 episodes. That amount of time devoted to that amount of plot guarantees no serious person analyzing animé is going to take Naruto seriously. It is an obstacle to watching One Piece but I have a suspicion that like Bleach you can watch the decent arcs and get a sense
So yup it is simple. Sometimes like a balloon that gets puffed up again while it dwindles the animé has good bits even in the two times as long Shippuden series. Yeah, #Naruto is 220 episodes but its sequel I think has #500. They are half hours but the X-Files which has lingered on for over 20 years
Can make it seem like clan is destiny which is close to racism, at least that of, well Sand Ninjas are sandy people variety, and it eventually feels like yes, this clan good and that clan bad
At being Ninja if they cannot foresee an attack of someone like Pain no matter how good he is at Ninjaing, though that may have something to do with what happened to Sasuke's clan. I realize what is being done is definitely a homage to Hunter x Hunter but the simpler the better ethos of #Naruto
Occasional stumbles in characterization, plot wobbles but the tournament arc is very good and then that becomes a war which is rather soon, why are these Children Having to Fight a War, does the Hidden Leaf Village not have any adult Ninjas making sure the kids survive, and not very good
Piece, but the short story is that is just is not Just One Story, it is a cavalcade. Anyone truly interested in what the blank slate shonen hero Luffy thinks is at the end of the Rainbow is Projecting a Bit Much.) So Naruto takes off shakily but with some genuine highs,
Naruto does not settle into that style because that was what even then meant you were writing a cosy, slice-of-life manga and not one telling the greatest story ever told. And the only manga that would sell like Dragon Ball would tell that kind of story. (Eventually I will explain the genius of One
Another layer it often broadened them in lovely ways even if some plot points would forget that Scully was kind of Christian and Fox was sort of bad at dating, possibly an insufferable nerd who may have been into porn in ways that Dana would not approve of even if she would be the last to judge.
Have no reason to be there and have no relevance for the future plot, all the while promising some big reveal. This is far beyond X-Files hocus-pocus where by the third season we knew it was by turns a great anthology series with occasional incursions of ploy development. And when a character got
Some of those shonen hero blanks do, but it does mean characterization even by Kishimoto is often one-note, Pervy-sage always just pervs and sages, Etc. And in a show that goes on so long, it is tiresome. Very quickly you cannot look at it as a monster of the week cozy because often the monsters
And even Scooby Doo, because the rascally sidekicks that are Shaggy and Scooby allow for everyone else to be Simple American. So along comes #Naruto, a show that believes characterization should be this simple. It has advantages, #Naruto is not going to find a childhood friend or sister-niece as
Animé that will eventually take viewers away from American superhero cartoons like the Transformers did--see what they did with the name!?!--the simplicity helps not hurts. "No layers" must have been the directive from the top for people plotting things like Aquaman, Wonder Twins, the Justice League