Look whose here!!
Look whose here!!
Chili Heeler works in airport security??
Charlie Kirk was killed by a meme:
All of it now is just another meme you can participate in to go viral. Made even more confusing by a new nihilistic accelerationist movement that delights in muddying the waters for older people who still adhere to a traditional political spectrum. Many young extremists now believe in a much simpler binary: Order and chaos. And if you are spending any time at all trying to derive meaning from violent acts like this then you are, by definition, their enemy.
The vernal pool near my home is entering its late summer verdant-green-with-a-tinge-of-brown stage.
I think I’ve settled on my Platonic ideal for a New Daily Bagel breakfast order, which is Sausage, Egg, and American on a garlic bagel with chive spread added.
We are now 21 days away from the state of Michigan failing to renew a budget program that provides meals for my child and their classmates while they attend school. By law the legislature was supposed to have amended or renewed the program by July 1.
If I spend more than 5 seconds scrolling down my Facebook newsfeed I start to feel like I’m standing in line at the grocery store checkout…you know, where they keep all the gossip magazines and impulse buy goods.
What greets me when I show up for stats class:
My daughter starts at a new school Monday and between the orientations and home visits with the new staff and final photos and farewell from the current caregivers I’m once again left wondering why pre-k through 12th grade educators aren’t compensated like union steelworkers.
Cotton candy sunrise
Everyone in Michigan is rejoicing at the spectacular current temperatures but it’s really just a ruse meant to lower our emotional guard for the summer to roar back in September with a cruel level of humidity and heat.
36 years ago today the Baltic states initiated social action that ultimately led to Lithuania declaring its independence from the Russian Soviet Republic. May all people’s similarly yearning for self-determination from under the boot of domination find a comparably nonviolent path the freedom.
Heart-sick to learn through this post from Dr. Alan Jacobs that Wheaton Philosophy professor Dr. Jay Wood has passed.
Dr. Wood is the reason I chose to add a Philosophy major during my time at Wheaton and so much of how I understand and process the world is tied to the foundations he laid in my Freshman Intro to Philosophy course.
A fun little rumor I heard about him is that Dr. Wood–an avid rock climber–was once cited by Wheaton’s campus safety because they found him scaling the side of (the stone castle-like) Blanchard before its renovation to fix growing cracks in the facade’s grout.
His passing is a reminder of how deeply Wheaton faculty and their instruction have woven themselves into my mundane little life. I’ll be forever grateful for that legacy.
I wish more people knew streaming services like Navidrome exist that don’t force you to choose between convenience and slowly choking the creative media ecosystem to death. Check out their demo!
We used to be a proper country: youtu.be/IUHQvzloC…
The Lansing Michigan Capital Area District Library (CADL) just dropped a youtube playlist of 100+ local area commercials and its inducing a 90s fever dream.
Today I learned while using the Micro.Blog iOS app that if I press on the left side of someone’s post I get taken to their profile page, and if I press on the right it goes to the post replies. @manton if this wasn’t by design you should just say it was.
The spin surrounding trade deals vs. the reality of what’s included in them:
The announcements of the new deals purport to have delivered on this promise, giving Americans “unprecedented levels of market access” to Europe, “breaking open long-closed markets” in Japan, and making South Korea “completely OPEN TO TRADE with the United States.” But the details of the deals, which remain sparse, tell a very different story. None include agreements by trading partners to meaningfully reform their tax or regulatory codes, strengthen their currencies, or reduce the barriers that have long been major sticking points in prior trade negotiations. Instead, the announcements are full of vague statements of intent—“The United States and the European Union intend to work together to address non-tariff barriers affecting trade in food and agricultural products” (my emphasis)—and references to things such as “openings for a range of industrial and consumer goods.”
As someone who works in education, here’s the transition to August in acoustic format (IYKYK). #gits:2ndgig
Saturday field trips
Hearing that the U.S. has just fired the chief statistician behind the monthly jobs report my mind drifts to this scene from the final episode of Chernobyl about the cost of prioritizing ideology over sound policymaking: youtu.be/adhkn9lt7…
The StrongTowns proposal for increasing access to affordable housing:
The market gap is clear. We don’t build starter homes anymore. We don’t build backyard cottages, garage apartments, or other small-scale dwellings. The only products that get built are big, expensive, and debt-dependent because that’s what today’s financing system demands.
But cities can change this.
It’s a big world out there little guy.
Summer season
