• Ventura County in Shadow

    Auto-generated description: Palms and trees are silhouetted against a twilight sky with a hint of light along the horizon.

    📷


  • Curves at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden
    📷

    A large fountain is in the foreground with a grassy park and a tall building in the background, surrounded by blooming trees and people walking.
  • Tree Shadow Tree

    Auto-generated description: A sunlit grassy meadow is surrounded by tall pine trees and rolling hills under a bright sky.

    📷


  • New York Times

    May 30, 2025:

    #1: As Elon Musk entered President Trump’s orbit, he told people he was taking so much ketamine that it was affecting his bladder. He was also taking Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, and he traveled with a daily medication box of about 20 pills.

    #2: Trump is now presenting Musk with a giant golden key he says he gives only to “very special people.”

    #3: White House Health Report Included Fake Citations - A report on children’s health released by the Make America Healthy Again Commission referred to scientific papers that did not exist.

    I’m special. Where can I get one of those keys? Maybe Buc-ees?


  • Nick Cave on Hope

    Via SwissMiss


  • Grown-Ups' Time

    Olives submerged in a martini glass on a windowsill with a garden view in the background.

    (AI thinks those are eggs. Stupid! They’re delicious lemon-peel-stuffed olives.)


  • “Forecast” by Luci Shaw

    Planting seeds
    Inevitably
    Changes my feelings
    About rain


  • Fra Beatus, 8th C., Spain

    Auto-generated description: A colorful, stylized depiction of an angel interacting with a winged figure, surrounded by intricate patterns and symbolic elements. From the 'Beatus Escorial,* 8th C., Spain

    from the Beatus Escorial


  • That’s a Sweet Face

    a close photo of a mini goldendoodle's face
  • Living in The Upside Down

    Auto-generated description: A person is sitting on a white couch in a modern outdoor setting, with text discussing a crypto billionaire's return to the U.S. for dinner with Trump.

    From the WSJ. Presented without comment.


  • Ange

    I now think that Ange should stay at Spurs because the players are so solidly behind him. Canning him would gut the team and kill the very non-Spursy mentality that he’s cultivated. It’s an ethos that won them a trophy and can pay dividends for years to come.


  • Oh, Mickey, You’re So Fine

    Auto-generated description: A soccer player in a white and navy kit performs an acrobatic kick near the goal net in a stadium. ⚽️


  • COYS

    I don’t usually win things, I always win things in my second year.

    – Ange Postecoglou

    ⚽


  • Not Too Much

    Another thing I like about Micro.blog: by following a limited number of posters, I see all new posts in pretty short order. Which means I can put away my screen and get back to non-screen living in pretty short order. (If I do want more MB, I can always tap “Discover.")


  • Very Cosmospolitan

    Bright orange Cosmos flowers bloom among lush green foliage.

    Cosmos


  • “Chaste Tree?” Ha!

    Purple flowers are blooming on a lush green bush in a garden setting, surrounded by a wooden fence and additional potted pink flowers.

    “Floozy Tree,” more like. I love her.


  • “Circus Dogs”

    Auto-generated description: Several puppies are gathered around a drum, with one sitting on top of it, in a dimly lit setting.

    This painting hung in my mom and dad’s house for 60 years or more. Now it’s my sister’s. Artist unknown. I love it. 🐶


  • TĂš Importas. Y el Desayuno es Importante, tambien

    Joe’s Bakery, East Austin. Get the Migas con Todo.

    Auto-generated description: A colorful mural features the text TÚ IMPORTAS with butterflies and flowers, and includes the message YOU MATTER MENTAL HEALTH MATTERS.
  • Not a Bug

    Nicholas Carr:

    Through their ever-flowing stream of messages, each offering a simulation of connection, social platforms promise to alleviate the sense of loneliness they provoke. Turning social interactions into symbolic transactions, they reconstruct society on a foundation of anomie. Bots fit seamlessly into such a society, upping the monetization potential substantially.

    When Facebook’s News Feed introduced us to what Zuckerberg termed “frictionless sharing,” we learned, or should have learned, that friction is the essence of sharing. Freed of any investment of effort, time, or care, sharing loses all meaning. It becomes mere transmission. The frictionless friendship offered by chatbots, by removing the need to adapt one’s self to another self, to make room in one’s life for a different being, will be similarly empty.


  • Birnam (yawn) Wood  by Elizabeth Catton

    Good guys and bad guys in New Zealand. Catton’s deft writing of her good guys' interior lives reveals how noble aims often come bundled with not-so-noble motives. But her bad guy is simply bad. Nothing mixed about him. Too bad – for both the character and the novel.📚


  • What’s the over/under on how long it will take Trump to take credit for an American pope?


  • Yay Seasons!

    Just saw the first lightning bug of 2025. Hooray!


  • American Ideals

    Danielle Allen contra Curtis Yarvin:

    He gets his first principles wrong, so we have to return to ours. Most important, human equality precedes human differences. We can identify differences among us only because we are all human, and in that regard equal. As humans we share a capacity for moral judgment and an innate striving to choose actions that make tomorrow better. This is how our drive and capacity for freedom show themselves.

    The proposition that all humans are created equal has never meant that we are all the same. Our equality lies in these features of humanity that make us moral beings. Nor does human difference yield fixed and permanent groupings or determine where and how human talent in its immense variety will show itself. The government that will best help humans flourish will start by protecting human freedom. This requires maximal space for self-government, and also government of the whole people that is by and for the people. Not in the interest of those who govern, but in the interest of the governed.

    * * *

    If our constitutional democracy is weak today—failing to help us meet our governing challenges—that may be because we have lapsed in civic participation. We have ceased to claim our own equality through our institutions, which offer it. We have allowed political parties to capture our institutions, and to govern for their own sake rather than the public good. We need to renovate our democratic institutions, starting with party reform.

    But our more basic work may need to be on ourselves. Here Mr. Yarvin’s words are a warning: “Americans of the present are nihilistic and narcissistic,” he writes. “They are frivolous about the present and ignorant of the past. While these qualities may not make the Americans of today suitable for an 18th-century democracy, they may be just the right qualities for a 21st-century regime change.”

    We don’t need his regime change. We need democracy renovation and renewed seriousness about our lives as citizens. This means reconnecting to our civic power, experience and responsibility. This requires civic practice and education. It also means redesigning institutions so they reward participation and deliver effective governance. We need to understand why and how separation of powers, checks and balances, due process, and a national legislature that functions are necessary to protect human freedom.


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