• One thing (among many) that micro.blog might (kind of) be about

    From @ayjay’s essay about “Nicholas Jenkins’s magnificent new book on Auden, The Island":

    … what bound the members of that salon to one another was the combination of cultural and national diversity with moral sympathy.

    After Tuesday, this may strike home harder…

  • My Kind of Guys

    I really love this pic from The Anonymous Project

  • Boredom and the Struggle

    Jonah Goldberg:

    I think Fukuyama was right about liberal democratic capitalism being the answer to the questions mooted by Marx, Hegel, Hitler, Tocqueville, and everyone else. And he was right about the problems created by liberalism’s victory. The solution to those problems is not to overthrow liberalism, but to restore the ecosystems of meaning that sustain it.

  • Francine Winham, Photographer

    Great images and an interesting story. (Though the overwrought prose isn’t my cup of tea.)

    Bassist John Lamb, photo by Francine Wiman

    Bassist John Lamb

  • Enshittifacator-in-Chief

    I was talking today with Megan, who’s serving as a poll worker, and I lost it when I thought of how Trump – solely for selfish, vicious purposes – has cast doubt on the honesty of U.S. elections. Liar. There’s no evidence of any significant fraud. Traitor.

  • Cocktail Club

    Tuxedo Cocktail #2.

    Approved.

  • Jonah Goldberg on certain political types

    He … [thought] the hand of the state needed simply to impose efficiencies the political process was too dumb, lazy, or corrupt to impose. He wanted a libertarian monarch or national CEO of sorts to cut through the red tape and the political dysfunction.

    Nothing in my experience or learning suggests that God (or nature, for that matter) cares much about efficiency.

  • “Let Phil sing!” - RIP Phil Lesh

    … his lack of experience allowed him to rethink the role of the bass in rock music, drawing inspiration from the harmonics found in works he loved by Bach and the jazz bassist Charles Mingus. NYTimes, 25 Oct 2024

    Box of Rain

  • The military may have to make decisions

    … the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people. Radical left lunatics… it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military…

  • Seconds, anyone?

    Auto-generated description: A group of sheep gather around a billboard featuring a wolf in a suit with the caption I AM GOING TO EAT YOU, while one sheep comments, He tells it like it is.

    Paul Noth in The New Yorker. H/T @austinkleon.com

  • Milestone

    It’s a big day in a boy’s life when he gets his very own Medicare card.

  • Texas Harvest

    It never seems like it in August, but there are upsides to gardening in a hot state.

    a bowl of yellow-orange cherry tomatoes

    Sun Gold cherry tomatoes

  • Urgh

    Possible book plate for ““Ex Libris Jim Rain”; I like it, but I’m creeped out that it’s AI generated from a prompt I gave. (Esp. because my daughter is an illustrator. What does this bode for her?)

  • Ya' Got Me

    I’ve become convinced that this election isn’t really about Harris and Trump. But I haven’t figured out what, exactly, it is about. (I mean, I know what it’s about for Trump, but I don’t know about Trump voters. Or the country.)

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