Remember how after 9/11 Katha Pollitt told her 13-year-old daughter she couldn’t fly the American flag, because “the flag stands for jingoism and vengeance and war”? Pollitt was wrong. But this administration is making her seem less so.
By hijacking the language of patriotism for this nationalistic, statist, militaristic horseshit, the right is picking up the baton of the left by signaling to millions of Americans that America’s heritage—and the people who talk about it—are precisely the kinds of people who see the American flag the same way she did.
The lies spewing from Kristi Noem’s mouth about the bullshit “weaponization” of the murdered Minneapolis woman’s vehicle demand a mass response by the citizens of this country. Watch the video. Lies. Lies. Lies.
Tom Friedman in the NYTimes makes an excellent point: Trump’s toppling of Maduro provides Xi another precedent for invading Taiwan.
From the NYTimes: “50 Years Ago, He Was an Olympian. At 80, He’s Just as Happy to Finish Last. | Jeff Galloway, who popularized the run-walk-run method, is determined to complete one more marathon.” Update: It was not to be. Galloway died Feb. 25, 2026. Here’s a tribute.
15,051 days.
Already off the website. 🤷♂️
Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new. (!)
… Not the rat! Light the lamp, not the rat!
Joe Ely performs with Joe Strummer in 1979. Photo credit: George Rose/Getty
Joe Ely was so important to Texas music and especially to me when I lived in Austin in the early ’80s. This Texas Monthly tribute by Michael Hall is great.
The three lenses of opportunity cost: (1) Compared with what? (2) And then what? (3) At the expense of what? — Shane Parish