Monday, February 2, 2026

NPR, i.e. 'No Point in Reporting'

In a snotty and condescending tone, the NPR journalists said that journalists should not address their audience in a snotty and condescending tone, and should report what their audience wants to hear.

So far, sounds just like Fox News.

In an era when journalists are being arrested by a totalitarian GOP government merely for reporting the facts, I don’t think the problem is that the reporters are insufficiently “folksy.”

“The customer is always right” is a rule of thumb that may work for grocers, but it decidedly does not work for professionals like physicians, lawyers and journalists. The journalist’s mission to provide accurate, important and relevant information to the public, particularly information that the public does not know it needs to know.

Monday, January 26, 2026

How We Got Here

A country where citizens must prove their citizenship to masked strangers who don’t have to prove they’re law enforcement and can kidnap and/or kill them on the spot may be many things. But not one of them is “free.”

Thursday, January 22, 2026

Ask Not for Whom the Sirens Sound

Obviously, Trump’s real goal is to start a civil war and use it to seize totalitarian power. If his goal was deporting undocumented aliens, he would have sent his masked secret police from ICE agents to Florida and Texas, not Minnesota.

And think of all the things the nervous corporate news media now refuses to report on, starting with Trump's obvious cognitive collapse. They've gone Pravda on us.

Tuesday, January 20, 2026

Code name: Manchurian Cantaloupe

Funny that Trump says he has to take Greenland to keep it out of the hands of the Russians, but Russian state propaganda applauds the idea of Trump's seizing Greenland.

Add that one up and see what you get.

The Dust of Snow


Robert Frost (1874-1963) was a celebrated American poet known for his realistic portrayals of rural life, especially in New England, and his masterful use of everyday American speech to explore philosophical themes about nature, humanity and choices, making him one of the 20th century's most beloved and widely read poets, a four-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and the unofficial U.S. poet laureate. (Ai summary)

Tuesday, January 13, 2026

We Told You So

I am amused by people who think there is something called “the law” the Trump will obey. This dictator will obey nothing.

By granting Trump total immunity, the Supreme Cult has rendered itself irrelevant, and the law impotent. It has wrecked the country.

Those of us who have seen this disaster headed straight at us for many years have felt like the mythological Cassandra, able to predict the future but cursed so that no one would ever believe us.

As Austen Leigh said, the hardest part of descending into fascism is bearing the weight of those who don’t see it.

Tuesday, January 6, 2026

Never Own a Disease

At age 71, it occurs to me that my actual job, for the rest of my life, is to have peace of mind and enjoy myself. I mean to work at that with some determination, whatever the vicissitudes that come my way.