Reading

Created
Sat, 05/08/2023 - 03:00

It is with a heavy heart that I declare my intention to keep our dinner plans for tonight. I understand that this news may come as a shock, given our beautiful and long-standing tradition of taking turns canceling on each other. I can already picture the sadness on your face as you digest this news, knowing you can’t go home right after work, take off your pants, collapse on your bed, and scroll TikTok until you pass out.

I assume at this point you’ve ranted to your co-workers about the Herculean task ahead of you, known as “going to dinner with the nice person you met at your best friend’s party last year who works in your field.” I understand your frustrations that I am denying you the sweet rush of endorphins from a cancellation text. You still fondly remember that one time you were going to text me to reschedule, but before you could, I texted you first. You were let go from feeling guilty because the burden of the cancellation was on me, and that feeling is better than any drug on earth. I now play the role of the dealer cutting off your supply because I wish for this vicious cycle to end—once and for all.

Created
Sat, 05/08/2023 - 01:27

It has already been called “the most successful counter-narcotics effort in human history.” Armed with little more than sticks, teams of counter-narcotics brigades travel the country, doing something the US military never could, cutting down Afghanistan’s poppy fields.

The post Taliban’s Massively Successful Opium Eradication Raises Questions About What US Was Doing All Along appeared first on MintPress News.

Created
Sat, 05/08/2023 - 01:00

Award-winning actor Brian Cox has enjoyed a storied career on both stage and screen, most recently winning plaudits for his role as the billionaire right-wing media mogul Logan Roy in HBO’s Succession. But, speaking at a London rally organised by Equity, the entertainment union, in solidarity with striking actors in the US, he made clear […]

Created
Sat, 05/08/2023 - 00:30
Um, that’s a lot You remember these two? (The Tennessean): Four months after an expulsion vote thrust the pair into the national spotlight, Democratic state Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson formally won reelection Thursday to their seats in the Tennessee General Assembly. Republicans voted to oust Jones and Pearson from the legislature in April after they interrupted House proceedings with a gun-control protest. But the two were quickly reappointed to the seats until this summer’s special elections. In Nashville, Jones defeated Republican opponent Laura Nelson with nearly 80% of the vote for the House District 52 seat. In Memphis, Pearson defeated Republican Jeff Johnston with more than 90% of the vote for the House District 86 seat. I had to read those margins again. Had a good laugh, too. “Today is a landslide victory by the people, for the people, and in community with the people,” Jones said in a statement to The Tennessean. “Republicans tried to expel our democracy and then tried to buy it, but the voters of District 52 sent a message to extremist Republicans: we will not be silenced.” Guess not.
Created
Fri, 04/08/2023 - 23:23

Democrat-aligned media are already decrying Cornel West’s run as a sideshow and as something that will ensure a Republican will be elected in 2024. “The Democrats absolutely do fear [West]. And they should!” -Dr. Jill Stein

The post Shaking Up the Two-Party System: Cornel West’s 2024 Presidential Bid, with Jill Stein appeared first on MintPress News.

Created
Fri, 04/08/2023 - 23:18

Who will design the next generation of readable, writerly web layouts? Layouts for sites that are mostly writing. Designed by people who love writing. Where text can be engaging even if it isn’t offset by art or photography. Where text is the point. With well considered flexible typesetting, modular scaling, and readable measures across a full range of proportions and […]

The post The Next Generation of Web Layouts appeared first on Zeldman on Web and Interaction Design.

Created
Fri, 04/08/2023 - 23:00
Trump, Trumpism and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 “It ends with me.” Contemplating generations of family dysfunction that damaged him as a child and haunted his adulthood, a friend once vowed he would not pass “it” on to his children. America has yet to make that commitment and keep it. Donald Trump was formally charged in Washington, D.C. on Thursday with four federal crimes stemming from his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Those efforts did not culminate with the violent insurrection he inspired at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Trump and his co-conspirators worked to subvert democracy that evening, even as police cleared the complex of rioters, and as hospitals treated the hundreds injured and processed the dead. The last of the charges special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment levied against Trump dates from the Reconstruction era. Will Bunch reminds Philadelphia Inquirer readers that President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 in response to a similar post-election riot in South Carolina the year before.
Created
Fri, 04/08/2023 - 22:30

In his indictment of Donald Trump for conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, the special counsel Jack Smith makes a glancing reference to the Gettysburg Address. It is not, however, the one delivered by Abraham Lincoln on the Pennsylvania battlefield in 1863. Smith cites, rather, a public event in the ballroom […]

The post Invasion of the Democracy Snatchers appeared first on The New York Review of Books.

Created
Fri, 04/08/2023 - 22:00

Skittles: “Taste the Rainbow”

Red, orange, yellow, and so forth. Finally, a candy fit for the whole spectrum. With this deliciously bold tagline, Skittles promises a sensory adventure of unparalleled dimension. Time to sweeten things up, stretch your palate, and lick the sky. All of this quite plainly has nothing to do with oral sex.

Nike: “Just Do It”

Admittedly, I am not a sportsman. But I am friends with a few athletes, and I know their penchant for victory. How brilliant, then, that Nike should fly this winning banner. (Obviously, “do” is intended in a platonic sense. Nike is suggesting you do something not someone.)

Gatorade: “Is It in You?”

Frankly, I blame the schools. Filth, filth, and more filth—that’s what’s being force-fed to today’s youth. This tagline concerns the supreme pleasure of hydration, nothing more. And really, what could be better? What could be more satisfying than finishing off a sweaty act of physical exertion with a big, hearty swallow?

Created
Fri, 04/08/2023 - 21:24
“Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the World.” It was a poet who said that, exercising occupational license. Some sage, it may have been I, declared in similar vein: “I don’t care who writes a nation’s laws—or crafts its advanced treaties—if I can write its economic textbooks.” The first lick is the privileged one, impinging … Continue reading "The Day I Pranked Paul Samuelson"