in hindsight the lack of foresight is 20/20.

not the first time i’ve seen this i think, but i love that people do this.

a bit of well-placed graffiti turns a kind of coat hook into a smiling octopus. a bit of well-placed graffiti turns a kind of coat hook into a smiling octopus.

when one finds oneself describing a thing one does as “ethical”, there’s a question.

@yarrriv it was purple the day before Ron DeSantis was elected (and his open policies of voter intimidation and suppression help keep it red). i don’t think we know FL’s longer-term trajectory, and think DeSantis’ recent popularity was based on the perception he kept things more open and free over COVID than the culture war crap he’s doubling down on.

in reply to @yarrriv

@yarrriv he did. but if he is resoundingly rebuked in 2024 he won’t have the legislature as a wholly owned subsidiary any more.

in reply to @yarrriv

“Can't quantify it, but really I think federal level corruption is so much worse than it used to be. I think practices that would shock ‘normal’ people are absolutely normal, but since ‘everybody’ is doing it, there's no way to even cover it for journalism.”

“We can start with how net worths just seem to blossom from the moment someone enters Congress, but that's certainly only the starting place.”

by @Atrios, to whom i apologize for quoting the whole post.

eschatonblog.com/2023/04/corru

@LouisIngenthron if we could do a brain transplant, migrate into some new place its essence intact (though so much of its essence is wedded to that particular, extraordinary place) i might agree.

but faculty and students will just go elsewhere, and not the same elsewhere. there is no plausible land of milk and honey for the exodus. they just scatter to the wind.

in reply to @LouisIngenthron

from whom do we have to buy property at inflated prices to get the Court to bless ?

@LouisIngenthron new college is like a person. people die. there will be other wonderful people. but it’s no good to acquiesce to a murder on the theory other great people will be born.

in reply to @LouisIngenthron

@LouisIngenthron i guess that’s where we disagree. i think people broadly disliked the overreach in much of what gets called wokeness. that gave trump and his slipstream a bit of power. i think they dislike the open cruelty of this political movement in reaction even less though. DeSantis played COVID in a way that, right or wrong, was very popular. I think two years from now he is the lamest of ducks, with all these absurdities exposed. so there is something to wait for.

in reply to @LouisIngenthron

hear me out.

i know it might seem like a reasonable request.

but those neighbors, they were really the deep state. even if they didn’t know it.

infected by woke mind virus, they were bringing in bicoastal “civility” norms which, by a thousand tiny strings in a thousand tiny knots, would entangle and block every manly freedom.

and of course even in death they were found on top of children. of course.

@LouisIngenthron i guess i disagree. Rufo i think is not interested in credibility (beyond the minimum necessary to maintain accreditation). he thinks the establishment that defines credibility is his enemy. he wants, as he has said over and over again, to make the body of the campus an empty vessel for his new thing. his new thing will surely rot, on that we agree. but the old thing is something beyond beautiful. we should try not to make way. in two years, things may be different.

in reply to @LouisIngenthron

Chris Rufo is getting his way at . He understands the people are the battlefield.

It may feel good to walk out, rage quit, as several prominent faculty have done. It may very well be the best decision from a personal perspective. But it is ceding the only terrain that ultimately matters.

Can the faculty not hold out long enough to see if DeSantis and his cheap culture wars flame out as a political force in two years? nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion

“If he had been a dog, she said, somebody would have rescued him long ago.” nytimes.com/2023/04/28/us/bend

This Supreme Court sounds like an implausible parody of public corruption.

"[Jane] Roberts' apparent $10.3 million in compensation [for recruiting lawyers to prestigious law firms] puts her toward the top of the payscale for legal headhunters… she was 'the highest earning recruiter in the entire company 'by a wide margin.'' ... 'The monetary value of a senior government official will depend on the value they bring to a law firm's client base,' she said" businessinsider.com/jane-rober

@blakeashleyjr traveling through time, alas, will not make me wise. some feats are beyond even the most speculative technologies.

in reply to @blakeashleyjr

[new draft post] Urgency drafts.interfluidity.com/2023/

// corrected very bad misdating of post and URL in prior announcement, thanks @blakeashleyjr!

@blakeashleyjr (i think i'm finally back on our timeline!)

in reply to @blakeashleyjr

@blakeashleyjr (thanks!)

in reply to @blakeashleyjr

@blakeashleyjr omg.

in reply to @blakeashleyjr