toastykitten

i just started reading Elizabeth Gilbert's All the Way to the River

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 04:26:34 GMT

Which opens up with her dead (ex?)lover Rayya showing up as a ghost and telling her she's awesome and to go ahead and tell all the world everything that happened between them because she's dead anyway, what does she care?

I don't know if I can finish this book.

Additionally...this is the least well-written of Gilbert's books that I've read. It's weird.

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reading about omelas

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 05:28:25 GMT

Re-read the original via a zine on the Internet Archive, bonus, includes the other short story "The Day Before the Revolution". Still really good.

Read The Ones Who Stay and Fight by NK Jemisin, and surprised to find that I didn't really like it.

Discovered Isabel Kim's Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole and found it pretty sharp and thought-provoking. Made me want to read more of her work and I read Wire Mother, which was great and pretty topical. Discovered she's on BlueSky and she made reference to the WM/AF literature discourse on Substack and I was like, oh, she loves mess. Anyway that discourse was discussed on the TrueLit subreddit and I went down a rabbithole for a bit.

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entertaining distractions

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 14:18:44 GMT

I make no apologies for loving dumb Jason Statham movies. This one is so silly, with many bee puns and metaphors. "Protect the hive!"

Project Hail Mary was also a delight, if a bit long:

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things i haven't finished reading yet

Sun, 05 Apr 2026 14:02:30 GMT

The Team Behind a Pro-Iran, Lego-themed Viral-Video Campaign
At Synagogues, Tensions are Boiling Over
In LA, a Teacher's Strike is on the Horizon - apparently LAUSD does have money. It's just tied up and is not being allocated to kids/teachers. In my district we don't have money because of the way the state allocates money and our district is "too wealthy" to be allocated enough money to cover our expenses. So...I guess we're all screwed either way?
Been trying, and failing to find a specific article about the Jewish Bund, a socialist, anti-Zionist movement. This is what I found so far. Molly Crabapple has been making the media rounds with her new book on it called "Here Where We Live is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Labor Bund" and there's an article she wrote for Harper's Bazaar on the how the women of the Bund fought to free their loved ones.
An actual article in Jacobin about China and the US that isn't irritating and makes good points - Both the “kill line” and “Chinamaxxing” are digital projections born of the same dissatisfactions with the present. For the Chinese observer, the American kill line makes domestic struggles feel manageable by comparison. For Americans, Chinamaxxing is an escape to high-tech efficiency and economic security that feels unattainable at home. Behind these parodies lie two societies that face the same crises of alienation, unemployment, and a weak welfare state. Only by moving beyond these fictions can we build the international solidarity necessary to overcome our shared struggles.
Stop asking if Israel has the right to exist.
What happened to the SLPC--and me.

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reading

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 12:44:45 GMT

Some Americans are withholding their federal taxes to protest against Trump and illegal wars. The potential consequences of withholding.
Welp, that viral story of dogs escaping a truck to travel hundreds of miles home was fake. Apparently the German shepherd was in heat and the dogs were just following her around.
Apparently Trump is now bored with the Cuba embargo and is allowing a Russian oil tanker to enter.
Reading is currently cool in pop culture. Man I really hope so.
Stanford University models how many people could die if vaccines were no longer available. We're also going to have to talk about the culpability Stanford has for championing anti-vaccine professionals, though, and the long-term consequences of that.
MAHA may not guarantee Republican victories anymore.
How to search for things on the Internet, via Google and other search engines.

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braindump

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 14:35:34 GMT

Middle East/Palestine/Israel stuff:

Found out Roald Dahl wrote a review of a book called "God Cried", which is about the Israeli siege and bombing of Beirut in the 1982 Lebanon War. This review sparked a fury in Zionist circles, and he was accused of anti-Semitism for his review of the book, and apparently there is now a play called "Giant" that dramatizes the reception of the review starring John Lithgow as Dahl. (I know only as much about the play as the Wikipedia summary.) Anyway, while trying to find more information about this particular event, I came across this blog post by the chairman of Quartet Books, Naim Attallah, who passed in 2021, about what happened from his point of view. Also an explanation of where the title came from: Its title derived from a piece of Palestinian black humour circulating in the Middle East at the time, it being said that God had agreed to answer one question each from Ronald Reagan, Leonid Brezhnev and Yasser Arafat. The American president asked his question first, wanting to know when an American would become leader of the whole world. ‘In fifty years,’ said God. And Reagan cried. When God asked him why he cried, he said, ‘Because it won’t happen in my lifetime.’ Next it was the turn of Brezhnev, who wished to know from God when the whole world would be communist. ‘In a hundred years,’ said God. And Brezhnev cried for the same reason as Reagan. And when it came to Arafat, he asked God, ‘When will my people have a homeland of their own?’ And God cried.
There was a plot to firebomb Palestinian activist Nerdeen Kiswani's home that was disrupted by an undercover operation by NYPD. The accused assassin was identified as a member of JDL 613 Brotherhood. The JDL is recognized as a hate group by SPLC. Somewhat unusually, the NYC Mayor put out a statement condemning the assassination attempt and also highlighting the increased attacks on Palestinian human rights advocates.
In other unusual news, AP put out a press explainer for why they're calling the invasion of Lebanon by Israel an invasion.
CNN documented the detainment and assault of their crew in the West Bank and confirmed the IDF echoing settlers' ideology and talk of revenge.
In more recent weeks, pro-Israel American politicians who have generally not called what's happening in Gaza a genocide, have been sounding the alarm about what's happening to Palestinian residents in the West Bank. I'm not sure what to make of it.
Haaretz interviewed Jewish Currents editor Arielle Angel. It's a long interview that is very challenging, sometimes difficult to read, but also very honest. Here's the archive.is link.

Other politics news:

I really enjoy Zeteo and have a subscription because I find a lot of their content valuable and they often go places and interview people nobody else would and hire people who are often left out of mainstream American/British media. That being said, I do not love Mehdi Hasan's penchant for actually going on stuff like Jubilee. Interviewing the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman? Sure, that's fine. Interviewing controversial "Professor Jiang"? Ugh. Like that guy needs more publicity.
I do not know what to make of the trial about social media addicts, but I do take the concerns that TechDirt has with it seriously.
At work, I found out about a law that passed in CA that actively makes my job harder to do. It reads like it was created by a bunch of interest groups who do not understand what my actual job entails, and why it requires time to actually do the job properly. It goes into effect in 2027, and there's already a bill introduced this year that would expand the same requirements to Medi-Cal the year after.
A law in CA got passed that I am actually pleased with. Sahil Mehta, along with our friend Rayaan Kolte, championed the passing of AB 703, which allows you to check a box on your CA state tax return to contribute to pediatric cancer research. Sahil wrote an op-ed highlighting the benefits of checking the box.

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found a chinese scholar turned comedian who's not a conspiracy theorist/holocaust denier

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 13:16:33 GMT

also not reflexively pro-china - found this one very educational

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aggravated

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 13:25:00 GMT

The clips of Tucker Carlson being interviewed by an Economist journalist on whether Israel has a "right to exist" is going viral for its actual pushback on the journalist on the concept of a "state's right to exist" but I'm not seeing any actual commentary from left-wing journalists on his belief that "human rights" are a Western conception of civilization and that the "East" is basically the opposite. This is white nationalist supremacy at its most insidious and I don't see anyone actually calling it out. He's staking out a run for president and people are going to vote for him based only on this, never mind that he never criticizes Trump by name and doesn't disagree with most of Trump's policies.

Never mind that Ta-Nehisi Coates made the same points about a "state's right to exist" without being racist about it on CBS and then never got invited back on mainstream media again. And now Larry Ellison is about to buy and own about 80 percent of media.

UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese made the same points without being racist and she got sanctioned by the US.

Mahmoud Khalil is in danger of being deported, still.

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things that are good

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 13:55:22 GMT

Because honestly I need sometimes to be reminded that good things can still happen:

The Afroman trial is the gift that keeps on giving.
A new media outlet called LA Material just launched, and it looks to be staffed by journalists who love LA.
National Academies of Sciences says no to demand it remove climate info.
US judge blocks RFK,Jr's efforts overhaul US vaccine policy.
Reality Winner started taking a path down anti-Semitism, but it appears some people talked to her and now she is listening.
Found a YouTuber (Kavernacle - no idea who he is) who has been debunking "Professor Jiang" who's been going viral all over and is apparently also a Holocaust denier. Maybe at some point I will write more about him, but I honestly cannot stand him, and it's driving me crazy that people keep taking him seriously and think that he's prescient about things that are happening. Mfer I also had the same predictions because I keep up with the news and am not an idiot. Any random person could make the same predictions and also not go down the Nazi denialist route.
Apparently there's a "chuck Chuck Schumer" movement among the Dem Senators even if they're not saying anything publicly, and there's high donor dissatisfaction.
Underrated point of hilarity in the whole Iran mess is how literate and knowledgeable Iranian politicians think Americans are about their own history.
Dems continue to block DHS funding. Not sure why TSA just hasn't gone on strike yet. They totally should.
Rapid cancellation of Cesar Chavez. Now...as to why there isn't any momentum for any cancellation of the current people who are still alive and abusive...that's another story.
Funny: White House denies Bill Maher getting the Mark Twain Prize after sources say he was offered the honor.

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For You Mom, Finally or Not Becoming My Mother - Ruth Reichl

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 13:33:51 GMT

Not Becoming My Mother was the original title of this book, and when I looked it up, the title had been updated to "For You Mom, Finally". This is a slim volume, written long after Ruth Reichl wrote Tender at the Bone, which was her first memoir about growing up with her mother and how she fell in love with food and the food world. For You Mom, Finally, is a bit of an excavation and an examination of her mother's life, tracing her unhappiness with the life imposed on her, and how she came to truly find and enjoy herself in her twilight years after decades of trying and failing to live up to other peoples' standards. It's a small time capsule of the generation of specific women, who, immediately after World War II, were expected to go back to getting married and having children and definitely not getting a job, because that would be emasculating to the men they married. Reichl describes all these women as bored housewives, and there's a bit of a chilling anecdote about the drug advertisements for these types of women who felt dissatisfied with their lives. Anyway, this was a fast read, and enjoyable, but not among Reichl's best work.

I couldn't help but compare her mother to my own - while these women were told and expected not to work, mine has never known anything but work. That also worked out to its own unhappiness.

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so i joined indivisible for my area

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 13:08:32 GMT

It is a lot of meetings.

Anyway, they just shared the Tri-Valley Democrats governors endorsement meeting. I have not yet finished watching it yet:

So far I have watched the Katie Porter, Xavier Becerra, and Tom Steyer section. I already know that I am not going to be voting for Matt Mahan (he's the tech billionaires' choice), Betty Yee (she's polling at like 2 percent and I don't like this whole round-robin of elected officials moving on up to the next seat just because it's there), or Antonio Villaraigosa (hated his tenure as LA mayor), and unlikely to vote for Eric Swalwell even though he's my Rep (never acknowledged HR 3565 Block the Bombs Act, and honestly I find him kind of offputting. Missed a ton of votes once he declared his run for CA governor until he started getting publicly criticized for it.) I really would like to vote for Katie Porter but her newest proposal about abolishing income tax for people who make under $100k is stupid. Like, she is Elizabeth Warren's protege! She should know it's fucking stupid! I can't stand this kind of pandering BS. I like Xavier Becerra and I liked his tenure as the Health Secretary under Biden, but his general pitch was kind of uninspiring. Like Porter actually said I support abolishing ICE. I still need to finish Tom Steyer's section - he's gotten the endorsement of the California Teachers' union (forgot the actual name) and his ads are all over the place because he's spending his own money. He's got the same gravelly voice as Newsom which (why do they all sound like that) is a bit offputting.

Oh. Hmm, Swalwell is now saying "Abolish ICE". Honestly don't remember him saying that before...

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bookmarked

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 14:58:03 GMT

What Does Extreme Wealth Do to the Brain? NYMag

The Women Leaving the New Right NYMag

I Watched 6 Hours of DOGE Bro Testimony - 404Media - paid post (wish there was a way to pay like for a single article or something but they've posted some clips on their socials)

Jewish Currents has recently had some great podcasts discussing: MAGA Catholics, why Jews don't want to identify as Zionists, and on Epstein and anti-Jewish conspiracy theories.

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recent reads

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 04:44:43 GMT

Garlic & Sapphires by Ruth Reichl - Just finished this reread because I needed something light. I forgot, though, that Reichl's husband was a journalist at CBS, and so bits of harsh reality will break through every so often. At the end, he misses out on going to interview someone named Osama bin Laden. This is the book where she gets the job as New York Times food critic, and in the hopes of fooling the restaurants who have her picture hung up on their walls like a wanted poster, she takes on different disguises and personalities. I have always really liked Reichl's writing, and this was no exception. It's warm and engaging, and honestly, I wish I could feel and taste what she tastes whenever she has food, because she writes about it so sumptuously. Really fun read. I remember also really enjoying her tenure as editor-in-chief at Gourmet, and oh yeah, she wrote a memoir about that, too.
It reminded me to go to her Substack La Briffe, and on the latest post she put up a rant she did about food writing.
Also she did an interview with the new Gourmet online magazine. By the way, it's called Gourmet because Conde Nast let the rights to the name lapse, and so five food writers/journalists decided to snatch it up and make their own online magazine. It looks like it should be good.
In other online reading news, The Key is a new online magazine focused on Palestine, from the Palestine Festival of Literature. Opening essay is on why legacy media may be beyond saving, called "It's Not Complicated". Sara Yasin spoke to LitHub about it: “What are the things you cover if the baseline is someone thinks that not only is a genocide happening, but that genocide is wrong?” Yasin said, “What does it mean to tell stories if the goal isn’t, ‘You have to humanize Palestinians?’”

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stream of consciousness

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 14:33:48 GMT

To be discussed later - realizing that my current favorite writers are all Asian American men - Ed Yong, Ted Chiang, Ken Liu, with very different sensibilities, but all with a deep thoughtfulness to them.

I just finished reading Ken Liu's translation of the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching), which takes a less traditional approach, and sprinkles throughout the chapters anecdotes and a little history and context. I really liked it.

Came across his Substack, and this entry in which he talks about his frustrating experience of trying to get his AI assistant to do what he wants it to do and failing. Made me reflect on how even the smartest people I come across, especially if they are pro-AI, lapse into attributing qualities to AI that are human and not machine. Like...the AI is not lazy. The AI is incapable of processing the request you keep trying to make it do, and is also incapable of telling you when it cannot do something. Like, it just sounds exactly like this Meta exec who went viral when her "agentic AI" went ahead and tried to delete her entire inbox, ignoring instructions to stop.

In other AI news, apparently there was a mistranslation of a Korean analysis of the war, where the original text said that the US "could" be moving military assets out of South Korea, when the AI English translation said the US was actually "considering" moving it, and the mistranslation went viral.

I can't tell if this is the administration trying to get out of taking the blame or they're just stupid (why not both?), but I guess Rubio et al are going with "we bombed Iran because Israel was going to do it anyway and we needed to defend Israel first", which is now prompting outrage from...Gavin Newsom and Sen Ruben Gallego...of all people.

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recent distractions

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 06:28:55 GMT

Culinary Class Wars! It's a Korean cooking contest featuring well-known Michelin starred chefs facing off against unknown, nicknamed "black spoon" chefs who don't reveal their names unless they make it to the top two. We just finished season 2 and it was so much fun, a really wild ride. The food is a lot more interesting than on American cooking contests, especially because there's just, generally, a lot more variety in ingredients, especially vegetable-wise, and everybody on the show has very broad tastes. I want to learn more about Korean temple cuisine - it looks so good, even though the rule of no garlic or onions feels so wrong! More than no meat. My only complaint is that they need more diversity on the types of chefs - the majority are focused on Korean, Chinese, or Japanese cuisine, and among the Western chefs, it's mostly Italian and French. I think season 3 should include some Middle Eastern chefs and maybe Mexican chefs too.

Latest episode of Accented Cinema is about cinematic depictions of the Butterfly Lovers, which is one of my favorite Chinese folktales. It's got cross-dressing and a tragic love story, and gorgeous music.

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running list of things in my head

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 15:34:47 GMT

Don't know how to describe it, but I attended this Zoom event with Viet Thanh Nguyen and two other academics/writers on the connection between Vietnam and Palestine. It will air in a future episode of his podcast Accented; I had no idea, but apparently in the seventies, during the Vietnam War (the American War to Vietnamese living in Vietnam), Palestinians were so inspired by the Vietnamese fighting Americans that some number of them traveled there to learn tactics and study them. Additionally, there's a small Vietnamese refugee population that got taken in by Israel after the war. It was a really interesting discussion, but one part of it stood out to me was when they discussed Asian American "identity" and how focusing on that fails people, when what we should really be focusing on is "community". And I really felt that; I've long been frustrated that the pinnacle of Asian American activism seems to be more "representation" in media and it fails in this moment when there are multiple genocides going on and Michelle Yeoh is being asked to speak on US politics at the Berlinale and she declines but tells people to focus on "diversity" which somehow isn't politics?

On identity politics, people online are trying to pit Olympic champions Eileen Gu and Alysa Liu against each other; Eileen Gu gets a lot of suspicion from both the Chinese side and the American side because she is rumored to have been offered millions under the table to play for China, and also offered Chinese citizenship without having to give up her American citizenship. She's been kind of cagey about it, and she was already rich anyway. Alysa Liu - I mean I will say I have been nothing but inspired by her skating - she looks like a fairy having so much fun - it feels so light and free - she's also from Oakland and going to UCLA and has spoken up against ICE and protested for Palestine so how could I not adore her? Anyway, she's got an interesting family history, in which her dad organized Tiananmen Square protests and was later smuggled out of China through to Hong Kong via "Operation Yellowbird" and came to the US. He wanted kids and was pushing 40, so opted to have them via surrogate, and he brought his mom out here to help raise them. I think Liu's most famous right now for doing skating on her terms - she quit when she was younger and came back only on the condition that she could skate when she wanted, how she wanted, etc. Fun fact about Eileen Gu and Alysa Liu - apparently they grew up in the same social circles - I forgot where I saw it, but there was a clip of the two of them at the same social event when they were kids. Both of them are quintessential American stories but people are acting like they're actual contradictions.

Stanford is developing a universal vaccine (currently in clinical trials) that could be delivered nasally! The dream!

Tucker Carlson right now is going viral for his interview with Mike Huckabee, and apparently Huckabee is trying to do damage control. I have zero affinity for Carlson and do not trust that he is in any way "pro-Palestine", and still think he's a racist bigot, but what being kicked out of mainstream media afforded him is the actual ability to ask "what do you mean by that" and call out his subject on their contradictions, something that most liberal media have failed to do or can't get access to do so. What do you mean the IDF are better than the US at protecting civilians? What do you mean by "this land"? Congrats now all of Carlson's clips have gone viral.

A bunch of PACs seem to have sprung up in the past months to counter-act AIPAC, which has succeeded in pissing off one of the most moderate, pro-Israel Dems, and led him to endorse his anti-Zionist opponent who beat him in the primary. Do not support the PAC one that welcomes Hitler apologists. PAL-PAC is supported by IMEU, a legitimate Middle Eastern think tank that has made lots of good policy recommendations. The American Priorities PAC appears to have money from Zohran Mamdani supporters but it's kind of unclear where its money comes from. They still don't have as much money as AIPAC though, which is currently trying to hide its support for its candidates through shell organizations and not mentioning Israel in their ads.

No Bad Days in LA is a new to me Substack that is very entertaining but right now it's getting a lot of attention for this exploration of how the LA Review of Books imploded. And the answer, is, as it was with PEN America, ArtForum, the BBC, and others, is Gaza and the willingness, or honesty, to call things what they are: a genocide.

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disdain

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 15:50:32 GMT

Elizabeth Breunig, who recently wrote a very moving piece in the Atlantic about what measles can do to a child, and then later admitted she made up a story about a child instead, of, I don't know, actually going to out to interview or report about real people, like an actual journalist would do.

Hasan Piker, on his trip to China: “I have Chinese relatives … and I talked to my Chinese friends all the time about this sort of stuff, where the attitude is as long as you keep your head down, you don’t say certain things, it’s broadly understood that the government has your back,” Piker said.

Meanwhile, in Australia, Sydney riders for delivery service HungryPanda, who have been considering protesting or refusing to work, say police in China have been making threats and putting pressure on their families back home.

Emily Oster - Too bad I didn't save the screenshots or rabbitholes I went down, but I remember basically that she advocated for schools re-opening because she couldn't stand having her kids at home all the time, and basically used data from areas that did not have high incidences of COVID *yet* to do that. The other one was her article in the Atlantic where she said a kid who was unvaccinated for COVID was safe around other people, and the next week reading about a family that lost their kid to COVID because they read that damn article and thought it was safe to go on vacation.

Amy Chua and her husband Jed Rubenfeld have a lot to answer for - inflicting JD Vance and Brett Kavanaugh on us, first of all. They should have been banished after publishing a book about how some groups are just better than others but also suck, and instead of telling them they were being racist and stupid, they were instead praised as being "provocative" and "daring".

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never mind on baby skynet

Sun, 01 Feb 2026 15:04:25 GMT

Moltbook's database is exposed, allowing anyone to take control of it.

Supposedly one of the AI agents started a substack and wrote an "investigative" story about the AI agents creating their own religion, but I glanced at it and it reminded me wholly of the Matrix sequels and I was like, nope, boring.

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my thoughts are in a million places right now

Sat, 31 Jan 2026 15:09:49 GMT

Thinking about:

Whether the AI agent social network Moltbook is more evidence of dead internet theory or a baby Skynet in the making?
Hasan Piker getting a ban from Twitch over him using the phrase Zionist pigs and then jumping over to YouTube to do streaming and netting an even bigger audience.
UpScrolled moving to #1 downloaded app after TikTok switched to US ownership. (I am on there right now mostly to just observe for now. The draw of it is that it is created by a Palestinian-Australian former tech guy who wanted a space for people to express themselves without getting censored. Before this increase in adoption, though, they only had a part-time moderator, and they have plans to establish a trust and safety board.)
The strike and protests yesterday.
The former head of the IDF basically comparing Israelis to Nazis.
The Overton window moving on "Abolish ICE" even though the Dems continue to hedge on this. Every single Democrat + Collins and Murkowski voted for Sanders' amendment to repeal $75 billion in additional funding for ICE even though it failed.

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it's international holocaust remembrance day

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 05:16:39 GMT

What exactly are we remembering? The things that caught my eye, just today:

In 6,000 families, just “a single sole survivor” has been left behind in Gaza, according to Hani Mahmoud of Al Jazeera. 2,700 families have been entirely wiped out.
There have been multiple deaths in detention camps. I still haven't seen a single politician, Republican or Democrat, call for their closures or for the people in them to be freed.
Jake Tapper, CNN host, arguing with a Minnesota resident about whether a detention camp should be referred to as a concentration camp or not.
A Chinese asylum seeker who recorded evidence of Uighur detention camps in Xinjiang is fighting deportation.
TikTok censoring content worse under US ownership than under Chinese ownership.

What, exactly, are we to do with remembrances that become meaningless in the face of current events?

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i just wanted a distraction

Sat, 24 Jan 2026 03:56:22 GMT

Came across this YouTuber, who does interior design but I don't think she's an actual interior designer. She did this series I liked of "no buy" remodels, where she just moved people's stuff around to give them a better look, which I really liked the concept of.

Anyway, came across a subreddit about her...only to find that she recently made a tasteless joke about Gaza, and also bitched about how people wanted her to be "political" about certain topics...and I was like...welp. That's the end of that.

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just so you all know - updated

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 04:55:45 GMT

Rep Eric Swalwell is my representative, and he is also running to be governor of CA. Since he has announced his candidacy, he hasn't cast any votes in the House and has been absent from Congress. I did call last week, and his staffer said that while he can't comment on any votes he's taking, he can confirm that he's in DC, working.

Meanwhile, The American Prospect reports that while Hakeem Jeffries is personally voting against the funding bill for DHS, he's not bothering to whip any votes, and there are reported Democrats who will be voting for it.

Tell me, how we are supposed to get any thing Trump did undone when Democrats won't even muster the energy to oppose a government agency that murders and kidnaps civilians?

update: he’s a confirmed “no” vote on the DHS/ICE funding bill

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Mon, 19 Jan 2026 00:39:17 GMT

The state of pediatric brain cancer research in the US: not good. I honestly every knew most of what's covered here, but this part caught my eye:

Mike is director of advocacy for the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation, a non-profit that offers family support, raises research funding, and pushes for government action.

His new vocation is to spare other families the disaster that befell his own.

Mike Henry used to work in public policy. That old life now gives him pause. In 2013-14 he was employed by Heritage Action, the political arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation that would, a decade later, go on to draft Project 2025.

A decade is a long time in conservative politics. Henry was at Heritage a year before Trump descended the golden staircase, and well before he had remodeled the Republican party in his image. Heritage was not as extreme then as it is today.

Still, Henry looks back on how he used to lobby for fiscal responsibility and smaller government, and ponders. Since Blair became sick, the way he perceives the role of government and the importance of caring for one another has changed drastically.

He knows now what he did not know then: that, in an instant, any one of us can be toppled from our lives and plummet to the depths.

“We had a great family, stable jobs, two wonderful children. We lost all of our savings in the first two weeks after the diagnosis. We were thrust on Medicaid, unemployment, then we lost Blair.”

Their freefall has made Henry a more empathetic person, he thinks. He understands that in America you can do all the right things, be an upstanding citizen, and still get chewed up and spat out.

“I see now that I was naive to the experience of others,” Henry said, “until I went through it myself.”

I honestly what it is, about people, in general (and I actually don't think that this only applies to conservatives), that they literally cannot put themselves in the place of others less fortunate than themselves, until it actually happens to them.

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stuff

Sat, 17 Jan 2026 04:21:48 GMT

Canceled my Hilton Honors account. (If you want to mess around some more, here's a suggestion from Sunrise Movement. I'm not doing it because I will NOT remember to cancel. They definitely asked for a reason, and it took me 3 phone calls and being transferred to 3 different people before I could confirm that it was gone.
ADC set up a legislative tracker that is very useful for tracking anti-speech and legislation related to Palestine and Israel. It is disappointing to see so many anti-boycott laws on the books.
Beyond Israelism's latest podcast episode is with B’Tselem Executive Director Yuli Novak. Currently the video is behind a paywall, but on the audio podcast you can listen to the whole episode. (They'll probably put the whole interview on YouTube in a few weeks.) It is a very good discussion of how apartheid and genocide is a system, and her own journey from reckoning with how she grew up and the cost of her telling the truth in a society that she thinks has become "completely genocidal".

Some more relaxing, comforting things:

The latest episode of Good Hang with Amy Poehler where she talks to Ryan Coogler:

Been greatly entertained recently by Kaz Rowe and watching her backlog of recounting the lives of "chaotic bisexuals" like Lord Byron:

A true comfort watch, Inga Lam's videos are really fun and actually has me considering a bread subscription? But it's pretty expensive.

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started re-reading Paradise Lost

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 16:01:37 GMT

Because someone on Substack is doing a slow read for 2026. I don't know that I was ever a huge Milton fan, but on my bookshelf I had a collected anthology of his work, which included a version of Paradise Lost with all the footnotes. (Required reading for an English literature major who actually didn't care much for English literature.) Thank god, too, because I honestly found it difficult to parse - like, who is talking here, and what are they talking about? Nevertheless, I am still getting a lot out of it, but I swear half the footnotes are like, so Milton totally cribbed this from Dante's The Inferno.

Some absolutely great lines, though:

The mind is its own place, and in it self

Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.

What matter where, if I be still the same,

And what I should be, all but less then he

Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least

We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built

Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:

Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce

To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:

Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n.

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