AWS outage spotlights the global economy’s fragile foundations
The AI that we’ll have after AI
How a Fringe Movement of Gun Nuts, Backwoodsmen, and Free Marketers Paved the Way for Autocracy
American e-waste is causing a ‘hidden tsunami’ of junk in Southeast Asia
The World Is Running Out of Fresh Water. What Happens If We Do? The pace of freshwater depletion is staggering. An area twice the size of California is drying up annually.
Does Brazil have an app that can upend digital finance?
One of 20 Million in the US With Long COVID. RFK Pulled the Rug From Under Us.
Americans remain pessimistic about the country’s direction and the state of the country.
Why So Many Gen Z-ers Are Drawn to Conservative Christianity
A Whole Lotta Fibbin’ Going On
The Big Budget Act Creates a “Deportation-Industrial Complex” —The result will be a lopsided, enforcement-only machine that will be hard to dismantle.
“Divisive”? (BHO)
The shrinking future of Ph. D.s
Medicare Advantage: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Response
The Resistance Stiffens and “No Kings” — Loving America
Labor Unions, EFF Sue Administration to Stop Ideological Surveillance of Free Speech Online
John Dickerson: What Hamilton warned in the Federalist Papers #1
June Lockhart obituary: American stage and screen actor who enjoyed huge success on the television shows Lassie, Lost in Space, and Petticoat Junction.
Baseball Obituary: Mike Greenwell (1963-2025)
The Jewish Prisoners Who Escaped From a Nazi Death Camp
Ernest Shackleton’s journey was most likely doomed before it began
Why Paris Designed Its Peculiarly Popular Grand Graveyards to Evoke a Celebration of Life Amid All the Death
In honor of the 200th anniversary of the completion of the Erie Canal, History of the canal system of the State of New York together with brief histories of the canals of the United States and Canada / by Noble E. Whitford v.1 (1906)
These Airport Codes Make No Sense
Now I Know: Where the Other Two Musketeers Went and Hackers, Pre-Internet Edition and The $10,000 Blade of Grass (Dali and Ono) and The “Baseball versus Beer” Loophole and Our Anti-Photographic Memories?
The dog that was twenty times smarter than Lassie
Wrecking crew
The East Wing of the White House has been demolished. Here’s a look at its history
Demolition Seen as Potent Metaphor for His Destructive Presidency
Daily Kos: “Normal people looked at the demolition… and asked, ‘Hey, shouldn’t an official body, like the National Capital Planning Commission, have to sign off on the demolition?’
“No, you sweet summer child. According to him and his allies on the NCPC, the planning commission need only sign off on the construction of buildings, not their demolition.
“What kind of person who heads a planning commission charged with the overall planning of the nation’s capital would agree to this?
“Oh, that would be Will Scharf. Scharf is the White House staff secretary, and he is also now the head of the NCPC. Does Scharf have any experience in urban planning or architecture, or anything really?
“Nope. You all get one guess as to why Scharf has not one, but two high-level government jobs? Yes, he was one of his former criminal defense attorneys.”
Borowitz: FOTUS “would continue his father’s proud tradition of gleeful destruction [Steeplechase Park] when he demolished the Bonwit Teller Building on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue to clear the site for his Tower. After saying he’d try to preserve the building’s priceless Art Deco friezes so that they could be exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he discovered that it would cost $32,000 to remove them intact. As a clever solution to his problem, he had his workmen smash them to bits.”
MUSIC
Take Me Down To Stewy’s – Jackson Simpson (feat. Azel & Grey Mizzy), a tribute to the many Stewart’s Shops, a chain of convenience stores located in Upstate New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire.
Last Time (I Seen the Sun) – Alice Smith and Miles Caton
That Thing You Do! – The Wonders
I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow – The Soggy Bottom Boys with Dan Tyminski
La Academia – Peter Sprague
Piano Sonata no. 14 in C-sharp minor, Moonlight, by Ludwig van Beethoven
That Song In Every Musical That No One Likes – Sarah Smallwood Parsons
While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Take 27) – The Beatles [Anthology 2025]
Bonehemian Rhapsody– 28-Trombone collaboration
Coverville 1553: The Bruno Mars Cover Story and 1554: The Tom Petty Cover Story V
New Moon in the Old Moon’s Arms by Michael Kamen
Over, Under, Sideways, Down -The Yardbirds
How Lucky Can You Get -Jason Graae, the voice of the Leprechaun in the Lucky Charms commercials for several years
Take On Me– a-ha
You’ll Be Back (from Hamilton) – Primer (Barbershop Quartet)
Theme to Top Cat – Hoyt Curtin
On Your Shore -Enya
Theme from Jurassic Park – John Williams
Oh Sheila – Ready for the World
J. Eric Smith’s blog, Genre Delve #4: Gospel, with links to the intro, Jazz, and Africa
What Makes Surf Rock Sound Instantly Recognizable?
