Jesse Walker

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We can now add the phrase "AI-generated black supporters" to the political lexicon

My colleague Kelvey Vander Hart went to a Halloween-themed installation in Portland. "It was called Dead Media," she says, "set up to look like an old movie rental store, and featured the artist's favorite creepy characters from his favorite creepy (or not so creepy) movies."

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"The haunted Toys R Us is now an unhaunted REI"

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Blue Power in the Mamdani era

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"though Democratic self-flagellation is nothing new, what's different in 2026 is that bashing their own party might be a winning strategy for Democrats"

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Tom Skerritt, RIP

Lucian's Dialogues of the Gods (freely translated by @dannymlavery.bsky.social)

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In my corner of the country in 1983, this catchy mix of country, roots rock, and southern soul may have been the most ubiquitous non-Michael-Jackson radio hit around. John Anderson, RIP.

"If there is any justice, North Carolina will be North America, and South Carolina will be South America. Yes, those technically already exist, but..."

Evidently, Europol corrected a report after I pointed out a dubious statistic in it. (Did it correct itself *because* I pointed out the problem? I'll allow myself to think it did.)

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"Clearly, Jack Chick is very concerned about young people, especially young women, especially young women who want to be free from controlling parents and pastors, dabble in the occult, and wear or sympathize with the peace symbol..."

"The most important battle line between the parties in the years ahead might come down to a simple question: who can appeal to normal people?...But it bears noting that normal people can seem politically weird."

Meanwhile, in Albania: "...coordination takes place dynamically across digital platforms such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and Snapchat, rather than through formal organisational hierarchies..."

"In northern Argentina, people sent radio messages asking their relatives to use an improvised pulley system to hoist their phones, in tin cans, to the tops of trees, in order to get enough wireless connection for a text to go through..."

the new property tax rebellion

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Is someone keeping a running list of the times he's taken a joke someone told about him & performed it like a script?

I haven't followed the No Kings controversy, but even setting that aside this is a good thread on the incompatible demands people make of platforms & the unwelcome outcomes that can follow.

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"his curation of fringe science, psychic phenomena, and future forecasting was catnip for the corporate class"

Before Fielder and Oppenheim: the Theranos documentary that didn't happen

"Amid government campaigns and a stream of social-media posts, young people started washing up there, hoping that learning AI while keeping their expenses low might change something."

Riot unity! The remnants of the Yellow Vest movement have endorsed the new French protests.

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Nathan Fielder is the Orson Welles of Andy Kaufmans.

Jean Renoir inverts John Cage

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"I do not know where he was buried. I do not think anyone knows. He remained present only in half-hushed conversations. He became a true non-person, even in his own family."

Can't deny the last line.

That picture has been altered by AI. Here is the real photo.

I have no idea how reliable this poll is. But if nothing else, it's fun to watch people treating a *major*-party nominee as a possible spoiler.

2017: Trump flirts with privatizing the FAA 2026: "Hang on. Maybe we could start taking over its contractors instead?"

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"As he turns one hundred, could it be that Foucault stands out less for his ongoing relevance than as a throwback to a world we have lost?"

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The first sentence, on its own, would be a great headline. The second sentence somehow makes the story sound boring.

I'm starting to have doubts about the ethics of this conceptual art project.

Washington's extrajudicial murders of alleged drug smugglers: not just grossly immoral and flagrantly illegal, but a ridiculous failure on their own terms

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"It's the Reagan years… and all of the men in the neighborhood are mysteriously beginning to turn gay."