Politics
Topic archive / 627 posts
Fascinating documentation of ISIS governance. A tyrannical theocracy is still a bureaucracy. nytimes.com/interactive/20…
A teenager risked his life to give the police vital info about the MS-13 gang. He’s being repaid with deportation. features.propublica.org/ms-13/a-betray…
Links: March 2018
Hello, dear reader!
March is gone, but its links remain.
I gave a brief talk about designing information at the annual Society for News Design conference, and also shared my notes from the other talks I took in.
Always ahead of the trends, I left Facebook at the beginning of the month, a little over two weeks before the news about Cambridge Analytica broke (news which long-time readers may not have found shocking). Since think… See more →
I figure if I can just get a delivery gig at the White House’s preferred pizza place, I’ll be a shoo-in for Secretary of Transportation. twitter.com/washingtonpost…
Even at a generally clueless age 19, when I was told I’d be paid $2.25/hour, I was like, “How is this legal?” nytimes.com/interactive/20…
If, after Tillerson’s ouster, you’re looking for Cabinet turnover context from past admins, here’s a cheat sheet. fivethirtyeight.com/features/tille…
“[T]his trend of corporations-as-activists is […] the result of a government that’s unable (or unwilling) to serve its citizens.” twitter.com/beep/status/96…
Links: February 2018
Hello dear reader!
February is gone, but its links remain.
My site was pretty quiet in February, up until yesterday when I published the final post in a series about the process behind my redesign. This one is about color, and the recent revelations I’ve had about how to work with it.
This month’s links have the usual range of topics, with the highlight for me being a treasure trove of interviews and demos on… See more →
“How can the quintessentially rationalist faith of liberalism flourish in an age that […] demeans rationality?” theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
Ugh. Why undermine the case against guns with misleading stats when the actual stats are already beyond horrific? twitter.com/washingtonpost…
I won’t pretend I’m immune to palace intrigue, but paying any attention to Omarosa—let alone putting stock in her commentary—demeans us all. twitter.com/washingtonpost…
In a weekly average of 23,077 violent crimes, “the White House only found two crimes linked to immigrants in the country illegally.” twitter.com/washingtonpost…
“They concluded that Steele’s sources […] had no discernible reason to deceive the small intelligence firm.” washingtonpost.com/politics/hero-…
Trump, Inc is a new podcast from @propublica and @WNYC digging into the president’s opaque conflicts of interest. wnycstudios.org/shows/trumpinc
“[T]he wound collector never has to go far to feel victimized.” Unpacking the alt-right’s growing body count. splcenter.org/20180205/alt-r…
Links: January 2018
Hello, dear reader!
January is gone, but its links remain.
In my little corner of the internet, I posted a roundup of my favorite stuff from 2017 (including a look ahead at plans for 2018). As a subscriber, you may be especially interested in the stats I compiled about the 299 links I shared last year.
I released my first open source software project, Column Setter, a Sass tool for building custom responsive grids that… See more →
You’ll want to make some time for a long shower after reading @FranklinFoer’s in-depth profile of Paul Manafort. theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
This moment is grosser than I thought it could be.
One year into the Trump Administration, we’ve updated our Cabinet Cards to see who’s still standing. propublica.org/article/the-ch…
Kudos to the industrious ghostwriter working on the “making the most of a bad situation” memoir template for this administration’s enablers.
“We are miseducating the young to believe military heroism is the noblest form of heroism.” thenib.com/the-good-war
Links: December 2017
Happy New Year, dear reader!
December is gone, but its links remain.
I did some more film writing this month, most notably on The Disaster Artist and Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and I also published a collection of all the shorter film reviews I wrote in 2017.
This month’s links are a good mix of the topical (net neutrality, sexism, the new tax bill), year-end reflections, inspiring art and design, and more. I hope… See more →
Happy Friday. Here’s the great Peggy Seeger dripping some cheerful feminist venom in 1979. youtu.be/8IGVxBb5uYk
Critics should be concerned “not that Pence believes in God, but that he seems so certain God believes in him.” theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
Nothing pushes my morbid fascination buttons like @willsommer’s Right Richter. tinyletter.com/rightrichter
“Sitting inches from the president, Hannity covered the biggest issues of the day, serving as rudder and prompt.”
Sycophant? No. Puppeteer. twitter.com/nytimes/status…
But the GOP couldn’t help themselves. They had to look right in the people’s eyes as they fucked them, and whisper, “We’re not fucking you.”
“[T]he [American] poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” —John Steinbeck
If they said, “The rich will get richer, and they deserve it, whereas you do not,” enough brainwashed poor people would still be onboard.
Maybe more than its contents, it’s the disingenuousness of this tax bill that upsets me.
Links: November 2017
Hello, dear reader!
November is gone, but its links remain.
Most of my writing energy this month went toward a post about the typography and spatial relationships underpinning my site’s recent redesign. I also wrote a handful of film reviews, the most substantial of which outlines my disappointment with the ambitious Loving Vincent, an animated film made from thousands of oil paintings.
Unsurprisingly, a fair amount of this month’s links are devoted to thinking through… See more →
Um. Roger Stone, who has Nixon’s face tattooed on his back, is vexed about the “hypocrisy of our current drug laws”? nytimes.com/2017/11/29/us/…
does louise linton work on the death star
“I couldn’t help but feel that he was a method actor so committed and demented […] that he’d permanently lost himself in his role.” twitter.com/lukeobrien/sta…
“The posture of the political journalist has devolved from skepticism into outright cynicism at almost every turn.” vanityfair.com/news/2017/11/h…
Trump supporters haven’t “moved the goalposts for him. It’s that they have eliminated the goalposts altogether.” politi.co/2zs8Vna
Revisiting the Steele dossier: “Did any of the activities reported happen as predicted? To a large extent, yes.” justsecurity.org/44697/steele-d…
Links: October 2017
Hello, dear reader!
October is gone, but its links remain.
For my part, I wrote a bit about my first ten years on Twitter, dusted off the ol’ dream journal, and published the full calendar for Robtober, my annual horror movie binge. I also wrote a bit about each of the 31 movies included in Robtober this year. They’ll all be collected on my site later, but for now they’re available on Letterboxd.
With Robtober keeping… See more →
“We had heard people […] take refuge in tribalism, and appeal to extremes. But the report mentioned little of that.” theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
“The top 1% alone holds twice as much value as the bottom 90%. That’s where most of the benefit to an increase in stock values goes.” twitter.com/washingtonpost…
A great case study in industry-backed deregulation and the flimsiness of the Trump administration’s ethics rules. nytimes.com/2017/10/21/us/…
“Trump’s populist, nationalist agenda has largely been replaced by the agenda of the corporate right.” newyorker.com/magazine/2017/…
“[B]e wary of how you’re reacting to a biased sample […] outliers don’t offer you meaningful information about who most protesters are […]” twitter.com/voxdotcom/stat…
Dog whistles are so 2016. twitter.com/realDailyWire/…
“[I]f expanding that audience meant involving white nationalists and neo-Nazis, their participation could always be laundered […]” twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/s…
Links: September 2017
Down the Breitbart Hole
This is a current in American life we’ve not yet fully processed, but history will record a preponderance of today’s right-wing leaders who emerged in the toniest quarters of the nation’s bluest states. Apart from the obvious examples of Andrew Breitbart and Steve Bannon, annealed in Hollywood, you can think of Julia Hahn, who attended Alex’s high school and is now working with Bannon in the White House, and Ben Shapiro,… See more →
“Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?” thenib.com/the-epa-used-t…
“All politics are identity politics—except the politics of white people, the politics of the bloody heirloom.” twitter.com/theatlantic/st…
Okay NYC, the polls close at 9. If you haven’t already, get on it. project.wnyc.org/nyc-primary-20…
Regarding our commander-in-chief’s military priorities. thenib.com/trans-troops-a…