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unraveling

24.Aug.2026

She's baaaack

Congratulations to Karen Attiah for fighting back against her wrongful firing from The Washington Post. "Nearly a year after being wrongfully fired for my comments on race, gender and violence, an arbitrator has ordered my immediate reinstatement," she writes on her substack. I recommend the audio, in her own voice.

Not sure what's up with Jeff Bezos' edict about "personal liberties and free markets" being the only valid opinion topics, but hey, this seems to fit pretty damn well.

Organized labor, in this case, the Washington Post Guild, and its Collective Bargaining Agreement is a key component of the story. As was "basic reading comprehension. Pour one out for the Grammar police," Attiah chuckles, after the snap boot decision following Charlie Kirk's murder failed to differentiate between "White men" and those White men who "choose to espouse hatred and violence."

Let's hope there is still some difference. Highly recommend a read, or listen, of Attiah's post. It brought to mind the slogan that Kamala Harris' campaign latched on to two years ago. Searching it up, I found Matt Viser's analysis for WaPo when the shouting was hot. Viser (who I suspect is happier now that he's at The Atlantic) noted there was a book 10 years ago:

"Greg Jobin-Leeds, who co-wrote a 2016 book titled “When We Fight, We Win: Twenty-First-Century Social Movements and the Activists That Are Transforming Our World,” traces the first use of the phrase to City Life/Vida Urbana, a Boston-based social justice organization that has its roots in civil rights and antiwar movements and used the chant in anti-eviction efforts over the past several decades."

What Jobin-Leeds said:

“Part of the sentiment is we don’t always win the legislation or the bill or the labor strike or the immigrant policy that we’re looking for,” he said. “But you always win your humanity when you fight. And if you don’t fight and you just roll over, you’ve already lost.”

23.Aug.2026

Bot loop

There's an amusing sentence in the beginning of the opening item of this week's New York Times Magazine, Chatbots Are Pushing Us Toward a Post-Human Internet (which was up on the web nine days ago, go figure). "Socrates worried that writing would wreck our memory — something we know only because Plato wrote it down."

And yes, the telephone poses a threat to civility, and "electronic mail" threatens to overwhelm its usefulness through sheer volume and lack of consideration, as they told us so 32 years ago.

(Now that I've tossed out two of my once time-limited and now unlimited "gift links" to the gray lady, I should warn you that they may insist on a "free" account signup out of you for you to enjoy the "gift." Sorry. At least my blog is still free? Copyrighted, but it's not like any large language model scraper is going to give a fig about that.)

What struck me about the more recent thing is how much of the "A.I. revolution" that is outside my daily awareness (even as its revolting proceeds with or without me). I am confronted with bottified phone service gatekeeping that is often more annoying than rote menus, and the whole idea of "chat" as something one might do to interact with a friendly (or at least useful) human to help accomplish a transaction turning into an AI nightmare. It's almost satisfying to contemplate bots getting into it with each other and spiraling down the MAZE OF TWISTY LITTLE PASSAGES, ALL ALIKE (Wikipedia is still free, god bless 'em, you should donate once in a while, like I do).

"Almost" satisfying, because they'll be burning up real-world resources as they go, accelerating climate catastrophe, exacerbating drought, and rumbling in the night, disturbing a good night's sleep. As they "emulate" humans, "and perhaps replace them." As our overlings innoculate themselves from conversation with underlings, and underlings retaliate by firing up their own bots, we're on a highway to hell, aren't we? Did I mention "just how frequently chatbots get things wrong," or does that go without saying?

"[T]he human voice on the phone that once was a reasonable expectation might become a rare privilege, something akin to a luxury good. Sure, you can talk to a flesh-and-blood receptionist, but it will cost extra. Paradoxically, the people most likely to be able to afford such a luxury might be the ones being enriched by the A.I. boom. Will they use their spoils to get access to the kinds of conversations they are making rarer for everybody else? That might just be the most insidious loop of all."

But hey, just a cherry on the top of the sundae of half a century of stolen productivity.

22.Aug.2026

What's up in DC

Third Act DMV projected light in our national capital earlier this month, and I've got a link to it in a Substack note. Wish I had more, but here's the text, scrolling out around a sleepy-headed thughead, and my emphasis added:

The GOP controls congress.
They enable Trump.

The GOP is afraid of Trump
and wants to stay in power.

Trump is a convicted felon.
The GOP doesn't mind.

Trump ignores separation
of powers. The GOP won't
check him.

Trump is a compulsive liar.
The GOP won't call him out.

Trump is a misogynist.
The GOP doesn't care.

Trump incited insurgents,
then pardoned them. The
GOP let him do it.

Trup destroys necessary
agencies. The GOP won't
stop him.

Trump drives inflation and
deficit. The GOP won't say no.

Trump accepts emoluments.
The GOP lets him.

Trump insults and alienates
allies. The GOP says nothing.

Trump wages senseless wars.
The GOP gives him more money.

Trump family business is
profiting from his policies.
The GOP is okay with that.

Trump DOJ is punishing his
personal enemies. The GOP
allows it.

Trump attacks and demeans
reporters. The GOP ignores it.

Trump is trying to rewrite
history. The GOP doesn't care.

Trump is trying to rig elections.
The GOP goes along.

Trump tries to name
everything after himself.
The GOP is okay with that.

Trump spends lavishly on
unnecessary events and projects.
The GOP ignores the ballooning deficit.

Trump is unfit for office.
The GOP is okay with that.

Trump should be impeached.
The GOP won't do the right thing.

Our nation deserves dignity
and government benefitting all its people.

Vote out the Trump enablers
November 3rd!

19.Aug.2026

Electricity time (update)

End of last month, I posted about our peaky electrical usage in the middle of A/C season. It's winding down, even though we've got another heat advisory this week - highs up around 100°F. The new bill got stamped out after the period ended last Thursday, and the winner is: $64.29, maybe our highest-ever bill if I don't fuss about inflation adjustment. 406 kWh is about double what we were going without needing A/C.

As it turned out, Aug. 1 was the last day we cranked on the cool. Once the smoke cleared up, we could take full advantage of nighttime cooling, and settled back to our sub-10 kWh/d normalcy.

Fishing off bridges

With most of my first 20 years spent in Wisconsin, and by now any of the rough edges smoothed over by a half century of forgetting, when Facebook's magical algorithm started serving the Wisconsin Field Guide to me, well, I was a sucker for the pitch. It's not marked as "Ad," although the About says it's a "Media/news company," which seems odd. There's a website, "State Field Guide," "The Comprehensive Field Guide to Your State," which seems too generic. It has Terms and Conditions, which are "Oops! That page can't be found." And statefieldguide.com looks like... oh, AI slop for any state you like? Well, they haven't filled everything in yet. Idaho, no. Illinois, yes. Iowa, no. Minnesota, yes. Oh, duh, there's a rail menu:

ILLINOIS INDIANA MICHIGAN MINNESOTA OHIO WISCONSIN

So, the Northwest Territories, as we used to say. Wisconsin's page features a mustard museum (6,000 mustards from around the world, who knew?), Lambeau Field (IFYKYK), Taliesin (ditto), and "The Milwaukee Museum With Wings That Open Like a Bird Every Morning at 10 a.m."

That's the one that Santiago Calatrava put on the map, after Eero Saarinen's 1957 War Memorial Center, then the Milwaukee Art Museum, was enhanced with the "iconic sculptural addition" of the Quadracci Pavilion.

So yeah, it piqued my interest and gave it a follow, but I also recognize the unmistakeable scent of AI slop. The "About Us" starts with "Hi! I'm Stephen, a lifelong Midwesterner," and stuff, that doesn't seem to justify Stephen having just-one-name fame. (It'd be a crowded field for Stephen.) "Every article I write combines firsthand travel experience with extensive research to help readers discover authentic destinations and experiences worth their time," he says.

A stronger style sheet would help the website, but it works well enough in social media. The (Facebooked) hook that got me today was that "Milwaukee has more movable bridges than almost any American city, and nearly all of them are bascules, the counterweighted type that pivots up like a drawbridge. There are around twenty of them downtown alone, crossing the Milwaukee, Menomonee and Kinnickinnic rivers within a few square miles, and they still go up on demand for boat traffic all season long."

The good old three rivers, which could be useful to know. One of the comments said "Milwaukee was on jeopardy today about the rivers. Contestants had to name a river and they couldn't." I'll give you a hint: ONE IS THE SAME NAME AS THE CITY'S.

Update:
A few posts coming at me after the Follow, and I see one tagged "AI content." I'm guessing others were as well. Unfollow.

16.Aug.2026

Crime spree

Pulled up The Atlantic to find my view of something that had Jeanette chuckling, but before I got to that, the featured item by David Frum commanded my attention. Trump's Last Loyal Constituency was the 38px headline, "The administration delivers a win for financial crooks at the expense of honest businesses" the dek. Andrew Harnik/Getty's image of thug, J.D. "JD", Bessent is it? and some other guy, in black, white, and wrinkles is perfect.

My first thought was what Idaho's make-believe "law and order" guy, Raúl Labrador piped up after ICE reportedly set a record 43,000 arrests in June.

"Every one of those arrests is a win for the person who’s been waiting their turn in line to immigrate legally and watched people skip it for years," he said, skipping over the likelihood that many, if not most of those 43,000 arrests were of innocent people who might never enjoy the due process our Constitution promises to all. And not counting the "oh, we got the wrong brown person and shot him in the head without accountability" cases.

We're not having law and order right now. We're having "rallies" where police and fire fighters in uniform perform like trained monkeys for the big guy, and where thug's former criminal defense attorney, now approved as US Attorney General, feels perfectly free to make a mockery of the Hatch Act. Here's Frum's opening:

“Many secrets; no mysteries.” That’s the master code of the Trump administration. When it does something strange, there’s never any mystery as to why: Somebody close to the president, or possibly the president and his family themselves, intends to score a dishonest dollar. Exactly who and how may be secret. Exactly why is no mystery.

"So it is with the news that the Department of the Treasury has ended ownership-reporting requirements for U.S. businesses and purged the existing database of ownership information. This seemingly technical-sounding change is a huge gift to financial crooks, who can now store and launder dark money in U.S. financial institutions with less risk of detection. But the gift comes at the direct expense of banks, mutual funds, insurance companies, and other financial institutions, which now have to shoulder the burden of verifying customer data themselves....

One layer of the onion (or is it The Onion? You decide) deeper:

"In 2021, Capital One, the Trump Organization’s then-bank, closed more than 300 of the Trump Organization’s accounts on suspicion that they violated anti-money-laundering rules. The action just taken by the Treasury may best be understood as payback for those who tried to enforce the law against Donald Trump."

12.Aug.2026

The secret database of me

As Paul Simon put it, "These are the days of miracle and wonder; This is the long-distance call; The way the camera follows us in slow-mo; The way we look to us all." We are all the boy in the bubble now. (And I'm seeing that 15 yo video for the first time.)

It makes me think we could in the sweet spot between "rather too hot" and uninhabitable, between launching 10,000 satellites and banishing the night forever with a million, and then a cascading "accident" that puts low Earth orbit out of commission in a completely foresseable future that more data centers will not save us from.

What I came here to write about today, was how the symphony of apps and widgets at my fingertips now anticipate my intentions (if not my deepest needs) and will try to finish my words. Or sentences, when they feel sprightly.

Take "like," a word you might like (ha!) to use multiple times a day, sometimes good, sometimes not good. (Bu yao!) Chances are pretty good when I type "like" I'm going to want those four letters sandwiched by space characters, right? Today, Facebook had a different idea. If the idea had been cogent, it would have been deeply brilliant and saved me 52 letters of typing and looking up a hyperlink. Instead it drove me to blog, and what a mess it made.

I typed [space] l i k e and it guessed I wanted to say A Field Guide to Grasses and Grass-like Plants of Idaho, complete with the self-serving hyperlink to a Facebook page, rather than the book page on the UI Ag Extension site.

Even odds I have a copy in the house, but laying my hands on the rich photographs and detailed drawings in a visually engaging coil-bound paperback 9.75 x 6.75" did not come easy. I found two different editions of coil-bound paperbacks of Idaho's noxious weeds ("Idaho's Official Noxious Weeds," ©2008 by the Idaho State Department of Agrictulure, and "Idaho's Noxious Weeds 5th Edition," ©1994, 1999, 2002, 2008, 2010 by the University of Idaho.) Leafy spurge, Euphorbia esula, is tabbed as Euphorbia myrsinities in the latter. The former has a gorgeous photo of spike of Purple loosestrife, which I was just conversing about with a Facebook friend whose name Facebook would not tag, even if I gave it the old @ hint.

The photo's by Linda Wilson, then of bugwood.org, the University of Georgia's Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health, still in strong business 18 years on.

In those halcyon days, the precious inside front cover devoted space to Help us stop the spread of Eurasian Watermilfoil by inspecting 7 areas on your boat to "remove any plants found and dispose of in a trash container." I see by the 2026 Payette Lake treatment plan, it's bad and getting worse. Survey says it went from 149 tons in 2025 to 320 tons this year, more than doubled, far outstripping what could be controlled manually. Don't even get us started on quagga and zebra mussels.

It's a heavy dose of Meta meta, these word, phrase and link associations all uniquely tied to my permanent record, and so-called artificial intelligence on its way to going berzerk. That's when a not-new phrase bubbles up to my awareness and I search it up to see that it's a SONG TITLE, by "Weird Al" Yankovic. I might have heard a song or two by him back in the day, but never this 1996 ditty. Everything You Know Is Wrong.

Caution: it's catchy! Also, you will want to look up the lyrics, so IDK about Genius, but they float up to the top like algae on the reflecting pool, so here, from his "Bad Hair Day" album. You are welcome.

9.Aug.2026

Thieves in the night

HCR's August 8, 2026 Letter from an American opens with this:

"At 4:00 this morning, just before they left for a five-week recess, Senate Republicans confirmed Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to the position of Attorney General of the United States. This makes President Donald J. Trump’s personal criminal lawyer the top law enforcement officer of the country.

"The attorney general is supposed to be the lawyer for the people of the United States."

First of all, A FIVE-WEEK RECESS! Nice non-work if you can get it. Secondly, the gaslighting is just getting lazy. Thug doesn't care about the people of the United States, as he has shown us over and over and over and over again. He'll only care about them if they have torches and pitchforks pointing at him, instead of at his designated enemies. (Like, the Congress. Or, the Vice president.) Because all he cares about is himself.

Various lickspittle republican senators pulled out palaver to celebrate their "decision." Chuck Grassley, the nonagenarian chair of the Judiciary committee, is waving a blunt sword on the playground.

“Mr. Blanche is a tough, fair prosecutor dedicated to the rule of law, and his leadership instills that same zeal throughout the entire Justice Department,” Grassley said.

AYFKM? Idaho's Sen. Mike Crapo had even more milquetoast talking points for his 4:20 am Facebook post (shades of Melon Usk!):

"Todd Blanche has the experience and judgment necessary to lead the U.S. Department of Justice. I congratulate him on his confirmation as Attorney General and look forward to working with him to uphold the law, protect our communities and keep Americans safe."

Our other Senator didn't even try to defend his vote. The "other" Heather, Heather Delaney Reese has a more comprehensive dark take on the cowardice of the Republicans, now that we're two impeachments past the benefit of the doubt.

"What I came to understand through this interview [with Hunter Biden] and learning from others is that for the majority of the Republican politicians currently serving in Congress, it was never about country. It was always about proximity to power and money. That is why they entered politics. They didn’t do it to serve or to build something that outlasts them. They came to Washington for access and proximity to power and money. They care more about having influence than they do about upholding their oath to support and defend the Constitution."

Too harsh? Test it against the behavior we've been seeing for more than a decade in this Age of Thug, and tell us how it doesn't prove out.

[Thug's] "cruelty, however, is not limited to just him. It is the temperature he has set for the entire country. Anyone he identifies as a threat or an enemy becomes a target, and that targeting radiates outward until it shapes how millions of people treat each other. The cruelty is the culture now. And that is what scares me most, because policy can be reversed, but the way we see each other as human beings is not so easily recovered."

7.Aug.2026

Is there a drop of courage in Idaho's senators?

Not holding my breath, but I'd like to be surprised. Now that there are two Republicans gone wobbly on the vile choice of a nominee for attorney general, might they find safety in numbers? Finally? After the two impeachments and all, enabling thug's autocrat reign? The phone lines are busy, it seems, or else the staff is tired of answering. I left voicemail this morning, with my name, address, and this:

Todd Blanche has demonstrated that his loyalty is to Donald Trump, not the rule of law, or the Constitution.

From being Trump's criminal defense lawyer, he's now become his attack dog, shades of Roy Cohn. James Comey, Jack Smith, and now Anthony Fauci are all being attacked by the weaponized DOJ, for speaking the truth, and for trying to do the right thing for the American people.

This is a legacy moment for Senator Risch [and Crapo]. I urge him to vote against confirmation of Blanche for Attorney General.

5.Aug.2026

Door to door ambassador

Or am I a dreaded SOLICITOR? Not the British lawyer sort, but the "agent that solicits contributions (as to a charity)"? Neither of those. The city has definitions, and licensing. More to the point, in Boise, a solicitor is:

"an individual, including an employee or agent of a group of individuals, partnership, or corporation, whether a resident of the City or not, who is taking or attempting to take, whether in person or by telephone, orders for sale of food, beverages, goods, merchandise or services to be furnished or performed in the future, whether he is collecting advance payments on such sales or not."

Taking orders, definitely wasn't doing that. There are also Vendors, "who sell or offer to take orders or sell food, beverages, goods or merchandise from a mobile vending cart" or the like. "The word 'vendor' shall include the words 'hauler', 'huckster' and 'peddler'." I like huckster, and I'm not that.

And there are Temporary Merchants, in the "temporary business of selling and delivering goods, wares, merchandise and services." All three of those need a license from the city. Solicitors and Temporary Merchants need a background check and to get fingerprinted, my goodness. I did not dig in far enough to figure out why there are four types of licenses for three defined categories.

My position is elected precinct committeeman for the Democratic Party in Idaho, and my business at the door was to politely inquire whether the person on my list was one of Us (or thereabouts), or one of Them, and if the former, to share information about voting in November's election.

Most of the people on my list didn't answer the door, or weren't available for one reason or another. One fellow was "having company," and it looked like a good time. His wife did politely engage with me and he came to the door to shake my hand anyway. She took the palmcard with QR codes for requesting an absentee ballot, and for information about our good candidates. She was worried about her dog getting out, which it did, to receive my even more friendly greeting, with scritches under the chin. (See, I'm good people!)

At another door, I got off on the wrong foot when I asked for Maria, but her name (there on my list if I'd looked more carefully) was Mariah, like the wind, not like West Side Story. She had a NO SOLICITORS sign, and pointed at it angrily after she'd made it clear she didn't want to talk to the likes of me. (Did she tap the sign? Let's say she did.) I smiled and said "I'm not a solicitor, actually," pointlessly, and she insisted I was, and anyway, "sorry to bother you."

Then I came to a very emphatic DO NOT KNOCK OR RING DOORBELL injunction, printed sign in ALL CAPS, taped to a handmade picket fence. Cute. Yes, of course "this is private property," and I totally get solicitors not welcomed (I don't welcome them either, but I try not to be rude). I'm not selling anything. Am I a stranger? Or a friend you haven't met yet? The last line was definitive: DO NOT DISTURB.

Ok. I walked on, without leaving a palmcard. Several doors later, and the second to last one I was going to knock, there was another sign, which was clear, and much more gracious. (Everything sounds better with "Please," you know?) I was delighted to see myself on the Welcome list: Neighbors. I rang the doorbell confidently, and... they weren't home. Oh well. But they gave me a new opening line!

"Hi, I'm your neighbor, from over on [our nearby street name], and a volunteer for the Idaho Democratic Party..."

Turned out the gal on my list wasn't available (on the phone with her dad, I wasn't about to interrupt that), but the fellow I talked to was warm and friendly, and heard me out, and left us both with a positive feeling. yay.

Update:
Did my second tranche today, and at one of my doors, another door-to-door fellow had just knocked (and got no answer). I asked the young man what he was up to, flying without livery or identification of any kind. Something something helping people clean windows. "Oh," I said, "you're a solictor." He didn't know the term. Didn't know he needed a license from the city to do what he was doing, either. I told him I wasn't going to turn him in, but just so you know, hmm?

2.Aug.2026

Don of Delusion

Nobody's doing Trump Derangement Syndrome quite like thug himself. I've resisted subscribing to Heather Delaney Reese's Hope for America blog, but her posts come my way via Facebook, where they run too long for my comfortable reading, and I take the jump sometimes. Yesterday, she had her usual long take, Donald Trump wants to be paid, and a podcast/video version about the delusional cabinet meeting at Camp David, with a press clip for the pull quote: “I probably was abused more than anybody in the history of our country.” You think?

That's not as wild as his interjected assurance to the gathered ministers (oh, there's "special envoy" Steve Witkoff, too) and his hand-picked feel-good reporters, that "by the way, there's no information that they're after me. It could happen."

"They" being the International Criminal Court. Really, it should happen, but of course the US never signed on to a court with jurisdiction over international criminals.

The "wants to be paid" in the headline refers to The Wall Street Journal's blockbuster exclusive about thug's daily confabs with Meredith "princess of darkness" O'Rourke to "wring hundreds of millions from companies for his projects." He gets updates on "which companies and donors have cut checks and which have not," and just like "blue" states on fire, if you didn't pledge fealty, there will be no help in an emergency. O’Rourke's basic pitch: "The Boss Wants This Money." It's worked for $800 million, and counting. Just in case his $billions in crypto grifting dry up.

This morning, writing about yesterday's swamp-o-rama, HDR gets into a description of another 3+ hour barrage of 42 (not 47?) "Truth Social" posts, tapping into the wonderful world of Artificial Intelligence to mash up thug in his past prime planting a kiss on the crown of thorns of Jesus on the cross—a golden Jesus on the cross, naturally. (Careful sir, you could cut your lips!) Part of a competition that someone other than him is creating for "most disturbing cock-up you can imagine." As no-longer Junior's gf would scream "THE WORST IS YET TO COME." ICYMI, précis in the hed: Donald Trump is a very sick man.

After I read some of the descriptions of his post-golf antisocial media tornado to her, Jeanette said:

"All his impulses are wrong, so it's straight up fantasy. What a story this is going to be in 3 years!"

If we make it that far. Jeanette also crossed paths with notes she took some years ago from David Shapiro's 1965 book, Neurotic Styles. The notes are from the discussion of the impulsive personality, in which "planning, concentration, logical objectivity and reflectiveness are all impaired," Shapiro wrote. She had someone almost none of my readers know personally in mind, decades ago, but now we all know someone who fits the bill to a T. Quoting from her, with interior quotes from Shapiro:

They are very good at sizing up any immediate situation for possible personal advantage. The behavior of the psychopath is an extreme form of the impulsive style — "a proclivity to lying and insincerity"... an "exploitive" interest in others — pick friends for what they can do for him — an inability to do deliberate, long-range consideration of consequences — for himself and certainly for others — of his actions.

There is not the kind of thinking habits in which moral or conscience issues can arise. He has no base for moral decisions or issues of justice, has developed no ideals or ethical standards by which his separate acts can be measured... no inner voice of conscience... no independent concept of self — he is glib rather than genuine and doesn't even notice when he contradicts his own previous statements.

"Unself-critical glibness and the domination of (personal advantage) seem to work together to produce the fluent insincerity of the psychopath."

raveling

Tom von Alten