- Researchers in Japan have developed a durable and recyclable plastic that fully dissolves in the sea and doesn’t leave microplastic pollution in the oceans because it breaks down in the water over time. – via @oceanbluestar.bsky.social
- Early entry for the best news of the year? Ted Lasso is returning for a fourth season.
- I recently finished Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. It is easily the best work of fiction I’ve read in the last twenty years. After five pages I was enjoying it so much that I decided to pace myself so I could inhabit its story as long as possible, but ended up devouring it in just a couple of days. My only regret is that I will never get to read it for the first time again. 1
- Happy belated 27th birthday to kottke.org, the website that inspired me to start blogging a quarter-century ago.
Notes from the firehose:
- Conservative former federal Judge J. Michael Luttig issued a stark warning about what he described as [the President’s] escalating attacks on the legal system.
- Former Spiritual Adviser to POTUS Indicted for Sexually Abusing a Child
- Top Democrats Warn “DOGE” Employees of Potential Criminal Exposure from Ethical Misconduct – via @beyer.house.gov
- “Mr. Schumer’s stated approach of waiting for Trump to ‘screw up’ and continue this inexplicable embrace of the slippery slope is wholly inadequate and an astonishing failure of leadership.”
- [The President’s] deportation of Venezuelan migrants may have violated a direct court order, leading to what the former general counsel of the FBI, Andrew Weissmann, has called a potential “doomsday scenario.”
- [The President] has already implemented at least half of Project 2025’s objectives in eight areas.
Posts tagged “fiction”
- Oh, boy. This is just a fantastic response to being told you can’t teach DEI at a private university. – via @mjsdc.bsky.social
- If you grew up watching Schoolhouse Rock, you likely need a measles booster.
- I am irrationally upset that The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is ending its 54-year run. – via kottke
- The Last of Us returns for season 2 on April 13.
- I have always loved making paper airplanes.
- Some good news: From 2008-2022, cervical precancer rates dropped by a whopping 80% among women aged 20-24. – via YLE
- Sex, Drinking and Dementia: 25 Lawmakers Spill on What Congress Is Really Like is nowhere near as wild and crazy as the headline would have you believe. If anything, the whole piece reads more like, “Aw, shucks! These people are just plain old good regular folks like you n’ me!” Don’t bother.
In other news:
- This is how you become a Nazi bar.
- After Georgia banned abortion, its maternal mortality committee detailed the “preventable” deaths of two women, which led to the state… dismissing all thirty-four members.
- Democrats who censured Al Green are as clueless as they are feckless. Right now there’s too much appeasement and not enough fighting.
I thought Brie Larson was phenomenal in the AppleTV+ limited series Lessons in Chemistry. The 1950s period drama is based on Bonnie Garmus' 2022 novel and includes not only a brilliant pair of scientists in love, sexism, homophobia, racism, cooking, a legal battle over eminent domain, Beau Bridges, and dastardly Christians, but several scenes about rowing and a homemade erg. And don’t even get me started on the dog’s point of view episode. <chef’s kiss>
#FridayFive: Books for Senior Year
Five books to read before you finish high school
#FridayFive: Spenser
Robert B. Parker’s Perfect Sleuth
Real Products for Fictional Companies
The excellent local blog CurbedLA had an entry recently on artist Mark Bennett’s blueprints of fictional places. He has created very detailed floor-plans of famous pretend places, like the homes of George and Jane Jetson, Rob and Laura Petrie, and June and Ward Cleaver. (There’s a book, too!) I thought these were terrific so I
At Lunch with Ernest
At Lunch with Ernest Hemingway is a transcript of an imaginary interview with the author. Sven Birkerts wrote this in 1999 and it is an interesting tale of how Hemingway might view the world – and his influence on it – today.