Just a banger of a day workwise- got a load of cutting done, but it was a cooker. I drank five liters of water in four hours and had my pink hoodie/do-rag made of that sun shade material you can soak to keep cool, but it was still hot. Took a couple breaks under the mulberries at the cemetary for a while, and then hung down by the crabapple on the mansion property because there is a murder of crows that hang out there and I dump peanuts for them. Good places to relax. I am also pleased to report that my adhd self can now bop to every track on Don’t Tap the Glass like it was released in 1992 instead of four days ago.
Came home, showered, and did my favorite thing these days, sat outside and watched the willow sway in the breeze while the birds made a racket and the critters skittered around:
I put this willow tree in 7 years ago and it ballooned to 60 feet tall and now takes up 1/8th of my backyard, but I would not trade it for anything. I have a bunch under it I like to sit in and you can feel the wind and hear the rustling and the birds chirping.
youtube.com/shorts/pNJHO…
— Cake or Death (@johngcole.bsky.social) July 26, 2025 at 5:00 PM
There is some sort of fuckery afoot with youtube and the only way I can post a thirty second video to the public is through something they called shorts, which is fine, except for the fact that it does not have any embed link for me to post so I can post it here. To get around that I can post the short to bluesky and then embed that here.
All of which is to say whatever zen peace I gained relaxing while looking at my willow tree and listening to the birds might as well have been blasted into fucking space on one of Musk’s shitty fucking rockets because of the aggravating techbro douchebags at youtube pivoting to whatever the new fucking fad is.
It is also reasonable, dear reader, after twenty years of listening to me bellyache about fucking everything, to wonder if I really know what zen peace is in the first damned place.
A while back, Atrios (aka the Powder Blue Satan) and I were chatting on bluesky, and he noted, and I paraphrase, that around your 40’s you start to change into someone who likes looking at birds or thinking about trees or whatever it is you do that makes you actually feel something and a little less dead inside, or you just become an angry at the world bitter crank. I think I am leaning to the left, but man there are days. I get tested a lot in traffic and the grocery store. I can not tell you the number of times I have left a half a cart of stuff at a grocery store or put items down at another shop and just walked out whispering “Don’t go viral don’t go viral don’t go viral” as I hustled out to the car to shit there and breathe. And it’s never the fucking staff doing something to me. It’s always the fucking customers. Just the anger, the hostility, the cruelty, the vile shit they say to people and each other and the just the absolute bonkers behavior over something miniscule. I just have to get the fuck out of there or I will get involved. Obviously if someone is in danger I will stay, but for petty bullshit, I just do not need that shit in my life.
I know that one of the weird things about me is that I always act like I am older than Methuselah but I am only 55, but I feel older, and sort of always have felt older than my age if that makes any sense. I was a weird kid, too. Always acting out, hated authority, never much use for rules or laws that didn’t make any sense (and many that did but I just disregarded) and only felt comfortable around older men. When my parents had faculty events (Bethany was much larger and was a much more vibrant place when I was kid), I would always gravitate to this cranky old man who taught Brit Lit named John Taylor. He liked to do things like secretly feed me raisins while I sat on his lap until I would get sick. He later taught me some of the fundamentals of latin and for years I was the engineer running the boards for his weekly three hour classical show, the Ashbourne Hour. He died in the last decade in a car wreck. He had become a shell of himself but that shell was still a bigger personality than most every other person you will ever meet. The man acted more British than the actual Brits, had a sharp and quick wit and and equally sharp tongue and didn’t suffer fools lightly. He was also closeted his entire life but you would never know it, and one of the most profoundly faithful and religious men I have ever known. One of my cherished memories of him is his always being the chief pancake maestro at the Shrove Tuesday Pancake dinners and he wore this tiny apron that said “Never trust a skinny chef” bear hugging his proud, large, and extraordinarily round stomach.
And there was Mr. Graham, who had had a massive stroke and had a big crater in his temple, and was irritable and had personality shifts and chain smoked Merits, and no one would work with him because he was difficult and moody. But he really had a good heart, he just sometimes got confused at who he should be mad at, and he was a legend in 50’s rock and roll. I engineered his three hour Monday Night Oldies show from the age of 14 until I dropped out of college to join the army. He knew everything there was to know and it took a half hour to haul all his wooden racks of 45’s in and out every show. He would take me to oldies concerts like Jimmy Beaumont and the Skyliners.
And then there was Bill Chambers, the patriarch of the Chambers family at the time, and the proprietor of Chambers General Store, established in the 1910’s. His brother Dave was the Postmaster, his other brother Bob was a farmer and then later after Bill passed took over the store. Bob’s wife is Charlotte, my grade school teacher and Sunday school teacher, and her mother was Ruth, who was my next door neighbor growing up and who made the best fucking lemon meringue pie and lemon cookies I have ever had. Just thinking about it is making my eyes tear and my mouth water, they were that good. When Mrs. Myers passed my dad designed a three layer lemon cake with lemon custard in between each layer and named it the “Lemon Ruth” and it is my favorite cake in the world and he is making a topper for me and Joelle to eat half on the big day and another half in a year if she has not murdered me and buried me in the desert. Dessert or Desert in 365, it appears.
Another bit of lore- Bob and Charlotte had two sons, Robby and Harry, and Robby moved to Virginia and became a WILDLY successful farmer to the point that he had a massive operation and just retired and gave it to his boy and now spends time with grandkids. Robby was just a hulk of a man- every bit of 6’4-6″, shoulders so broad overalls looked like a tankini on him, with these ginormous hands made of fingers that look like muscular sausages. Every one of you who has lived in a rural area has known a gentle giant like him, the kind that always has a laid back approach and goofy aw shucks mannerism but can lift a fucking tractor while scolding you and only the biggest jackass in the world would ever ever fuck with him. Harry was in poultry for a while and moved back and took over the store, and I see him almost every morning if I am out and about. I go sit behind the counter and gossip like the old dudes did when I was a kid.
But back to Bill Chambers. Just a saint of a man. Was an old school butcher in the truest form. I honestly can’t even see him in my mind’s eye without him wearing one of those thin white aprons with beef juice on it. This was back when the beef was all locally sourced and hanging on hooks in the cooler and he would wheel out a hindquarter or a flank and you would point out what cut you wanted and he would butcher it right there. He was shorter in stature, maybe 5’9″ to 5’10”, with one of those droopy faces with the big turkey waddle neck. I spent hours up there with him, “helping” him by cleaning shelves and sweeping floors. And every afternoon we would have a root beer float, one of both of our favorite things. Bill had his vices. The doctor told him if he would quit smoking cigars he would live five years longer and he told him he didn’t want live five years without them and that was that. It infuriated my mother to no end when I was in the middle east and she was worried sick and sending me care packages and the only way she got any news was to up to Chambers and read the letter I had written to him. Just the worst fucking kid ever until my mid 20’s, to be honest. Just a wretched bastard.
And then there was Bill Young, the WW2 vet with one leg who I used to do chores for around the house. His house was the most magical smelling places ever. Just the aroma of polished leather and pipe smoke. He smoked his pipe so much his teeth on one side of his mouth were worn down to the point that if you paid attention it was slowly, over the years, altering the entire side of his face and his expression. He had a wheezy lap and went to the pool every day and swam laps. Watching am elderly man with one leg enter a college pool decades before the ADA passed is truly a triumph of willpower and endurance, and that man did it every day. I think of that some days to motivate my fat ass. “Fuckin’ Bill Young has his god damned leg blowed off in the war and he went to the pool every day and you don’t want to go because you stayed up an hour too late and didn’t sleep well GET THE FUCK OFF YOUR FAT ASS PRIVATE COLE.” He took me to Republican party meetings for years as a teen. I learned a lot from him.
So that’s what I do not understand about my generation and those in the one or two before me. What the fuck is wrong with you? What are you so angry about? I mean there were angry people when I was a kid. But they were the odd man out. They were always some miserable sons of bitches out there who would end up with their beater wrapped around a tree from driving drunk or shot themselves in the basement and everyone was told they had a heart attack. But now they are fucking everywhere and a lot of them are way too young to be that god damned angry at the world.
It has to be motivated by feeling vulnerable and scared, because otherwise it is hard to think about a world populated by people that broken who haven’t been driven to it by trauma, but by choice. I’m scared and I feel vulnerable, far more so than ever before. And it’s honestly an even split between current events and getting older. I worry about my parents. I worry about my friends and family. I worry about Joelle. I worry about my pets. I worry about money fucking constantly. I worry about my health- spent the first forty or so years trying to kill myself, now I’m doing everything I can to get in shape and stay alive. I worry about the country. I worry about fucking everything and I feel more vulnerable than ever because I am not as strong and physically capable as I once was, nor do I have the kind of financial security that I want.
I worry about getting married. I worry Joelle loves me too much. Sometimes she looks at me and I will say “why are you looking at me with those googly eyes” and she says ” nothing I just love you” and I say something to the effect “well stop it it’s really freaking me out.” I worry about moving and not having trees and wildlife. In short, I worry about fucking everything, and because I was blessed with the brain I have, I can worry about multiple things at a time while also hating myself and repressing a lot of shit.
So I don’t fucking get why these guys are out there just working over time being angry at all the wrong people and doing everything they can to make life harder for everyone else. I don’t fucking get it and it makes me hate them and that makes me hate myself more because I don’t want to be throwing that kind of shit out into the world. We’ve got enough of that energy out there- we’re saturated with it every where we look.
So I don’t get it. My experience these past 50+ years is that this shit is hard and even trying to do everything right which almost none of us do you are still under optimal conditions gonna fuck up half if it or more. Life is hard. Everyone likes to say life is short, which it is, but it’s also fucking long. It’s really long when life has been less kind to you than it has been to others. So the lesson I have learned is we should be trying to make this as easy as fucking possible for everyone. Can you imagine a world without the ADA? I know I have said this umpteen times before, but the entire fucking trans debate should be OVER the moment anyone looks at the suicide rates for lgtbq+ teens and adults and in particular people who identify as trans. The numbers are fucking terrifying. The only thing that should come out of ANY fucking politicians piehole when they talk about these kids is “How can we make life easier for them.” That is fucking it. Your one fucking job as a human should be to try to make their life easier.
It really should be that fucking simple. And it just pisses me off to no end it isn’t. Didn’t you assholes (not you, dear reader) have John Taylor’s and Bill Young’s and Bill Chambers’ when you were growing up? What the fuck is wrong with you? Who or what broke you?
Ok, so maybe I haven’t mellowed out totally. It’s also why it is so fucking refreshing to see guys like Tim Walz and Brad Lander and other in your face dudes stepping up. Like real people. I mean even Hunter Biden- that interview shocked me. Hunter Biden was like a LOT of guys I ran in circles with who barely pulled through and looks back at the crazy shit and is scared and wondering how they are still alive. If his dad weren’t famous he might not have had as many issues although dude went through a lot of trauma prior to that with his mom’s death, but had his family not been famous he might have pulled through his mess a little more privately and with more grace, although if he had been a random person of color he’d be incarcerated for life. Regardless, I’m ready for some muscular progressivism.
I was going to talk about other shit but I guess I got distracted, thank you for this therapy session. I am going to go eat peaches and watch Whitechapel.
stinger
After you mentioned Whitechapel the other day, I started watching it and am now in Season 3. Or series 3, whatever they call it. Really enjoying it, so thanks!
zhena gogolia
Wow, great post.
zhena gogolia
We watched Materialists last night. I adored this director’s first film, Past Lives. Materialists isn’t as good, but still quite interesting. Unfortunately they have marketed it as a romcom. It is not a romcom. Don’t wait for Matthew McConahey (I CANNOT SPELL HIS NAME AND WILL NOT TRY) to show up.
stinger
Joelle’s a lucky woman, and she knows it. And you’re a lucky man.
Nukular Biskits
I think that’s the most Cole has posted here on his own blog in … I’m not sure when.
Derelict
Perfect, John. I lurk 99.99% of the time, and I’ve been coming here since you first hung out your shingle. And this is definitely in the top 5 of your writings!
frosty
That was a great and moving story, JG Cole. What a bunch of wonderful old guys you had in your life while you were growing up.
I’m on Team Dessert365.
zhena gogolia
OMG PHIL DAVIS IS IN WHITECHAPEL I HAVE TO FIND IT
Scott Alloway
Truly, you are a special man. Our stories are slighty different, but at the same time evoke similar memories. Thank you, many times over, for what you have created with this page. You are a very specia;ma and I appreciate what you have brought into my life. Old timer here, 75 yo.
Jay
So, John.
A wet neckerchief wrapped around the neck, cools the blood flowing through the carotid arteries, and is more effective than a wet do rag or a wet baseball cap,(not a trucker cap). Both together are even better.
When I worked construction in summer in the heat of the Interior, I would keep a wet, frozen neckerchief and baseball cap in my lunch cooler as spares for the afternoon.
am
Don’t mellow out totally. It’s not called for. I enjoyed the post.
Percysowner
This may be more trouble than sending to bluesky and then embedding here, but google tells me how to get to an embedable link in YouTube.support.google.com/blogger/thread/174838426/how-can-i-embed-youtube-shorts-in-my-blog?hl=en
Instructions
If you have any link that looks like this:
youtube.com/shorts/Video-ID
You can change it to this:
youtube.com/watch?v=Video-ID
and you get the default video link on YouTube.
Actually, I tried just replacing the word shorts with the word watch in the url and it sent me to the YouTube version with embed code, instead of adding ?v=, both work.
Kristine
This is the most you’ve written in ages, Cole, and I enjoyed every word.
Thinking about that Lemon Ruth cake. I love lemon just about anything.
My favorite Old Person thing to do so far this summer is to sit out on the deck around dusk and listen to the wood thrush—lovely song— then watch the fireflies and bats. Sometimes the local coyotes offer their two cents. Then Arcturus pops out—I wish on it, then go inside.
HinTN
@Derelict: Top five for damn sure. Cole’s got a big brain and we’re lucky he chooses to share it with us. Dessert 365 it is!
NetheadJay
Man, this is a helluve good post, Cole. And Joelle knows a good dude when she sees one.
Don’t commens a whole lot but I’ve been hanging around these parts since the Schiavo days and there’s a reason for that.
Aimai
John I just love you so much. You don’t know it but I think you are actually a bodhisattva. The way you write is like a buddhist jattaka tale. One could teach it in a class on buddhism.
WTFGhost
Can you zone out under a willow tree, to the point that Joelle could probably sneak up on you, if she was the kind of person to do that? Can you just feel that sense of peace *being* there, in the moment?
Okay: she can get that same moment looking at you. Now, it’s okay to feel awkward about that, but, I would recommend not saying it’s freaking you out if you can avoid it – and I say that, so that you don’t ruin her moment under her personal willow tree, i.e., thinking of you.
Now, Imma make another ghost speech, might be short, might be long, but: in my life, everything is different from everyone else’s, okay, and that’s because I’ve been in pain all my life, and I didn’t know it. I just knew I felt grumpy and cranky and hated to do things, even stuff that was easy.
So I get the idea of an overactive brain that jumps to how things are going to go to shit, because, typically, every worry I can think about, is something I wish I had done more about, but, I couldn’t do more, because I was too tired, and in too much pain, and, most importantly, if I wasn’t careful to scan for stupidity, I was likely to do multiple stupid things, or forget multiple important things.
So the brain was actually a cleanup mode for my brain, which I knew wasn’t doing certain things right.
Long story short, obviously, eventually I realized that some of the feelings that make me cranky, some of the feelings that make me hate to have to do something, some of the feelings that make me hate to have to be alive, those are all, real, honest-to-goodness pain, and somewhat treatable.
Final bit: I’ve always had this thing about me, like, “WTF are you so angry about, you’re not me!?”
Now, even if you choose not to treat pains, recognizing that you might have pains, that you don’t quite recognize are pains, might help you with emotional stability. My pain can very easily trigger both bad memories, and bad emotions, which doesn’t make sense, until you realize it’s a bunch of “noise” my brain is struggling to interpret.
I used to think I had a really toxic head, and few skills at protecting and maintaining my own emotional stability, because, again, pain would trigger psychological symptoms, cause bad memories to pop up, and make me ineffective at the things I wanted to do, but, again, it was just too much pain for my normal emotional handling tricks to work, and too much exhaustion from constant emotional wrangling to want to handle my emotions in the first place.
I don’t know what normal people are like, but I know that if their bodies went through the same motions I did, they wouldn’t be in the same sad, sorry, shape I was in, so, I’m challenging you to consider the other side – is it possible you’re less well than you realize, but, that lack of wellness isn’t what you expect?
ruckus
But now they are fucking everywhere and a lot of them are way too young to be that god damned angry at the world.
John, I’m probably at least a couple decades older than you and am not actually amazed that you don’t get it. In the last 75 years the population growth has been significant. The current US population is considered to be 342,034,432. The population when I was born was 148,558,000. So over doubled in 75 years. In the year 40 years before I was born the population was 92,407,000. Now my point is that with more people there will be more people reaching adulthood with likely not as much of a concept of a future in their picture. And you likely know what that feels like because most of us do at some point or other. I was born very shortly after WWII ended and before the Korean War. Then of course we had the Vietnam war, when I was old enough for the draft. My point is that we that age we likely have some concept of adulthood, very likely nothing like how it turns out but still we think we see the future, or at least some kind of it. How often are we wrong? 90%, 75%, 50%? We can’t tell the future, we can believe it will work out something reasonable and for most humans I’d bet they were maybe 50% correct. At best. It’s life, it can be great, it can suck donkey balls, and we really don’t have a lot of control of which. Now some will learn how to roll with the punches better than others, some will have fewer punches to roll with, some will be black and blue most of their lives. We can learn to roll with the punches, especially the imaginary ones and make it better but it will very likely be nothing like you imagined as kid or teen. But the most important part? Understanding so that you don’t get overrun by depression. Changing for the better what you can, learning to live with what you can’t, and looking around and seeing that life can be pretty damn good even if it isn’t what you imagined or even close to it, if you let it.
I’ve been reading/commenting on this blog for around 20 years now and seeing how I and others have grown and found a commonality on line is pretty damn great. Think how life was before blogs. Back fences? Bars? That’s a rather limited exposure to other humans.
You’ve given us a pretty damn good huge back fence here online.
robtrim
May the force be with you, John. The planet earth has now succumbed to unspeakable tragedy. The Death Star is the only solution.
Nukular Biskits
I have nothing else to report tonight other than the back porch is now screened in (with some minor touch-ups left to do).
And today while feeding the roses (5 gallon buckets with a 1/8″ hole drilled in the bottom, filled with a “bloom booster” mix), a snake came out from under one of the drift roses to … get a drink, I guess.
I haven’t told Ms. Biskits.
Grumpy Old Railroader
Ayup. When I was a young and dumb brakeman, I always enjoyed sitting with the old heads and hearing the yarns about steam engines and railroads of yore.
Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain
And you are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
Sun is the same, in a relative way, but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.
Here is a typical story in the olden days of railroading: I was called to work a North Drag (empties) as a head brakeman (a brakeman on the “Head” end of the train). The engineer was known to be a rough train handler in that the slack would run in and run out and you could feel it yank you around even on the heavy locomotive. We hadn’t gone but about 20 miles on our trip when the train “big holed” (“big hole” is when a train loses its train line air pressure and all the brakes set up). In fact the conductor had pulled the plug (open the air gauge) on the caboose and sent the rear brakeman (as in “rear of the train”) hiking up to the head end with a message. Upon arriving at the head end, the rear brakeman yelled up at the hoghead (engineer): “The conductor sez yer beating us to death back there on the caboose. Find a better method of train handling.” Well now the hoghead was angry and when we started off again, he notched all the way to run eight (floored the gas pedal). Then when we had to slow down a bit for a speed restriction, instead of using the train line air to apply brakes equally throughout the train, the engineer used “The Jam” (Independent brake valve applies locomotive brakes only). After having the train stretched before braking, there was a hell of a run-in of the slack in the train cars. We did the same maneuver one more time and then the train “big holed” again. After a short while the rear brakeman again arrived at the head end and yelled up at the engineer (after first doffing his hat): “The conductor sez to tell you the caboose stove tipped over and also the water bottle fell off the cooler and broke and if you would be so kind, please go back to your original method of train handling.“
satby
@Aimai: he’s truly a mensch.
zhena gogolia
Okay, sorry, Phil Davis or no Phil Davis (and he is superb), too gory for me!
mrmoshpotato
Ask the orange, manbaby bitchass who’s destroying the US government, and the generations-old relationships we’ve had with our allies.
Probably has something to do with that Kremlin-humping, orange, Nazi bitch who wants to bang his own daughter.
Tehanu
Seconded, both.
Ohio farmer
While I am a couple years younger than our esteemed host, and took a much different path to get here….. man I feel much the same way…. Look around at people my same age and am baffled at how they can be so angry at people they have never met….
thank you for such great writing
Steve LaBonne
Cole, Joelle loves you just the right amount.
BellyCat
I needed this. Thank you JC.
Steve LaBonne
@Ohio farmer: I have been able to exclude such people from my life. My social circle is my UU church friends and my fellow amateur musicians, all terrific people. I have a wife who is my best friend. I am incredibly blessed.
laura
Good gravy Mister, you’re going to get married and fall in love so hard and take to married life like winning the lotto. That’s gonna be closer than the willow.
Melancholy Jaques
Anger’s like a drug with some people. It’s like they go out of their way to find things to be angry about. Like people who are in a rage about things that either don’t exist or don’t really impact them. The anger about immigrants is like that.
eclare
Great post, John. I also wonder why people are so angry. I first noticed it in a former ( key word former) friend of mine around 2014. This guy was white, straight, had a stable family life growing up, got a great college education.
I met him at work where he had a fairly high powered job. He then relocated and bought a high rise condo in an upscale area of Miami. And slowly turned into an angry person. Was it all because of Obama being elected and then Hillary running? I don’t know. But the timing suggests it.
He had every advantage growing up and in work, yet none of it made him happy or grateful. Oh and he had girlfriends, so not an incel. But I have no doubt he is full MAGA now.
Eta> to add detail I am also 55, this guy was a few years younger.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Might one suggest something less graphic? A Touch of Frost. 42 episodes spread over 15 seasons.
Currently streaming on BritBox or for free with ads on The Roku Channel.
Martin
Well, this can’t possibly go wrong.
Will note that district funding in most places is based on attendance. Anything going on nationally with education funding?
Trivia Man
@HinTN: has to fill that giant melon with something!
Steve LaBonne
@Martin: WTF
dnfree
I have a relative by marriage who is in his early 60s, great guy, mild-mannered, teaches and coaches cross-country. I don’t see him often, but recently we were talking and I mentioned how adamant my parents were, in the 1950s, that we be respectful of every person regardless of race, color, creed, or anything else. I told him that I came home with the N-word as part of “Eeny, meeny, miney, mo”, when I was about four, learned from a neighbor, and my mom lit into me so fiercely that I can’t say that word to this day. (She told me I could say “catch a tiger by the toe” instead.)
My cousin by marriage told me that, to the contrary, he grew up in a family where the N-word flew constantly. He said his attitude was changed by teachers and coaches he had, not by family. They taught him to respect everyone. They, in his words, civilized him.
I mention this just to agree that the influence of other adults is significant.
stinger
@zhena gogolia:
@zhena gogolia: I don’t care for the visual treatment—gory scenes, jittery and distorted images—but the stories are good, King John I mean Phil Davis is wonderful, and I figured out when to look away!
zhena gogolia
@stinger: But you have Claire Rushbrook narrating everything even if you do look away!
I think of Phil Davis as the murderous cabdriver on Sherlock. But also as Jud on Poldark and the guy in Bleak House who has Judy shake him up. He’s always, always brilliant.
mrmoshpotato
@stinger:
Seconded.
Jay
@Martin:
The US is busy making “communicable diseases great again”.
Sorry that Alberta took the Measles Trophy away from Tex-ass, but hey, they are Sask are “our” Tex-ass.
In other news, in a “Notice to Mariners”, the TSB has issued an alert to not go within 1nm of the US coastline, as the USCG, the USBPT and ICE are raiding into Canadian waters to kidnap Canadian citizens.
Jackie
@Martin: School funding vs measles outbreak… not alone flu or Covid. What could possibly go wrong?
dnfree
@Martin: We have a family member who was out of school sick a lot—one year enough days to be considered truant, but she wasn’t—just sick a lot. Flash forward to adulthood and turns out there’s a problem with her immune system, often not diagnosed until later years. I’m glad her school system didn’t either try to make her come to school sick or punish her.
Not to mention the ridiculousness of exposing other students, teachers, and such staff to illnesses. Are they nuts??
Craig
Thanks John. This is why I come here, the damn quality of the writing and thinking. Now I’m thinking of the friends my parents had, some just outstanding people. I’ve got your willow tree looping on my laptop and it’s transcendently relaxing.
different-church-lady
Bravo!
seefleur
Delurking just to say that this is a beautiful essay – and there are not nearly enough John Cole’s out there. You have absolutely written what I have been wondering about for several years. So much anger and unnecessary assholery out in the world, and why? The jackals and John Cole are good folk – and knowing that you are out there makes the stupid a little easier to cope with. Thanks!
Dahlia
Perhaps for some people, being angry helps them forget how frightened they are.
RevRick
What you are describing John sounds to me like symptoms of late stage capitalism mixed with “Christian “ nationalism. The former makes promises it can never keep, and the latter makes demands that can never be met. There has always been businesses doing advertising… for as long as there has been this thing we call civilization. But in the 1920s, advertising entered a new dimension of persuasion. For the most part, before that, advertising strove to give their products an identity that it will deliver clean hands and faces or a reliable set of tires. But in the 20s advertisers started associating the brands they were promoting with things of desired emotional value. Cars weren’t just means to get from point A to point B. They became instruments of freedom or family fun (the Sunday drive). Vacuum cleaners and washing machines became instruments of liberation. Radio brought the world to your living room.
The hard years of the Great Depression and World War II brought a temporary halt to this process, but it returned with a vengeance in the postwar years.
Think about the soap that claimed Dial takes the worry out of being close. It was making a dual promise. One, you wouldn’t stink. Two, it takes away all your social anxiety. Modern advertising plays on our emotional needs. And, indeed, for whatever product or service being peddled there is always a hint of some version of secular salvation. Viagra anyone?
Or how about those Subaru commercials touting its safety and defining love as a Subaru?
Meanwhile, at the other end of business, malls, which promised to replicate downtown in a safe, climate controlled environment, chewed up actual downtowns, and big box stores like Home Depot destroyed hardware, paint, plumbing supply, electrical equipment, lighting and floor covering stores. Not only did they sink a lot of small businesses, they also destroyed a whole social ecology where lingering creates familiar interplay. The loss of community is palpable.
Capitalism promises us a better life, but many feel lonely and isolated and bored and helpless and hopeless.
Meanwhile, “Christian” nationalism promises to fix these ills by hurling us back to a state religion setting the rules for everything. It promises to solve the rot by ruthlessly evicting those it deems are the cause of our social problems. All it demands is abject obedience. No more of that everyone gets to choose nonsense. You choose what you are told to choose or else. That, of course, always leads to the gulag archipelago. But this totalitarian regime begins with a sense of unease and dread. The world is falling apart and in response they demand it obey their commands.
There is no balm in the Gilead that Atwood has conjured.
Capitalism and “Christian “ nationalism exist in tension with each other and are also bosom buddies. They promise a worldly salvation, a quick fix to life’s vicissitudes and complications. One offers pleasure, the other threatens pain. Aldous Huxley and George Orwell wrote books about these dystopias.
Miss Bianca
JC, we love you, and I’m not sure whether I want to make the eleventy-millionth joke about the willow or just say, “damn, Skippy…great post.”
mrmoshpotato
@Martin: The GOP really hates children.
Bupalos
Princess
I get this.
Bupalos
All of our lives are highly contingent. Write all the people who made you who you are out of your story, just imagine they hadn’t been there, that you hadn’t gotten lucky like that. Replace them with someone shitty and miserable. Replace the people who saved you with people who abused you. Imagine yourself with all the good things taken away, which could have happened.
That’s how I try to ‘get it.’ Some people draw that hand. Sucks to be them and sucks for the rest of us that they exist and also…. there but for the grace of god….
Elizabelle
Great essay, John. Loved hearing about all those wonderful friends and mentors, and the Lemon Ruth cake. Rest in power, all.
CaseyL
That is one helluva post, John. I wish we, your loving and loyal BJ community, could convince you what an excellent person you are, and that you deserve to be loved in a googly-eyed way. But maybe some of the reason you are someone we love so much is because you doubt yourself all the time, and are constantly striving to live up to a version of yourself you half-doubt exists. (Narrator: He does, in fact, exist.)
Bupalos
Of all the fucked up shit going on, I literally cannot quite believe the degree to which Republicans are actively trying to accelerate climate change. Going so far out of their way, just to make things worse.
Are folks aware that you now get a tax credit for digging coal for export, and have to pay an extra tax to deploy wind or solar? Like, just because?
prostratedragon
“Time Waits for No One,” the Rolling Stones
Today is Mick Jagger’s 82nd.
mrmoshpotato
@Jay:
WTF?!
Jackie
@mrmoshpotato: Here’s the sordid story:
Craig
@RevRick: I always appreciate your comments. Thanks
eclare
Yay! Flamingos in today’s photo.
mrmoshpotato
@Jackie: Yeah. I saw a map posted on Bluesky earlier. The guy was in Canadian waters. Fuck Donald Trump.
mrmoshpotato
@eclare: Go go go! Go flamingos!
Martin
@Jackie: Yeah, my sense is that this is a financial decision by the district and they’re dressing it up as best they can.
The real challenge is the bill passed includes a school voucher program for anyone earning below 300% of the median gross income for a district to take their kid to a private school. 300% of median probably means 95% of residents qualify, and this is a R+60 or thereabouts county up against the border of WV. Private school might be a really attractive option there, and of course that voucher for the private school is paid for by pulling funding for the public one. How do you maintain the public funding for the students you have left? Make sure they hit the attendance sheet.
So, one of the things you look out for when doing college admissions are the private school kids. If your kid gets expelled from public school for drugs or weapons or whatever where do they go? Usually to the local religious HS. They got pretty big enrollment boosts as zero tolerance policies in public schools gained popularity so you give those applications a close eye to see if they did get into trouble, did they work to overcome it or are they still trouble. I’m guessing households with kids that hit those 7 absences are going to take a real good look at that voucher.
If the voucher program takes off, it’s going to fuck a LOT of school districts, particularly smaller ones. And there is going to be a fuckton of grift on the other side of it.
Martin
@mrmoshpotato: 51st state one citizen at a time.
We’re deporting them over there so we don’t have to deport them over here.
ColoradoGuy
One of Saint Reagan’s legacies: overturning the Fairness Doctrine, opening the door to Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and an entire industry of hate media. This kind of broadcasting is forbidden in the rest of the world … because they’ve had direct of experience of fascism, and don’t want to go back.
You wonder where all the hate comes from? That’s been poisoning the minds of millions for more than a generation.
The other legacy of Saint Reagan? Dropping the top marginal tax rate from 70% to 35%, creating a generation of billionaires.
Martin
@Bupalos: By 2050 the entire east coast of the US is expected to have at least several days each year where it will be too hot to work outside, even in the shade, for even short periods of time. And even if you are indoors you will be at risk of heatstroke and death if you don’t have AC. Fans and swamp coolers will no longer suffice. In the southeast it’s forecast that may last for weeks.
Even if we hit net zero in 2050, it would stay that way for decades.
Anne Marie
Another decade+-long lurker popping out to say thanks for this excellent post.
Mr. Bemused Senior
John, first thank you for creating this community that has welcomed me. Also, my advice as far as Joelle is, she has good judgement, just go with it.
As for the anger, I can’t explain it. What shocked me is that so many people are so angry. I have to accept, though, that it’s real. To me it says that there’s something very wrong with our society. Sure, there are lots of reasons and things amplifying it. For one, as Adam has pointed out, we are under constant attack from Russia.
I have one family member who has that anger. He was very close to Bemused Senior. I’m doing my best to understand.
Like others write, we love you. Be well, stay sane, keep writing.
Martin
Ms Martin is watching a documentary on balloon boy and I’m reminiscing that day here on the site when the helicopters were laughing.
Marc
I’ve had my own lifelong issues with anger going back to childhood. The triggering mechanisms are different, but I can imagine there are other anxieties that could bring about that same sense of (mostly) impotent rage against the world. I spent half a century working in the computer industry and all I have to show for it is my own little part in building a world spanning network of sociopaths. No need for Russians, they just reinforced what was always there. Us black people have seen it aimed at us the entire time we’ve been “free”.
danielx
It’s a short life and a cold world, John. Where’s there’s love freely given and returned, grab it and hold on for all you’re worth,. Don’t let go. Also too – you’re a mensch, and no compliment was ever more sincerely meant.
As for the anger…I don’t understand it, no more more than others. Example: I have seen these pictures of these Trump boat parades which feature a bunch of people who can afford to spend a shit ton of money. One definition of a boat being a hole in the water into which one throws money. What the fuck do they have to be angry about? Anybody who can afford to run an expensive boat occupies a privileged position in American society , why are they so pissed?
Aside from the racist shithead angle, which I get and also don’t get.
Msb
You are a world-class worrier; you make me look like an amateur. One day at a time.
Jackie
Off topic, but this just…
Jackie
I’m in moderation. My nym got messed up. Trying again.
MagdaInBlack
@RevRick: As always with your comments, Rick, thank you.
Omnes Omnibus
IMO, as often as not, anger is masking fear. The fear can be rational or irrational, but it is there.
eclare
@Jackie:
God. That is so tragic. RIP.
hotshoe
@Jay: I read 1nm as 1-nanometer.
Took a second and third look to figure out Nautical Mile.
I figure that one mile distance means there are some boundary-water rivers and lakes in Maine and Minnesota where Canadians cannot even step into the water because it’s not a whole mile wide?
If overamped ICE assholes are gonna start crossing the invisible border to kidnap Canadians, there must be hundreds of miles of unfenced border along North Dakota, Montana and Washington State where it would be easy to set foot on the wrong side.
It’s too remote for me, that’s for sure, but it’s not too remote for trappers and hunters.
When does the shooting and then shooting-back start?
JCJ
Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to the Dark Side – Yoda
MagdaInBlack
@Jay: Gotta meet those quotas and catch those evil fentanyl smugglers.
Matt McIrvin
I think I’m too oblivious to get angry at random asshole behavior in the supermarket. Wrapped up in my other worries. I get mad reading the news and feel OK around just folks.
I think bigotry explains 99% of this mad guy behavior. When we were kids, the civil rights movement had happened and feminism was happening, there was already a backlash, but straight white guys didn’t yet have a visceral feeling that they were no longer automatic kings of the world. And I think they have that feeling now. And they feel the problem is somehow that life is too easy for people not like them, and they want to make life harder even at their own expense.
Ksmiami
@Mr. Bemused Senior: we don’t have a society that’s moving forwards, nor a government that works to better society. Doubly so under asshat Republicans.
Matt McIrvin
My big thing is guilt. I look at the state of the world or people being horrible and my first instinct is to look for the way that it’s my fault. Because I can’t punish the people directly responsible, but I can sure punish myself just by ruminating about it.
There’s always some way, right? There’s always some tenuous connection between me and every atrocity in the world. I did or said something wrong 20 or 30 years ago, or I associated with bad people or with people who associated with bad people in some way, or I participate in a tainted system just by living my life.
I didn’t feel this way as a kid because I knew I had no power, and I resented that. But I was a worrier about everything even then, and the focus of the worry just changed. I was the opposite of John, an obsessive rule-follower invested in being Good. And then the idea that following the rules could sometimes be Bad gave me new things to worry about.
I find complicated, grandiose utilitarian arguments for my life having negative value. I worry that absolutely everything is evil, that even love is evil because it drives you to prioritize one person over another in an unjust way. It gets worse in times of bad politics, but it clearly doesn’t make me politically effective, probably the reverse.
Matt McIrvin
(And I think the reason I seek out the kind of angry leftists who rag mostly on liberals is that it validates my free-floating guilt. When I was a little kid living among, but not raised by, a lot of religious conservatives, I worried a lot that maybe they were right when they said I was raised wrong and my soul was in danger from Satan. I’ve matured beyond that but the judgey Communist version of that same kind of talk can still get to me.)
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
The comparison to evangelicals is apt.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: I suggest you vary your social media intake some. Check out Ragnarok Lobster on Bluesky every now and then.. Angry leftists and judgy Communists don’t make Mr. Lobster feel guilty, not by a long shot. They just activate his sarcasm power.
Princess
@Jackie: This is a disgusting story. I’ve been on those shared lakes in Quebec my entire life and believe me, residents know exactly which part of the lake is Canadian and which isn’t. We used to go often to a large island which has one small point in the US — just rocks and trees. Apparently now there’s a big barrier across it and you can’t walk there. Ridiculous. It’s private property so it’s not like Americans can use it either. The US is shitting in its own bed with this stuff.
Baud
Baud
They hate us more than they love themselves.
Thor Heyerdahl
Thank you John. This was a wonderfully written piece.
Baud
Baud
@Baud:
Follow up.
Baud
Baud
Baud
Iowa heroes
Betty Cracker
Great post, John. You may not know it, but YOU are a Bill Chambers.
Geminid
From Turkish journalist Ragip Soylu:
The pause is from 10am to 6pm local time, or 3am to 1pm Eastern Daylight Time. We should know more this evening about the results of this 10 hour pause.
The IDF said that the pauses would continue in coming days but as Israeli journalist Noga Tarnoplsky points out, the Israeli government isn’t saying anything:
After the pause was announced last night, Tarnopolsky posted this from London-based Ghanem Nuselbeh:
David
Thanks Grumpy Old Railroader for your Roger Waters lyrics. He is by far my favorite songwriter. Not sure how John got so wound up yesterday. I enjoyed it very much although where I live in the wicked northeast I don’t encounter much public anger.
Just an 85 y/o lurker mouthing off.
Barry
This was very nice, John.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
This. Now they’re in workplaces with Blacks and other minorities, and lots of women who know their shit. And some white men are fine with this – I certainly was – but if they were mediocre but still getting by in a largely white male world, now they’re finding they can’t compete, and it scares them.
I think this is what they say the problem is, even to themselves, while doing their best to wall off from themselves what they know deep down: that they’re just not up to competing with all these women and minorities. It’s the revolt of the losers.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
The losers are revolting.
Geminid
@Geminid: Axios reporter Barak Ravid put up a story ladt night giving more details on the humanitarian pause and the Israeli government’s decision to institute it, titled “Israel to implement humanitarian pause after international pressure”
Ed. I have to fix the link.
https://www.axios.com/2025/07/26/israel-gaza-humanitarian-pause-air-drop-foo
Gaah! This link might work in a while, I dunno. I’ll blame WordPress if it doesn’t and try again in an answer to this post.
Professor Bigfoot
I’m horribly late to the discussion; and whilst I hold JC in the very highest esteem, the “angry guy” thing he sees is, to me, the bog standard American white man.
Seems like white men are massively pissed off these days all the time.
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
I’m confident Cole would support an angry black woman too, but I think you’re correct that it needs to be an angry white guy to have any chance at being an electoral winner.
Side note: From what little I’ve seen Mamdani, he does not present as angry, even as a lot of people online say that’s what they want to see. I suspect Mamdani made the same calculation as Obama that angry wouldn’t work.
Princess
@Professor Bigfoot: Frankly, on the left too — the dirt bag left. They’re as angry with us as the right is.
RileysEnabler
Thank you, JC. That was a soul-filling essay and I needed that calm and gentle nature this morning.
Speaking of lemon, my mother used to make very good “lemon squares”, which were a firm lemon curd over a shortbread style crust. I have tried at least 50 recipes and none come close to the tenderness or taste. Does anyone have a really good recipe for lemon bars? Mom is too far into her dementia journey to be able to recall her source. But boy, they were really tasty.
Baud
Just because people hate Republicans doesn’t mean they’re going to give up the things Republicans offer them.
Scout211
And just because Democratic voters are big mad at their own politicians doesn’t mean they will vote Republican or Independent.
Baud
@Scout211:
Correct. Many loyal Dem voters will do the morally right thing despite the self hatred.
Professor Bigfoot
@RevRick: Rev, you’re a very wise man; your parishioners(?) are lucky to have you.
As are we. 🙏🏾
prostratedragon
@RevRick:
See also the career of Edward Bernays, who did much to popularize the use of the word “propaganda” beyond the papl archives. Key events: the 1929 Torches of Freedom parade of women down 5th Avenue to promote smoking, and the 1934 Green Ball, described in the wiki article. Remember, you’ve got to be seen green.
Professor Bigfoot
100% this, and I shoulda said it the first time.
Professor Bigfoot
I KNOW you’ve been around these parts long enough to remember ABL’s stint as a front pager, so…
For a straight white guy from West Virginia, JC is an open-minded, thoughtful, INTELLIGENT, and well informed human. A damned good human.
But that accentuates how special the guy is, because he’s not a “bog standard white guy” angry (consciously or unconsciously) that the value of whiteness itself is being diminished.
That’s the anger I see; and it seems entirely endemic among white men… and almost nobody else.
Geminid
@Geminid: I’ll try linking to Ravid’s article again:
https://www.axios.com/2025/07/26/israel-gaza-humanitarian-pause-air-drop-foo
This one works.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
Axios’ ‘Why it matters’:
Hey Axios: how about “Because Israel is starving people to death in Gaza.”
Yeah, I know: that would be taking sides. Facts are like that.
p.a.
@Baud: WSJ paywalled, but Dems minus infinity because… ? Maybe the perception is they’re not fighting tRumpism hard enough? IIRC even many Dems slant “only Dems have agency.”
Help me Obi-wan-O’Democrat, you’re my only hope 🤷🏻
Librettist
@p.a.:
They still big mad for shiving Joe. This one isn’t going away, and party “thought leaders” might want to give some thought.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: I don’t know if you mess with Twitter but if you do, you could bring this up with Barak Ravid.
I’ve noticed that a lot of pro-Palestinian accounts report on Barak Ravid’s articles. They value him as a reliable reporter with good sources, not for any advocacy journalism. They can do that themselves.
wonkie
The anger…given the fucked state of the world and the reality that everything is just going to get worse, why aren’t more people visibly angry?
The fleas are so bad that wild animals are dying of anemia. Horrific climate events are so common that they aren’t even news anymore. People are being starved to death deliberately in Isreal. America is a fascist state with a third-rate Mussolini who GOT ELECTED.
That’s for starters.
Why are so many white men angry? I think anyone who has their head a tiny bit outside their butt is angry. And I think we make choices, consciously or unconsciously, about how to handle it. I do political work–GOTV mostly–and spend a lot of time daydreaming, escaping from reality. It’s either that or suicide. I focus on being happy within the circle of my immediate life while making sure that I do contribute to fighting back while also making sure that I don’t let myself really understand how bad everything is.
But what about white men? I think that men in general don’t get training on how to manage their emotions and white men in particular aren’t used to being fucked by forces larger than them. I’m making very broad generalizations, of course. My point is that within the context of people living on the brink of global disaster with every indication that the future is totally going to suck, a lot of people are mad but those who grew up with the expectation of being able to have a contented life without having to fight for it are probably angrier than those who come from a background of always having to fight–especially if that background is combined with socialization that emphasizes controlling one’s emotions.
That’s my theory anyway.
I think I am handling the end of everything that matters to me fairly well because I have been expecting it all of my life.
I can’t even imagine the rage of someone young and starting out. I have no idea why people have children.
We all need to have a willow tree in our lives and we need to go sit under it sometimes.
Elizabelle
@Geminid: I googled Barak Ravid, and it appears the article is now u on MSN, for anyone who doesn’t want to give Axios the click.
Amazed to hear Axios has a well-regarded reporter. I thought they were a bunch of clickbait political reporting lightweights. Vibe-ists, if you will.
stinger
@zhena gogolia:
Whitechapel season 3 has a young Endeavor!
Kayla Rudbek
@Marc: being a woman in STEM, I have a lot of anger (although I had a bad temper and got easily irritated and angry even as a small child). Being short and female means that the world is built for men who are at least 8 inches taller than I am, with absolutely no thought as to accommodate short people without as much physical strength. Napoleon complex/bad temper of short people probably comes about from all the irritation with the world not accommodating short people.
I have gotten a bit more patient with the people working front line service jobs as I get older and realize it’s mostly not their fault that the customer service is bad. It’s the fault of the CEOs, CFOs, and the other bean counters whose only god and purpose in life is money, and who won’t hire enough people or give them enough authority to actually fix things. “Whenever anyone asks, ‘why don’t they…’ the answer is always money” (and/or power in my opinion).
Being old enough to haul my knitting everywhere I can also helps with patience (there’s a joke/saying in the knitting community that “I knit so that I do not kill people,” this is one of the jokes that I think is true).
Kayla Rudbek
@hotshoe: was it Jay who pointed out just how close some of the American nuclear weapons are to the Canadian border? I am absolutely sure that the Canadian military is updating the old war games about dealing with an American invasion.
WTFGhost
It’s not plain bigotry that explains the behavior. It’s the constant right wing messaging, “you can’t get a job because DEI takes all the good jobs, and gives them to Black people, women, Hispanics, and, recently, migrants.”
Some go further, saying “jobs have been dumbed down so they can be given away to anyone,” which only makes sense if you’re a complete idiot, but, we’re talking to people who listen to right wing hate radio, so, “complete idiot,” is the target audience.
Now, does this belief lead to bigotry? Of course… but it doesn’t just *come* from bigotry, it had to be carefully nurtured.
Otherwise, people might notice that employers have been trying to cram down worsening pay and employment conditions to employees for decades, so that it’s hard to make an honest living.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
I figure stuff like their ‘why it matters’ paragraphs are Axios editors, not the work of each writer. They just seem to be part of its branding.
I could be wrong, though.
Kayla Rudbek
@RevRick: yeah, one of the Lord Peter mysteries (I think that was Dorothy Sayers writing in the 1920s-1930s) was set in an advertising agency and she was making these points too.
Unfortunately I think that we can blame planned obsolescence in technology on the early bicycle industry of the 1890s (companies bringing out new models every year, the precursor to the car industry) although maybe they borrowed the concept from the fashion industry…
Princess
I’ll probably repost this on a fresher thread but it needs to be read — testimony from one of Trump’s victims. Triggers are child rape and racist language. Kate Manne who posts it is reliable. Make up your own mind about its veracity:
katemanne.substack.com/p/the-actual-conspiracy-theory-surrounding?r=pal7t&utm_medium=ios&t…
Kayla Rudbek
@Professor Bigfoot: I think there’s a lot of bitterness and anger among white women as well (the whole “Karen” meme/putdown/insult, although if you want to apply it to the GenXers, call the bitter/angry/mean women Heather instead).
I can fall into that mode fairly easily, although as I get older I try to reserve it for situations where it is needed and where I think that making a fuss can make a difference.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Professor Bigfoot: I’m a white guy but not particularly angry. I mean I’m angry right now, livid in fact, about what the Administration is doing. And I have more reasons than most to be angry because I’m a federal worker. I live in the DC area which is dealing with the brunt of DOGE crap. But I can compartmentalize and still treat everyone around me with a reasonable amount of courtesy and respect. And that’s true of all the other white guys I interact with. But we all voted for Kamala.
The guys who invested their time and passions in Trump were already kind of angry. Now he has just screwed a whole bunch of them over and they know it. They know their kids are on school lunch programs. They know they’re on Medicaid. Some of them probably depend on SNAP. The performative cruelty against people they hate isn’t enough of a counterweight to make up for the shit sandwich they’re being dealt by their guy. They can’t admit yet that he screwed them right good so gotta pretend someone else is to blame, but they know who is to blame.
So they’re mad they got sold out and worried about health care and making ends meet and on top of that eventually having to hear some liberal say “I told you so dumbass” at some point in the near future. That’s my theory on anger in small town and rural areas. In my experience it doesn’t apply so much to larger cities but I could definitely see it applying to a lot of WV.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Bemused Senior’s mother gave her a poster of Lucy van Pelt, “the crabby little girls of today are the crabby old women of tomorrow!”
Layer8Problem
@Kayla Rudbek: ” . . . one of the Lord Peter mysteries (I think that was Dorothy Sayers writing in the 1920s-1930s) was set in an advertising agency . . . ”
Murder Must Advertise
zhena gogolia
@Princess: Thank you. That is well worth reading. I remember all this, so I’m surprised by all the surprise about his Epstein connections.
ETA: I couldn’t stand to read the testimony at the end, but the main story gives the gist of it.
Sister Golden Bear
I’m insufficiently caffeinated to be more eloquent, so I’ll just say that absolutely beautiful, John. Thank you!
Princess
@zhena gogolia: I don’t blame you. Maybe the most telling part of that testimony for me was all her reports that of his racist language. It all tracks so closely with the Trump we know since her testimony in 2016; it really confirmed its authenticity for me. It’s all there — the n word, fantasies about deporting Muslims and Latinos. It’s him.
zhena gogolia
@Princess: Yes, that’s what strikes me. Absolutely compatible with the man we know.
Just me
@wonkie: Thank you for validating how I feel about things. I live in a relatively rural area of N GA without much industry or farming. But in my 32 years here, the loss of many flora and fauna devastates me. You put into words how I feel.
Just me
@wonkie: Thank you for validating how I feel about things. I live in a relatively rural area of N GA without much industry or farming. But in my 32 years here, the loss of many flora and fauna devastates me. You put into words how I feel, especially the part about losing important things because you have expected it your whole life.
Geminid
@Elizabelle: Barak Ravid seems to be well-respected in his field. I first ran into him through Laura Rozen, who I’ve found to be a reliable curator of other journalists’ work. I’d run into Rozen through Cheryl Rofer
Ravid is ~46 years-old, and worked his way up in Israeli journalism. Then he wrote a book called “Trump’s Peace” about the Abraham Accords. It made a splash because of an interview with Trump where Trump said to Ravid, “Fuck Bibi.” This was a year after Netanyahu congratulated his “old friend” Joe Biden on his 2020 victory. Trump held a grudge over that and may still.
Axios hired Ravid in 2022, and its editors got him “in” with top Biden administration officials. Then the Gaza war broke out and Ravid became a go-to source for US policy making. It was like Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken had him on speed dial. It seems to be the same now with the Trump administration.
Vanity Fair did a profile of Ravid a couple months ago that I’ll try to link to sometime. It was interesting, especially for Ravid’s explaination of his service with the IDF’s elite intelligence branch Unit 8200. It reminded me some of Bob Woodward, who served five years with Navy intelligence after graduating from Yale.
Elizabelle
@Geminid: Interesting. I will look up that Vanity Fair article later, too. We can share it on a later thread.
The Lodger
@Jay: As a retired chip company guy, it took me a minute to interpret “nm” as nautical mile, not nanometer. That’s more appropriate for coastlines anyway, even discounting Trumpian hyperbole.