Francis Phelan explains how he wound up a bum in Albany. (Apologies to Jack Nicholson, William Kennedy, and “Ironweed.”)
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, via Michael Corkery and The New York Times, gives Duck! City Mayor Tim Keller a little sumpin’-sumpin’ for Christmas.
The New Mexico governor’s mansion sits on a hilltop in Santa Fe, roughly 7,100 feet above sea level.
The air smells of pine needles and sweet meadow grass. An original Georgia O’Keeffe painting greets visitors as they enter the foyer of the elegantly appointed home.
Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat entering the final few years of her governorship, has been spiffing up the grounds of the residence to showcase her state’s rich culture and immense beauty. But for all its splendor, New Mexico faces some grave problems, she said. “Have you ever been to Albuquerque?”
Hoo-boy. And you thought socks from grandma were bad. I wouldn’t expect a thank-you note.
This sunset actually happened. It was not predictive of anything other than the sun setting.
I was wandering idly along the trashy shoulders of the Infobahn this morning, trying to not step in or trip over any particularly toxic bits of debris, when I noticed a newsletter from veteran scribe James Fallows that had gone overlooked in my in-box.
In it, Fallows proposes that cash-poor news organizations invest their limited resources in what’s actually happening now in politics instead of what might happen, “which the reporters can’t know when they’re writing the stories, and which readers will eventually find out anyway.”
For readers, he cites three types of stories that suggest you’ve been lured out of the newsroom and into the fortune-teller’s tent:
A story based on polls, which are manufactured “news” for those sponsoring them but only shakily connected to reality;
A story based on framing any development in terms of “how this will play” politically, which is the reporter’s guess about what voters will think, and;
A story on which candidate has “momentum” or traction” based on the vibe at events.
Predictive stories like these, Fallows says, “are like stock-market picks or the point spread on football games, but with less consequence for being wrong. And if news organizations had limitless time, space, and budgets, you could perhaps say, “What’s the harm?”
Alas, stories like these are also easy and cheap. Any half-bright wordslinger with Internet access and a comfortable chair can shower dubious wisdom upon you from a considerable height, like a buzzard with the runs. Be deeply suspicious of anything slugged “Commentary,” “Analysis,” or “Opinion.” Also, items headlined “Five takeaways from [insert actual news event here].”
However, sometimes the “takeaways” story can contain an actual glimmer of enlightenment. In one such at The New York Times this morning we have the concession — in this case, the fifth of five takeaways — that “Iowa doesn’t mean much for the fall.” This, after wall-to-wall coverage for Christ only knows how long of a non-event that saw 15 percent of registered Republicans (about 110,000 people) turn out to caucus. Thanks for sharing, Lisa, Maggie, and Jonathan.
For my part, I tip my fedora to Fallows and add a prescription of my own: Just because the Internet is endless doesn’t mean a story should be.
I read two things this morning that I knew would piss me off, mostly because I like being pissed off in the morning. That, and two cups of strong black coffee, are the jumper cables that get my heart started.
The first, from The New York Times Magazine, headlined “How Group Chats Rule the World,” was tagged “12 MIN READ.” I won’t link to it. Just because I enjoy spitting coffee into my keyboard and screaming “What the actual fuck?” doesn’t mean everyone does. We must consider the children. Also, cats, houseplants, and the homeowners’ association.
The second, from The Guardian, didn’t give me an ETA. But it was slugged, “The Long Read,” so I knew I was in for it. Headlined, “The tyranny of the algorithm: why every coffee shop looks the same,” this 4,200-word slog should’ve been headlined “I spend far too much time in coffee shops.”
I won’t link to that one, either. If that’s your idea of a good read you can chase it down yourself, or buy Kyle Chayka’s book, “Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture,” from which it was adapted.
But can you lift this mighty tome to read it? There may not be enough coffee in the shop. Or the world.
We’re slowly easing into the fall routine around here.
Arise, make coffee, scan the news, shriek, “Jesus Christ!” and run away. Maybe play with the cat for a while. She doesn’t know what to make of it all either.
“Cold, cruel world, isn’t it?” she murmurs.
“Well, not that cold,” I reply. “The weather widget says 52°, which is not bad for 7:50 a.m. on Oct. 11 in The Duck! City. Still, I take your point.”
We should spend more time talking to the other animals. I’m guessing you could walk into any primate house in the world, and if you understood the language you might hear something like: “You hear what the hairless ones did this time? And yet we’re the ones in the cages. Go figure.”
Herself and I were enjoying the usual weekly quail-spotting ride through High Desert and Sandia Heights yesterday when another cyclist caught up to us and we began chatting, as cyclists do.
It being The Duck! City, we found ourselves collecting one of those odd tales that seem to be included in every random encounter with a stranger.
After discussing the beautiful almost-fall weather, other places we had lived, and the critters we had seen, our new riding buddy told us about a neighbor who objected strenuously to hikers tramping along the arroyo that snakes along behind their houses.
So much so, he said, that one day she hid in the scrub with a Louisville Slugger and took a little vigorous batting practice on one of them.
Now, I’ve ridden this arroyo a time or two, or one very much like it in the general vicinity, and I’ve never seen any signs, placards, fencing, or other indication that it was private property. Which I don’t believe it is.
Nonetheless, I told him I’d keep my eyes peeled henceforth.
“Watch out for an old bat with a bat,” he advised.
“Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”— Proverbs 16:18
Boy, looks like Yevgeny Prigozhin got way out over his Wagner skis, hey? You need a real big stick to poke the bear, and it seems as though he couldn’t find one when he reached into his fatigues for something to wave at Vladimir Putin. I haven’t seen a bootlegger’s turn that snappy since “The Rockford Files.”
Watching bloodthirsty fascists bumping dickheads over the best way to fuck up someone else’s country is not my idea of light entertainment, especially when I have no idea how much of it is performance art.
Some smart folks say Prigozhin is a dead man walking, a bad dog who snapped at his master and got shipped off to a farm in Belarus where he’ll have the run of the back 40, happily chasing bunny rabbits all day.
Others say Prigozhin caught Pooty-poot with his Stalinist drawers down, the inept Russian army overcommitted and outmaneuvered, and forced him to cut a deal using Belarus boss-fella Aleksandr Lukashenko — who seems to be a bro-brah of both belligerents — as a go-between.
The guys to watch, it seems, are Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. Prigozhin would like to have their jobs, their stature — and, not incidentally, their nuts for a necklace.
And since Shoigu and Gerasimov are fucking up in spectacular fashion what was supposed to be a cakewalk in Ukraine, maybe Vlad the Impaler is using Prigozhin as an adjunct to the Kremlin’s HR department.
If one or both of them suddenly decides to retire to spend more time in their dachas with the family, Putin gets another KGB merit badge from the media, and Prigozhin starts to look less like Steve Buscemi and more like Steve McQueen.
Doesn’t mean Putin won’t croak him too, of course. Talk about your toxic work environments.
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