iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 02/09/2026

RIP Wendell Berry. Regrettably, many in our government and their supporters would cheerfully answer this questionnaire in detail. They might need extra paper and/or extra time.

This white rectangle contains the text of the Wendell Berry (RIP) poem "Questionnaire," which reads as follows:

1. How much poison are you willing to eat for the success of the free market and global trade? Please name your preferred poisons.
2. For the sake of goodness, how much evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks with the names of your favorite evils and acts of hatred.
3. What sacrifices are you prepared to make for culture and civilization? Please list the monuments, shrines, and works of art you would most willingly destroy.
4. In the name of patriotism and the flag, how much of our beloved land are you willing to desecrate? List in the following spaces the mountains, rivers, towns, farms you could most readily do without.
5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes, the energy sources, the kinds of security, for which you would kill a child. Name, please, the children whom you would be willing to kill.

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 29/07/2026

The Odyssey: With all the furor, why not revive Monteverdi's 1640 opera "Il Ritorno D'Ulisse In Patria?"

Album cover of the 1993 Harmonia Mundi recording of Claudio Monteverdi's 1640 opera "Il Ritorno D'Ulisse in Patria" (Odysseus's Return to his Country). The cover features a stern, almost scowling painting of Monteverdi, the words of the title (with "Ulisse" in much larger type), the conductor (Rene Jacobs), the ensemble (Concerto Vocale), and the words "Monteverdi Opera Edition" at the bottom.

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 03/06/2026

In 2017, my wife and I made a "Poetree" for our literacy program's annual picnic. It consisted of a carpet-core trunk, fake blossoms and branches from Michael's, and about 120 green Astrobrite "leaves." Each leaf had a short poem on it, and the guests could pluck one leaf apiece.

A poetree: an artificial tree made out of a carpet roll for a trunk, fake cherry boughs for branches, and bright green paper "leaves" hanging from the branches with short poems printed on them. The poems are by Ogden Nash, Marianne Moore, ee cummings, and Grace Paley.

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 15/04/2026

A simple Google on "Catholic Just War Doctrine" gave me this: www.catholic.com/qa/what-is-a... /1

Web page, text only:

What is the Catholic "just war" doctrine?

Question:

What qualifies as a war that is moral to wage?

Answer:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church lays out the conditions for just war in paragraph 2309:
• the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
• all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
• there must be serious prospects of success;
• the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
The Catechism goes on to conclude in that same paragraph:
These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war״ doctrine. The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 03/04/2026

As I remember, the Times cut loose a huge swath of copyeditors and fact-checkers to make sure that no story would ever have to be approved by more than three people. Cost savings plus speed for the Web news cycle!

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 24/02/2026

It's called a fleuron - a decorative element that is either part of a font or part of a font made up of fleurons. Many of the classic fonts, like Scotch Modern, include their own fleurons as glyphs.

The "Glyphs" window from Adobe InDesign. The font Scotch Modern offers both an extensive range of special characters and a few fleurons (decorative elements).

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 22/02/2026

If you see this, post a monster! (Darren Leow/Henry Ives Cobb)

A menacing, florid stone gargoyle peers down from its perch at the University of Chicago campus.

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 10/02/2026

if I had more money, I would print and mail postcards to this effect.

Image of postcard with the following printed:
ERRATUM:
It has come to our attention that in our 2025 Holiday Letter, Jonathan incorrectly attributed the Kung-Fu Grip mechanism to the mid-1970s Six Million Dollar Man action figure. In fact, the Kung-Fu Grip is a feature of the G.I. Joe action figure from the same period.
We regret any inconvenience or distress the error may have caused.
Beth and Jonathan

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 06/02/2026

It's like with a dog. A dog can make a "guilty face" for their owners when they sense their owner is angry, but the dog does not feel guilt; it is simply a configuration of mouth and eye muscles that gets them through their owner's immediate anger. Image: Yoannis, Pixabay.

A yellow shepherd mix with his "guilty" face, feigning being chastened for something about which their owner is angry.

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 23/01/2026

Not a box. The curves on the exterior did not lie.

Silver Volvo V40 station wagon in a blurred European street setting.

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 04/01/2026

Protest by Iranian-Americans yesterday. They want regime change for Iran, too, since Trump is already up and about. Nobody's talked to Trump, Vance, or Hegseth to tell them that the two-war doctrine was folded during the Biden Administration. It still wouldn't stop them.

Culver Drive, a thoroughfare in Irvine, California, on 1/3/2026. On the far side of the intersection, there is a sizable protest staged by Iranian-Americans with dozens of 8-foot Iranian flags.

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 26/10/2025

If you want the bottom half of the receipt email, just ask!

Receipt showing a donation of $21.15 to Capital Area Food Bank. (Chosen for laid-off Federal workers.)

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 21/09/2025

I think the dragon is more like this sulky little fellow.

A tiny, slightly peeved burgundy dragon sitting on their hoard, which is in theory gold but which looks more like popcorn. There's not a lot of it.

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 01/08/2025

Of all the great New York institutions Donald Trump could have chosen to emulate, he had to pick Leonard's of Great Neck.

An architectural mockup of an enormous gold-plated dining hall in two-point perspective, fading off into the infinite distance.

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 24/07/2025

What do they want? Indentured servitude?

LinkedIn listing for SAT tutoring position. "Senior SAT Tutor, Established Firm, $50/yr-$60/yr."

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 21/07/2025

Mercury is *always* in retrograde.

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 10/07/2025

"This laughter is the laughter of those who consider themselves to be at a safe remove from all the wretched, for whom the pain of the living is not real." It's all around us now.

Quotation by Hilton Als, quoting James Baldwin. "I was chilled by their merriment. . . . It could only remind me of the laughter I had often heard at home, laughter which I had sometimes deliberately elicited. This laughter is the laughter of those who consider themselves to be at a safe remove from all the wretched, for whom the pain of the living is not real."

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 06/07/2025

There wasn't always room for due process in the world back in the fifteenth century. We have had ample time to improve, but our villains are worse than Clarence's Murderers. At least the Murderers had scruples that needed to be quelled.

Dialogue from Shakespeare's Richard III, I.iv:
Are you drawn forth among a world of men
To slay the innocent? What is my offense?
Where is the evidence that doth accuse me?
What lawful quest have given their verdict up?
Unto the frowning judge? Or who pronounced
bitter sentence of poor Clarence’ death
Before I be convict by course of law?

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 05/07/2025

More honest than the "Thin Blue Line" flag.

An American flag. The field and canton are all in black. The stripes are barbed wire; the stars are the intersections of mesh fencing. Hail the Carceral State.

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 01/07/2025

Here's what's actually in Trump's Big Bad Ugly Bill. 👇

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 16/06/2025

My old prayer book, used five days a week for five years, is in poor condition and has to go to special storage. It is on the right. The new, shiny prayer book is on the left. It's just a tool, and what matters is how you use it. I hope it will help tend me towards the good.

Two copies of the same Jewish prayerbook, "Siddur Sim Shalom for weekdays." The one at right is quite old and has been loved to death; the one at left is new. Both have the name of the book on a pale blue rectangular field in Hebrew and in English.

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 17/04/2025

Several people have taken the "population drop" idea as a eugenicist rapture-like Muskism, in which non-billionaires are immiserated to the point of nonexistence. Could this instead be related to most nations falling far short of their replacement rate, which is legit demography?

Statement by Grimes, one of Elon Musk's paramours: "Overall, I think there’s quite a bit of abdication of responsibility around what we are going to do as people's jobs start being taken fairly aggressively. Luckily, there's a massive population drop coming. So maybe everything is just fate and it's gonna work out OK. But I feel like we might get, like, very, very, very good AI across every pillar of art before there aren't any more people to make art."

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 22/03/2025

A marble slab from the stoneyard today.

A greyish-gold heavily striated slab of quartzite for home decor. It has a green tag that gives the style name CRISTALLO, its thickness (2 cm), its finish (polished and brushed), and a 2D barcode, which allows you to add the stone to a rudimentary shopping cart app. It is in a warehouse the size of the one at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 12/02/2025

Michelle, my close relative (msfledermaus.com), in response to our current straits, has embroidered a War Snail.

A circular needlepoint frame in which the words "War Snail activated" and a fetching yet large and doughty snail are embroidered. Small tufts of grass are depicted around the snail's base.

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 20/01/2025

For a State job years ago, I had to swear an oath that I would protect and defend the Constitutions of the United States and California. This is my duty today. The symbols of our country cannot be appropriated by any group, faction, or party as solely their own. They are ours as much as theirs.

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