iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 3h

Some Sunday night music: Bug, by Fontaines D.C. youtu.be/1gCH1scAr4s?...

youtu.be

Bug

YouTube video by Fontaines D.C. - Topic

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 8h

If you need a little beauty today: Plowshare Prayer, by Spencer LaJoye. youtu.be/MhOZv5i7CHY?...

youtu.be

Spencer LaJoye - Plowshare Prayer (Live)

YouTube video by Spencer LaJoye

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Reposted by @michaellasley.bsky.social

Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 17h

After years of championing "free speech," Texas lawmakers have enabled a dramatic rise of censorship in Texas universities, banning concepts, canceling courses and closing departments seen as "woke," and even using AI bots as censors. All in the name of freedom. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/1...

In other professors’ syllabi, the bot flagged the Pulitzer Prize–winning play Angels in America by Tony Kushner, essays by the Mexican American MacArthur genius grant recipient Sandra Cisneros, and materials related to a class about the Holocaust (that professor was told to drop material regarding Nazi persecution of LGBTQ people).

Putting aside the ideological slant of the new rules, the bot, like many large language models, seems to “hallucinate,” or make mistakes. The AAUP lawsuit lists texts banned for their “sex-based ecofeminist framework” and “gendered ecofeminist frameworks.” These phrases might sound persuasively like academese, but the academics behind the lawsuit had never heard of them; these concepts “do not exist,” the complaint says. Matthew Pehl, a history professor at Tech, told me that he knew several people who’d received reports from the system that were “plainly written by an AI that had hallucinated content or confused content from one class to another.”

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I have never been able to wrap my mind around this.

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

If you need a little beauty today. "This is an invitation: through long exposure, both photographically and in the act of looking itself, Exhale invites us to practice noticing." www.thisiscolossal.com/2026/10/jona...

thisiscolossal.com

Jonathan Knight's Meditative Series 'Exhale' Invites Us to Slow Down and Practice Noticing

Knight conceived of 'Exhale' as a way to explore the nuances of color and "the emotional experience of looking."

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Reposted by @michaellasley.bsky.social

Seth Abramson @sethabramson.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

We went from $200 million and you will pay for absolutely none of it to $600 million *at a bare minimum* and you will pay for almost all of it No president has ever stolen more money from the American people

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

I really enjoyed this brief piece on D.C. "Lafayette Park, where I had once walked freely, was now sealed off, and the president was far away, beyond a chainlink fence, like a prisoner in a jail built by his own hand." flaminghydra.com/my-d-c-odd-y...

flaminghydra.com

My D.C. Odd-yssey

Near the elevators at the Holiday Inn in Arlington that morning, a heavyset soldier ambled over. He was shorter than me, and certainly younger. I assumed he was going for breakfast. I hadn't had mine ...

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Reposted by @michaellasley.bsky.social

Dorian Lynskey @dorianlynskey.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

The last three sentences of this Catherine Bray piece about Jaws are perfection

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

"I’d be happy to listen to Jon Ossoff or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for half an hour every Thursday if either of them runs for and is elected president. And then I’d be happy to think about something else that weekend; civic participation should be a part of life, not something that keeps you up ..."

Restoring some kind of calm is easier said than done, and will require hard choices. If A.I. represents a mortal threat, then it should be wrestled to the ground and stuck in a cage. Whatever its putative benefits, they aren’t worth any of us having to contemplate human extinction. The climate crisis is almost easy by comparison; we have inexpensive solar, wind and battery technology that can replace the fossil fuels driving temperatures ever higher, though of course getting to that point would require standing up to Big Oil. These hopes and fears will animate the next presidential election. Someone who figures out how to talk straightforwardly with Americans about the trade-offs will win the votes of a grateful nation.

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

"We’ve traditionally thought of the president as a kind of national father figure."

In past periods of pervasive crisis, Americans at least had some institutions on which to lean. We’ve traditionally thought of the president as a kind of national father figure. It helped a Depression-haunted nation when Franklin D. Roosevelt told us the only thing we had to fear was fear itself (and then backed it up with wave after wave of programs designed to make it so).

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

"We definitely weren’t designed to cope with all this — our bodies, our nervous systems, our brains. Among all the other dangers these developments represent, they’re simply wearing us out. A lot of us would like politicians to offer ... even a glimpse of serenity." www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | I’m Exhausted. You’re Demoralized. We Weren’t Built for a World Like This. (Gift Article)

A greatly underappreciated virtue of other presidents was that you could forget about them for weeks at a time.

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Reposted by @michaellasley.bsky.social

Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The United States is now officially allied with Vladimir Putin and Russia. We will fund Russia’s genocidal war machine in exchange for Putin helping Trump and the Republican Party in the midterms. One of the most shameful and disgusting days in the history of this Republic.

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

"The only reason this would benefit the government," Brané said, "is to instill fear and chaos and cruelty and frighten people into getting their numbers of removed individuals up."

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

"The government argues it is removing 'the worst of the worst,' in an effort to increase public safety. But in reality, many people being arrested are vulnerable children who have viable paths to be in the United States legally."

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

"They pointed a gun at my little brother; threw him against a wall; grabbed him by the hair; and then put handcuffs on him. They did the same thing with me."

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

My Thursday reading: Playground, by Richard Powers.

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

"Steve Miller certainly seemed to make that point to everyone that he wanted it to be cruel. This was what Miller had stated to the DHS at that time, to the DHS director ... What surprised me was just how adamant the people were that it was going to happen." www.npr.org/2026/10/08/n...

npr.org

ICE has quietly used this warehouse as a detention facility all summer, neighbors say

Throughout the summer, rumors have been bubbling in North New Jersey that ICE has quietly been using a warehouse as a detention center. NPR investigated.

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

"Mr. Milstein’s efforts have helped insulate Israel’s right-wing government against potential blowback from a Trump Administration that has been its closest ally."

As settler violence in the West Bank surged in the spring, for instance, he stymied embassy reporting suggesting that the Israeli government was failing to take action, according to the three officials. Instead the embassy sent a cable to Washington, viewed by The New York Times, praising Israel for “cracking down” on the attacks.

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Americans were killed, and: "When members of Congress pushed for accountability over the killings of nine Palestinian Americans by Israeli settlers and security forces, [David Milstein] suppressed a detailed report that the embassy staff had written." www.nytimes.com/2026/10/08/w...

nytimes.com

How a U.S. Diplomat Suppressed and Altered Reports Critical of Israel

A top aide to Ambassador Mike Huckabee skewed information to portray the Netanyahu government in a favorable light, according to multiple officials and documents obtained by The Times.

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

"And up to 355,000 Michiganders are expected to lose their Medicaid coverage in 2028 because of cuts included in Trump's signature law, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act."

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Alan Elrod @aselrod.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

This is just a relentlessly horrific story. It’s hard to adequately contextualize the moral desolation of this unfolding in the midst of a midterms against a ruling party helmed by inveterate rapists and rape apologists. www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/congres...

phoenixnewtimes.com

Congressional candidate is raped while repairing her campaign signs

Embarrassed, she initially didn’t want to report attack. Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office's investigation is ongoing. A Phoenix New Times exclusive.

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

"[Giridharadas'] latest, 'Man in the Mirror,' landed this week as a prodigiously reported exploration of the fatal meeting between Jordan Neely, a homeless and mentally ill Michael Jackson impersonator, and Daniel Penny, an ex-Marine."

One of the most illuminating parts of this latest book examines Penny as a son of Long Island’s South Shore, specifically West Islip, which Giridharadas writes is a “social universe where families even if economically middle class were culturally working class.” The town, as he tells it, looked toward New York City suspiciously. But, in Giridharadas’s view, it was too easy to define Penny by a certain set of suburban fears and provincial values. He wanted a bigger life, an urbane one. Last year, in fact, Penny was hired by the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

"I felt from the beginning that this story condensed and contained so many of America’s crises in one subway car," Giridharadas told me. "The level of fear-mongering in media, our inability to care for the vulnerable — it was all there in that one place." www.nytimes.com/2026/10/03/s...

nytimes.com

A Tragic Day on the Subway, 442 Pages Later

Anand Giridharadas has written about the global elite and political persuasion. His new book explores a fatal encounter on the F train.

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

"Flush with cash from Congress, D.H.S. is planning to hire five thousand more ice officers by the end of the year."

Recently, it signed seven billion dollars in construction contracts to build more detention centers. Meanwhile, in all but one of the existing two hundred and thirty-nine immigration jails across the country, the A.P. reported, ice has stopped listing in its online database, known as the detainee locator, the whereabouts of people in custody who have final deportation orders. If people’s names don’t show up in the locator, their family members and lawyers won’t immediately be able to find them. In July, sixteen thousand people arrested by ice, or about a third of those entering detention that month, had final deportation orders.

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

"The Administration ... filed assault charges against more than five hundred and fifty people and ... in about half of the roughly four hundred cases that have been resolved, 'juries acquitted defendants, judges threw out charges, or prosecutors withdrew them.'"

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

"Not only has no ice officer been federally charged in these deaths, but the agency has made a habit of casting blame on the people it has appeared to victimize, turning impunity into another form of aggression." www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

newyorker.com

ICE Is Everywhere and Acting with Impunity

ICE arrests have reached a record high—nearly fifty-one thousand in August alone—with agents conducting operations nationwide at hospitals, at airports, and outside schools.

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Meanwhile, in Boone County, Arkansas. "Lavelle asked if a Black person would be welcome at the group’s church, Robb’s answer was simple. 'No,' Robb responded. 'Because this is a white nationalist church.'"

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Rep. Ro Khanna on tech billionaires and the wealth tax: "there are five trillion-dollar companies in my district. When I got elected to Congress, there wasn’t a single trillion-dollar company. They’re seen as oligarchs, as the people with wealth and power, controlling our lives." The full quote:

Khanna said, “there are five trillion-dollar companies in my district. When I got elected to Congress, there wasn’t a single trillion-dollar company. They’re seen as oligarchs, as the people with wealth and power, controlling our lives—not as outsider insurgents. So it’s a very, very different sense of their place in society. And there’s also a lot more arrogance. There’s this sense that they are carrying American civilization on their backs and that they are the chosen allocators of capital and the ones who are making us lead against China, and that if it weren’t for them America would not be a superpower.” Khanna’s district is one of the richest in the country; in Fremont, which isn’t the wealthiest town in the area, the median annual household income is more than a hundred and eighty thousand dollars. Still, he said, his constituents feel intense economic pressure: “There’s a concern that their kids aren’t going to be able to live here. The cost of housing has exploded. The cost of child care has exploded. Some of them have done well, because a lot of them work at tech companies. But other people are leaving.”

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

"Many of the new billionaires largely avoid income taxation because, technically, their pay is minimal; Page and Brin both have base salaries of a dollar a year. Their stock in Alphabet, Google’s parent company, won’t be taxed unless they sell it. They can borrow against those holdings ..."

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

"Last month, six Nobel Prize-winning American economists issued a statement in support of Proposition 40, saying that it 'may well come to be seen as a turning point in the battle between democracy and oligarchy.'" www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

newyorker.com

The Battle to Pass a Billionaire Tax

Most Democratic voters say that they favor a wealth tax, but a California ballot initiative has plenty of liberal opponents.

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Rev. Benjamin Cremer @brcremer.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Notice the absence of the traditional olive branch? The olive branch symbolized America prioritizing peace with war as a last resort. It has been part of the Great Seal of the United States since 1782 and was part of the original seal of the Department of Defense.

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

... Also known as aurora borealis, these northern lights are part of recent, wide spread auroral activity caused by strong geomagnetic storms. In the last few days, stormy spaceweather has been triggered by multiple Earth impacting coronal mass ejections and intense solar activity."

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

"Meteors from the annual Northern Taurid meteor shower are expected this time of year. But the digital camera exposure also records the shimmering glow of aurora, a phenomenon more often seen from our fair planet's higher geographical latitudes ...

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

"The brilliant streak of a Northern Taurid meteor flashes through the starry night sky above the beach in this sea and skyscape, captured from Shired Island, Florida on November 11 [2025]." science.nasa.gov/image-articl...

science.nasa.gov

APOD: 2025 November 14 - Florida Northern Lights - NASA Science

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The paragraph I pulled the quote above from is here:

The claim that Trump represents a stark discontinuity from the earlier GOP does not hold historical water. Longwell highlights the party of George H. W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney, which certainly existed. But the GOP, and the conservative movement as a whole, was also the realm of Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, Rush Limbaugh, and Jerry Falwell. They and other odious figures were key elements of the “fusionist” coalition that defined the mid-late 20th century American right. The more moderate Republicans gambled that they could control the hard right and use them to gain electoral victories, knowing that identity trumped ideology in electoral politics. With the arrival of Trump, they lost that bet, and after the crazies seized the helm of the party by nominating him in 2016, the moderate Republican establishment capitulated almost entirely.

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

"The claim that Trump represents a stark discontinuity from the earlier GOP does not hold historical water … The more moderate Republicans [simply] gambled that they could control the hard right and use them to gain electoral victories." www.liberalcurrents.com/you-cant-bui...

liberalcurrents.com

You Can't Build a Better Politics on Bad History

Sarah Longwell's "How to Eat an Elephant" offers useful advice for Democratic politics. Yet it is also based on a false history of the GOP.

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

"Over the last few months, to test the process, reporters from ProPublica partnered with local journalists in three states [Arkansas, West Virginia, North Carolina] to establish private schools. None required much effort."

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michaellasley.bsky.social @michaellasley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

"We don’t have rules for opening a private school," Kaelin Clay, an Arkansas Department of Education spokesperson, told us earlier this year.

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