Documenting Life

“They are really rather beautiful things, of the sort which we rarely appreciate. They’re the product of years of hard-fought for constitutional change. They are the kind of literature which a sophisticated political society produces, so that it can govern itself more effectively. They deserve a level of respect which we do not currently give them

But these reports only work where the political culture around them actually gives a damn. They rely on journalists and politicians bothering to read them, or at least skimming the executive summary. They rely on publications acknowledging that they exist and that their conclusions provide a final word on what is really happening”

https://iandunt.substack.com/p/a-little-love-song-to-the-national

“ If we could step back for just a moment and look not at the immediate question of which candidate and policy in which point of time, but at the general political strategy of the Democrats for the past 50 years – that is, moderating, triangulating, and other euphemisms for moving rightward – we would have to conclude that it has failed. And yet there is precious little appetite for actually coming up with a radically different approach, because ultimately politics is about taxes and the funding base of the party are rich people who won’t tolerate significantly higher taxes”

https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/clintonism-lost-in-2000

“Mosquera either hacked the CBF’s official email account or created a fake one (reports vary) that he used to convince the Russians he was a representative of the national team. He allegedly then managed to get the Russians (probably desperate to put together a tournament, given the sanctions) to pay all the team’s expenses, including flights from Bogotá, luxury hotels, and meals. The “team,” however, was allegedly just 11 of Mosquera’s pals and a guy posing as their coach. Mosquera himself wrangled a flight down from Kazan (where he was reportedly studying architecture) to join them when they arrived, and the rest is allegedly history”

https://www.loweringthebar.net/2024/11/still-no-lawsuit-against-the-fake-colombian-basketball-team.html

“It takes effort to remember that the figures and outfits in the paintings were just what was around at the time, not some remembered or imagined history. The frocks and suits were the equivalent of today’s cardigans and crop tops and baggy jeans and chore coats. (There’s a genre of 21st-century painting that I’ve taken to thinking of as Brooklyn Impressionism, IYKYK.) In the paintings, these are people just walking around in the park upon an afternoon, taking their dogs out, drinking glasses of wine. (I would love to see an Impressionism show focused solely on meals and tables.) The normalcy was radical, the banality was modern”

https://onethingnewsletter.substack.com/p/paintings-of-your-friends-and-nice

“Nature takes babies by the bushel, sending decent and vulnerable career women to the bathroom at work, bleeding, weeping and inconsolable, telling themselves they’ve got five minutes to get it together and head back to their desks so that no one knows. Once you understand that you live in a world where atoms make up cells that make up tissues that make up organs that make up embryos that end up as clots in the toilets of people who desperately, desperately want to have children, you can’t take the idea of a “right to life” seriously anymore”

https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/all-the-little-unborn-babies