Yesterday my four-year-old granddaughter helped pick the corn she had helped me plant in May. She took some home and will eat it with her family. Simple, right? But there is so much packed into this scene.

If you want a taste of affordability c. 2000, have a Costco hotdog (and drink): $1.50. The rush of saving might even outrun the indigestion.

Getting in your vegetable garden is always a trick in Central Oregon. It's June 7, and there is a freeze warning this morning. Not atypical. The temperature hovers just above freezing as I wonder about the tomato plants I just bought.

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“Fascists always have Clergy somewhere in attendance.” That sentence should be on a continuous loop.

I'm awaiting the Sean Hannity Institute of Theology. (Snappy acronym.) Founding faculty: The Rev. Drs. J.D. Vance and Pete Hegseth.

What will it take?

Bill Kristol@billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 7mo ago

If we didn't have a maniac as secretary of defense, a toady as secretary of state, and a nobody as chief of staff, they'd be spending today making sure the military checks in with them before obeying any orders from Trump, and quietly getting in touch with Congress to arrange for his impeachment.

Some people look to bold, visionary leaders. Others value technocratic expertise. But David Brooks suggests a third way for better decision making:

How to Make Better Decisions

Some people look to bold, visionary leaders. Others value technocratic expertise. But there’s a third alternative.

bit.ly

John Alexander Dowie (an early Pentecostal, founder of Zion, IL) prescribed racial miscegenation to restore "primitive man." A New Adam for a New Israel/New Eden. Immigration fundamental to Manifest Destiny. Just reporting.

If you're really fed up with Boomers and such, don't make us one of the last generations who can go back and read stuff we published 30+ years ago and say, with satisfaction, "Yeah, that was pretty good." Whereas you might end up saying, "Well, I really foxed 'em with that AI balderdash, didn't I?"

Psalm 73 comes up in the morning prayer rota. Oh, and perhaps you have know idea how relevant it is: Its description of Trump and the oligarchy is spot-on.

It's August 1975, outside Philadelphia. Police follow up a tip and investigate whether I have the body of Jimmy Hoffa. Srsly.

Kayla Cromer Official@kaylacromer.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Tell me a random fact about yourself that sounds fake but is 100% true.

And the chapter after this is titled "Chasing Sunk Costs."

Ron Filipkowski@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 8mo ago

There it is. Republicans want more money from taxpayers to feed Trump's insatiable desire to bomb things everywhere all the time.

Lately I find myself turning to Reinhold Niebuhr's Moral Man and Immoral Society. Frequently. It's a realist's reset of expectations.

Two things were publicly undressed yesterday: crypto currency and Trumpian Christianity. One in the markets and one in the so-called National Prayer Breakfast. Mene Mene Tekel Parsin.

With this, it seems to me, Trump-Miller-Noem have lost their narrative.

David Fitch@fitchest.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Thanks to the Boss. Pass it on. www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWKS...

Collecting myself with a walk along the Deschutes.

Is the GOP calliope of sycophants playing the full keyboard today or is it missing a few pipes?

The videos don't lie. A man is dead, killed in cold blood. There is no conceivable justification for this intentional homicide. And make no mistake, that intentional, unjustified homicide was committed on behalf of Donald J. Trump.

There is no strategy www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

When you think about it, we shouldn't even have elected him.

Despite everything that's wrong in this country, grandma is still in the kitchen baking cookies with her granddaughters. And that's not nothing.

Padilla: What they're doing is not law enforcement. It's intimidation. What they're doing isn't about safety. It's about scaring communities

And here we are: the entire transatlantic alliance is now talking about Greenland, instead of talking about ending the war in Ukraine.

For this administration, the value of one person's life is the current exchange rate of a political point.

With David Frum on Venezuela, spheres of influence, and the deeper implications of Trump's foreign policy www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oSR...

Bonus Episode: How Is Trump Planning to ‘Run’ Venezuela? (With Anne Applebaum) | The David Frum Show

YouTube video by The Atlantic

youtube.com

The most disturbing presidential press conference I have ever seen. fallows.substack.com/p/blind-into... (First 3/4ths before paywall.)

‘Blind Into Caracas’

Less than 24 hours in, members of the Trump team are celebrating victory. None of them seem to have wondered what happens a day, a month, a decade from now.

fallows.substack.com

My yearly winter public service announcement: You will not freeze to death. You will die of hypothermia and then freeze. (Journalists: Please take note.)

We never had a Christmas tree as I was growing up. My mother thought it was a pagan symbol. But she liked to talk about our ancestor St George Tucker of Williamsburg, Virginia. Then I learned that Tucker introduced the Christmas tree to America. I apostatized and returned to ancestral tradition.