Dr. James Hooks
@jameshooks.bsky.social
Alum at all the apps you hate. Including that one. http://medium.com/@jameshooks http://tiltheday.com
"The Transformers do not endorse the views of the President" okay, great, yeah, it's very normal that you had to say that. This is an ordinary world where things make sense. It's normal that I'd wake up to an official statement from cartoon robots denouncing the man who has the nuclear codes.
"Heroes come from wherever children can find them." What an incredible read and tribute.
Dr. James Hooks@jameshooks.bsky.social · 2w ago
I cried big fat tears as I read this and THEN cried even harder as I read it out loud to my wife and kids. Dr. Hooks perfectly captured how I’m feeling today.
Dr. James Hooks@jameshooks.bsky.social · 2w ago
Please take a minute and read this magnificent piece from Hooks on the passing of Peter Cullen. Thanks to @tfuinfo.bsky.social for sending my way Our Robot Dad by @jameshooks.bsky.social medium.com/p/our-robot-...
Our Robot Dad
What Peter Cullen, best known for his role as Optimus Prime, meant to me.
medium.com
We’re only on Earth for a brief, accidental moment. Make magic.
A government can begin removing a name from institutional memory long before anyone touches a hull. People simply stop using it, document after document and meeting after meeting, until the number begins to sound ordinary and the name begins to sound provisional. This is how a man disappears twice.
Names and Heroes
On the American practice of keeping the deed and discarding the man who did it
medium.com
Intellect, as we operationalize it, can be measured. What can be measured can be credentialed. What can be credentialed can be hoarded. Wisdom, the inconvenient cousin, keeps showing up in the wrong bodies, in the wrong zip codes, out of the mouths of people who never took the test.
The Presumption of Authorship
On intellect, wisdom, and an American machinery that has learned to mistake speed for truth
medium.com
You inherit the obligation to remember accurately. You inherit the burden of asking questions that make a room go still. You inherit the temptation to become the thing that wounded you. Every generation receives that final temptation in a different language. Mine speaks fluent outrage.
Questions of Mercy
Questions of Mercy One of the last long conversations I had with my father was about his house. The primary bedroom needed work. Something under the carpet had gone soft, and he had been meaning to …
medium.com
Americans picture wrongful conviction as forensic failure. The mechanism that does the actual work is older than any machine and costs nothing at all. Somebody says a thing.
The Nearest Witness
On the dead who cannot testify, the families who do, and the machinery that believes whoever speaks first
medium.com
Finally, someone is going to talk to Mitch McConnell
The New York Times@nytimes.com · 2mo agoSenator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and stalwart ally of President Trump who was a forceful advocate for an interventionist U.S. foreign policy, has died of “a brief and sudden illness,” his office said. He was 71. nyti.ms/4plLwei
White people had and have been trained to read Black proximity as depreciation, and an entire industry learned to profit from the lesson.
In Service, Never in Possession
In Service, Never in Possession There is a stair in my house the builders refused to leave plain. The risers are set with tile — Aztec-inspired, geometric, the glaze gone soft and oceanic with …
medium.com
Marriage begins with a promise so old most people no longer hear how strange it is. When the body fails. When age arrives. When illness comes through the door and will not leave. I will stay.
The Story of Bonnie Kornhaber
The Story of Bonnie Kornhaber Marriage begins with a promise so old most people no longer hear how strange it is. Two people stand before witnesses and swear themselves into one another’s …
medium.com
This was the founding bargain. Liberty for some. Labor from others.
The Country We Carried
The Country We Carried We have been here for all of it. Before the flag knew what it wanted to mean, before the anthem learned to swell in stadiums, before the country taught its children to place …
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We honor birth because birth flatters us. Old age accuses us.
The American Disappearance
The American Disappearance America loves a beginning. We love the swollen belly, the baby shower, the tiny shoes placed like prophecy on a nursery shelf. We love the ultrasound photograph, the gender ...
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There was no funeral. No room where people gathered and said his name. No eulogy. No burial with its small, crucial permission to weep in public. No casseroles, no condolence cards, no good chair to cry in. No ceremony to mark the end of a man’s life because I was not allowed to give him one.
One Year Later
One Year Later There was no funeral. I want you to hold that for a moment before we go any further, because the absence of it shapes everything that follows. There was no room where people gathered …
medium.com
Notice how the most celebrated and successful space mission in *decades* was run by at least 50% “DEI hires”—not all white men? And not even all Americans. Maybe diversity *is* strength . . .
NYT reporting that under this ceasefire each ship will pay $2M to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. It was $0 before Trump launched this illegal war. 100-130 ships pass the Strait daily. Trump just gave Iran an extra $100M-$130M per day. Masterful gambit, sir. Impeach and remove this fascist—NOW.
To whoever did this at the #NoKings in Boston: Thank you.❤️ It made me tear up. And we must to be reminded of needless damage to humanity that results directly from the careless, bellicose bluster coming from the Pentagon and White House.
Easy to say when you’re a) 62 b) a civilian with no military service
The Independent@the-independent.com · 6mo agoRob Schneider calls to ‘restore the military draft’ in the US amid war with Iran
This is an excellent summary of the US War on Iran current situation. I’m an existentialist and borderline absurdist and even I struggle with the current moment. This summary is just fantastic.
March, 19-21: God is a comedian
A stiff drink is recommended
no01.substack.com
There is a particular absurdity to Donald Trump—a man who avoided Vietnam due to “bone spurs”—dancing on the grave of Robert Mueller, a decorated combat veteran, @JonLemire.bsky.social argues.
Donald Trump Is Nothing Like Robert Mueller
The absurdity of a man who avoided Vietnam due to “bone spurs” dancing on the grave of a decorated combat veteran
bit.ly
The price of a good dog is a broken heart at the end.
There are deaths that break your heart, and there are deaths that indict the world. I have known both.
The Endings We Deserve
The Endings We Deserve There are deaths that break your heart, and there are deaths that indict the world. I have known both. My father died in the oldest loneliness there is: the loneliness of being ...
medium.com
