“One of the earliest known instances of writing using the Greek alphabet combines vandalism with poetic experimentation. Sometime in the eighth century BC at Pithekoussai, a Greek colony on Ischia, a small island off the coast of Italy, a dinner guest rudely defaced one of his host’s fine drinking cups. … While the Greeks eventually settled on writing from left to right, a variety of letter shapes and directions of writing survive in the earliest inscriptions in the Greek alphabet. … the three lines of writing proceed in a boustrophedon fashion — as the ox ploughs. The first line goes from right to left, then the second line turns around and goes from left to right, and the last one is from right to left again. What we see is a civilization on the cusp of adopting a new revolutionary technology: writing with an alphabet.” (02/20/26)
“Matt Walsh says that ‘one of the worst ecological disasters in American history is currently unfolding. A river of sewage is flowing into the Potomac. When you dig into this story, and who is responsible for it, you start to see why the media doesn’t want to talk about it.’ He’s not wrong, the disaster began January 19th but we’ve heard little about it. On his podcast, No. 1736; Mr. Walsh goes all into a ‘Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’ explanation. … In between retches, ask the question: Why would there be a general incompetence rising in public utilities now? Is it race as such? Of course not. Is it DEI putting race over competence? Maybe in part. But the general trend for a long time has been to put more and more domains of everyday life under direct government control.” (02/20/26)
“This morning, the Court held that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not authorize a president to impose tariffs. Because obviously. … Whether we’re talking about the Trade Expansion Act, the Trade Act, or some other delegated tariff authority, Congress has always been clear about the intent. This is a fact, and, as Roberts would explain, ‘IEEPA contains no reference to tariffs or duties.’ Nor did the administration offer any law ‘in which Congress used the word ‘regulate’ to authorize taxation.'” (02/20/26)
“Sanctuary cities and states have been a major focus of political conflict in the second Trump administration, perhaps even more than in the first. These jurisdictions refuse or severely limit assistance to federal efforts to detain and deport suspected illegal immigrants. Most only provide such assistance in cases involving undocumented migrants who have committed serious crimes. Regardless of the politics, the 10th Amendment protects sanctuary jurisdictions from compulsion by the federal government. And their policies are also well justified on moral and pragmatic grounds. This is particularly true at a time when many federal immigration enforcement efforts are cruel and illegal.” (02/19/26)
“The premise of socialism is ‘worker control of the means of production,’ and the gig economy is far and away the most successful experiment in human history when it comes to achieving that. Gig workers own their tools. Gig workers set their own hours. Gig workers choose who they work for, where they work, and what kind of work they do. Gig workers even set their own salaries by accepting the individual tasks that meet their pay requirements and rejecting those that don’t. Mamdani and friends hate that worker control with a passion. To them, worker happiness and welfare only matter to the extent that they can claim credit for, and gain power from, that happiness and welfare. … if anyone, anywhere, somehow manages to make a living without Mamdani’s permission, why, that’s ‘exploitation.'” (02/19/26)
“[P]eople hate crime and think it’s going up. But actually, crime barely affects most people and is historically low. So what’s going on? In our discussion yesterday, many commenters proposed that the discussion about ‘crime’ was really about disorder. Disorder takes many forms, but its symptoms include litter, graffiti, shoplifting, tent cities, weird homeless people wandering about muttering to themselves, and people walking around with giant boom boxes shamelessly playing music at 200 decibels on a main street where people are trying to engage in normal activities. When people complain about these things, they risk getting called a racist or a ‘Karen.’ But when they complain about crime, there’s still a 50-50 chance that listeners will let them finish the sentence without accusing them of racism. … might this explain why people act like crime is rampant and increasing, even when it’s rare and going down?” (02/19/26)
“Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is upending professions as diverse as art, cinema, accounting, national defense, and education. Some even argue that AI will render almost all work obsolete. They say its ability to ‘think’ and accomplish tasks previously solely in the realm of human ability will mean that humans will not need to work; the machines will do everything for us. Whether this would be a good thing or a bad thing depends on the story one wants to tell.” (02/19/26)
Source: The American Conservative
by Eldar Mamedov
“lexandria Ocasio-Cortez went to the Munich Security Conference to introduce herself to the world as a foreign policy thinker. She returned having demonstrated something else entirely: that the Democratic Party’s progressive star has absorbed the establishment’s worst ideas while shedding only its least popular rhetoric.” (02/19/26)
“‘I’m not scared, you’re scared!’ is the repeated line in a children’s story we recently read to the kids at the Unitarian Universalist version of Sunday school I attend with my children. In that story, a scared bear and a brave rabbit, who (naturally!) are best friends, go on a hike together. Rabbit has to cajole and encourage Bear through every imaginable obstacle, but in the end (of course!) it’s Rabbit who gets stuck at the crucial moment and has to call on Bear for help. Bear (no surprise) sets aside his fears to rescue his friend and (tada!) finds new depths of bravery and adventurousness in the process. After we read the story, the kids worked together to build paths from blocks and Legos through the imagined obstacles in the story — a bridge over a rushing river, a path through a dark forest, a staircase up a steep mountain.” (02/19/26)
