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I have some sympathy for Orange One’s fear of the cold. He’s an emperor with no clothes, after all.
News told in the future tense or conditional mood does nothing but increase my anxiety about our uncertain future, and I can do that all on my own without the media’s help. I would prefer more stories in the past tense.
Feeling sick about next Monday, January 20. Fortunately, I’ll be with family and nowhere near a TV.
📽️ I am surprised by how much I enjoyed “Jojo Rabbit,” dir. Taika Waititi (Fox Searchlight, 2019)—its overall sensibility; the fine acting of the kids, whose lives are at the center of the film; the adults as more peripheral, with the exception of the mother, and even she appears well after the film begins, and she departs before it is over … The ten-year-old Jojo gets by in his alone time with an imaginary friend, Hitler. And then he discovers a Jewish girl hiding in his house.…
The new version of MacPaw’s CleanMyMac (the successor to CleanMyMac X) is unusable for me. The features sound good, but the animations are so busy, so intrusive, as to make it impossible to look at the app without feeling disoriented. Where is the option to turn all that nonsense off? I need a utility, not entertainment.
I’ve cancelled my subscription. When I offered the requested feedback about why, all I got was an automated follow-up request for more details so they can help me make the app work. This is the problem with automated systems that don’t allow for a “none of the above” and “human” option. My problem is accessibility, but whether that message ever gets through is doubtful.
For now, the old version still works, so I went back to it. But this preview of an entshittified future with MacPaw has made me lose faith. To be fair, though, I’ve been losing faith in a lot of products that have unnecessary stuff crammed into them, including MacOS. When my Mac ceases to be supported by Apple security updates, I might just switch over to a basic Linux install.
Color photo by Jack Delano of kids skating and playing hockey on a pond in the vicinity of Brockton, Massachusetts, in December 1940.
Source: Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017877371/.
📽️ Arte is streaming classic postwar Italian cinema at the moment. I watched “Bellissima,” dir. Luchino Visconti (Italy, 1951), and starring the brilliant Anna Magnani. (See Pat Kewly’s review in PopMatters for a good overview.)
In 1921, white Tulsans murdered hundreds of residents of Greenwood, burned their homes and churches, looted their belongings, and locked the survivors in internment camps. Until this day, the Justice Department has not spoken publicly about this race massacre or officially accounted for the horrific events that transpired in Tulsa. This report breaks that silence by rigorous examination and a full accounting of one of the darkest episodes of our nation’s past. This report lays bare new information and shows that the massacre was the result not of uncontrolled mob violence, but of a coordinated, military-style attack on Greenwood.
– Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, quoted in press release, “Justice Department Announces Results of Review and Evaluation of the Tulsa Race Massacre,” January 10, 2025.
I watched the Ukrainian movie “Sniper: The White Raven,” dir. Maryan Bushan (Ukraine, 2022), which was filmed before Russia’s full-scale invasion. The protagonist comes to this work after Putin’s little green men invade his country and murder his family. The film offers a moving counterpoint to the dark comedy, “Donbass,” dir. Sergei Loznitsa (Ukraine, 2018). The latter presents glimpses of life in territory controlled by Russia, mixing local politics, disinformation, and violence in ways that blur the boundary between reality and alternative factuality. 🇺🇦
“To the Man on the Northeast Regional” by Charlotte Clymer, charlotteclymer.substack.com… 🏳️⚧️
I’m assuming the poignant service for Jimmy Carter in the National Cathedral went over TFG’s head and he got bored. Mercifully, the CSPAN camera didn’t linger on his mug for very long.
I love the art deco lettering on this modernist “Air Show” building from the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, “A Century of Progress.”
Source: The Newberry Library Digital Collections, Modern MS Monroe Exposition vol. 28 no. 37.
Public Domain Image Archive, pdimagearchive.org.
“Digitization Complete for World-Renowned Franco Novacco Map Collection,” www.newberry.org….
Newly digitized map collection makes over 750 sixteenth- and seventeenth-century maps available online.
Had to cut short a walk this afternoon because I was not dressed for the wind, which was making 19°F / -7°C feel like 5°F / -15°C.
Besides marking a massive mob attack on the Capitol four years ago, this date reminds me of the early signs of the coronavirus pandemic a year before that and of my parents' tumble down the stairs in that same period, my father landing on my mother. That’s also when I finished writing “Blogging Histories of Knowledge in Washington, DC,” meeting with my coauthor in Frankfurt a.M. via FaceTime from a hotel room in North Conway, NH.
I had to relocate to NH for eldercare 20 months after that. That means I’ve lived up here for 40 months now, though I still haven’t got used to all the changes. Except for becoming a grandfather—that part has come easy to me. My grandchild is a joy.
Women installing assemblies and fixtures in the tail fuselage of a B-17F bomber (Flying Fortress) under construction at the Douglas Aircraft Company in Long Beach, California, in October 1942. The bodies of the women seem almost choreographed, embodying the dignity and high purpose of their labor. Photo by Alfred T. Palmer for the U.S. Office of War Information.
Source: Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Color Photographs, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017878924/.