Frenchfold

@frenchfold.bsky.social

822 Followers 2025 Following

Art director, graphic designer, bibliophile, and the buddy of a great dog.

Artificial intelligence is not just a market product or a scientific achievement. It is a political theory. And it is gobbling up our democracy.
From ‘War and Tariffs Threaten a Resilient U.S. Economy Again,’ NYT July 24, 2026 For consumers, the changes in tariffs could also translate to real losses. Households could face an average of $1,100 in additional annual costs under the full slate of Mr. Trump's recent policies, compared with about $550 under current law, the nonpartisan think tank found.
Paul Krugman from his Substack, 07/17: It's safe to say that at this point nobody who wasn't already completely in the Trump tank is being persuaded by all this strutting, or indeed by anything Trump said in last night's low-energy, boring rant. But remember: At this point, none of what Trump says is really about persuasion. It's all about laying the groundwork for his attempt to destroy democracy.
Sometimes, the president seems to be waging war not only on Iran but also on reality.
NYTimes At Mt Rushmore, Trump veers from patriotism to ‘Communism’ By Shawn McCreesh Reporting from Mount Rushmore Published July 3, 2026 Updated July 4, 2026, 12:26 a.m. ET Four months before tough midterm elections, President Trump used the backdrop of Mount Rushmore one night before the nation's 250th birthday to characterize his political opponents as "godless," "evil" communists. "We can only lose the midterms if we allow ourselves to lose the midterms, if we are foolish stupid and unwise," he said on Friday, demanding that Congress pass his so-called SAVE America Act, which would impose stricter voter ID rules that would make it harder to vote. He called for terminating the filibuster. The larger purpose of the speech wasn't hard to miss. He was sharpening a line of attack that the White House has started to use to head off a newly insurgent progressive wing of the Democratic Party that appears to be resonating with liberal voters. Mr. Trump read from an apocalyptic script as the stony faces of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln looked on. He said the word "communism" so many times, you might've tholemn was still on.
Kerry James Marshall, SOB, SOB, 2003, acrylic on fiberglass, 108 x 72 in. (274.3 x 182.9 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2010.29, © 2003, Kerry James Marshall
Headline from the June 30th Guardian: Analysis Fresh hostilities in Gulf suggest US-Iran memorandum was too broadly worded
On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the surge in energy prices had wiped out a year and a half of wage gains for the average American worker. On Friday, the public-markets debut of SpaceX made Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire. That stark juxtaposition helps explain why many Americans, in survey after survey, say they no longer believe the U.S. economy is working for them. A few people are getting fabulously, unimaginably wealthy at the same time that entire generations of families worry they will never be able to afford to buy a house, raise children or enjoy a comfortable retirement.
HOW TO THINK IMPOSSIBLY About Souls, UFOs, Time, Belief, and Everything Else JEFFREY J. KRIPAL
JASON ANANDA JOSEPHSON STORM METAMODERNISM THE FUTURE of THEORY
"It needs to be emphasized again and again: What is happening is an assault on democracy, and they're using the easiest vector, which is anti-Black racism, because it's the easiest thing you could do, the laziest thing you can do," Nelson said. "They are cementing absolute minority control because they do not represent a majority of this country. And when they — if they — get away with the heist, we will be locked out of multiracial democracy for at least a generation."
Elsewhere in the First Gospel, Jesus has manifested his concern for the young. He heals children (9:18–26; 15:21–28; 17:14–18); he feeds children (14:13–21; 15:29–39); he holds them up as a model for disciples (18:3); he prays for them (19:13–15); he receives their praise with appreciation (21:15). So now here he admonishes, Let the children come to me (19:14). (Talbert, 2010)
Forks altered by the Italian designer Bruno Munari, c.1954.
A small section of forks by the Italian designer Bruno Munari
The bargain was simple: your participation produces results, so stay in the game. That deal wasn't made for the benefit of Black Americans alone, though it was Black blood that paid for it. It was made for the benefit of a country that needed a working, peaceful way for people with every reason in the world to burn the whole thing down to instead choose to work within it. The VRA wasn't just the nice move — it was the smart one. Its purpose was to keep legitimate grievance inside the system rather than outside it. Now they've put it back outside.
On Wednesday, Leo responded: "If anyone wants to criticise me for proclaiming the gospel, let them do so with the truth: the church has spoken out against all nuclear weapons for years, there is no doubt about that. I simply hope to be listened to because of the value of God's word." From this morning’s Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/07/marco-rubio-to-meet-pope-at-the-vatican-after-trump-attacks-on-pontiff?
Rural voters have long enjoyed disproportionate power, but cross-cutting regional and cultural issues, interests and identities prevented them from acting as a national political bloc until quite recently. Yet, that consolidation of power has benefited the GOP, rather than the voters who vote for it. Rural job growth-which began lagging behind in 1980-has only lagged further behind as GOP power has consolidated, most dramatically since the 2010 Tea Party wave. And rural population has even declined since then.
However, the Air Force concluded that the crash was due to a jammed stabilizer on the lead jet. The other pilots, in accordance with their training, did not break formation.
"I thought it was me as a doctor," Mr. Trump said of the social media post, which he deleted after an outcry. "Only the fake news could come up with that."
"Enough of the idolatry of self and money!" Leo said during an evening prayer service, according to The Associated Press. "Enough of the display of power! Enough of war!"
Tolstoy traced the same pattern from the other side. In "War and Peace," he depicted Napoleon - nourished on Plutarch's "Lives" and its portraits of greatness — who marched through Borodino to Moscow and still could not fathom a people who would let their city burn rather than submit. His error was not tactical. It was imaginative: He could not credit the Russians with a logic that was not his own. That is the mistake the architects of this campaign are repeating. A leadership that has spent decades framing resistance to American and Israeli power as a religious obligation will experience military pressure not as a reason to capitulate but more probably as a reason to endure.
That’s how people know it’s a Honda.
NYT: Republicans in Congress Fret Over Iran War as Pentagon Offers Few Answers G.O.P. lawmakers who have given the Trump administration wide latitude to wage war with no congressional input are growing frustrated as officials offer little detail about ground troops, cost or timeline.
Streetlights through a the fogged up glass of a door.
Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard who studies threats to democracies, said that while increased security is necessary for officials who live in a "big, complicated" country like the United States and face security threats, sending them to military housing delivers a chilling message to the public. "It is something you never see in a democracy," he said. "Government officials live on military bases or other sort of fortified zones in authoritarian regimes."
Guardian: The Home Office was approached for comment. It has consistently declined to comment on individual cases. It has said on multiple occasions that it notified the public of the new rules with postings on its gov.uk website page in October 2024. Last week, in a U-turn, it said EU citizens with settled status in the UK could travel on their second passport. This does not apply to their children, however. The Home Office has also refused all calls to introduce a grace period to allow those who did not read gov.uk, and who have now learned of the rules in the media, to get passports.
BBC Trump says US considering winding down war in Iran but other nations must guard Hormuz
BBC Trump says US considering winding down war in Iran but other nations must guard Hormuz
Rules requiring lawyers to serve as honest officers of the court have been adopted by every state and the District of Columbia. They serve a host of purposes, starting with the basic right to fairness. These rules are also critical to the independence of the courts, which depend on access to reliable evidence and accurate representations by counsel. Such rules serve an especially critical function in constitutional democracies, which distinguish themselves from authoritarian regimes in part by insisting that truth and falsehood exist separately from whatever the government may assert. Facts, no less than law, constrain government power. Against the "flood the zone" strategy of misinformation that the current administration seems to favor, lawyers and judges, bound by legal, professional and social obligations to work in a reality-based world, can function as a critical levee.
Pentagon officials said in recent closed-door briefings on Capital Hill that the military used up $5.6 billion of munitions in the first two days of the war alone …
First, it made clear why a society that had become so expansive and prosperous under the auspices of Zhou tradition was, in Confucius's own time, falling apart. The traditions of the Zhou founders no longer provided order and harmony, so Confucius taught, because the people participating in them were only "going through the motions." They expected that the fastidious performance of a ritual could attract blessings from the spirits or foster peace between the living; but they had forgotten the values like harmony and humaneness that made such blessings deserved or peace itself worthwhile. To undertake rituals with selfish, superficial, materialistic intentions and then anticipate profound effects was folly. This was why the traditions of the Zhou had become so impotent and why elites had turned increasingly to violence to achieve political goals. Secondly, an understanding of the Way showed Confucius the path out of the current crisis. The elites of the Zhou world did not need better institutions or better traditions; they
Sunrise over Lake Ontario, light snow dusting a deeper layer of crusty snow. Lighthouse in the distance.
Quote from Peter Baker in the New York Times on March 1st, under the headline, “Trump, the self-declared peace president, goes to war seeking regime change.” “But how Iranians should go about taking over was left unclear. Mr. Trump wrote that police and revolutionary guard forces should “peacefully merge with the Iranian Patriots, and work together as a unit to bring back the Country to the Greatness it deserves “ — a remarkable notion suggesting that Iranian security officials would somehow team up with the same people they were gunning down in the streets just weeks ago.
James Madison may offer some long-range perspective. During the 1787 Constitutional Convention, arguing for forming a nation instead of retaining the confederation of states, he said that force applied to citizens collectively rather than individually ceases to be law enforcement and becomes war; and that groups so treated will seize the opportunity to dissolve all compacts by which they might otherwise been bound.
Images are the only means at our disposal for seeing what others see, for testing on ourselves the greater or lesser coincidence between the visual pathway that our education, our sensitivity, and our biography have gotten us used to tracing along certain folds of the world, and the pathways that others—in other places, at other times, according other figurative codes—have themselves learned to follow along other just as plausible folds.
A man, possibly a tow-truck driver (the driver of the truck on the left perhaps), pushing a car out of the snow. Montreal snowstorm of 1946. Street has a bit of a hill, and is major enough to have a streetcar; possibly Saint-Catherine (near the current Place des Arts, facing east?) or Saint-Laurent (corner Pins, facing south?). Archives nationales à Montréal, Fonds La Presse, photographer unknown.
Slipcase by Watanabe Katei (1913), showing a weasel, ferns, and fiddleheads (so, well, more ferns). From the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Netherlands.
Kate Brideau, The Typographic Medium
Lacloche Frères bat handbag.
Yet as he spoke, an inescapable thought popped into my head. In the years ahead, might I find myself in some foreign city, a dissident journalist in exile, celebrating the arrest of the rogue president of the United States? I once would have scoffed at such sensationalism. But watching Trump and his allies blow past what once seemed like impregnable safeguards of American democracy, I marvel at the failure of my own imagination. It can happen here. In fact, it already is.