He Dreamed Up Bosch and the Lincoln Lawyer. It All Started With L.A. (Elisabeth Egan / NYT) — For almost four decades, Michael Connelly has set his characters loose in a city of big dreams and lucky breaks. Now they’re facing an altered landscape. So is he.
Jamelle Bouie: The Founders Were Afraid for the Country, Too (NYT) — Bouie quotes Franklin, Hamilton, Washington and Madison on their fears of despotism and and hopes for the enduring freedom of their new country. He ends on a note of cautious optimism:
We have a would-be despot in the White House. But even with a rotting Constitution on the verge of crisis, this is still a Republic, and the people are still sovereign. The task, then, is to make this clear to those in power who would like to pretend otherwise.
Amazon annihilates Alexa privacy settings, turns on continuous, nonconsensual audio uploading: (Cory Doctorow @pluralistic@mamot.fr / Pluralistic) “The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely.”
On r/AITA: AITA for breaking up with my GF after she gave away my dog…. AND LIED ABOUT IT? — NTA. The girlfriend is a psycho.
How a Quack TV Doctor Made It to Washington — Journalist Eoin Higgins profiles Dr. Oz for The New York Times.
Hamilton Nolan: Seeing Things For What They Are — The US political models that have been useful for the past 40 years have fundamentally changed. Democratic leadership in Washington, D.C., is hopelessly mired in the past.
Extreme things—things that sit completely outside of the mental framework that too many of our political leaders are still using to govern their decisions—are happening now. And they are going to happen more. And they are going to get more extreme. This does not mean that we are in a hopeless situation. It does, however, mean that we must adjust our interpretation of the world, or be left behind.
Not just political leaders. Every American needs to realize that the rules we operated under until 2024 are obsolete, and we need to reconcile with the new order.
New 'Starship Troopers' Movie in the Works from 'District 9' Filmmaker Neill Blomkamp
Borys Kyt at The Hollywood Reporter:
Blomkamp’s take is not a remake of the Verhoeven movie, and sources say the goal is to go back to the source material.
Not my favorite Heinlein. I guess I’ll see if if it looks good.
I’d love to see a movie or prestige miniseries of my favorite Heinlein: “Citizen of the Galaxy," “Starman Jones," “The Star Beast,” “Double Star” and “Methuselah’s Children.” “Orphans of the Sky” wasn’t a great book but it could be a great movie or series.
You want to bring back American ingenuity again? Make education and healthcare accessible to everyone. Make “right to repair” codified in the Constitution. Make Net Neutrality the law of the land. A person’s chance of surviving and having a roof over their head shouldn’t depend on “generational wealth”. Once those things happen, American ingenuity will return in full force again. It’s not Canada, Mexico, or Europe’s fault we’re here. It’s our own fault. But we can still do better.
— Scott Williams
@vwbusguy@mastodon.online
Lawmakers in red states are angling to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage (Associated Press / The Times of San Diego)
It Isn’t Just Trump. America’s Whole Reputation Is Shot (David Brooks / NYT) — The world now sees the US as a dangerous rogue superpower, Brooks notes. “I don’t care if Abraham Lincoln himself walked into the White House in 2029, no foreign leader can responsibly trust a nation that is perpetually four years away from electing another authoritarian nihilist,” he says. But Brooks ends his column on a hopeful note; when Trump and his movement inevitably self-destruct, that will be “an opportunity and rebirth.”