January 22, 2026
The Oscar nominations are out.
It's happening!
@PatMcAfeeShow it’s happening… pic.twitter.com/4GbBspkFlU
— Bob Rae (@TheBobRae) January 22, 2026
"The swan, who had recently lost his mate, would not move away from a vending machine at Tri-Township Park in Troy, Ill."
From "Swan Seeks Mate: Must Like Cold Lake and Small Flock/An Illinois parks department sought help from the community to find mates for two swans after they lost their companions. Residents responded" (NYT).
"And this is for the people of Gaza. We've developed it into zones. In the beginning, we were toying with the idea of saying, let's build a free zone and then we have a Hamas zone."
January 21, 2026
"Barron Trump was on a video call with a woman in London when he saw her ex-boyfriend allegedly grab her hair and push her to the floor while shouting 'you are not worth anything'..."
From "Barron Trump ‘saved woman’s life’ in London/The US president’s youngest son tells court that he saw his friend being assaulted by a former boyfriend during a video call and called the police" (London Times).
"After a Thursday board meeting in New York City, Mr. Klempf, 34, flew to Athens for eight hours, where he toured the Parthenon."
That's the travel trend called "microvacations," from "Travel Trends in 2026: Uncertainty, Face Scans and ‘Microvacations'" (NYT).
"Based upon a very productive meeting that I have had with the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, we have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland..."
Trump is now confusing Greenland and Iceland: "They're not there for us on Iceland, that I can tell you. Our stock market took the first dip yesterday because of Iceland. So Iceland has already cost us a lot of money." pic.twitter.com/Iu9CI6M2ku
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 21, 2026
"Learning cursive will provide New Jersey students with 'the skills they need to read our nation’s founding documents'...."
Proponents of cursive cite studies that link handwriting to better information retention and writing speed, and say — as Mr. Murphy did in a statement released as he signed the bill — that knowing script can help people read the original U.S. Constitution....
On Tuesday, Gabrielle and Kurt McCann, of Lebanon, N.J., were waiting to break the news to their 9-year-old son, Atlas McCann, when he got home from school. “I think it is important that kids are able to use that refined motor skill,” Ms. McCann said in an interview shortly after a meeting where she said she had taken all her notes in longhand.
But Atlas, she said, was thinking, “What’s the point of having to sit here and torture myself?”
The poor boy has the weight of the world on his shoulders. And now, this additional burden — handwriting! What for? Who reads the Constitution in the original handwriting? It's not even cut-and-paste-able. It's not searchable in handwritten form. Atlas will grope forward, if the time ever comes, asking AI what constitutional clause goes with whatever is the issue of the day. What constitutional clause deals with transgender women in girls sports? What constitutional clause gives cis gender girls the right to undress at public school in a single-sex locker room? The ancient handwriting will not say. AI will.
Let's consult not a politician but an expert:
“Oh, God,” Morgan Polikoff, an education professor at the University of Southern California, said when he learned of the New Jersey law.... He attributed the renewed affection for the style’s curlicues and squiggles to “boomerish nostalgia,” and said he was struck by cursive’s bipartisan appeal, with states as different politically as Arkansas and California requiring its instruction. Conservatives, the professor said, promote its utility for reading old documents; liberals like it for its beauty as an art form....
Fight the decline lest the day come when we cannot read the documents. Then what?
"The pink forests of the northern pre-spring."
Notorious crackhead and grifter...
The White House distributed a print-out to reporters in the briefing room listing out “365 wins” from President Trump’s year back in office. #243 stands out: “Stripped notorious crackhead and grifter Hunter Biden of his taxpayer-funded secret service detail.” pic.twitter.com/LtpAC1wPGY
— Elizabeth Landers (@ElizLanders) January 20, 2026
What was so bad about 1976?
That's the teaser on the front page of the NYT for an article with a different headline, "The Conservative Conspiracy Against Women’s Progress Is Real" (by Jessica Grose)."On social media, Mr. Macron’s sunglasses were seen as a political statement, projecting a tough image in the face of Mr. Trump’s threats to..."
From "Why Was Macron Wearing Sunglasses at Davos? An eye condition, not a style choice, prompted President Emmanuel Macron of France to don aviators to address the World Economic Forum" (NYT).I've written about aviator sunglasses before. Let me find that. Here, from March 2017, "And gold aviator eyeglasses are one of the sexiest shapes you could possibly wear." I wrote:
For the annals of sexiest shapes imaginable. Aviator glasses are back in style, we're told in the NYT.
I'm not buying that these glasses are obviously sexy. There's also...
"One of my style icons is Gloria Steinem, and she’s worn that look forever."...
Aviator glasses were adopted by stylish people in the 60s. I'll never forget seeing Mort Sahl — the political satirist — on "The Tonight Show" holding up a picture of Gloria Steinem and railing against her, harping specifically on her glasses. As I remember it, he took the position that it was ludicrous to wear aviator glasses unless you were an aviator.



