I hadn't used my "deeply" tag since last May.

It's a deeply bloggy tag, so it makes me want to do a post collecting recent iterations of "deeply." The first time I used it — in "Deeply... it's such a poser word" — I had a 12-point list. That was back in 2014. Let's see what "deeply" has been doing lately.

1. "The Once-Shameless President Is Deeply Embarrassed/As Donald Trump faces one humiliation after another, he is attacking those he blames" by Jonathan Lemire in The Atlantic, published today. Gift link. "But how Trump will respond next to this ongoing embarrassment remains unknown. He’s made the war deeply personal. Will he now bail on the stalled war entirely, leaving Iran more empowered in the region? Will he follow through on his threats to dramatically escalate the conflict, perhaps even to strike civilian infrastructure and energy sites? Or will he channel his rage against Americans who point out his mistakes?"

2. "UN rips ‘deeply troubling’ Iran for executing at least 56 people since start of war: ‘Has no place in our world'" — published today in The New York Post. "Several people were executed in the last two weeks alone, including a 19-year-old charged with 'enmity against god' for allegedly partaking in January’s protests. Two others arrested during the protests were also executed. And in July, two people were executed out of a group of 12 convicted of 'corruption on Earth' and 'enmity against God' over connections to four police killed in January."

3. "Ken Jennings Says He Cares 'More Deeply' About Trans Rights Than Any Other Issue" (Them, August 3, 2026). "Ken Jennings... recently got into a relatively minor back-and-forth on Bluesky with people who claimed his subscriptions to the New York Times were supporting an anti-transgender media organization.... Would I subscribe to the New York Times? No. Would I unfriend someone who did? Not necessarily.... Do I do the crossword puzzle? Yes, because nothing else quiets the anxiety I feel about living in our current reality quite like trying to find a five-letter word for boredom. Ah, 'ennui,' my old friend."

4. "The Woody Guthrie story you’ve probably never heard is deeply Jewish/A documentary recasts the folk singer’s legacy through the influence of his mother-in-law, Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt" (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, August 3, 2026). "The film ['Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls: Another Side of Woody Guthrie'] makes the case that Guthrie’s extended Jewish family was not incidental but integral in his artistic and personal evolution. It is a story that stretches from Oklahoma to Coney Island to the Yiddish literary world, and from the folk revival’s Jewish impresarios to one remarkable immigrant woman whose influence has largely gone unrecognized."

5. "Neil Shubin on Trusted Science in a ‘Deeply Partisan Age’/An eminent fossil hunter takes the reins at the National Academy of Sciences in a turbulent moment for American researchers" (NYT, June 2026). "As an institution, we are — by charter and design and history — nonpartisan. But we are in a deeply partisan age. Just by doing our work, we will be viewed in a partisan light no matter what. So our job is to double down on the science. We need to be a trusted source of data."

6. "'I Deeply Believe Dogs Have Superpowers and Secrets’/Prompted by a fierce attachment to his own pet, Paul Yoon wrote a harrowing yet hopeful novel, set during wartime, told from a canine perspective" (NYT, August 2, 2026). "Like his finest literary forebears who have written from a dog’s perspective — Virginia Woolf ('Flush'), John Berger ('King: A Street Story'), Jack London ('Call of the Wild') — Yoon pulls it off without being treacly or condescending.... It helps that Etna can understand everything that’s said by people around him. This was partly a practical choice, as Yoon explains: 'I wanted to create a bridge for the reader to experience this world and this journey.' But, he added, 'I deeply believe dogs have superpowers and secrets.'"

7. "The Deeply Human, Complexly Queer Animated Animals of 'Bouchra'" (autostraddle, August 3, 2026). "In Meriem Bennani and Orian Barki’s bold film Bouchra, an NYC‑based lesbian filmmaker... tries to process her relationship with her Moroccan mother through a semi‑autobiographical meta‑fictional drama stemming from a coming‑out letter she sent nine years prior.... It’s told via anthropomorphic animals in a hyperrealized backdrop.... [E]ntirely animated in Blender, Bouchra’s experimental animal‑filled approach takes some getting used to."

"Ian Andersen cycled into Iran in June 2025, carrying a camping stove, a tent, a flat-tire kit and cigarettes."

"Mr. Andersen, a free-spirited Minnesotan, was documenting a 10,000-mile bike journey from Portugal to Japan for a growing social media audience and had entered the country despite U.S. State Department warnings not to travel there. In one clip, Mr. Andersen, 33, is seen biking a mostly empty road while blaring an explicit, satirical rock anthem about America. In another, he remarks that the State Department’s advisory left opportunities for 'hidden gems.'"

From "Is Instagram’s Latest Travel Trend a Disaster Waiting to Happen? Travel accounts that feature risky, cross-continental journeys are proliferating on social media. Security experts have serious concerns" (NYT gift link). 

Here's that "one clip"

 

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A post shared by Ian Andersen (@ridewithian)

IN THE COMMENTS: A lot of you want to talk about the "real" Ian Anderson, and I see he's still around. He's 79. Here's the 2022 Jethro Tull album, "The Zealot Gene."

"In the days before the sentence was carried out, she had tried to keep living as if nothing was about to happen... She showered and wore thick felt-like clothes..."

"... to absorb the blows as much as possible.... What surprised Roody most, she said, was the appearance of the female officer carrying out the flogging. She said: 'She was an older woman in a black chador, with a thick moustache. She was religious. It was strange. If you saw her somewhere else, you would never imagine this was her job. She looked ordinary.' She said the woman seemed to be trying to be gentle, but that did not lessen the violence. 'It did not stop me from hating them,' said Roody.... 'I hated her polite, ceremonial tone,' she said, adding: 'She spoke to me as if she were doing something normal. Before it started, she even joked and said: "Are you scared? Don’t worry, the whip is very thin and I won’t hit hard." Then she took out a Quran. She prayed and closed it. They try to cleanse their own dirty work.... She had made a few promises to herself before the punishment, one of which was that she would not make a sound. 'I came home with my head held high, the way I wanted,' she said. For Roody, the punishment was not only physical. It was designed to humiliate and was part of a longer history of violence against women...."

From "I danced until 2am… then it was off to my flogging/An Iranian rapper and critic of regime was determined to show no suffering as a woman in a black chador put down her Quran and picked up her whip" (London Times).

"Millions of readers bought the books, which became a popular school assignment and one of the widest-read works to explore the interior lives of modern Iranians."

"The series was adapted into a 2007 film that was nominated for the Academy Award for best animated feature. 'Persepolis,' the author Fernanda Eberstadt wrote in a New York Times review, 'dances with drama and insouciant wit,' its inky black-and-white drawings modeled on both contemporary comics and Persian miniatures.... Not quite two decades later, Ms. Satrapi set to work documenting another tumultuous moment in Iranian history: the unrest in 2022 that followed the death, in police custody, of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, who had been detained and accused of violating a law requiring women to wear the hijab in public. In protest, women across Iran tore off their veils, in one of the most significant cultural and political moments in the country since the 1979 revolution...."

From "Marjane Satrapi, the Author of ‘Persepolis,’ Dies at 56/Her popular graphic novel series, published in the early 2000s, followed an Iranian girl through the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War" (NYT).

The obituary quotes Satrapi: "Even basic human rights, they deny us. You don’t have the right to dance, you don’t have the right to sing, you don’t have the right to do this, you don’t have the right to do that."

The NYT obituary doesn't say how Satrapi died, but at Deadline, it says: "'Marjane Satrapi died of sadness a little over a year after the death of Mattias Ripa, her husband and the love of her life,' read a statement from close friends and family announcing her death on June 3...."

"It turns out that the United States and Israel went into the conflict with a particular and very surprising someone in mind: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad..."

So it says here in "Early War Goal Was to Install Hard-Line Former President as Iran’s Leader/An Israeli strike designed to free Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from house arrest in Tehran, U.S. officials said, was part of an effort to bring about regime change and put him in power" (NYT)(gift link).

To say that Mr. Ahmadinejad was an unusual choice would be a vast understatement. While he had increasingly clashed with the regime’s leaders and had been placed under close watch by the Iranian authorities, he was known during his term as president, from 2005 to 2013, for his calls to “wipe Israel off the map.” He was a strong supporter of Iran’s nuclear program, a fierce critic of the United States and known for violently cracking down on internal dissent.

It seems incredible. And, we're told, it "quickly went awry."

Mr. Ahmadinejad was injured on the war’s first day by an Israeli strike at his home in Tehran that had been designed to free him from house arrest, the American officials and an associate of Mr. Ahmadinejad said. He survived the strike, they said, but after the near miss he became disillusioned with the regime change plan. He has not been seen publicly since then and his current whereabouts and condition are unknown.

Why are we hearing about this now? Is this disinformation?

Propaganda from Iran — "One Vengeance for All."

Holy shit, Iran just released this video!

What are we supposed to think about this?pic.twitter.com/Nzp7xKz2B2 https://t.co/ChdbEgrjFa

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) March 25, 2026

Does this ad mean that Iran — whoever purports to be acting for Iran — has no intention of negotiating for peace or could this be understood as a display of a strength that it has as it prepares to enter negotiations? The strength is its power to undermine America support for the war, and I think there are many Americans who will respond very positively to this ad.

Meanwhile, according to Trump, negotiations are in motion:

🇺🇸🇵🇰 Trump says talks are underway to ease Middle East tensions.

Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey are leading the push as Gulf countries keep facing Iranian attacks.pic.twitter.com/9D77B38XTD https://t.co/z9oqzT8qyP

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) March 25, 2026

"Nearly 48 hours since being appointed as the third supreme leader of the Islamic Republic in Iran’s history, Mojtaba Khamenei is nowhere to be seen."

I'm reading "Iran's new supreme leader is still nowhere to be seen" (CNN).

No video message has been put out from him addressing the crowds of supporters that have gone onto the streets across Iran to pledge their allegiance to him, nor has a written statement been issued by him or his office. State media has relied on archive footage to introduce him to the audience, and state propaganda networks have heavily relied on AI video and stills to create an image of an all-wise leader who rightly inherits the mantle of leadership.... But even as the leader remains hidden from sight, it seems the wider body politic is still functioning with little suggestion of a change in the war posture....

I wonder when, in human history, has the news of the death of a leader been suppressed so that people would believe that he was continuing to govern?

I haven't studied this question in great depth, but I have formed the opinion that the best story — the story to beat — is that of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China. As Wikipedia tells it:

"It seems that the Democratic Party, broadly, has concluded that the roughly 120-hour-old campaign is a disaster that the public is destined to despise...."

"[I]f the U.S. and Israel engineer a victory for the West in Iran, Democrats will have to spend 2028 arguing that voters should not believe their lying eyes. The Democrats are betting on failure, and they may be right. If they are, we’ll have bigger problems than the Democratic Party’s political achievements. But if they aren’t, Democrats will regret having to argue that the world was better off with the Islamic Republic of Iran."

Writes Noah Rothman, in "The Democrats’ Iran Gamble" (National Review).

"Iran’s democratic opposition groups — monarchists and republicans, secular and religious minorities, leftists, liberals, and every ethnicity — are united..."

"... on four foundational principles: Iran’s territorial integrity; individual liberties and equality of all citizens; separation of religion and state; and the Iranian people’s right to decide a democratic form of government. Many Iranians, often despite facing bullets, have called on me to lead this transition. I am in awe of their courage, and I have answered their call. Our path forward will be transparent: a new constitution drafted and ratified by referendum, followed by free elections under international oversight. When Iranians vote, the transitional government dissolves.... A free Iran would extend [the Abraham Accords] by immediately recognizing Israel and pursuing a broader regional peace framework linking Iran, Israel and our Arab neighbors in cooperation rather than conflict. I suggest calling the agreement the Cyrus Accords, for Cyrus the Great, the benevolent ancient Persian ruler whom Thomas Jefferson cited as an inspiration...."

Writes Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of the last shah of Iran, in "Thanks to President Trump, the hour of Iran’s freedom is at hand/Our path forward is a new constitution followed by free elections under international oversight" (WaPo).

"Across Iran crowds took to the streets, playing music, honking car horns and cheering. Fireworks were set off and residents applauded at their windows."

"Raha, 42, who lives in the capital, said she had spent 'years' dreaming of news of the leader’s death, 'but it was nothing like the dreams I had imagined. I’m laughing, crying and shouting. The killer of my dreams, the killer of my youth, the killer of Iran’s most beautiful children is no longer breathing... I feel exhausted, like a soldier who has fought for hours and is suddenly told that the enemy is dead. I want to sleep for days — a deep, heavy sleep.' Alireza, 42, who also lives in the city, was similarly thrilled after US-Israeli missile strikes hit Khamenei’s compound on Saturday. 'I wish that in those moments when his residence was attacked and the rubble fell on him, he stayed alive for a few minutes — that he suffered, that he felt pain — remembering all the suffering he gave to millions of Iranians over all these years,' he said."

From "Fear turns to joy as ordinary Iranians see off Ayatollah Khamenei/There was smoke and a sound. We looked up. Did they kill Khamenei, they asked" (London Times).

Elon Musk loves the idea of Rubio as "president of Venezuela, governor of Cuba, and the Shah of Iran."

I support this 💯 https://t.co/MFckQ5VWqr

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 3, 2026

"Forced to marry her cousin at 12, Kouhkan became pregnant at 13 and gave birth to a son. She suffered physical and emotional abuse..."

"... for years. On the day her husband was killed, Kouhkan found him beating their son, then aged five. She called her husband’s cousin, Mohammad Abil, for help. When he arrived a fight broke out which resulted in the death of her husband...."

From "Child bride spared execution in Iran after blood money is paid/Guardian story helped to draw attention to planned hanging of Goli Kouhkan over death of abusive husband" (The Guardian).

"Iran executes the highest number of women in the world, according to available data. Amnesty International said that at least 30 women were executed in the country last year. At least 42 women have been executed in 2025 so far – 18 for murdering their husbands, including two child brides, according to Iran Human Rights."

"On a recent evening in the north of Iran’s capital of Tehran, a young woman with long hair fashioned into a high ponytail hopped onto a motorcycle behind a male companion."

Not far away, two other young women smoked cigarettes together on a sidewalk, one with her hair cascading down her back, the other wearing a loose T-shirt with elbow-length sleeves... . These urban scenes... illustrate how common it has recently become for Iranian women to flout the law, in place for over four decades, requiring they cover their hair and dress modestly in public."

From "Iranian women flout law on mandatory veiling as police curtail arrests/Defiance of hijab requirements has grown widespread across Iran. The government seems wary of cracking down, fearing unrest. But conservatives haven’t given up" (WaPo).

"The daughter of Ali Shamkhani, one of the Islamic Republic’s top enforcers, had a lavish wedding in a strapless dress."

"Meanwhile, women in Iran are beaten for showing their hair and young people can’t afford to marry."

Wrote Masih Alinejad, an exiled Iranian dissident, quoted in "Why a strapless wedding dress threatens Iran hardliner Ali Shamkhani/The daughter of Ayatollah Khamenei’s henchman wore a low-cut gown, prompting accusations of double standards among the elite in the Islamic regime" (London Times).

And yet: "The leaked video appears... to have been taken from a female-only event at the wedding, at which it is not uncommon for the father and groom to make a brief appearance. The regime has lashed out against the critics, and one newspaper affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard insisted that Shamkhani had behaved in a 'dignified and proper manner.'..."

As for the display of wealth, we're told the wedding cost $20,000.

"In Iran, gay men and lesbians can be punished by public flogging and the death penalty."

"As a result, the United Nations Human Rights Council found, many gay and lesbian Iranians who are not trans are 'pressured into undergoing gender reassignment surgery without their free consent.'... Sam, 32, a trans man from Orange County, Calif., is currently in Tehran to pursue a hysterectomy and metoidioplasty, a kind of penis-construction surgery. Requesting anonymity to discuss a sensitive medical procedure, he said he was drawn to Iran because he believed the doctors there were 'more confident' than those in the United States.... Iran’s experience with transition surgery stems from a fatwa issued in the 1980s by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founding supreme leader of the Islamic republic, who declared that transgender individuals could gain legal recognition of the gender with which they identified, but only on the condition that they underwent transition surgery."

From "Iran Lures Transgender Foreigners for Surgery but Forces Operations on Locals/Iran became a pioneer in gender transition operations by forcing procedures on L.G.B.T.Q. Iranians. Desperate for cash, the Islamic republic is hoping to attract trans patients from around the world" (NYT)(free-access link).

"They basically are 2 countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing."

JUST IN 🇺🇸🇮🇷🇮🇱: US PRESIDENT TRUMP DOES REALLY HARD AT ISRAEL. 🥶 #Iran #Israel #Trump pic.twitter.com/P77w3PqNLM

— RAJAT (@IRajatJain) June 24, 2025

"One statement from the ministry urges people to be wary of strangers wearing masks or goggles, driving pickup trucks and carrying large bags or filming around military, industrial, or residential areas."

"Elsewhere, a poster published by the state-affiliated Nour News – which is close to Iran’s security apparatus – singled out for suspicion people who wear 'masks, hats, and sunglasses, even at night' and those who receive 'frequent package deliveries by courier.' The poster asks people to report 'unusual sounds from inside the house, such as screaming, the sound of metal equipment, continuous banging' and 'houses with curtains drawn even during the day.'..."

From "Iran’s Mossad paranoia grows, amid fears of Israeli spies wearing 'masks, hats and sunglasses'" (CNN).

"We urge that the resolution of the Iranian crisis leads to a broader de-escalation of hostilities in the Middle East, including a ceasefire in Gaza."

 That's the official statement, quoted in "Trump leaves G-7 meeting early to deal with Mideast; signs group statement/Trump signed the G-7’s statement backing Israel and criticizing Iran after discussions with other leaders and changes to the initial draft, a U.S. official said" (WaPo).

There's something off about that sentence, and I don't think it's just that "leads" should be "lead." (Subjunctive, right?) I think "urge" seems wrong. 

Who is being urged? Isn't the right word "hope"? We hope that the resolution of the Iranian crisis leads to a broader de-escalation of hostilities in the Middle East.... But to hope in this situation is too passive, and yet, what is going on here except passivity?

And what disturbs me most is that it seems as though they want to urge that there be a "de-escalation," but they are not urging the belligerents to de-escalate now. There's a precondition, "the resolution of the Iranian crisis." So it seems that they are urging that the crisis be resolved, and then hoping that when — if? — that happens, hostilities will de-escalate. That makes the most sense, but it says nothing about what the "resolution" is. The Iran crisis could be resolved through a complete military victory for Israel.

Finally, what is a "broader de-escalation of hostilities"? Hostilities have been escalating. The de-escalation has yet to begin. It's nonsense to speak of something that doesn't exist getting broader. And escalation and de-escalation are metaphors of height, not breadth. Pick one. "Broader de-escalation" also absurdly asks simultaneously for more and for less: We want wider shortness.

This sentence feels as though it began with many different words that have been swapped out for awkward substitutions. We're told Trump wouldn't sign the original draft. I'll bet that was better written, but the edited version we see won Trump's signature. Perhaps he wanted it to say nothing specifically discernible (other than "including a ceasefire in Gaza"). And perhaps he wanted to endorse military victory for Israel — AKA "the resolution of the Iranian crisis" — and didn't want or need to say it outright. He did get the others to sign onto that. 

“Where is our air defense?”/“How can Israel come and attack anything it wants, kill our top commanders, and we are incapable of stopping it?”

Said Iranian officials in "private text messages shared with The New York Times," quoted in "A Miscalculation by Iran Led to Israeli Strikes’ Extensive Toll, Officials Say/Interviews with half a dozen senior Iranian officials show that they were not expecting Israel to strike before another round of talks" (NYT).

Hamid Hosseini, a member of the country’s Chamber of Commerce’s energy committee, said, in an telephone interview: “Israel’s attack completely caught the leadership by surprise, especially the killing of the top military figures and nuclear scientists. It also exposed our lack of proper air defense and their ability to bombard our critical sites and military bases with no resistance.” 

From the article: "Iran’s senior leaders... never expected Israel to strike before another round of talks that had been scheduled for this coming Sunday in Oman, officials close to Iran’s leadership said on Friday. They dismissed reports that an attack was imminent as Israeli propaganda meant to pressure Iran to make concessions on its nuclear program in those talks. Perhaps because of that complacency, precautions that had been planned were ignored, the officials said."

Why would they concede "complacency"? Perhaps because they didn't really have "precautions" that, if taken, would have helped significantly. Still, I would have expected them to denounce Israel for treachery, especially given the promise of peace talks. 

"Israel launched a stunning series of strikes Friday morning on Iranian nuclear sites and killed several of the nation’s security chiefs, in a remarkable coup of intelligence and military force..."

"... that decapitated Tehran’s chain of command. President Trump warned that further attacks would be 'even more brutal' and redoubled pressure on Iran to reach a new deal to curb its nuclear program.... The attacks also killed top Iranian officials and nuclear scientists and hit Tehran’s long-range missile facilities and aerial defenses."

The NYT reports.

Trump at Truth Social: "I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal. I told them, in the strongest of words, to 'just do it,' but no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn’t get it done. I told them it would be much worse than anything they know, anticipated, or were told, that the United States makes the best and most lethal military equipment anywhere in the World, BY FAR, and that Israel has a lot of it, with much more to come - And they know how to use it. Certain Iranian hardliner’s spoke bravely, but they didn’t know what was about to happen. They are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse! There has already been great death and destruction, but there is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end. Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire. No more death, no more destruction, JUST DO IT, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE. God Bless You All!"