jenszalai.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

In his new book "Empty Vessel," the historian Ian Kumekawa landed on an ingenious way to make the abstractions of globalization feel more concrete: Tell the story of neoliberalism from the perspective of a barge. (The pic is from its stint as a "floating jail" in the East River in 1992.)

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

It is time to open the strategic doll reserve.

submitted 16 days ago • 5 comments

The New York Times pieced together the most complete account yet of the U.S. arrangement with El Salvador and the March 15 deportations from internal government documents, court filings and interviews with 22 people familiar with the operation or legal challenges. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/u...

submitted 16 days ago • 11 comments

We believe many things. How do we know that they're true? And how do we convince others that they're true? I reviewed PROOF, a new book that I found especially useful in these surreal times:

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

In October 2016, John Jeremiah Sullivan met with Pope Francis, who declined to speak directly about the upcoming presidential election but made the point that a society could be highly “politicized” yet utterly bereft of a “political culture.” www.nytimes.com/2025/04/26/m...

submitted 20 days ago • 1 comment

submitted 20 days ago • 5 comments

Richard Kreitner's "deeply researched and unsparingly honest" "Fear No Pharaoh," reviewed by @jonfasman.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/books/2025/0...

submitted 22 days ago • 0 comments

Coincidentally I just reviewed a great new book about this very subject: How the fears and fantasies of tech billionaires distract them from the more urgent problems at hand.

submitted 23 days ago • 2 comments

Quinn Slobodian’s excellent new book on the socio-economic darwinism of the hard-right helps explain our chainsaw-capitalist moment.

submitted 37 days ago • 3 comments

There are a lot of myths about homelessness, and Brian Goldstone's deeply reported new book demolishes a number of them. He shows how how five Atlanta families found themselves in the direst of straits yet statistically invisible: “They literally did not count.”

submitted 48 days ago • 2 comments

“A question running through Webster’s book is why such obvious reminders of our shared vulnerability—whether because of Covid or climate change—have yielded so little by way of solidarity.”

submitted 58 days ago • 0 comments

Feel like this applies to a whole slew of Intellectual Debates,™️ in which guys kibitz and quarrel among themselves while paying negligible attention to the women who have been writing and thinking interesting things for years.

submitted 60 days ago • 0 comments

since she was 8 months old www.jsonline.com/story/news/l...

submitted 63 days ago • 227 comments

www.nytimes.com/2019/01/16/b...

submitted 63 days ago • 0 comments

WaPo's Ron Charles, in his Book Club newsletter, on Meta's repeated questions about his plans to review Sarah Wynn-Williams's "Careless People": "In my 27 years of reviewing and editing newspaper books sections, no company has ever done this with me."

submitted 63 days ago • 95 comments

Meta won a legal victory on Wednesday against a former employee who published an explosive, tell-all memoir, as an arbitrator temporarily prohibited the author from promoting or further distributing copies.

submitted 65 days ago • 91 comments

submitted 67 days ago • 8 comments

In her new book "Seven Social Movements That Changed America," the historian Linda Gordon includes a chapter on the 1920s KKK, pointing out that even as it collapsed, it had already succeeded in normalizing and intensifying a culture of bigotry. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/05/b...

submitted 72 days ago • 1 comment

can't believe it's 2025 and i'm stressed about tariffs and measles, like am i a character in an american girl book

submitted 74 days ago • 335 comments

“‘After nine days, she says she started freaking out and punching the walls,’ Lofving said. ‘There was blood everywhere.’ … “Lofving and Paschen say they still don’t know when Brösche will be released. Their questions to ICE have gone unanswered. The agency did not respond to an inquiry from KPBS.”

submitted 76 days ago • 0 comments

I think that a younger generation is finding Andrea Dworkin refreshing to read now precisely because her uncompromising, confrontational feminism feels like a proportionate response to a dispensation that doesn’t just countenance male domination but actively celebrates it.

submitted 77 days ago • 3 comments

“But Mr. Vought and Mr. Musk hit it off when they met, along with Mr. Ramaswamy, at Mar-a-Lago on Nov. 14. They were on the same wavelength in terms of taking the most extreme action possible.” Incredible reporting in this article.

submitted 77 days ago • 0 comments

An Andrea Dworkin mic drop for the ages: “Every woman’s fate is tied to the fate of women whom she politically and morally abhors.” www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/b...

submitted 79 days ago • 1 comment

“She conforms, in order to be as safe as she can be.” — Andrea Dworkin, “Right-Wing Women” www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/b...

submitted 79 days ago • 0 comments

Great, smart piece on the movement of conservatives (so-called) who have gotten impatient with originalism and are making the radical assertion that the president — not the courts — decides the limits of his powers.

submitted 90 days ago • 1 comment

"I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me." — Assistant U.S. Attorney Hagan Scotten on his refusal to drop the case against Eric Adams, in a letter to Emil Bove

submitted 91 days ago • 2 comments

A new book about the presidential pardon, which focuses on Ford's pardon of Nixon, also reveals how all the wrangling over Watergate — Watergate! — seems almost quaint in light of ... <gestures at the last three weeks>: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/12/b...

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www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/u...

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“He said he had not reached out to the workers to verify the information he published, or even to determine if they still worked for the government. “‘I’m busy; I’ve got a lot of stuff to do,’ Mr. Jones said.”

submitted 100 days ago • 0 comments

The New York Times is free to read at many public and school libraries; some - like the Los Angeles Public Library - make it available online.

submitted 100 days ago • 0 comments

and boring but vital infrastructure

submitted 100 days ago • 2 comments

Clear, succinct explainer from Jonathan Swan on what Musk has been doing, for anyone bewildered by the barrage of events. www.nytimes.com/video/us/pol...

submitted 100 days ago • 0 comments

Vought is also the person who said, “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains…. We want to put them in trauma.” www.propublica.org/article/vide...

submitted 102 days ago • 0 comments

open.substack.com/pub/executiv...

submitted 102 days ago • 2 comments

movie nation, please repost

submitted 107 days ago • 0 comments

Story goes on to say that this could have implications for crops — the water is supposed to be used by farmers later, when it’s needed, and not squandered now. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/31/u...

submitted 104 days ago • 1 comment

“ ‘Ungoverning favors incessant, potent, easily understood public dramas,’ Muirhead and Rosenblum write. The behind-the-scenes deliberations of an administrative state get jettisoned in favor of ‘performative aggression.’ ”

submitted 105 days ago • 0 comments