Category: History - Nowtopian

What the Hell

June 14, 2025, h/t Polly Marshall for sending me this photo while I was home with COVID.

I’ve been extremely reluctant to write anything for months. We are drowning in bullshit. The maelstrom of AI-generated slop on all social media platforms is bad enough. But there’s also so many new independent journalists (no […]

As Darkness Engulfs Us

I’ve been AWOL from this blog for months now. My dad moved into an assisted living facility in Millbrae and it’s been very time-consuming, to say the least. I had all sorts of problems with his health, the institution and its billing practices, and all the planning associated with leaving his home, watching my sister […]

“Things Are in the Saddle, and Ride Mankind”

So said Ralph Waldo Emerson in the middle of the nineteenth century. As we proceed into the glowering gloom of the coming years, I always find it helpful—if not refreshing exactly—to place things in historic context. But also to recognize that there have been deep systemic paradigm shifts again and again—and those shifts don’t come […]