Candle salad is a vintage fruit salad that was popular in America from the 1920s through to the 1960s.

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Thrilling Wonder Stories, vol. 17, no. 3 (September 1940), with cover art by Earle Bergey illustrating a scene from Oscar J. Friend’s short story, “The Stolen Spectrum.”

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Sheepdog says nope tumblr.com/jimstares/789187338

“Your grandfather has the most nonspecific midcentury visage I have ever seen” tumblr.com/atomic-two-sheds/78

The Jargonizer translates plain speech into corporate language.

"How did you manage to fuck that up so bad?" -> "I am perplexed by the unforeseen consequences of the recent initiative. Could you provide insight into the factors that contributed to the suboptimal outcome?"

jargonize.vercel.app

A friend told me yesterday that I should take up painting. Later, I was reviewing my to-do list and saw, in the someday/maybe area: “Learn to draw? Take a class?” I have no memory of adding that task, but my to-do software says I added it three weeks ago.

I have not tried to draw anything since I was a pre-teen in art class. I expect if I tried now, the result would be so bad that you would not even be able to figure out what I am trying to draw.

And yet….

“The Man From Beyond,” by John Wyndham, Greek edition

reddit.com/r/badscificovers/co

The first time America tried mass deportation, it was a disaster politico.com/magazine/story/20

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 forced 80,000 people from their homes. "It was a humanitarian disaster and remains one of the most shameful episodes in the country’s history."

It was hotly contested and opponents filed many petitions against it.

"With one or two exceptions, the petitions voiced a powerful opposition to the forced emigration of native peoples. They addressed the particulars of the matter—broken treaties and the imperious claims of state governments—but they also spoke to a deep-seated belief about the young republic that is relevant to today’s debate about undocumented immigrants. The United States, they insisted, stood for 'justice and the rights of mankind. It did not disregard 'the cries of the oppressed and the sufferings of the helpless.'

"Recalling their own ancestors who had fled from oppressive governments in Europe, petitioners called for justice to be done to the native peoples who long ago had welcomed European immigrants. They condemned state laws that persecuted Native Americans and questioned the ability of the government to remove so many people safely. More generally, they called on Congress to prevent 'our national character from being disgraced, by the perpetration of an atrocious outrage.'

"The Indian Removal Act passed the House of Representatives in May 1830 by a mere five votes out of 199 cast. The public debate over the policy led anti-slavery activists such as William Lloyd Garrison to recognize the folly and immorality of mass deportation and encouraged them to turn against contemporaneous efforts to deport free and enslaved African-Americans to Africa. The deportation of Indians, recognized one group of residents from Lexington, New York, would 'stamp our national character with indelible infamy.' They were right. Politicians and their supporters should take note. We shouldn’t make the same mistake twice."

Financing Our Own Destruction: Are we taking this fascism thing seriously? hamiltonnolan.com/p/financing-

Pension funds need to stop letting MAGA billionaires manage their investments — they're using worker money to support policies that harm workers.

"Humans have a wonderful capacity for normalizing our own experiences. When our circumstances change, we are able to readjust to them as a new baseline in order to carry on with our lives. Research beloved by pop psychologists shows that this hedonic adaptation allows us to regain our equanimity even after a devastating life event—or, to lose our sense that extraordinary changes are special, rather than expected.

"This is a nice thing and all, and probably an evolutionary necessity to allow us not to freak the fuck out at this wacky wild life all the time. It does, however, come with drawbacks. A positive mental model of hedonic adaptation would be an accident victim who is paralyzed, yet manages to regain their happiness. Great. But another mental model of this phenomenon would be: Frogs in a pot, constantly readjusting to the rising temperature as they are boiled alive.

"America in 2025 is a nation that is being dragged by malign political forces into a pit of fascism, oligarchy, and hatred. This transformation is not happening very slowly at all. Yet it is slow enough that we can observe ourselves and others ever so slightly readjusting our daily expectations so that we can carry on with our normal lives. As we should. Simmering in constant anxiety is not a productive form of personal resistance. On an institutional level, though, that dogged refusal to snap out of the soothing belief that things are the same as ever is going to get us fucking killed. "

Podcasting is a listen-only medium for me; I listen to about two hours of podcasts daily, mostly while walking the dog, and also while doing chores and driving. I can't imagine watching all that. On the other hand, I'm fine watching YouTube videos that are mainly people talking.
nytimes.com/2025/07/20/style/p

ICE arrests of noncriminals have skyrocketed in San Diego. The U.S. government is cutting cancer research and emergency response to fund concentration camps to hold entrepreneurs and farmworkers. axios.com/local/san-diego/2025

"Facial recognition and crowdsourced social media investigations are constantly being used not just on cringe CEOs, but on random people who are simply existing in public."

I laughed at the video and memes, but it was a private matter, and none of these people deserved the global, public humiliation they received.

404media.co/the-astronomer-ceo

This is part of fascism. You can get a break from the law if you have a powerful ally. timesofsandiego.com/politics/2

Videophone by Ericsson, 1971.

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“You got your peanut butter in my chocolate!” - Reese’s - 1982

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