My whole operating philosophy now is to just stack good days. If I had a good day, that’s a win. Then I get up the next morning and try to do it all over again.

I had a good day today. Onward we go.

— Drew Magary (@drewmagary.bsky.social) 2024-11-19T23:58:54.481Z

Jeremy Warner, writing at Illini Inquirer, reflects on the tenure of Josh Whitman as Illinois AD and the culmination of this week’s triple rankings.

This week, all three of the most prominent programs in the Illinois athletic department are ranked: women’s basketball at No. 22, football at No. 24 and men’s basketball at No. 25. That’s the first time all three programs have been ranked at the same time since January 2000 — before Bill Self even arrived at Illinois to take over the men’s basketball program from Lon Kruger. Yeah, it’s been a while.

Illinois Athletics made one of the best decisions by hiring Josh Whitman as Athletic Director. What an incredible run so far, with higher expectations on the horizon.

Dave Winer: A quick podcast about the new 365-day-a-year campaign we need on the social web to keep our democracy alive.

I’ve been saying this for twenty years – the Dems shut down their campaign presence on the social web on Election Day, and they come back when they need our money (to give to the huge media companies for ads) and vote, and that’s it. We play no role in governing.

Meanwhile the other party, starting when Trump discovered Twitter, was on the air 24-by-7-by-365 every freaking year whether or not there’s a presidential election. Their voters are led, ours are left to drift around in the wind, asked to resist with no answer to the question How? We have no leadership.

Now we may be able to get the Harris campaign back on the air on the social web. We found the team that did it. Like the rest of us they lost their way on Election Day which was only two weeks ago, believe it or not.

Nicholas Bate –

There are many reasons for writing regularly.

But one is that the more you write the more you will discover your style and with that comes expertise and with that comes fun and enjoyment.

Go write.

Nicholas Bate –

You simply can’t do everything.

But you can do some things brilliantly. That will be more satisfying for you and more helpful for your family, friends and clients.

What will you choose to do well?

Tiny Idea put out a Saturday Night Live-level funny sketch. It had an excellent concept and incredible execution, and it legitimately made me laugh.

Michael Lopp –

I’m in the midst of a media cleanse. This started before the election when I canceled my Washington Post subscription. Jeff Bezos can do whatever he wants with the Washington Post, and he’s 100% correct that I don’t trust large media organizations.

After the election, I removed all news sources from Feedly except the Atlantic because I find their writing informative and compelling.

A friend calls this turtling. Pulling your head inside your shell and hiding. It’s quite comfortable here.

Me too.

Alex Dobrinko, at his Substack The Sublime, has a conversation with Adam Mastroianni, the writer behind one of Substack’s most popular newsletters Experimental History.

He asks him how we might find optimism and hope in a world that often feels dark and cynical. His answer is glorious.

“I think the root of the problem is the globalization of all problems.

Now, it feels like anything bad that happens anywhere in the world is somehow relevant to me and my responsibility. It’s like, I’m not allowed to be happy as long as someone, somewhere, is having a bad time.

Especially with global problems, it’s like, how are you allowed to smile when there’s climate change? These problems are really bad, but you can’t change everything yourself.

No one benefits from you scrolling on your phone and feeling sad and then going to Starbucks.

The antidote is figuring out what you care about, what you’re good at, and what you like doing that can make the world a little bit better.

Then, really do that thing.“

That bit about no one benefitting from doomscrolling is spot on. My goal in 2025 is to actively not do that and doing the things I care about.

James A. Reeves –

As I stared at the reddening map of America, I wondered why I’d invested so much time monitoring the polls and listening to punditry, diligently following every gasp of two dying political parties, both driven senile by the craziest voices on the internet. So no more news for me. From now on, I will seek the holy silence of a life without opinion mongers, thought leaders, professional outragers, pundits, and faith dealers. Because true freedom is not thinking about the president every day.

I’ve said it before, will doubtless say it again: These folks are going to be permanently resentful because they’re seeking political power as a substitute for cultural power, and it’s never going to give them what they actually want.

— Julian Sanchez (@normative.bsky.social) 2024-11-15T04:53:32.853Z

I genuinely think this is sort of the crux of our political dysfunction, and has been for at least a couple decades now. Listen, if you can stomach it, to a random MAGA grievance rant & ask yourself “how much of what they’re most upset about is something public policy can realistically address?”

— Julian Sanchez (@normative.bsky.social) 2024-11-15T16:37:44.762Z

Even when there’s a policy hook, it’s almost a meaningless symbolic proxy for the underlying issue they really want to address but can’t. Think about the insane amount of energy devoted to fretting about queer books in public or school libraries.

— Julian Sanchez (@normative.bsky.social) 2024-11-15T16:50:23.540Z

It’s 2024. In the unlikely event your semiliterate tween wants to crack a book, let alone one about gender identity or sexuality, pulling it from the local library is comically pointless as an access limitation. It’s just an impotent shriek of disapproval that these things are culturally accepted.

— Julian Sanchez (@normative.bsky.social) 2024-11-15T16:53:21.093Z

Kevin Drum, on his site Jabberwocking, lists a few nuggets of wisdom. All of them are worthwhile, but these are my favs.

Tax cuts don’t boost economic growth in any meaningful way.
The real dietary villain of the modern era is refined sugar.
One out of seven people have no interior monologue.
Most people seem to have no idea what the racial makeup of America is. For the record, it’s 58% white, 20% Latino, 14% Black, and 6% Asian.
On a huge range of measures—economic, social, cultural, technological, and recreational—life in America is stupendously good. We should all feel a lot better about things than we do. One of the reasons we don’t is that both liberals and conservatives have a vested interest in claiming that the country is on the precipice of imminent collapse due to moral decay.
Vaccines do not cause autism.
Fox News is a cancer. It should be burned to the ground and the earth salted behind it.

Jennifer Sandlin, writing for Boing Boing, has a post about regret.

Here’s a twenty-minute video recounting stories of regret, grief, and, honestly, pure ignorance, from people who voted for Trump and are beginning to suffer the consequences. The video was shared by MeidasTouch and features, as host Brett Meiselas explains, “Trump supporters already suffering after voting for Donald Trump in the 2024 election.”

I wish I could revel in schadenfreude, but, honestly, this video just makes me sad and angry that so many people unknowingly voted against their best interests or against the best interests of the people they love and care about. Sure, many folks knew exactly what they were voting for, but many didn’t, and that’s a sad commentary on the strength and pervasiveness of GOP propaganda as well as on the sorry state of education and critical media literacy in the United States. So, I get no pleasure from this video, only grief and outrage.

The Onion has purchased Alex Jones’s Infowars out of bankruptcy [unlocked article via Nextdraft]. This is hilarious.

Most importantly, they did it with the blessing of the Sandy Hook families, who have spent years working to hold Alex Jones to account for the spreading of his terrible conspiracy theories. InfoWars repeatedly alleged various false details about the school shooting, claiming that it was a “false flag” operation staged with “crisis actors,” in which no children were actually killed. Jones’s lies led to his listeners and fans harassing the family members of the children and teachers who were killed.

Bryce P. Tetraeder, Global Tetrahedron CEO, in an op-ed for The Onion:

Through it all, InfoWars has shown an unswerving commitment to manufacturing anger and radicalizing the most vulnerable members of society — values that resonate deeply with all of us at Global Tetrahedron.

No price would be too high for such a cornucopia of malleable assets and minds. And yet, in a stroke of good fortune, a formidable special interest group has outwitted the hapless owner of InfoWars (a forgettable man with an already-forgotten name) and forced him to sell it at a steep bargain: less than one trillion dollars.

Make no mistake: This is a coup for our company and a well-deserved victory for multinational elites the world over.

What’s next for InfoWars remains a live issue. The excess funds initially allocated for the purchase will be reinvested into our philanthropic efforts that include business school scholarships for promising cult leaders, a charity that donates elections to at-risk third world dictators, and a new pro bono program pairing orphans with stable factory jobs at no cost to the factories.

Best satire on the planet. SNL should take notes.

Nicholas Bate –

It’s true that the luxury of a ‘free’ day simply to write is a joy.

But such days are not necessary to produce your writing, your novel, your poem, your art.

Grab moments here and there. Resist the temptation to scroll; instead open the document and continue.

Neither the amount you write nor the quality of what you write need be defined by the time available.

Go write.

In this time of madness, Heather Cox Richardson shares wisdom and small seeds of hope* regarding the days to come. “The rift between the pre-2016 leaders of the Republican Party and the MAGA Republicans is still obvious, and Trump’s reliance on Elon Musk and his stated goal of deconstructing the American government could make it wider.”

While Trump is claiming a mandate to do as he wishes with the government, Republicans interested in their own political future are likely noting that he actually won the election by a smaller margin than President Joe Biden won in 2020, despite a global rejection of incumbents this year. And he won not by picking up large numbers of new voters—it appears he lost voters—but because Democratic voters of color dropped out, perhaps reflecting the new voter suppression laws put into place since 2021.

Then, too, Trump remains old and mentally slipping, and he is increasingly isolated as people fight over the power he has brought within their grasp. Today his wife, Melania, declined the traditional invitation from First Lady Jill Biden for tea at the White House and suggested she will not be returning to the presidential mansion with her husband. It is not clear either that Trump will be able to control the scrabbling for power over the party by those he has brought into the executive branch, or that he has much to offer elected Republicans who no longer need his voters, suggesting that Congress could reassert its power.

Falling into line behind Trump at this point is not necessarily a good move for a Republican interested in a future political career.

*Hope that democracy may survive, despite the horrors to come.

H/T: Metafilter

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Chancellor Robert Jones has decided to step down at the end of the academic year.

“I truly believe this is the greatest university in the world, which makes this the most difficult decision that has confronted me in my 47 years in higher education. My time at Illinois has been the most profound experience of my professional life, and I thank every single campus community member for that,” Jones said in a news release. “We are at the high point in our 157-year history in terms of our educational and research impact. Next is a period of transition with our institutional strategy and collaborations. This is an appropriate time to look toward the next leader who will build on that momentum and promote the bold ideas for which Illinois is known.”

He strongly supports Illinois Athletics and is one of the warmest and kindest people ever. This is a huge loss for the university. Here’s hoping they find someone of equal character.