If Florida, teachers are advised to hide their books to avoid felony charges. At one school, “the kids began crying and writing letters to the principal, saying, ‘Please don’t take my books, please don’t do this.’” washingtonpost.com/education/2023… "In" Florida. Although the list of "disallowed" books is unclear, a teacher could face up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine for displaying or giving students one.

Near the end of @SalmanRushdie's new novel, the narrator is blinded by an angry rival. It's eerily prescient: Rushdie lost an eye in an attack on him last year; however, the publisher says the manuscript was already completed. latimes.com/entertainment-… The narrator is asked: “Is there still something you hope for, something you want? I know, your lost eyesight, of course…But some secret desire?”
The reply: “My time of desiring is over. Now everything I want is in my words, and the words are all I need.” latimes.com/entertainment-…

Reading “On Tyranny” and this stops me cold: “Make sure you and your family have passports.” @TimothyDSnyder 1/2 Like the advice to do fun things, too, like brew good beer, as Václav Havel once advised.

A few good things about 2022:
—Solar power capacity is set to triple within 5 years and overtake coal as the leading source of power.
—Parallel breakthroughs in batteries
—Significant progress on vaccines for malaria
—Extreme poverty declined
nytimes.com/2022/12/31/opi… @NickKristof Max Roser of the indispensable website Our World in Data puts the situation exactly right: “The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better. All three statements are true at the same time.” nytimes.com/2022/12/31/opi…

Having a challenging day?
These @NatGeo photos of the day could do you good.
nationalgeographic.com/photography/ar… Via @heatherjkim Geese in Hungary. Photography by Tomasz Tomaszewski.

So much of #Watergate didn’t become public for years, often decades, later. Thanks to @vermontgmg’s new history, we have a number of examples. Here are a few: 1/x Reporter Carl Bernstein had a tip a special grand jury had taken a secret straw poll on whether the president was guilty. Prosecutors weren’t aware of it, denied it, one called publisher Katharine Graham to warn her off it. But it happened, we found out 7 years later. 2/x

Putin-watchers says the Russian tyrant isn’t an indiscriminate thief—he takes things that people really value, like a #SuperBowl ring or … 1/4 #Ukraine The oil company of an idealistic owner, or the life of a KGB whistle-blower (pictured after his poisoning) who wanted a better, less-corrupt Russia … 2/4

How awful can Putin be? Time for “Navalny,” on @CNN nytimes.com/2022/04/24/mov… “The people in power are corrupt thieves” - from “Navalny” He wants to end Putin’s brutal meddling in #Ukraine and #Syria Via @CNN

Worth tens of billions of dollars now, Putin was so poor growing up that his family and several others shared a stove in the hallway of their apartment building—and an unheated bathroom. Via biographer @mashagessen #weekendreading In 1996, Putin’s mentor was running for re-election. Another man was named to run his campaign—but the man left after assassination attempts involving sulfuric acid (failed) & bullets (he was wounded but survived). Then Putin, behind crooked deals, got the job. Via @mashagessen

Secret money from a little-known group is being spent to try to block dozens of federal nominations. What is this dark-money outfit called, ironically, the American Accountability Foundation—and who the hell is pushing cash to jam up U.S. democracy? newyorker.com/news/a-reporte… "The A.A.F., which is run by conservative white men, has particularly focussed on blocking women and people of color. As of last month, more than 1/3 of the 29 candidates it had publicly attacked were people of color, and nearly 60 percent were women." - @JaneMayerNYer

They grew rich because of the Butcher of #Ukraine.
Shared ill-gotten gains with him.
Coddled and enabled Vladimir Putin.
Here's how these Russian oligarchs took over London.
newyorker.com/magazine/2022/… by @praddenkeefe @NewYorker #UkraineUnderAttack “Putin personally told me of his plan to acquire the Chelsea Football Club in order to increase his influence and raise Russia’s profile, not only with the elite but with ordinary British people.” #EPL #CFC

“We don’t need much,” said one of the million-plus Ukrainians fleeing their homeland. “A warm corner is enough.”

A WARM CORNER IS ENOUGH!

nationalgeographic.com/culture/articl… @NatGeo @anastasiatl @davidemonteleo @EveConant #Ukraine This is Lidiya Ivanenko, the Ukrainian refugee who said she just wanted a warm corner. She's holding her son, Myron, after they crossed in Poland. Russian invaders in 2014 forced her to flee to Kyiv. "I did not think this war would catch up with me.”

While Picasso was living in Nazi-occupied Paris during World War II, one German officer allegedly asked him, upon seeing a photo of Guernica in his apartment, "Did you do that?" Picasso responded, "No, you did." #Ukraine pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp

Spotify lost $4 billion in market value last week, as it chose to keep streaming a COVID misinfo-spewing podcaster over musicians like Neil Young (and now Joni Mitchell), who wanted to protect customers from the life-threatening virus datebook.sfchronicle.com/music/spotify-… 270 experts wrote Spotify saying Rogan's COVID misinfo "has extraordinarily dangerous ramifications." Rogan's average listener is 24 yo & unvaccinated 12-34 yo's "are 12 times more likely to be hospitalized w/ COVID than those who are fully vaccinated." jonimitchell.com/library/view.c…

First, Neil Young.
Now, Joni Mitchell.
Which musician is next to ask @Spotify to ire a COVID misinformation-spewing $100 billion podcaster—or pull their songs?
Said Joni: “Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives."
nytimes.com/2022/01/28/art… On Spotify, Joni Mitchell is listed as having 3.7 million monthly listeners, with two of her songs — “Big Yellow Taxi” and “A Case of You” — getting over 100 million streams.

Authoritarian China to Olympic athletes: Don't speak out about politics while you're here, or you may face punishment (i.e., don't mention how we wrecked Hong Kong's democracy or are conducting an ongoing genocide in Xinjiang).
washingtonpost.com/sports/olympic… Meanwhile, the health-tracking smartphone app that Olympics attendees must download has security flaws that expose personal data. The app’s code has a list of political keywords & lets users report “politically sensitive" content, a cybersecurity research group says.

For the 1st time since 9/11, every early-warning US anti-terror center—all 80 of them—had info of a terror attack on Washington at 1 pm Jan. 6. 300 US officials attended a call 2 days before the attack on the US Capitol. Why didn’t they stop the violence? washingtonpost.com/politics/inter… 48 hours before the bloody attack of the Capitol, a senior US official “asked the city’s health department to convene a call of D.C.-area hospitals and urged them to prepare for a mass casualty event. Empty your emergency rooms, he said, and stock up your blood banks.”

The bump happened when the flight attendant was moving through the cabin.
She apologized.
The first-class passenger got up—and punched her in the face. She was hospitalized for broken bones.
washingtonpost.com/transportation… "Hedrick said the union also is looking into an incident that occurred Wednesday in Honolulu. During the incident, a passenger allegedly spit at and slapped a flight attendant while exiting an airplane."