Random Thoughts: Progressivism has a Conformity Problem

2025-08-05: "Progressivism — forgive me, left-wing readers — has a conformity problem. Even more than on the right, there are incredible social pressures in left-wing circles to not say anything objectionable. (On the right, by contrast, it seems that you get rewarded the more objectionable things you can say.)"
-- David Brooks.
I can't say he's wrong.

2025-08-08: Headline: "Texas GOP sics FBI on absent Democrats as Texas Senate panel advances gerrymandered congressional map."
I'm old enough to remember when the Texas GOP wanted nothing more than the feds to stay out of Texas's business. I guess it was never about states' rights at all.

POTD: Two Views of the Skyline of Rome

From 2024 12 22 Rome

Today's photo-of-the-day was taken through a window of the Capitoline Museums in Rome. The window is old, which I think is why it is textured, rippled, and uneven. Or maybe the antique glass blower wanted it that way. I don't know.

In any case, after the jump is the same scene through a modern glass window.

POTD: Bigfoot

From 2024 12 22 Rome

Today's photo-of-the-day is of Bigfoot, or rather a big foot because we're not in the forests of North America. We're in the Capitoline Museums in Rome.

POTD: Not the Sistine Chapel

From 2024 12 22 Rome

Today's photo-of-the-day is of the Vatican Museums. It's plural because there is a seemingly endless number of interconnected galleries, each more marvelous than the last. They all lead to the Sistine Chapel, the most extraordinary of all. But they don't allow photographs to be taken inside the Sistine Chapel, so you'll have to be satisfied with my photo of a different gallery.

A panoramic photo is after the jump.

Too Much (TV 2025)

Rotten Tomatoes

Too Much (TV 2025): A Lena Dunham sitcom full of dysfunctional relationship, starring Megan Stalter as a needy, high-maintenance, intense young woman surrounded by others just as dysfunctional. It's in the title - TMI for my taste, but I'm not the target audience, am I? C+

Netflix