The best part of passing time with this friend is that we can talk for hours about how grim the world is, and hold it all in balance with a good meal and beautiful views and tender news about family and friends. No one rushes to gloss over the awfulness. We just take turns piling up a feast of love around the cruelty in it all. #APerfectDay

(Animal products visible in the photo below.)

Ohhhh, recipes and high-altitude baking.

😅 Original instructions said 50-55 min at 400°F, which felt *very* long, and it was.

At 30, the almond filling spilled over and burned a little on the tray, which was a saving grace in the end - because when I smelled the burning, I caught the rest of the galette at the perfect moment: the bottom crust a nice warm golden-brown, and the apples, splendidly soft.

Not too shabby for a first try!

#CoSoBakes

All right, in it goes...

🤞🏻

#CoSoBakes

All right, folks. ⚖️

I take a bit longer with the chewier topics, but the result is *never* just a summary of proceedings.

Today's piece on SCOTUS oral arguments in Trump v. Anderson strives to explain the core tensions, propositions, and potential implications of different outcomes.

The short version: Today's oral arguments were weak on textual grounds--but that just means this right-wing SCOTUS has a delicate needle to thread, to achieve its expected ends coherently.

https://onlysky.media/mclark/scotus-trump-and-the-14th-amendment-election-case/

🤦 Give me a day to write a news brief, and it'll be what it is. But take away my internet when I'm trying to write a news brief?

And... the next day you'll end up with a humanist treatise framed around recent news.

Today's essay reflects on how we can resist desensitization when the news is filled with disaster--and why resisting desensitization serves a deeper purpose than simply "sitting with the world's pain".

We are all made stronger when we refuse to dehumanize.

https://onlysky.media/mclark/fighting-desensitization-in-a-world-of-war-and-disaster/

#Poetry

@LiseL and I promised to share more poetry this year, but we're not exclusive - so happy reading to all.

The tragedy isn't that
we don't get out of this alive.

The tragedy is that we so rarely see
how we shone while we were here.

#Flutterby #Nature

My router was clearly also listening to tree.fm, because my internet's been off and on all day. At this rate, my timely news brief has to be transformed into a deeper humanist analysis for tomorrow. Oh well.

Currently salvaging a bit of work time by writing out drafts longform at the mall before classes, but I really need to finish some overdue paid work ASAP so I can take tomorrow off for laptop repair across town.

Anyway, here's a new *very* Colombian cereal. So I got a chuckle in, at least.

All right! Coriolanus time.

This is a perfect play for thinking about all the ways we reduce state politics to simplistic powerplays.

As always, part of the essay is free-to-read: that includes analysis of the 2011 film, to connect Shakespeare's play to today's war-weary world.

Then paid subscribers get to dive into Shakespeare's version, Plutarch's version, Livy's version, and what each history reveals to us about what "the state" really contains.

(Hint: A LOT more.)
https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/coriolanus-and-coriolanus-and-coriolanus

🙃 The sheer incuriosity of family about where I live. To them, even after all this time, there's the West and then there's... everything else.

#Writers know this feeling of success.

I sent along my cleaned-up novel manuscript to a dear supporter who surprised me with a very kind donation, and she's reading it with such joy that she's dropped the published book she was given for Christmas.

Obviously, it would be very nice for my agent to like my novel, and take it to presses that bid wildly over it, and maybe finally have a chance of getting myself unstuck, but...

You cannot put a price tag on one reader's joy. 💛 Readers are a gift.

Apropos of nothing/everything.

May you live long and well enough not to have your skull and spine yanked out for an alien trophy case.

Unless, like, that's your thing.

To springboard off yesterday's #MentalHealth chat, I feel I have to confess:

Just as, being bisexual, I don't *really* understand how folks can only ever be attracted to one kind of "cash and prizes" (but I believe you! no solo-junk-attraction shaming!)...

...a part of me *really* wonders how some people aren't depressed or otherwise struggling mentally at times.

In *this* timeline?

Pretty sure madness is the only sane response to an insane world.🙃

But again--I believe you! No sane-shaming!

Three guesses who made a friend today?!

#Nature #Colombia #AllAboutThatTail

All right, lovely people.

Mind your noggins. This piece reflects on medically assisted death, around Canada's recent decision to postpone the extension of MAID to people with mental health conditions.

There are a few ways in which a society can make itself "ready" to help with end-of-life care - and this issue highlights that we're not quite ready to support people in immediate pain, because we're not sure how to fix all the other messes in our social contract, too.

https://onlysky.media/mclark/our-secular-struggle-with-medically-assisted-dying/

🤗 If anyone lives in a place where they don't have friendly encounters with neighbours when they step outside, please take a greeting:

1) Off to work? The energy rolling off you is *incredible*. I hope it carries you through a wonderful day.

2) Hey! That is a smashing colour on you. The fabric looks super comfortable, too. Rock on, you stylish beast.

3) What a gift to see your face again! It's been a bit, hasn't it? Hope everything's going great with the fam--and say hello to your dog for me!

Earlier this month, I wrote on the Global Risks report, which found false information to be the world's top concern, because 3 billion are going to the polls in the next two years amid a propaganda nightmare.

Last week, I wrote on the start of India's election season (1.4b) and the start of the US election season (340m). Today we look at Germany's (84m), in light of its struggle with nationalists. How have recent protests and bans fared, at stemming the neofascist tide?

https://onlysky.media/mclark/germanys-far-right-politics-narrowly-nipped-for-now/

And now for something lighter...

Death!

Specifically, "Ghosts vs. Ghosts": a wee meditation for Psychopomp, on how two versions of the same TV concept diverge widely on cultural concerns, but are united in a curious indifference to the mysteries of the afterlife (even when living with it!) that speaks to the strikingly fluid ways we view family and purpose today.

Just a lil' fluff reading for your afternoon, if you're so inclined. (With thanks to @WordsmithFL!) #CoSoTV
https://psychopomp.com/ghosts-vs-ghosts/

There was definitely more to say than I addressed here, but there'll be time enough in the coming months for the rest, I'm sure.

The real site of grief today, for my US friends, is the election you *won't* get to have in November, thanks to your narrowed options for presidential candidate.

There are so many important economic, legal, and foreign-policy issues you should be seeing hashed out on the main stage.

But the 2024 election has already been stolen--from you.
https://onlysky.media/mclark/the-election-us-voters-wont-get-to-have/

Yea though I walk under the shadow of pollen, I will fear no sneezing, because I am not allergic. (My clothes are covered, though. 🙃 I'm a walking allergen.)