Dave Lee
My WorkBlogupdated 17 hours ago

Interesting links, noteworthy journalism and other miscellanea from around the web.

Bishop Mariann Budde (who angered the Trump and Vance by suggesting they be compassionate) writes thoughtfully on the dark cloud of violence over our society today.

In the same weekend that the Pentagon promised to let us watch one man die by firing squad, an offer now thankfully rescinded, a Philadelphia police officer, the father of two small children, was shot dead on a porch, and eight people were killed in a home in Erie, among them a one-year-old and a pregnant woman. Erie Police Chief Rick Lorah said that the crime scene was the worst one he had seen in twenty-eight years.

Events that would have once dominated the news cycle for days passed by with little notice. Chief Lorah’s words are also a sobering reminder of what witnessing gun violence is like, an argument that retired Admiral Henry McRaven made when voicing his opposition to live-streaming a firing squad execution.

There is no direct connection between the debate about how many should watch Nidal Malik Hasan die for killing thirteen people at Fort Hood military base in 2009 and those who died by gun violence in Pennsylvania. Except that the specter of violence is seemingly everywhere, and we are not the better for it. As our Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe wrote about the proposed livestreaming, it would “cause moral injury to everyone involved.”

A Plea for Restraint: On Violence, Spectacle, and Human Dignitymariannbudde.substack.com“I am among those who believe that the death penalty, however exercised, is contrary to the teachings of Jesus.”

Poynter on the ripple effect of Trump's unconstitutional war on the press. Smaller jurisdictions see it and emulate it.

Across the country, journalists at the state and local levels are experiencing many of the same access issues as their national counterparts. They are being turned away from press conferences, stonewalled by politicians and excluded from government spaces they previously had access to. Those measures don’t stop them from reporting on their elected officials, but they do make their jobs harder. Stories take longer and cost more. Sometimes they get shelved indefinitely, leaving the public with less information about the people who govern them.

A shrinking local press is making it easier for public officials to restrict access - Poynterpoynter.orgReporters across the country say they’re being denied credentials, shut out of government spaces and stonewalled by public officials

Mike Masnick on how the Censorship Industrial Complex that the right was warning us about is real — because they've created it. Majors are being removed, syllabi altered. Automated processes are deciding what material is "acceptable."

Where are all the folks who spent years screaming about “academic freedom” and insisting that colleges were censoring conservative speech? Remember how Bari Weiss and Joe Lonsdale created their “University of Austin” because (they falsely claimed) there were no universities where people could speak freely — and then they fired someone for suggesting that there might be some value in thinking about the importance of diversity.

Hilariously, Texas Governor Greg Abbott had signed a bill back in 2019 guaranteeing “free speech on campus.” But as Serwer’s piece details, these days there are all sorts of banned topics on Texas college campuses, and basically none of free speech grifters who spent years crying crocodile tears over supposed attacks on “campus speech” seem to have anything to say about it.

MAGA Built The Censorship Machine It Spent Years Falsely Accusing Democrats Of Buildingtechdirt.comThis is not a unique or new observation, but so many MAGA attacks on others are projection, claiming that Democrats were doing the very things that MAGA always knew they would do if they were in ch…

I'll be following Bobby Ghosh up this particular hill:

But on one small matter of punctuation, a strange consensus has pursued me from city to city, editor to editor, byline to byline. The em-dash — that elegant horizontal stripe which hinges one clause to another — is unseemly. Real writers don’t use ‘em, I’ve been told a hundred times. Real writers use commas. Real writers trust the reader.

Well, real writers can go pound sand. I have spent forty years ignoring this advice, and I do not propose to stop now. Which is inconvenient, because a new antagonist has arrived, armed with better lawyers than any copy chief ever had: artificial intelligence.

Friends, Romans, Copy Editors — Lend Me Your Em-Dashesbobbyghosh.substack.comI come to defend two of my favorite literary devices from the evil that LLMs do.

I’m not going to work for a gambling company and have blood on my hands.

Nicole Noren: “I’m not going to have blood on my hands.”cjr.orgWhy Nicole Noren, a decorated ESPN producer, quit in protest.

Horses will no longer be clopping through Central Park. Gothamist:

Council Speaker Julie Menin on Tuesday announced the chamber would hold a vote on legislation to ban the industry on Oct. 22. For years, animal rights advocates have called for the end to the park’s once iconic carriage horses. Their push gained momentum in June after a carriage horse collapsed and died. Weeks later, teen tourist Romanch Mahajan died after he fell from a runaway carriage horse in the park.

NYC Council set to ban Central Park's carriage horse industrygothamist.comMayor Zohran Mamdani has said he supports the ban, and a majority of city councilmembers have signed on to support legislation that would end the industry.

The Atlantic on the "romantasy" genre and its appeal. (Can't say I'm among its fans.)

Do your heroes weep? Do they swoon with lust? Are they really confused by their new magical powers? Then you’re already a fan of romantasy. For those still waiting to discover romantasy: It’s fantasy, with strong female protagonists and fewer boring bits—the long treks over major landforms in hard weather. Sex is plentiful, but sex is not the genre’s defining feature. You can go chapters before encountering a reference to someone’s toned body. Far more significant are feelings and friendships between the heroes: enchanted beings with relatable self-esteem issues who don’t just seek and fight but also yearn and banter as they face down enemies who aren’t only evil, but super bitchy too. Then the heroes cry and have orgasms (sometimes they orgasm first and cry after).

Those Books of Smut and Wondertheatlantic.comHow Sarah J. Maas became the queen of romantasy

The New York Times on how mathematicians feel about ChatGPT's math breakthroughs.

Not all of them were quite so remarkable. But Martin Bridson, a mathematician at Oxford and the president of the Clay Mathematics Institute, which established the coveted Millennium Prize Problems, called OpenAI’s release “breathtaking.”

“Until very recently, it would have been impossible to imagine that the frontiers of mathematics could move so far in one day,” Dr. Bridson said.

‘Breathtaking,’ ‘Devastating’: Mathematics Reels After New OpenAI Releasenytimes.comHundreds of new A.I.-generated findings moved the frontiers of higher math in a single day — dispelling any doubt that the field is forever changed.

The Atlantic on how New York governor Kathy Hochul has turned her reputation on its head.

“In conversation, Hochul sometimes speaks so softly that she can be hard to hear. But in a series of interviews this summer, she was eager to tout her success as the product of a deliberate strategy to ratchet down what she described as an ego-driven culture of confrontation in New York politics—one that pitted Democrats against one another as well as against Trump. “I didn’t need to go to war,” Hochul told me. She could, she said, generate more media coverage by first creating conflict and then beating down her opponents. But she’s chosen a different approach. “I win, but I don’t have to destroy people in the process,” she said. “Not always.”

Nonetheless, Hochul said she has taken careful note of the many former critics who have returned to her fold: “There’s a long line of people asking for forgiveness.”

Kathy Hochul’s Improbable Turnaroundtheatlantic.comThe governor of New York would like some respect.

Jonathan, you fascinating old bastard.

So why has Jonathan lived so long? An analysis of cheek scrapings has found that he is unusually blessed with good genes — not just genes that encode for good health, but genes that resist the wear and tear.

Jonathan bears dozens of genetic variants that help him combat aging by curbing inflammation, regulating insulin, and warding off cancer. But also, his genes are uncommonly good at repairing themselves, according to the research, which was published in Science Advances.

Jonathan, a 192-Year-Old Giant Tortoise, Holds Insights for Aging Welle360.yale.edu

Trump's war in Iran is costing the UK billions.

Higher borrowing costs and rising inflation are likely to have cut Healey’s fiscal room for manoeuvre from the £23.6bn forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility in March to about £12bn, according to the estimates.

Government figures say the purpose of the headroom is to act as a “contingency fund” to be drawn down in extraordinary circumstances such as the Middle East war.

Iran war blows near-£12bn hole in Britain’s public financesft.comFT estimates show inflation and soaring borrowing costs have slashed chancellor John Healey’s headroom in half

Ex-CIA man pleads guilty to concocting a fake secret program to steal "over $190 million," some of it in the form of gold bars. The Hollywood script writes itself.

Over the course of 2025, Rush used his position to fabricate a so-called special access program, which are surveillance or intelligence-gathering operations so sensitive that only a few people are read into them. Special access programs, or SAPs, require special clearance that not even the most cleared individuals in government are granted access to. According to The Washington Post, Rush constructed the compartmentalized program under the guise of a fake “continuity of government” plan, aimed at keeping the government functioning in the event of a war, natural disaster, or some other destructive catastrophe. As part of the scheme, Rush used the program and fake government contract to trick an unnamed defense contractor into buying large amounts of gold that Rush then pocketed.

CIA officer admits to creating fake top secret government program to steal over $190 million, including gold bars | TechCrunchtechcrunch.comCIA officer David Rush, who worked on highly sensitive intelligence programs, reached a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors after he was caught siphoning money and gold with a fake government contract.

How the judge thought an AI-generated video of a manslaughter victim was an acceptable thing to bring into a courtroom I'll never know. A spectacular lack of judgment all around. 404 Media:

Wales told 404 Media that her intent with the video was to sway the judge. “Isn’t that what you want human connection to be?” she said. “Do you ever come out of a movie and say: ‘Well, that was too emotional. That was too powerful. Human connection is powerful, and trying to convey that to somebody that's never known another person, this person on the earth, to convey their lifetime of 37 years down to a two-hour sentencing event is hard to do, and I think that victims and victims' families should be afforded every opportunity.”

Her AI-Generated Video Swayed the Judge. The Court Said it Carried 'Undue Emotional Weight'404media.co‘Chris’ sentiment does not change,’ said the sister who created an AI avatar of her slain brother Christopher Pelkey to speak in court.