reACTIONary
reACTIONary's JournalMusic legend Wynton Marsalis stepping down as Jazz at Lincoln Center's artistic director after nearly 40 years
Wynton Marsalis, founder and first artistic director of Jazz at the Lincoln Center, will be stepping down after nearly 40 years in the role.
"When we established Jazz at Lincoln Center in 1987, our goal was to build an enduring jazz institution that would both entertain and educate by exposing multi-generational audiences to an often-overlooked aspect of American culture, and I am proud of the tremendous progress we've made," Marsalis said in a statement.
Deal struck to keep government funded, Trump and Democrats say
Source: Politico
The agreement would allow for passage of full-year funding for most federal agencies while extending DHS for two weeks.
The deal would provide funding through Sept. 30 for most departments and agencies, while providing a short-term stopgap for the Department of Homeland Security.
A spokesperson for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the deal would provide a two-week extension of current DHS funding levels, giving lawmakers time to negotiate new restrictions on the department’s immigration enforcement operations.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/29/shutdown-spending-deal-trump-00756372
I'm the Mayor of Minneapolis. Trump Is Lying to You.
On Wednesday, when I learned that a Minneapolis resident had been shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, I didn’t feel the shock in my gut that I felt over five years ago. Nothing about this was shocking. The chaos that ICE and the Trump administration have brought to Minneapolis made this tragedy sadly predictable. In mid-December, ICE agents were filmed dragging a pregnant woman through the street. Heavily armed agents have been deployed to arrest lone individuals in public libraries and malls. Even in the aftermath of this week’s shooting, ICE agents continued to spread chaos, apparently deploying chemical agents at a local public high school.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/opinion/minneapolis-ice-agent-shooting-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.DlA.lgRh.5xcgRn899muk&smid=url-share
Trump Is the Insurection President
Original title: Trump Is the Jan. 6 President -- I fixed it.
The Trump era seemed to have ended in one of the most disgracefully anti-American acts in the nation’s history.... That day was indeed a turning point, but not the one it first seemed to be. It was a turning point toward a version of Mr. Trump who is even more lawless than the one who governed the country in his first term.... Tragically, America is still living in a political era that began on Jan. 6, 2021. Recognizing as much is necessary to bring this era to an end before it has many more anniversaries.
Foreign Terrorist Designations Pose Civil Liberties Concerns
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/foreign-terrorist-designations-pose-civil-liberties-concernsForeign Antifa designations risk enabling surveillance of domestic critics by creating a foreign nexus for expanded counterterrorism powers.
FTO status is typically reserved for groups that have killed Americans, targeted U.S. security interests, or demonstrated the capacity and intent to do either, such as al-Qaeda,the Islamic State, Hezbollah, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The purpose of designation is to expose, isolate, and delegitimize terrorist organizations. Designation as an FTO brings significant legal consequences; members of a listed group may be expelled from the United States and have their assets seized.
The newly designated groups, however, look nothing like the foreign terrorist organizations historically designated under U.S. law.
Turn on the bubble machine....
Found on Face Book:
All I can say to those who complain about having to endure their grandparents watching Lawrence Welk once a week for an hour (including commercials) is, “Hold my beer.”
I grew up living next door to Welk’s xylophonist, who was a very nice man and a most diligent musician. Do you have any idea what it it like hearing the SAME SONG played over and over again on a bloody xylophone? Or worse, THE SAME DIFFICULT PASSAGE? Of course you don’t; it’s probably outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
I remain, to this day, triggered by xylophones.
TURBO AI!!!!!
I just saw an add for a vending machine - The Genius Vend AI Smart vending machine. Yep, an AI vending machine - is that dumb or what?
Remember "Turbo"? It all started with "Turbo Pascal". It became the go-to product name prefix for software and other tech products. Everything became "Turbo". Turbo-this, Turbo-that. It lives on in TurboTax.
Same with the i prefix - started with iPhone. And "e". There are all sorts of iThnigs and eThings.
"AI" - a step up from "Intelligent", which is a step up from "Smart".
Well, the new Turbo is AI. Everything has to be "AI enabled" - whether it is or not. My guess is that about 90% of "AI" is just plain old software. Not even "smart" or "intelligent".
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair
I just saw Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, and, unexpectedly, actually enjoyed the four and a half hours! My spouse likes Tarantino and enjoyed the Kill Bills when first released, but I never really cared for his sensibility, and never saw them. But I went along.
What made it entertaining is that it doesn't take itself seriously and actually has a lot of laughs. The crude "special effects" (blood, gore) are over the top and rival those of Dr, Who. The characters are cartoonish beyond stereotypes - especially the Kung Fu master.
The only disappointment was the ending, which was maudlin, something like really weird Hallmark schlock. Oh well.
Lost pages reveal an alternate ending to a classic Caribbean novel
Discovery from UChicago’s Kaneesha Parsard sheds new light on “Minty Alley” by political theorist C.L.R. James
C.L.R. James—historian, Marxist theorist, cricket commentator and one of the twentieth century’s most prolific writers—wrote only one novel in his lifetime: Minty Alley, published in 1936. Set in a Trinidadian yard, a form of communal housing, the book follows Haynes, a middle-class man navigating life among working-class neighbors.
Almost 90 years later, University of Chicago Asst. Prof. Kaneesha Parsard encountered a set of five new pages of Minty Alley—typed and annotated in James’s hand—that reimagine the novel’s ending.
https://news.uchicago.edu/story/lost-pages-reveal-alternate-ending-classic-caribbean-novel
Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all
Source: WaPo, No Paywall, Registration Required
As two men clung to a stricken, burning ship targeted by SEAL Team 6, the Joint Special Operations commander followed the defense secretary’s order to leave no survivors.
The alleged traffickers pose no imminent threat of attack against the United States and are not, as the Trump administration has tried to argue, in an “armed conflict” with the U.S., these officials and experts say. Because there is no legitimate war between the two sides, killing any of the men in the boats “amounts to murder,” said Todd Huntley, a former military lawyer who advised Special Operations forces for seven years at the height of the U.S. counterterrorism campaign.
Even if the U.S. were at war with the traffickers, an order to kill all the boat’s occupants if they were no longer able to fight “would in essence be an order to show no quarter, which would be a war crime,” said Huntley, now director of the national security law program at Georgetown Law.
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Massachusetts), a Marine Corps veteran and vocal Trump critic who received a classified briefing from Pentagon officials on the strikes in late October with other members of the House Armed Services Committee said, “Mark my words: It may take some time, but Americans will be prosecuted for this, either as a war crime or outright murder.”
Read more: https://wapo.st/49KbUJ1
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