Terry McDermott
@tmcdermott.bsky.social
Writer, native Iowan, author of books on baseball, terrorism and the brain, veteran of too many newspapers. https://tmcdermott.com
Beat everybody: Pet Sounds AND Blonde on Blonde:
November 17, 2025 at 4:06 AM
Beat everybody: Pet Sounds AND Blonde on Blonde:
Football players pay the price for the brutality of their sport.
November 15, 2025 at 8:33 PM
Football players pay the price for the brutality of their sport.
“ `Man,’ I said, `This is it. This has got to be heaven.’ After I got out there and got the first hit in, it was gone. But while it lasted, it was great.”
Turns out these guys are human beings, with the same joys and agonies as the rest of us. Easley died at 66, young by normal standards.
Turns out these guys are human beings, with the same joys and agonies as the rest of us. Easley died at 66, young by normal standards.
November 15, 2025 at 8:33 PM
“ `Man,’ I said, `This is it. This has got to be heaven.’ After I got out there and got the first hit in, it was gone. But while it lasted, it was great.”
Turns out these guys are human beings, with the same joys and agonies as the rest of us. Easley died at 66, young by normal standards.
Turns out these guys are human beings, with the same joys and agonies as the rest of us. Easley died at 66, young by normal standards.
Rap critics would be right in finding very little social uplift in this song, “Cocaine Blues,” recorded by Roy Hogshead. Hogshead, however, was not a rap star. He didn’t even have a nickname.
November 12, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Rap critics would be right in finding very little social uplift in this song, “Cocaine Blues,” recorded by Roy Hogshead. Hogshead, however, was not a rap star. He didn’t even have a nickname.
Reposted by Terry McDermott
It's useful to think of fascism as a form of "participatory anti-democracy." It's a populist movement that gets ordinary people fired up about being part of a world-historic movement that uses state power to punish perceived enemies & impose total order over perceived chaos. bsky.app/profile/seth...
Modern right wing "vice signaling," IMO, is a social-media-era iteration of a political tradition historian Joseph Fronczak has called "participatory anti-democracy." I like that term because it captures the pleasure people feel when they participate in illiberal and expulsive political movements.
I used to think of vice signaling as a minor point about political communication. now I wonder if we need to develop it as a core aspect of political theory, at least as far as the Americas are concerned
August 21, 2025 at 3:24 PM
It's useful to think of fascism as a form of "participatory anti-democracy." It's a populist movement that gets ordinary people fired up about being part of a world-historic movement that uses state power to punish perceived enemies & impose total order over perceived chaos. bsky.app/profile/seth...