Sunday Comments open

October 20, 2024

Good Sunday morning, everyone! This short note opens the Comment section for Sunday.

As a reminder, Jay Kuo and I will be live-streaming a discussion as part of Substack’s “Election Dialogues” series. We will go live on Tuesday, October 22, at 8 p.m. ET. We will discuss the election, with a focus on navigating the “pollercoaster” and dealing with a faltering media.

When we go live, all subscribers will receive an email or notice in the Substack App, but you will need the Substack App to listen to the live stream. If you don’t already have the Substack App, you can get it using the button below.

A word of explanation about the Election Dialogues series. Substack is still a new-ish and growing platform for long-form essays from a wide variety of voices. Substack's effort to elevate discussion is laudable and important in a world that is being reduced to 144 text characters and 15-second videos, especially as we witness the collapse of traditional media. The NYTimes managed another “face-plant” over the weekend; I won’t address the most recent incident because I have tried your patience on that subject.

I joined Substack because Heather Cox Richardson was on Substack. Her presence legitimized the platform for me. Since then, other important voices have joined—like Joyce Vance, Judd Legum, Jessica Craven, Jay Kuo, Dan Pfeiffer, Robert Reich, Mehdi Hassan, Steve Schmidt, Lucian Truscott, Jess Piper, and Dan Rather. Their collective presence makes Substack a stronger platform.

The “Election Dialogues” series is an effort by Substack to “cross-pollinate” followers between authors. Substack thought Jay Kuo and I would be a good fit—and I agree. I spent time last week meeting with Jay to prepare for our live-stream discussion and was delighted by Jay’s thoughtful, smart, calm, and personable approach to difficult issues.

I hope Substack grows into a dominant source of journalism and commentary in America. Having more voices like Jay Kuo’s will help it do so. I hope you will listen to our live-stream as a way of getting to know Jay. And if you follow Jay already, you know you are in for a treat.

I don’t agree with the views of all authors on Substack, but that’s okay. Let’s do what we can to help Substack become a place for responsible, thoughtful alternatives to the major media by promoting voices like those listed above.

Daily Dose of Perspective

I am running low on astronomy pictures to publish (although the skies have finally cleared in L.A. and I can resume capturing images), so tonight I am publishing another “failed effort.” But even failed efforts can be fun! The image below is supposed to be of the Soul Nebula. I took the image as a “filler” between two other images, so I under-exposed the Soul Nebula as I rushed to take longer exposures of other targets.

As a result of my haste, I picked up only fragments of the Soul Nebula. This link shows what the Soul Nebula should look like in a properly exposed image—which is nothing like my image below. Still, I think the image below is a hoot—because it invites our minds to see a picture in the random fragments. (The urge to impose a meaningful interpretation on an ambiguous or chaotic input is called “pareidolia.”)

I would be interested to hear what others see in the photo. I won’t share what I see in the fragments because I don’t want to influence your reactions.

Enjoy!