Don Curren 🇨🇦🇺🇦
@dbcurren.bsky.social
writer/blogger, formerly journalist at WSJ, Dow Jones, Reuters, others. #economics #markets, #music, #philosophy, #books, #technology, #photos, etc. (ie hopelessly eclectic) Toronto. May not respond to DMs. Blog at: https://doncurren.blogspot.com
Pinned
It’s TV’s World: Trump and the Rest of Us Just Live in It
doncurren.blogspot.com
“I watched it, literally, like I was watching a #television show,” #Trump told Fox News. A telling remark. Because for him, #TV is more real than anything else. I blogged about it in 2024. #Venezuela doncurren.blogspot.com/2024/10/its-...
Reposted by Don Curren 🇨🇦🇺🇦
For anyone else in particular need of beauty in their feeds today.
Ranunculus are happy, dreamy flowers. So perfect it's hard to believe they exist.
Ranunculus are happy, dreamy flowers. So perfect it's hard to believe they exist.
January 4, 2026 at 9:34 PM
For anyone else in particular need of beauty in their feeds today.
Ranunculus are happy, dreamy flowers. So perfect it's hard to believe they exist.
Ranunculus are happy, dreamy flowers. So perfect it's hard to believe they exist.
“No #tenorist in #jazz has ever been more adept at intimate #piano-and-sax #duets than #StanGetz.” open.substack.com/pub/tedgioia...
An Introduction to Stan Getz in 10 Tracks
He is still famous today for his bossa nova hits—but Getz did so much more
open.substack.com
January 4, 2026 at 8:42 PM
“No #tenorist in #jazz has ever been more adept at intimate #piano-and-sax #duets than #StanGetz.” open.substack.com/pub/tedgioia...
Reposted by Don Curren 🇨🇦🇺🇦
This is a really important article. Key point: "Walmart isn't actually paying out less in overall salary than Costco; it's just choosing to distribute that salary in a very different way." Though not a focus of this article this is true for executive pay as well.
@moreperfectunion.bsky.social
Costco's Business model is much better for employee's than Walmart's www.unchartedblue.com/the-business...
Costco's Business model is much better for employee's than Walmart's www.unchartedblue.com/the-business...
The business strategies that make Walmart a ghoul and Costco a mensch
Neither Walmart nor Costco represents the extreme of what's possible within the system, but their choices do showcase some sharp contrasts within the broad spectrum of American capitalism.
www.unchartedblue.com
January 4, 2026 at 6:09 PM
This is a really important article. Key point: "Walmart isn't actually paying out less in overall salary than Costco; it's just choosing to distribute that salary in a very different way." Though not a focus of this article this is true for executive pay as well.
Reposted by Don Curren 🇨🇦🇺🇦
Written by @annienocenti.bsky.social in Daredevil 283, 1990, "The American Nightmare."
January 4, 2026 at 6:56 PM
Written by @annienocenti.bsky.social in Daredevil 283, 1990, "The American Nightmare."
Reposted by Don Curren 🇨🇦🇺🇦
"I dream a world... where wretchedness will hang its head and joy, like a pearl, attends the needs of all mankind. Of such I dream, my world!"
-Langston Hughes
-Langston Hughes
January 4, 2026 at 7:37 PM
"I dream a world... where wretchedness will hang its head and joy, like a pearl, attends the needs of all mankind. Of such I dream, my world!"
-Langston Hughes
-Langston Hughes
I love the way the #word “disturbing” when used about a work of art is high praise for some, and a warning sign for others…
#disturbing
#disturbing
January 4, 2026 at 6:58 PM
I love the way the #word “disturbing” when used about a work of art is high praise for some, and a warning sign for others…
#disturbing
#disturbing
Reposted by Don Curren 🇨🇦🇺🇦
Himes: "I was delighted to hear that Tom Cotton, chairmen of the Senate Intel Committee, has been in regular contact with the admin. I've had zero outreach and no D I'm aware of has. So apparently we're now in a world where the legal obligation to keep Congress informed only applies to your party."
January 4, 2026 at 4:45 PM
Himes: "I was delighted to hear that Tom Cotton, chairmen of the Senate Intel Committee, has been in regular contact with the admin. I've had zero outreach and no D I'm aware of has. So apparently we're now in a world where the legal obligation to keep Congress informed only applies to your party."
Reposted by Don Curren 🇨🇦🇺🇦
January 4, 2026 at 4:48 PM
Reposted by Don Curren 🇨🇦🇺🇦
The conversation on Threads
January 4, 2026 at 11:11 AM
The conversation on Threads
“Rubio’s statements on TV talk shows seemed designed to temper concerns about whether the assertive American action to achieve regime change might again produce a prolonged foreign intervention or failed attempt at nation-building.” apnews.com/article/vene...
Rubio says US won’t govern Venezuela but will press for changes through oil blockade
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is suggesting the United States won't govern Venezuela other than enforcing an existing “oil quarantine” on the country.
apnews.com
January 4, 2026 at 5:40 PM
“Rubio’s statements on TV talk shows seemed designed to temper concerns about whether the assertive American action to achieve regime change might again produce a prolonged foreign intervention or failed attempt at nation-building.” apnews.com/article/vene...
Reposted by Don Curren 🇨🇦🇺🇦
Questions about the morality of the brazen White House invasion of #Venezuela & arrest of #Maduro can be seen through the death penalty debate.
Who is more dangerous? A serial killer or an unconstrained government wielding powers over life & death (or sovereignty)? Answer is clear if you're #Canada.
Who is more dangerous? A serial killer or an unconstrained government wielding powers over life & death (or sovereignty)? Answer is clear if you're #Canada.
January 4, 2026 at 5:20 PM
Questions about the morality of the brazen White House invasion of #Venezuela & arrest of #Maduro can be seen through the death penalty debate.
Who is more dangerous? A serial killer or an unconstrained government wielding powers over life & death (or sovereignty)? Answer is clear if you're #Canada.
Who is more dangerous? A serial killer or an unconstrained government wielding powers over life & death (or sovereignty)? Answer is clear if you're #Canada.
Reposted by Don Curren 🇨🇦🇺🇦
Article also notes how Christian Conservatives or so-called center-right parties commonly pave the way to #fascism, citing the example of Weimar Germany.
Currently the German #CDU rhetoric clearly aspires to make them junior partner in a coalition govt w/ the #AfD after our next #Bundestagswahl.
Currently the German #CDU rhetoric clearly aspires to make them junior partner in a coalition govt w/ the #AfD after our next #Bundestagswahl.
I would say by the tidy definition cited below, #Trumpism is a type of #fascism, but in a particularly shambolic, incoherent, opportunistic form …
Tidy: “ #Fascism is a genus of #political #ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of #populist #ultranationalism.” www.currentaffairs.org/news/why-fas...
January 4, 2026 at 4:56 PM
Article also notes how Christian Conservatives or so-called center-right parties commonly pave the way to #fascism, citing the example of Weimar Germany.
Currently the German #CDU rhetoric clearly aspires to make them junior partner in a coalition govt w/ the #AfD after our next #Bundestagswahl.
Currently the German #CDU rhetoric clearly aspires to make them junior partner in a coalition govt w/ the #AfD after our next #Bundestagswahl.
“For many people the left’s offer of #equality will never be as seductive as the right’s offer of being a superior, especially when coupled with the resentment at being a victim dispossessed of aristocratic status by the unworthy.” #MAGA
I would say by the tidy definition cited below, #Trumpism is a type of #fascism, but in a particularly shambolic, incoherent, opportunistic form …
Tidy: “ #Fascism is a genus of #political #ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of #populist #ultranationalism.” www.currentaffairs.org/news/why-fas...
January 4, 2026 at 3:54 PM
“This leads to the final point where #fascists revile socialists: our commitment to #equality. #Socialists are instinctively & often reflexively #egalitarian” (This is an important point: commitment to equality is the ultimate dividing line between #ideologies) www.currentaffairs.org/news/why-fas...
Why Fascists Always Come for the Socialists First
Contrary to right-wing myths that the "Nazis were socialist," fascists despise socialism and want to destroy it. Here's why the left poses such a threat to them.
www.currentaffairs.org
January 4, 2026 at 3:46 PM
“This leads to the final point where #fascists revile socialists: our commitment to #equality. #Socialists are instinctively & often reflexively #egalitarian” (This is an important point: commitment to equality is the ultimate dividing line between #ideologies) www.currentaffairs.org/news/why-fas...
Reposted by Don Curren 🇨🇦🇺🇦
January 4, 2026 at 3:27 PM
Reposted by Don Curren 🇨🇦🇺🇦
The Skating Rink, Dufferin Terrace
Robert W. Pilot
1948
Robert W. Pilot
1948
January 4, 2026 at 3:30 PM
The Skating Rink, Dufferin Terrace
Robert W. Pilot
1948
Robert W. Pilot
1948
I would say by the tidy definition cited below, #Trumpism is a type of #fascism, but in a particularly shambolic, incoherent, opportunistic form …
Tidy: “ #Fascism is a genus of #political #ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of #populist #ultranationalism.” www.currentaffairs.org/news/why-fas...
Why Fascists Always Come for the Socialists First
Contrary to right-wing myths that the "Nazis were socialist," fascists despise socialism and want to destroy it. Here's why the left poses such a threat to them.
www.currentaffairs.org
January 4, 2026 at 3:23 PM
Tidy: “ #Fascism is a genus of #political #ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of #populist #ultranationalism.” www.currentaffairs.org/news/why-fas...
Why Fascists Always Come for the Socialists First
Contrary to right-wing myths that the "Nazis were socialist," fascists despise socialism and want to destroy it. Here's why the left poses such a threat to them.
www.currentaffairs.org
January 4, 2026 at 3:20 PM
Tidy: “ #Fascism is a genus of #political #ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of #populist #ultranationalism.” www.currentaffairs.org/news/why-fas...
“Understanding this history of broader #right-wing conciliation with #fascism can help us grasp why many self-described #conservatives today still cooperate with the #farright to combat what they see as ‘ #leftist degeneracy’.” www.currentaffairs.org/news/why-fas...
Why Fascists Always Come for the Socialists First
Contrary to right-wing myths that the "Nazis were socialist," fascists despise socialism and want to destroy it. Here's why the left poses such a threat to them.
www.currentaffairs.org
January 4, 2026 at 2:24 PM
“Understanding this history of broader #right-wing conciliation with #fascism can help us grasp why many self-described #conservatives today still cooperate with the #farright to combat what they see as ‘ #leftist degeneracy’.” www.currentaffairs.org/news/why-fas...
Reposted by Don Curren 🇨🇦🇺🇦
"For many people the left’s offer of equality will never be as seductive as the right’s offer of being a superior, especially when coupled with the resentment at being a victim dispossessed of aristocratic status by the unworthy."
"Fascists strive impotently for a bigness the shrunken aspirations of their soul can never reach. Fascism is the banal dream of tiny men and deserves its place in the sewage of history."
Good @mattpolprof.bsky.social on fascism's hatred of left, relevant now:
www.currentaffairs.org/news/why-fas...
Good @mattpolprof.bsky.social on fascism's hatred of left, relevant now:
www.currentaffairs.org/news/why-fas...
Why Fascists Always Come for the Socialists First
Contrary to right-wing myths that the "Nazis were socialist," fascists despise socialism and want to destroy it. Here's why the left poses such a threat to them.
www.currentaffairs.org
January 4, 2026 at 2:09 PM
"For many people the left’s offer of equality will never be as seductive as the right’s offer of being a superior, especially when coupled with the resentment at being a victim dispossessed of aristocratic status by the unworthy."
“I watched it, literally, like I was watching a #television show,” #Trump told Fox News. A telling remark. Because for him, #TV is more real than anything else. I blogged about it in 2024. #Venezuela doncurren.blogspot.com/2024/10/its-...
It’s TV’s World: Trump and the Rest of Us Just Live in It
doncurren.blogspot.com
January 4, 2026 at 2:14 PM
“I watched it, literally, like I was watching a #television show,” #Trump told Fox News. A telling remark. Because for him, #TV is more real than anything else. I blogged about it in 2024. #Venezuela doncurren.blogspot.com/2024/10/its-...
“with the exception of #Canada ask yourself how well (countries with #oil) have been governed. (And Canada’s #oilwealth may yet be its undoing, as #Alberta threatens over and over to disrupt the nation unless it gets its oily way)” open.substack.com/pub/billmcki...
Just possibly it's the oil?
A solar panel is the new peace sign
open.substack.com
January 4, 2026 at 2:03 PM
“with the exception of #Canada ask yourself how well (countries with #oil) have been governed. (And Canada’s #oilwealth may yet be its undoing, as #Alberta threatens over and over to disrupt the nation unless it gets its oily way)” open.substack.com/pub/billmcki...
“The #American government made no effort to justify its extraction of #Maduro in terms of #internationallaw, which is an obvious #Russian intellectual victory -- even if the #Kremlin itself might be displeased by the consequences in this particular case” open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p...
Venezuela: The Precedents
And America: The Future
open.substack.com
January 4, 2026 at 1:49 PM
“The #American government made no effort to justify its extraction of #Maduro in terms of #internationallaw, which is an obvious #Russian intellectual victory -- even if the #Kremlin itself might be displeased by the consequences in this particular case” open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p...
Reposted by Don Curren 🇨🇦🇺🇦
Incredibly stupid of Poilievre to back Trump's Venezuela coup. He's just cemented the impression that he's Trump's toady. Completely missing the mood of Canadians. Maybe the Natty Post will try to bail him out.
January 3, 2026 at 7:20 PM
Incredibly stupid of Poilievre to back Trump's Venezuela coup. He's just cemented the impression that he's Trump's toady. Completely missing the mood of Canadians. Maybe the Natty Post will try to bail him out.