Ben Waterhouse

Picture of DOGE guy Nate Cavanaugh

Screenshot of my DOGE letter “Dr. Joseph Rezek Dear NEH Grantee, This letter provides notice that the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is terminating your federal grant (Grant Application No. FEL29509824) effective April 3, 2025, in accordance with the termination clause in your Grant Agreement. Your grant no longer effectuates the agency's needs and priorities and conditions of the Grant Agreement and is subject to termination due to several reasonable causes, as outlined in 2CFR§200.340. For instance, NEH has reasonable cause to terminate your grant in light of the fact that the NEH is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President's agenda. The President's February 19, 2025 executive order mandates that the NEH eliminate all non-statutorily required activities and functions. See Commencing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy, E.O. 14217 (Feb. 19, 2025). Your grant's immediate termination is necessary to safeguard the interests of the federal government, including its fiscal priorities. Any objections or appeals to this termination will be managed in strict accordance with the President's Executive Orders,

Last year, this guy (left) from DOGE used ChatGPT to find NEH grants that were too “DEI” for Trump, and canceled them, including mine, as shown by the letter I received last April (right). Huge new NYT article on the back story link below

Life in 2026

Portland has no public rinks, though it has twice had a temporary outdoor rink in winter downtown. The project is entirely private.

It would be wonderful to finally get that music venue.

They bought Jantzen back in 2002, so I think they've had a presence here for a while. But this would be an expansion.

They should be petitioning the city/Prosper to use public funds to buy the Galleria or another currently empty mall downtown to fill the niche Lloyd Center has for the past two years. There's nothing about the building itself that made this community thrive. It was just cheap rent+transit access.

Oregon Humanities to hold 'Beyond 250' events to examine the next 250 years of independence Between now and July 4, the Portland-based nonprofit Oregon Humanities is running a series of conversations across the state, with 16 topics inspired by the Declaration of Independence.

Between now and July 4, Portland-based nonprofit Oregon Humanities is organizing a series of conversations across the state, with 16 topics inspired by the Declaration of Independence.

www.klcc.org/arts-culture...

A cartoon from the 1950’s that’s more relevant than ever 💔

He had grown up in a country run by politicians who sent the pilots to man the bombers to kill the babies to make the world safe for children to grow up in.

I don't think handles are unique on Bluesky. The actual username would presumably be @odot.oregon.gov.

As an editor who receives dozens of AI-generated pitches every month, I would take a well-reported but unpolished draft over this obnoxious, over-wordy, error-riddled slop any day.

Also, have they figured out how to get the LLM to follow a style guide? Because they seem to be incapable.

It’s like our regional government woke up this week and decided it was jealous that the city and state were having all the fun with gossip and wild headlines

In which @lizzyacker.bsky.social reads my mind.

Thanks for your leadership on this, Senator!

Toad is buried under the covers in bed. From "Spring" In *Frog and Toad Are Friends*

Toad went back into the house. He got into bed and pulled the covers over his head again.

I Am an American: The Photographic Legacy of Japanese American Incarceration When it comes to the mass incarceration of Japanese and Japanese Americans, I am, despite the redress and reparations, and the various, unfolding forms of remembrance and memorialization, entirely unc...

"I have always been frustrated by the word perseverance, as I have by its Japanese counterpart, gaman. Both are used within my own family, not only when talking about incarceration, but when talking about what it means to be Japanese."

(🙏🏼 @davidnaimon.bsky.social)

hyperallergic.com/i-am-an-amer...

is everyone on glue

It doesn't have to be this way.

We belong to each other. All of the children belong to all of us. Our responsibility is to each other.

My heart breaks open over again every day with grief in service to breaking open to a better world. Let us build from grief toward love.

Eisenhower

feeling compelled to post this new yorker reject from years ago, for some reason

I'd love to see a bookstore open in the Three Kings building, which has been vacant as long as I've lived in Portland.

There are at least a dozen bookstores on the west side, not counting Powell's.

That's not really true. There are several bookstores downtown (Grand Gesture, Kinokuniya, Hi Books, Word Virus, The Vault) plus another five in NW (Passages, Daedalus, Bishop & Wilde, Bold Books, Chess Club).

I want to fully pedestrianize NE 41st between Sandy and Halsey.

Announcing the Humanities Action Fellowship—a new opportunity for Oregonians ages 18–25 interested in designing and leading public humanities projects in their communities!

Learn more, share, and apply!
oregonhumanities.org/programs/fel...

I think we deserve better than Lloyd's tiny, egg-shaped rink. If there's really so much demand, someone should build one in one of our empty big-box stores.

Please read this article to the end. Even before ICE got involved, this started because this *blind man who speaks no English and uses a curtain rod as a walking stick* got lost on a walk and some Karen called the police on him and they tasered and beat him bc he didn’t drop the rod. WTF

Oregon Senate passes bill to regulate ICE in hospitals • Oregon Capital Chronicle Senate Bill 1570 aims to help hospital staff respond when federal law enforcement arrives on site and protect sensitive information.

Federal agents in Oregon have detained and shot immigrants in hospital parking lots, accessed confidential medical records from behind nurses’ desks and interfered in patient care, according to reports and hundreds of testimonies from health care workers.
oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2026/02/25/o...

I think losing the union endorsement would only help Novick.

Oregon family hit with Trump’s latest deportation tactic: Targeting immigrants with minor court cases Child welfare officials and experts told ProPublica they are deeply concerned by the case, as well as several others like it that have been making their way through the courts and are now reaching a decisive point.

Should a McMinville dad be deported for leaving his toddlers alone at home for a half hour 15 years ago? The Trump administration says yes in a pending court case with sweeping implications for both the immigration and child welfare systems.