John Saward
@rbuas.bsky.social
flaming hydra // [email protected] // ig: johnsaward
Reposted by John Saward
Reposted by John Saward
About 10 years ago Longreads published this, about my daughter's MS diagnosis. Today her MRI came back showing no disease progression. Thank you to her neuros and Dr. George Jelinek ❤️♾️
Also this is the best thing I ever wrote, it is about EBM, proof, etc.
web.archive.org/web/20180302...
Also this is the best thing I ever wrote, it is about EBM, proof, etc.
web.archive.org/web/20180302...
November 19, 2025 at 11:42 PM
About 10 years ago Longreads published this, about my daughter's MS diagnosis. Today her MRI came back showing no disease progression. Thank you to her neuros and Dr. George Jelinek ❤️♾️
Also this is the best thing I ever wrote, it is about EBM, proof, etc.
web.archive.org/web/20180302...
Also this is the best thing I ever wrote, it is about EBM, proof, etc.
web.archive.org/web/20180302...
Reposted by John Saward
This is one of the best and most exciting things I read all year. It's a profile of these two terminators, but there is so much brilliant, wonderful stuff in here too about human genius, obsession, confidence, & the nature of sports narratives. It's dynamite. bookshop.org/p/books/chan...
Changeover: A Young Rivalry and a New Era of Men's Tennis
A Young Rivalry and a New Era of Men's Tennis
bookshop.org
November 15, 2025 at 6:09 AM
This is one of the best and most exciting things I read all year. It's a profile of these two terminators, but there is so much brilliant, wonderful stuff in here too about human genius, obsession, confidence, & the nature of sports narratives. It's dynamite. bookshop.org/p/books/chan...
Reposted by John Saward
Yes, true.
@flaminghydra.com is $3/month, it is a coop 100% owned by 60+ writers / artists who make it
Recent unpaywalled pieces:
@samthielman.com on Platner's tattoos:
flaminghydra.com/boys-lives/
@josie.zone and @zachrabiroff.com on Marvel's secret ghostwriter:
flaminghydra.com/a-swingin-su...
@flaminghydra.com is $3/month, it is a coop 100% owned by 60+ writers / artists who make it
Recent unpaywalled pieces:
@samthielman.com on Platner's tattoos:
flaminghydra.com/boys-lives/
@josie.zone and @zachrabiroff.com on Marvel's secret ghostwriter:
flaminghydra.com/a-swingin-su...
November 12, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Yes, true.
@flaminghydra.com is $3/month, it is a coop 100% owned by 60+ writers / artists who make it
Recent unpaywalled pieces:
@samthielman.com on Platner's tattoos:
flaminghydra.com/boys-lives/
@josie.zone and @zachrabiroff.com on Marvel's secret ghostwriter:
flaminghydra.com/a-swingin-su...
@flaminghydra.com is $3/month, it is a coop 100% owned by 60+ writers / artists who make it
Recent unpaywalled pieces:
@samthielman.com on Platner's tattoos:
flaminghydra.com/boys-lives/
@josie.zone and @zachrabiroff.com on Marvel's secret ghostwriter:
flaminghydra.com/a-swingin-su...
The fiction Colin's written for Hydra the last few months has really knocked me on my ass
It’s a restrained work, I hope, but I have put my whole self into this. flaminghydra.com/the-paramete...
The Parameters
On the bed in the evening, when the air is cool, I read excellent and important books while she watches movies on her iPad. I hate the iPad. The moving images in my peripheral vision distract me from ...
flaminghydra.com
November 11, 2025 at 5:53 PM
The fiction Colin's written for Hydra the last few months has really knocked me on my ass
Reposted by John Saward
Flaming Hydra is a coop. All you can do with your share is sell it back to the coop (for $1), and nobody can have more than one.
You have to be ready for growth to take a long time. Journalism is a public trust that should be accountable to readers alone, and that means readers alone pay for it.
You have to be ready for growth to take a long time. Journalism is a public trust that should be accountable to readers alone, and that means readers alone pay for it.
How does one invest in left-wing media without a far-right billionaire coming along in a few years, buying said media, and remodeling it in his own image?
That seems to be a recurring problem.
That seems to be a recurring problem.
November 7, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Flaming Hydra is a coop. All you can do with your share is sell it back to the coop (for $1), and nobody can have more than one.
You have to be ready for growth to take a long time. Journalism is a public trust that should be accountable to readers alone, and that means readers alone pay for it.
You have to be ready for growth to take a long time. Journalism is a public trust that should be accountable to readers alone, and that means readers alone pay for it.
Reposted by John Saward
This rocks
Today at Flaming Hydra, I interviewed film and media historian @alicelovejoy.bsky.social on her deeply-researched new book uncovering the role played by Kodak—the household brand that popularized the snapshot—and other film manufacturers in industrial warfare.
Kodak, for the Wartimes of Your Life
Kodak, the company that popularized the “snapshot” and made photography accessible to the world, produced much more than the friendly, once-ubiquitous film rolls sold worldwide in their small, vivid y...
flaminghydra.com
November 6, 2025 at 6:23 PM
This rocks
Wrote about Italy, Caravaggio and man against the machine flaminghydra.com/caravaggio-s...
Caravaggio, Sam Altman, and Me
I was wandering around a humid church in Rome, vibrating on no sleep, and there was a murder going down on the wall. It can feel sometimes in these kind of places like you are hallucinating, the smell...
flaminghydra.com
November 4, 2025 at 2:01 AM
Wrote about Italy, Caravaggio and man against the machine flaminghydra.com/caravaggio-s...
Reposted by John Saward
Current* conditions near Michigan City, IN:
October 23, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Current* conditions near Michigan City, IN:
Maybe nothing in sports as close to hard drugs as watching a bullpen rollicking in and out of jams, wet hair and strange jewelry, spitting and cursing, having entire conversations with themselves. A ship of filthy pirates drunk on the high seas.
October 11, 2025 at 4:36 AM
Maybe nothing in sports as close to hard drugs as watching a bullpen rollicking in and out of jams, wet hair and strange jewelry, spitting and cursing, having entire conversations with themselves. A ship of filthy pirates drunk on the high seas.
Reposted by John Saward
Clairemont, San Diego @rbuas.bsky.social @damonagnos.bsky.social
September 17, 2025 at 5:23 PM
Clairemont, San Diego @rbuas.bsky.social @damonagnos.bsky.social
Reposted by John Saward
Current* conditions near Grand Haven, MI:
September 11, 2025 at 5:07 AM
Current* conditions near Grand Haven, MI:
There's an ancient-looking tree on the corner between us and the elementary school and some city guys came by to take it down. They sent one of them up into the air in the little bucket with a chainsaw, and every time he cut a branch off the schoolkids all went nuts like there was a walk-off homer.
September 8, 2025 at 11:26 PM
There's an ancient-looking tree on the corner between us and the elementary school and some city guys came by to take it down. They sent one of them up into the air in the little bucket with a chainsaw, and every time he cut a branch off the schoolkids all went nuts like there was a walk-off homer.
Drinking the last half of a beer as Dennis Santana gets Ohtani swinging and deciding the 63-77 Pirates will make the playoffs
September 4, 2025 at 1:25 AM
Drinking the last half of a beer as Dennis Santana gets Ohtani swinging and deciding the 63-77 Pirates will make the playoffs
Reposted by John Saward
Reposted by John Saward
"Whoa whoa whoa. Take a look at this. Now if you're the confederacy, you like that they've put you in this position. Look at this action here by the Union, trying to cross the Rappahannock under the rebel guns. This is as foolish as anything you will see in the league"
Re-watching the Ken Burns Civil War doc and doing Hubie Brown Voice as we scan across another battlefield McClellan has let get away from him.
August 27, 2025 at 4:50 PM
"Whoa whoa whoa. Take a look at this. Now if you're the confederacy, you like that they've put you in this position. Look at this action here by the Union, trying to cross the Rappahannock under the rebel guns. This is as foolish as anything you will see in the league"
Reposted by John Saward
"Okay, we have a significant numerical advantage on the left flank. What we want to do is attack that flank, turn it, and roll the Confederates on back to Richmond. But McClellan doesn't see that clearly. He hesitates. And now Lincoln's gotta think about 'can I trust my commanding general here?'"
August 27, 2025 at 4:33 PM
"Okay, we have a significant numerical advantage on the left flank. What we want to do is attack that flank, turn it, and roll the Confederates on back to Richmond. But McClellan doesn't see that clearly. He hesitates. And now Lincoln's gotta think about 'can I trust my commanding general here?'"
Re-watching the Ken Burns Civil War doc and doing Hubie Brown Voice as we scan across another battlefield McClellan has let get away from him.
August 27, 2025 at 4:10 PM
Re-watching the Ken Burns Civil War doc and doing Hubie Brown Voice as we scan across another battlefield McClellan has let get away from him.
Reposted by John Saward
Seek and destroy: defector.com/seek-and-des...
Seek And Destroy | Defector
Steven Soderbergh made The Limey for $10 million in 1998, and by his own account had an absolutely miserable time doing it. Or, more specifically, he made it briskly and seemingly happily, then…
defector.com
August 25, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Seek and destroy: defector.com/seek-and-des...
Reposted by John Saward
Current* conditions near Michigan City, IN:
August 21, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Current* conditions near Michigan City, IN:
There's a lot to be repulsed by in The Argument -- the tone of haughty "We Finally Figured It Out" that permeates the entire project; the flaccid mediocrity of all the people involved, blundering pedants like Yglesias & slimy zeros like Derek Thompson. This was a really sharp, thoughtful discussion.
This new publication for "the left" is funded by $4 million from people and groups associated with Peter Thiel, Mercatus, Abundance, and Third Way
Tom Scocca and I raged about this and related matters at @flaminghydra.com
flaminghydra.com/issue-386/
Tom Scocca and I raged about this and related matters at @flaminghydra.com
flaminghydra.com/issue-386/
Liberal label / Tourist tips
Tom Scocca and Maria Bustillos on the latest media flimflam; advice for travelers from Trevor Alixopulos
flaminghydra.com
August 21, 2025 at 6:35 PM
There's a lot to be repulsed by in The Argument -- the tone of haughty "We Finally Figured It Out" that permeates the entire project; the flaccid mediocrity of all the people involved, blundering pedants like Yglesias & slimy zeros like Derek Thompson. This was a really sharp, thoughtful discussion.