John Pacenti

@x0reanna_ @Sloanstweets he is the viewpoint characte reanna. He said earlier in the season you never hear the bullet coming. You get shot. You fade to black. It is OK though. I didn't get it at first either. I thought something had gone wrong with my TV but now I think it may be the most iconic ending.

@Sloanstweets hbo needs to answer for that finale because the cut to black was just disrespectful. we invested so much time only to get a completely empty ending.

Found the original ending to The Sopranos that David Chase decided to cut

In 1984, Ruth Coker Burks was 25 years old, visiting a friend at a hospital in Little Rock, when she noticed nurses drawing straws outside a patient's room. Someone had to go in. She didn't wait for the straws. She opened the door herself. What she found inside would define the next decade of her life. 🕯️** Inside was a young man reduced to bones — maybe 80 pounds, dying alone, terrified. He kept whispering one word. *"Mama."* Ruth told the nurses to call his mother. They laughed. *"Honey, we've called. He's been here six weeks. Nobody's coming."* Ruth made them give her the number. She tried one last time. The mother's answer was cold and final: her son was sinful, already dead to her, and she would not be coming. So Ruth went back into that room. She took his hand. She stayed. For 13 hours, she held the hand of a dying stranger, promising him he wouldn't leave this world alone. When he died, his family refused to claim the body. Ruth decided she would bury him herself. She owned plots in her family cemetery in Hot Springs — where her father and grandparents rested. The nearest funeral home willing to handle an AIDS death was 70 miles away. Ruth paid from her own pocket. A local potter gave her a chipped cookie jar for an urn. She used posthole diggers to dig the grave herself. She spoke kind words over the earth because no minister would come to pray over a man who died of AIDS. Ruth thought that would be the end. It was the beginning. Word traveled through the quiet networks of fear and desperation across Arkansas. *There's a woman in Hot Springs who isn't afraid. There's a woman who will sit with you. There's a woman who will make sure you're buried with dignity when your own family won't claim you.* They started arriving. Dying young men from rural hospitals across the state, abandoned by the people who were supposed to love them most. Over the next decade, Ruth Coker Burks cared for more than 1,000 people dying of AIDS. She personally buried 40 of them in Files Cemetery — digging the graves herself, with her young daughter beside her carrying a small spade, holding their own funerals because no one else would speak over these graves. Of those 1,000 people, only a handful of families didn't abandon their dying children. Ruth called parents. Begged them to come say goodbye. To claim their child's body. Most refused. *"Who knew,"* she said, *"there'd come a time when parents didn't want to bury their own children?"* But she also witnessed something else — something that stayed with her. She watched gay men care for dying partners with a devotion that shattered every stereotype. She watched a terrified community take care of its own — and take care of her. *"They would twirl up a drag show on Saturday night and here'd come the money. That's how we bought medicine. That's how we paid rent. If it hadn't been for the drag queens, I don't know what we would have done."* By the mid-1990s, new treatments emerged. The crisis began to shift. And then, like so many heroes of the AIDS crisis, Ruth Coker Burks faded from public memory. She wrote a memoir in 2019 called *All the Young Men* because she needed people to understand what happened in Arkansas. What happened across America. What happens when fear convinces people to abandon their own children. And what happens when one person refuses to walk past a door everyone else fears. She didn't have medical training. She didn't have institutional backing. She didn't have money. She had compassion. Courage. Posthole diggers. And a family cemetery. That was enough to make sure 1,000 people didn't die believing they were worthless. The next time someone says one person can't change anything — Remember the red bag on the door. Remember the 13 hours she stayed with a stranger. Remember the 40 graves she dug with her own hands. She walked through that door in 1984. And 1,000 lives were forever changed because of it.

@TheCinesthetic Cloud Atlas. Masterpiece.

What is the most unfairly hated movie that you will defend every time

Barcelona, Spain 🇪🇸

MoMA New York Installation by Refik Anadol

Regardless of whether Train Dreams takes home any #Oscars today, this will forever remain a high point of 2025 for me. I really connected with this movie & this story. I’m glad it got a Best Picture nomination. We need more raw films like this- one of ‘25’s best without question.

The tiger Maruay lived confined in a cage with a cement floor and was rescued. Since then, he is thriving and loves to relax in the lake with his red ball.

Incredible footage from the perspective of wild mountain goats with cameras attached; they're literally flying without wings.

@AbramsonFL @volvoshine both are true. We have spots of breathtaking beauty (walk the Rickenbacker) but most is the wrought of the automobile. The difference between the US and Europe is one embraced rail, the other allowed the auto industry to destroy it.

@volvoshine When I think of Miami, it looks like this

My morning walk is nicer than yours (Unless you live in #Miami) 😎🌞🌴

NEW: The federal government has been blocking millions for Alligator Alcatraz and Deportation Depot because a fed environmental review still hasn't been completed, 3K pgs of records show That's why Florida hasn't seen a dime of federal money floridaphoenix.com/2026/03/02/fed…

An emergency rule from the Florida Department of Health went into effect on Sunday that could restrict tens of thousands of people from accessing HIV medication. abcnews.link/E5uy3h5

The fate of one of the last thriving coral reefs in Florida could soon be wiped out — not by hot-tub water temperatures or the mysterious plague of stony coral tissue loss disease, but by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. wapo.st/4aXuOLr

New records obtained by @TheFloridaTrib show Florida officials burned more than $1.2 million per day on ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ - sometimes substantially more - and originally sought $1.4 billion from the feds. ✍️ @hellokatepayne floridatrib.org/2026/03/01/new…

NEW: How Epstein used elite doctors and hospitals, including Eva Dubin and Mount Sinai, to manipulate young women. (Crazy story featuring an operation that took place on Epstein's dining room table.) nytimes.com/2026/02/28/us/…

🚨🤔Thought experiment on Florida’s prison system. Florida incarcerates roughly 87,000 people in state prisons, making it the third-largest system in America. An independent KPMG assessment found the system requires $2.2 billion in immediate capital repairs to bring facilities up to minimum operational standards. Over the next 20 years, projected infrastructure needs approach $11.8 billion. Roughly one-third of facilities were rated poor or critical. Today roughly 75% of prison housing units still lack A/C. Staffing isn’t better. At some @FL_Corrections facilities, correctional officer vacancy rates have ranged from 24% to more than 70%. That means skeleton crews, mandatory overtime, constant officer turnover, dorm closures, skyrocketing violence and routine lockdowns. This isn’t anecdotal. It’s structural. Now here’s the thought experiment: Require every county jail in Florida to operate under the same constraints as the #Florida prison system. Same per-inmate funding pressures. Same double-digit staffing vacancies. Same deferred maintenance. Same aging facilities rated poor or critical. Same heat conditions in summer. Same multibillion-dollar backlog with little legislative support. County jails often spend 2X per inmate per day what the prison system spends and answer directly to local voters. When A/C fails, phones ring. When staffing drops, commissioners demand answers. When conditions deteriorate, it becomes front-page news. Now imagine a sheriff explaining that 75% of jail housing units will operate without full climate control because “that’s how the state does it.” Imagine explaining a 30%-70% deputy vacancy rate as normal. Imagine telling voters the repair backlog will be addressed sometime over the next TWO decades. Make them explain why violence is skyrocketing in their facilities. It’s up 50% in Florida prisons. Would that last a week? If it’s politically intolerable in a county jail for people awaiting trial and serving shorter sentences, why is it acceptable in a state prison for people serving time? Here’s the difference: @FLSheriffs are one of the most powerful lobbying forces in Tallahassee. If their facilities were forced to operate under state-level constraints, there would be emergency press conferences, caucus meetings, and a call for a special session before the day was over. Relief would not be theoretical. It would be immediate. So the real question isn’t whether Florida can afford modernization. The KPMG report makes clear what the bill is. The real question is why urgency only appears when politically powerful actors feel the pressure. We tolerate in state prisons what would be politically explosive in county jails. Not because it’s acceptable. Not because it’s efficient. But because the people inside are politically distant. Real reform starts when incentives align. If you want modernization, remove the distance. Sometimes the fastest way to fix a system is to make everyone live under it. Thoughts?

A biologist fired over a Charlie Kirk post accuses her ex-supervisor of lying under oath, seeking severe sanctions. gainesville.com/story/news/sta…

@DEADLINE @zachbraff great suits

Donald Faison sneaks up on Zach Braff at the LA #Scrubs revival premiere

Will ICE Scare Some Fans Away From the World Cup? nytimes.com/2026/02/21/nyr…

NEW: Lawmakers this session are considering changing state laws that could affect what Floridians can say, write and read. That includes giving the governor extraordinary powers to deem groups as "domestic terrorist organizations." tampabay.com/news/florida-p…

Great reporting by my former colleagues at Reuters who found that hundreds of local activists protesting against ICE activities across the country are being charged by federal prosecutors reuters.com/world/us/ice-i…