absolutely have this song on repeat repeat repeat tonight

Disclosure - The Sun Comes Up Tremendous (Official Video) YouTube video by DisclosureVEVO

Disclosure new track with a bass synth sound at 1:55 which is how I want EVs to sound when they back up youtu.be/paEe6qTS20c

We sometimes disdain volunteerism, but she was like a volunteer, for activists—not setting the agenda but giving other people the tools to understand & then determine the agenda. I deeply admire that about her story; she should serve as a role model for many of us with technical expertise.

Sonnabend had his own distinct agendas but my impression of Long from my reading of this history was that she really showed up to just put her skillset at the disposal of people with AIDS, and I’ve always found that to be a very distinct and inspiring part of her story.

From a doctor’s point of view one of the things that’s interesting about this intellectual history is that first Sonnabend and then Long understood that what they had to say _scientifically_ would have meaning, and moral and political force, if then used and articulated by people with AIDS.

The Community Research Initiative was a key part of the history of research started and evaluated from the point of view of people with AIDS. ACT UP was a synthesis of prior gay activism about AIDS, the women’s health movement,& organizing by people w/AIDS. The last strand was Long’s starting point.

One important thing about Iris Long is that she started with Michael Callen and Joe Sonnabend—an activist/doctor combo who had started community research that could exist outside of academia. Callen was an author of the Denver Principles—a statement of the power of people with AIDS themselves.

ACT UP Oral History Project interview with Iris Long. Transcript link below the two video links:

www.actuporalhistory.org/numerical-in...

oof i used to be the person who said that to older people who lived through the first wave in the 80s! but thank you for saying that

on the other hand the moment I think you’re remembering is a big part of why I eventually went to medical school in my early 30s in 2002 and absolutely transformed queer San Francisco in an initially very disorienting way , we didn’t know if resistance would develop and the other shoe would drop

Concorde: MRC/ANRS randomised double-blind controlled trial of immediate and deferred zidovudine in symptom-free HIV infection. Concorde Coordinating Committee - PubMed Concorde is a double-blind randomised comparison of two policies of zidovudine treatment in symptom-free individuals infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV): (a) immediate zidovudine from the...

the Concorde trial was a heartbreaker for everyone (I was in my 20s in San Francisco) but confirmed what a lot of people in the community had been arguing already

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7908356/

Sorry to old guy/ “well actually” but you’re remembering protease inhibitors I think — AZT and 3TC were earlier and were effective only with the addition of the third agents of PIs and NNRTIs 1996-98

AZT was a very complicated ideological and medical moment for AIDS activists

America’s True Fascist Architectural Legacy It’s not the kitschy White House ballroom—it’s logistics warehouses converted to ICE detention centers.

wrote about the most important architectural legacy of the Trump administration: the conversion of logistics warehouses into detention centers www.thenation.com/article/soci...

the amount of time from JD Vance converting, to him mansplaining the pope about just war theory:

= to the time from the start of med school to being a junior medicine resident, or if you count the campaign seasons as equivalent to extra time for a med school thesis, an intern

We didn't deserve this day.

A black and white cat sits on an airport floor while a dark colored cat lays sprawled out sleeping in a small corridor in the background

A black cat heads under a Vieques Air Link barrier cordoning off an area with a baggage cart and a suitcase

A cat seen from behind walking down a conveyor belt for baggage

A black and white cat stands opening his mouth with opinions while a tourist weighs himself at the Cape Air counter

Vieques, PR. More airports should have airport cats.

We’ve built a second MICU.

I really really do not like the 'voting against their own interest' talking point. People use this often because they want to explain how downwardly mobile people support rightwing fascists. But this just elides the FACT that people have VARIOUS and CONFLICTING interests.

And the American River is a glorious urban wilderness, super highly used. And the produce is… just f-ing amazing.

Sacramento struggles with terrible rates of homelessness and a worsening housing market it can’t keep up with—partly b/c of Bay Area failures in building—but still, it’s underrated.

Obviously I don’t know what high school is like, and mine (Sac High) became a charter school—but—when I go back there I see like, Black folks in Mexican restaurants! and other groupings I didn’t see then. Maybe b/c I’m in Boston now but… Sacramento just looks more like the world is supposed to look.

I was always proud of its remarkable racial and cultural diversity but growing up, most kids ate at their own people’s tables in the caf—different sets of Black kids, white kids, Spanish speakers, each Chicano barrio with separate spots, a Hmong table, Vietnamese kids at another…

I grew up in Sacramento feeling like it was a place to leave (saw Lady Bird in a theater in Boston and bawled my eyes out—best Sacramento movie ever). Now I see @mnolangray.bsky.social bragging about it; when I’ve gone back, I see great things about it. Food; diversity; trees; rivers. It works. 🧵

and by contrast—when I was premed in my late 20s, I used to be able to just walk in to the UCSF library which is absolutely glorious— maybe that was with my SFSU or SFDPH status but I think it was just… kinda public…? now it is definitely not, wouldn’t matter even if I showed my medical license

SFPL is a treasure including their archives! — many years ago, for an AIDS history project spent a bunch of time there with Randy Shilts papers, some other collections, and gay paper microfiches etc—
(sitting in SFPL looking thru Shilts interview notes—why did he leave this one out? — was esp great)

Any time part of the world can bridge that much of a wealth divide between me and my patients, it is a taste, a beautiful bit, of the world as it should be.

…which is to say the library is a public good, as @prisonculture.bsky.social explains—the library as an institution is equally valuable to me and to my dispossessed and disenfranchised patients, and among my patients who are library fans, we compare notes on which locations we like and why.

Libraries are essential not only as places of respite but as gateways to internet access, knowledge both lofty and immediate, philosophical and pragmatic.

And… lest we over-inscribe it as some kind of social welfare program

my well to do suburban town has a f-ing BEAUTIFUL new library

And @prisonculture.bsky.social uses a lovely quote: “As Rita Dove wrote: ‘The library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world.’ New York is a city of possibility and it deserves fully funded libraries.”

Abby Peterson:
“Nationally, our public goods are being stripped away at every turn, and we have an obligation to ensure that does not happen at the local level… I personally find libraries one of the most emotionally moving spaces in our city. Where else is everyone truly welcome without payment?”

Here’s an update from @prisonculture.bsky.social on her blog: open.substack.com/pub/prisoncu... and more 🧵 below: