last night as i was trying to wind down for bed i had a unified theory of what the fuck just happened, and i wrote it down, and filed it under "well, i can't talk about this on main without sounding insane until and unless the perp gets caught and is provably a groyper"
anyways, great news! (1/X)
Sad and surprised to see @plaidcymru.bsky.social taking the cowardly option of abstaining on this authoritarian shite - a party who's founders literally burnt down a military base in protest against British militarism in Wales.
Siom enbyd, ry'n ni gyd dan fygythiad pan y protestiwn ni nawr.
wake me up when the barbarism of civilization has ended
Cyclists and pedestrians, mind!
So in the end, councillors who are already skeptical of building infrastructure that doesn’t centre cars feel that a few rude cyclists hinder their campaign to not have to deal with nearly being run over or killed every time they go for a ride. Makes sense.
Meanwhile the article fails to mention that the majority of abuse and threats encountered were aimed at cycling advocates fearful of being targeted by motorists. Cyclists deal with nearly being killed every day by cars, yet the article lays blame on those who think that maybe that’s a bad thing.
Why is this framed in a way that blames cyclists/cycling campaigners? Majority found interactions with cyclists positive, w/ only 28% “perceiving” interactions to be negative, while framing of the entire article based around one respondent, saying campaigns hindered among those already skeptical
This cannot be allowed and will not be allowed. It is possible to bring this horror to an end. If you have a public voice - use it now.
Imagine the Parliamentary Questions, the Times editorials, if a piece of national scientific infrastructure had been rendered inaccessible. Instead other than an honourable FT weekend piece, no one has paid any attention to the troubles continuing to beset our national library
Pollock and Appadurai expose the essentially oligarchical composition and function of US university boards (this is especially true of the ivies) www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
And so it begins...
Tenure didn’t protect anyone at Columbia. Let this be a lesson in the need for labor solidarity across all ranks in higher ed.
This needs to ring an alarm bell in all our associations.
I’ve read a lot about fascism, and one thing I think we need, as well, is a dissuasion of fascism in literature from the early 20th century to today. Here is a working syllabus on just that. Please tell me what to add @jeffsharlet.bsky.social
interminablerambling.medium.com/fascism-in-l...
I think Anna Seghers’s Transit is, for me, one of her best (not to mention Petzold’s film adaptation with its contemporary gloss), if not better than Seventh Cross
Social murder in a red rosette
Remembering all the times people criticized communism because the art it produced, socialist realism, was 'bad' and not 'real art'.
Well, here's what capitalism produces: slop. The most horrific, aesthetically empty, soulless, literally inhuman shit imaginable. Every accusation a confession
Meme of MAGA-style red hat with MARX-ENGELS GESAMTAUSGABE as the text
Two books on a table - Communism and Strategy by Isabelle Garo and Late Fascism by Alberto Toscano
This morning’s reading
It feels like the moment everyone agreed to call LLMs "AI"--even critics of it--something important was conceded
Bryan MacCormack, the executive director of a New York-based immigrant rights group, was pulled over by CBP with two undocumented passengers in the vehicle. He knew his rights, refused to acknowledge their "warrant", and despite CBP threatening him, the agents eventually were forced to let him go.
You too!
One that I constantly reference in everyday life
From Mazen Kerbaj:
“In order to shoot off one email per week for a year, ChatGPT would use up 27 liters of water, or about one-and-a-half jugs… that means if one in 10 U.S. residents—16 million people—asked ChatGPT to write an email a week, it’d cost more than 435 million liters of water.”
Dissolve the government for this alone
It’s too bloody warm and it reminded me of @leninology.bsky.social ‘s intro to Disenchanted Earth.
Christmas Eve walk in the Rhondda
