—Mariana Llanos, “The Line of Fire”

we cherish the smell of red brass and gunpowder
as our children practice hiding in closets
learning to shiver and cry in silence
instead of multiplication facts
we pat our sweet babies’ heads
and send them off to the line of fire

our children in the line of fire
scrambling for their lives
while we dreamily polish our guns
reminders of the good old days
when we lived in the wild west
when war was a synonym of greatness
when guns didn’t fire eight hundred rounds a minute

Oh for sure, death of the author and the indeterminacy of text given. But I like that there is this dialogue over time where he says “I’m not really the anti-human pessimist” and it ends up converging with my discipline, so I get to absorb another philosopher…

How The Onion Won the Infowars Sale — and Shut Up Alex Jones for Good YouTube video by PABLO TORRE FINDS OUT

Watch the whole episode here:

Sorry to be overly sincere for a second, but here's why we decided to persevere through all of the bullshit and take over InfoWars.

There's just gotta be a line somewhere.

Thank you @pablo.show for letting me talk so openly about this.

To me the Sartrean commentary prefigures Judith Butler…

[sorry, reading backwards so see this is a comment on seeing the play. I read it in my Roman Catholic high school as part of a theology(!) elective. I actually wrote my own wretched existentialist play in part inspired by this… which luckily did not survive.]

Yes, but as the blog post I linked to notes, Sartre himself added comments to editions saying people were misunderstanding it. Basically each person is responsible in his philosophy for their own internalization of other people’s (imagined) views of them. That’s hell but of our own design.

He goes on to comment “The other side, which no one seems to mention, is also “Heaven is each other.” … Hell is separateness, uncommunicability, self-centeredness, lust for power, for riches, for fame. Heaven, on the other hand, is very simple—and very hard: caring about your fellow beings”

“Hell Is Other People”: Jean-Paul Sartre on Personal Relationships - 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology An introduction to John-Paul Sartre on Personal Relationships through an examination of his famous quote, "Hell Is Other People."

The context is actually anthropological: it’s a line from “No Exit”, a play in which the actors are dead and in hell; and Sartre says it’s meant to say “if relations with someone else are twisted, vitiated [i.e., corrupted], then that other person can only be hell”. 1/2

See also Solnit’s A Paradise Built in Hell.

And, more broadly, virtually all success of the human species is because we are, generally, friendly, cooperative, horny apes.

Big brain & bipedalism don’t get you far on their own (& arguably could/did only evolve for cooperative apes in the event)

we owe our evolutionary success to our social behavior; interdependence is our species' primary survival strategy. it's isolation that will get you killed in an apocalyptic scenario, not the other way around.

Buddy, if you're gonna pay money and wear that on your face *in public* that is a remarkable amount of personal bravery. I have certainly seen people wear stupider things on their face before than ++Abstinence Glasses Pro.

some people really seem to feel a bizarre need to demand that people who sacrificed for others by staying home during Covid perform pretending that they loved it and it was a fun and rewarding experience

my edgy Covid take is that I while I did socially isolate until vaccines came online for the good of society, I absolutely loathed being unable to see people in person, throw a party, or travel for over a year, and I enjoyed absolutely nothing whatsoever about any of it

The currently escalating tech backlash must be put in the context of:

“people have been listening to the most insufferable techbros in the world gleefully threaten everyone else with mass unemployment for over 6 years, and they’re sick of their shit”

A few thoughts about tariff refunds: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

are any america-first conservatives not funded from overseas

Loudoun was a clear early sign of trouble in 2021. That was the indicator that Youngkin could pull it off.

Putting strict limits on the definition of treason and significant requirements for its proof was one of the smartest things the Founders did.

This read oddly as I am currently immersed in Pullman’s “The Book of Dust”…

I would like to see some reporting on how and under what circumstances a member of the military can and should refuse an illegal order. Is anyone prepared to advise them, or support them?

Three rulings in the past week show the scope and breadth of efforts to fight anti-trans attacks A Montana Supreme Court decision protecting birth certificates, a ruling on Trump's anti-trans prison policies, and final judgment vacating RFK Jr.'s anti-trans "declaration."

NEW: Three rulings in the past week show the scope and breadth of efforts to fight anti-trans attacks.

A Montana Supreme Court decision protecting birth certificates, a ruling on Trump's anti-trans prison policies, and final judgment vacating RFK Jr.'s anti-trans "declaration."

Law Dork:

Montana Supreme Court Rules Its Constitution Entirely Protects Trans Citizens In Landmark Ruling The ruling will have enormous impacts for transgender residents in the state.

1. In a landmark ruling, the Montana Supreme Court has declared that the constitution, one of the most progressive in the nation, entirely protects transgender people.

The ruling is even insulated from SCOTUS decisions, due to how state constitutions work.

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Now do Secretary of Energy and Fossil Fuel Death Cultist Chris Wright talking about gas prices & the war ending.

Gil Duran tweet: TLDR: Fascism in response to Palantir's long fascists screed on X.

"Your Account is Suspended" Message on X

The CEO of Palantir posted a fascist manifesto on X.

I pointed out that it was fascist—which resulted in a permanent suspension from X (my second time!).

So, when you hear the tweeters complaining that BlueSky is intolerant, remember why many of us came here in the first place.

—Lucille Clifton, “mulberry fields”

for supper i say no seed
can flourish on this ground once planted then forsaken wild
berries warm a field of bones
bloom how you must i say