Spencer Beswick

My strongest niche non-political opinion is that 1.15 is by far the best line spacing option.

I still have no idea when to use "that" and when to use "which." Everything I read about it just confuses me further! This is why I try not to ever judge people (let alone non-native English speakers) for small grammatical errors. Language is hard.

Begging senior professors to stop writing op-eds about how they think students using AI for everything is ok, actually.

I really want someone (for whom graphic design is their passion) to make an "Anti-AI Action" flag in the style of "Anti-Fascist Action."

Top headline on r/politics: "Epstein claimed that Donald Trump ‘knew about the girls’ in private emails"

Top headline on r/conservative: "Jeffrey Epstein: Trump 'asked Ghislaine Maxwell to stop' recruiting girls from Mar-a-Lago Spa"

People live in completely different worlds.

Like I KNOW I shouldn't expect anything from the Dems but I still get so pissed ugh.

Is it just me or has Instagram's comments algorithm changed to prioritize "controversial" right-wing comments? Seems to be the case very consistently just starting sometime in the past month or two.

Cornell just announced its agreement with the Trump regime to restore federal research funding. It includes Cornell paying $30 million directly to the government "as a condition for ending pending claims that have been brought against the university." Capitulation to extortion.

With apologies to the family abolitionists, my experience is that being married fucking rocks.

As a bookstore that sells pamphlets and magazines, the criminalization of such materials feels pretty close to home. So let's take a closer look at the materials the federal government is claiming tie readers to "antifa terrorism." We can pick out six titles in these grainy photos. 1/

4 frame comic. 1st frame shows a frame from the ai video of trump dumping shit from a plane. Text reads : here's why i think ai art is The quintessential aesthetic of fascism. 2nd frame shows a frame from the trump Gaza ai video. Text reads : Its the closest that oligarchs can get to artists' power to create universes out of thin air. 3rd frame shows ai picture of trump as a pope. Text reads : they see art as a threat because it questions and deciphers the myths, dogmas, lies and illusions that fascism is built upon. 4th frame shows a frame from ai video of mysk dancing with trump. Text reads : ai art being soulless, depthless and uncritical is a feature... not a bug.

The quintessential aesthetic of fascism

Photo of Bernie Sanders holding his finger up giving a speech with text reading "Anarchists can have a little electoralism as a treat." Unfortunately electoralism is spelled wrong, but what can you do?

The feed today. (Full disclosure: I am enjoying the treat.)

Update: it got a chuckle/groan from the audience.

Meme: "Friendship ended with Lenin. Now Kropotkin is my best friend."

I don't think I can resist including this in a talk on the historical movement from Marxism to anarchism in the late 20th century.

They just gutted Teen Vogue which had top notch political journalism. The media is continuing to purge any sort of political dissent to Trump and the oligarchs.

www.vogue.com/article/teen...

Don Hamerquist: “The essence of anti-fascist organizing must be the development of a left bloc that can successfully compete with such fascists, presenting a revolutionary option that confronts both fascism and capitalism in the realm of ideas and on the street.”

"When history is written as it ought to be written, it is the moderation and long patience of the masses at which men will wonder, not their ferocity." - CLR James, "The Black Jacobins"

Lockjaw from OBAA and obviously channeling the SS. I think there is a MAGA faction that is testing the waters to be open with their Neo-Nazism. Look for trial balloons like "Hitler was misunderstood, just protecting Europe from communists and degenerates," etc. It's already happening on the fringes.

About six months ago, maybe a year, my credit union redesigned its website. To this day the "return to dashboard" button on the new website is totally broken, meaning that once you click into one account you are stuck in it until you log out and log back in. It's beautiful.

Textbook dystopia. I know it's not the most important thing, but I have to ask: did none of these people read dystopian literature growing up (or hell, watch dystopian movies)? I just have such a visceral revulsion to this that I think was honed by years and years of consuming dystopian media.

This is an especially worrying statement when facial recognition can be inaccurate, biased, and generally make mistakes. Basing whether someone should be in the US or not, and ignoring physical media like a birth certificate, is ripe for disaster bsky.app/profile/jose...

ICE and CBP Agents Are Scanning Peoples’ Faces on the Street To Verify Citizenship Videos on social media show officers from ICE and CBP using facial recognition technology on people in the field. One expert described the practice as “pure dystopian creep.”

New: Videos show ICE/CBP agents are scanning peoples' faces on the street to verify citizenship. ICE has tool to instantly look up unprecedented number of databases with just a photo

“I’m an American citizen so leave me alone”

“Alright, we just got to verify that”

www.404media.co/ice-and-cbp-...

Today's crisis of academia has been building for decades. Now, we are in a reckoning. I think that higher ed is worth fighting for. But we cannot simply return to the pre-Trump era. This is our chance to fight for a new future of revitalized higher education as a public good. 4/4

I don't think most people understand the dire straits of higher ed even before Trump. ~70% of faculty are adjuncts (often w/PhDs!) making poverty wages. "Good" tenure track jobs are all but nonexistent, and the few openings in each field each year get hundreds of applicants. 1/

Lmao

Remember: the $40 billion bailout to Argentina (actually going to US hedge fund managers allied with Trump) would cover about half a year of food stamp funding or a full year of USAID funding. Privatization takes public goods and transfers them to the pockets of the rich.

But seriously, the fact that Mamdani is about to win big to become the next mayor of NYC is the most hopeful thing we've got going in an increasingly awful political situation.

Screenshot of a Breitbart article titled "Zohran Mamdani 'Promised Things That Were Simply Impossible' When Running for High School Vice President" with a picture of Mamdani smiling.

Lmao they got him now!

💛