Brigid Gaffikin

And in that pause between pitch and contact - longer than logic, shorter than hope - we remembered why baseball existed long before we judged a sport's value by viral moments and betting apps. It is the romance of failure. The mortal beauty of trying and missing seven times out of 10 and still being considered great. It is the only sport where patience is a weapon, and panic the surest death. You cannot simply run out the clock in baseball; you must face it, pitch by terrifying pitch, until it finally releases you.

Did not expect one of the best paragraphs I’d read about baseball would come from an Irish newspaper

www.irishexaminer.com/sport-column...

This made me cry a little. Everything is terrible but I'm so glad to be in this moment with these contemporaries.

These Bay Area Restaurants Are Offering Free Food to SNAP Recipients Amid a government shutdown that will cut off aid for 42 million Americans, local food scene folks plan to pick up the slack.

While the feds continue to play stupid games, SNAP recipients are set to lose food aid for the next month. In the Bay Area, a growing number of restaurants are stepping up to help, and we're maintaining the list. Share with anyone who needs it. www.coyotemedia.org/these-bay-ar...

In the event of an encounter with immigration agents in the East Bay, make sure you and your family know your rights. (1/2)

www.sfmutualaid.com/resources

Trump Canceled 94 Million Pounds of Food Aid. Here’s What Never Arrived. ProPublica obtained records from the Department of Agriculture that detail the millions of pounds of food, down to the number of eggs, that never reached food banks because of the administration’s cut...

Records obtained by ProPublica indicate that food banks across the country were expecting more than 27 million pounds of chicken, 2 million gallons of milk, 10 million pounds of dried fruit and 60 million eggs that never arrived.

Orange banner with black text that's a call to community street protest Saturday, Oct 18 all over the US against the cruel, racist, violent Tru#p government. The orange on THIS image is the color of pumpkins, mangos, ginger cat fur in the sunlight, crispy fallen autumn leaves, fire, and fury -- not the fake tan of a yapping egomaniacal fascist.

This Saturday! Find a No Kings protest near you: www.nokings.org

Trump’s power depends on maintaining the illusion that he’s all-powerful, and that Americans adore him.

But that illusion is harder to maintain if millions of people are in the streets protesting.

This is why Republicans are trying to discredit No Kings Day rallies before they've even happened.

YouTube video by DAngeloVEVO D'Angelo and The Vanguard - Betray My Heart (Audio)

D'Angelo, RIP. Your music healed, soothed, and always made everything feel better -- even now 😞

youtu.be/rejA6QRtrAI?...

Your moment of ocean zen.

"some legal experts have called it a crime to summarily execute civilians" says today's New York Times, continuing their long tradition of whitewashing fascism

Absolute all-timer sentence in today's @nytimes.com

William Davies · Repeal the 20th Century: Pre-MAGA To understand the intellectual coordinates of Trumpism requires us to look in less conventional places and to pay more...

‘Ganz and Slobodian both invite us to reckon with the political legacy of weirdos, losers and cranks, something that few conventional intellectual historians or “ideational” political economists are used to doing.’

William Davies on the political legacy of the 1990s: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

For the record.

My posts were not even about Kirk directly, but about America's apathy towards political violence, and the coddling of white male shooters and hate peddlers.

I was fired because I mentioned race: white men and violence-- that was my "gross misconduct."

The photo shows an Acheulean biface handaxe knapped from dark grey flint with a creamy-white cortical layer, shown against a black background. The handaxe is roughly tear-drop shaped with a pointed tip and rounded bottom. There is a fossil shell centrally displayed on one face, identified as the Cretaceous bivalve mollusc Spondylus spinosus. Above the shell to the right is a small rectangular museum label. The toolmaker has knapped the flint in such a way as to retain the shell in a central position. Measurements 79mm x 35mm x 132mm Weight 0.375kg. Collections of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.

Something beautiful for the weekend!

An extraordinary Acheulean handaxe knapped around a fossil shell c. 500,000-300,000 years ago!

The shell’s central display has been described as an example of aesthetic intention by the toolmaker.

West Tofts, Norfolk. 📷 MAA Cambridge University

#Archaeology

A two panel cartoon depicting the Egyptian god Anubis at a desk with a scale. Panel 1: Anubis saying "YO WHADDUP, IT'S YA BOI ANUBIS, BACK AT IT AGAIN WITH ANOTHER SOUL UNBOXING VIDEO" Panel 2: Anubis placing a tiny charlie Kirk on the scale with a feather, saying "NOW AS YOU CAN SEE, THIS ONE IS A LITTLE HEAVIER THAN A FEATHER, WHICH LONGTIME VIEWERS WILL KNOW IS REALLY BAD HAHA"

if that news is true, don't say anything you wouldn't want to see screenshotted and spread all over right wing media

Yes, You Have the Right to Film ICE Across the United States, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has already begun increasing enforcement operations, including highly publicized raids. As immigrant communities, families, allies, ...

www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...

70 years ago, on this date, Emmett Till was kidnapped and brutally murdered by white men.

His family, including his cousin who was with him at the time, is repeating the train ride he took from Chicago to Mississippi in 1955 to mark the anniversary

PERIPLUS: An FAQ PERIPLUS: AN FAQ Updated August 2025 Hi! Thanks for your interest in Periplus, a mentorship collective serving U.S. writers who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color. We're glad you’re here. Rea...

Periplus, a mentorship collective serving US-based early-career writers of color, is now accepting applications for our 2026 class of fellows! Apply by 9/20: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

You can learn more about Periplus (including fellowship eligibility requirements) here: bit.ly/periplusfaq

Wyoming Proposes Extreme Anti-Library Bill The proposed bill text would itself be deemed "sexually explicit" were it to be read by anyone under the age of 18.

Wyoming legislators have proposed one of the most extreme anti-library bills nationwide. It would effectively eliminate teen sections in public & school libraries under threat of $50,000 fines for "sexually explicit" materials.

The bill ITSELF is sexually explicit.

buttondown.com/wellsourced/...

Photo of DOGE staffer Nate Cavanagh, a 28-year-old white man in a blue pullover, carrying a black backpack.

Photo of 53-year-old Afghan scholar Mohammad Halimi. He is sitting, wearing white pants and shirt with a brown vest.

On the left: Nate Cavanagh, a 28-year-old DOGE staffer and college dropout.

On the right: Mohammad Halimi, a 53-year-old exiled Afghan scholar.

This is the story of how DOGE targeted Halimi on social media.

Then the Taliban took his family. 🧵

Gaza City officially in famine, says global hunger monitor Gaza City and surrounding areas are officially suffering from famine, and it will likely spread, a global hunger monitor determined on Friday, an assessment that will escalate pressure on Israel to allow more aid into the Palestinian enclave.

Leading global experts just confirmed what we’ve long known: Gaza is in famine. At least half a million Palestinians are facing starvation, acute malnutrition and death. And it’s likely to spread.

The U.S. government is not a bystander to this genocide. We can end it today.

Black women are being used as test subjects for the limits of abuse of power. I want people to not ignore this since this always happens and then when the abuse arrives at people's doorstep, they're surprised.

CALL IT OUT NOW.

Fluffy grey and white cat on a charcoal-colored skateboard, mouth open. Skateboard is on a weathered wooden deck.

Cartoon image still of Catbus from Hayao Miyazaki's 1988 feature "My Neighbor Totoro."

Catbus!

if you're in the Bay Area and are interested in learning more about writing about food, I'm offering a 4-week class via 18 Reasons in SF in September :) 18reasons.org/classes-even...

World Central Kitchen | WCK Resumes Limited Hot Meal Service in Gaza After 5-Day Pause After a five day pause, limited cooking operations resumed today at World Central Kitchen's Deir al-Balah Field Kitchen in Gaza.  This marks the second time in 2025 our hot meal program has been force...

After a five-day halt due to a lack of supplies, our team at WCK’s Deir al-Balah Field Kitchen has resumed limited hot meal service in Gaza. #ChefsForGaza (1/3)

I suspect many American institutions--law firms, universities, the news media, the Republican Party--were more susceptible to authoritarian takeover than was expected because they were already so dependent on the largess of billionaires.

If you depend on oligarchy, you can't fight for democracy.

At the floor level of a door frame in a pharmacy is a detailed illustration of a rodent contentedly reading a red book. The illustration has a dark background and is shaped like a hole cut into the frame.

Saw this at a local pharmacy. Thanks for making me smile, rogue homemade sticker pasting person

If you're reading this, whoever you are & whatever you're doing to try to make this world better, whether it's calling, protesting, providing mutual aid, making art, raising awareness, training & teaching people new concepts & skills, journalism, surviving through it all, or whatever else: thank you

Is this Gattaca?