Ryan V Lower

He was so prescient. I posted this Vonnegut quote a few weeks ago which is less heart-warming but draws similar conclusions about art and image-making being about “humanness ” more than “pictureness”

bsky.app/profile/ryan...

A meme with two images: the first is Mario riding Yoshi. The second is Yoshi riding a horse. The text superimposed over it is a quote from Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and reads: “when education is not liberating, the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor.”

as completely fucking brain dead as this meme is, (and however badly it reflects on my own naïveté that it was illuminating to me), I think about it all of the time

Great chance to try something bold then! Can always blame the paper if it doesn’t work out. :)

Makes me think so fondly of your Saturday Matinees during early COVID that rekindled my love of film. I’ll always be grateful.

watch us, bitch

Screenshot from the show 30 Rock, showing Alec Baldwin’s character holding two coffee mugs because he didn’t know what to do with his hands.

“Okay, this feels more natural…”

Some fucked up corollary to the Overton Window: As soon as these agents attempt to conceal their identities (by wearing masks) everyone else is suddenly acting like there is an expectation of privacy that has to be respected???

And just to further put a point on it, this is very explicitly the point of militant nonviolent protest.

To demonstrate incontrovertibly to even the low info news consumer that agents of the oppressor are engaging in an entirely one-sided brutality against the vulnerable

Epstein is the most garish and harrowing manifestation of this but oligarchy makes life miserable in a thousand other ways. A core point of democracy is that no one should have so much power that they can make themselves everybody's problem. We should have a political party that believes that

Thank you for this, Jason. ❤️

just saw 4 ice agents go up to a house and knock and within 1 minute there were 30 people out whistling and they left. we will not take our foot off the gas

rightwingers see people caring about others in their community and instead of finding that inspiring they think it’s some sort of grand conspiracy because they don’t understand what it means to care for others you don’t personally know

Thank you for sharing, these are all stunners and I’m finding myself very inspired.

Statement from Michael and Susan Pretti Parents of Alex Jeffrey Pretti “We are heartbroken but also very angry. Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately, he will not be with us to see his impact. I do not throw around the ‘hero’ term lightly. However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman. The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He had his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down, all while being pepper sprayed. Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you.

Kare 11 local news just read, in full, this statement from Michael and Susan Pretti, the parents of Alex Pretti.

"Please get the truth out about our son."

they're executing moms and nurses in the street. they're using preschoolers as bait. they're stealing people's dads and grandmas and children. they're tear gassing babies. they're staking out schools. there is no remedy but abolition. any proposal that doesn't start there is an act of violence.

Doesn’t it make you crazy? Doesn’t it turn your blood to fucking gasoline?

Sayre: "My background is in international humanitarian response in conflict zones in Yemen, Haiti, Syria, Iraq, and Ukraine. What I've seen here is what I've seen there. A powerful entity violently and intentionally terrorizing people."

James Baldwin on the (white) dream of a return to normalcy:

“People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.”

In the Twin Cities, doing the calculations about joining the rapid response rally at the scene: I’m thinking about how to tell my kids that I love them so much in case I don’t make it back home without frightening them. Talking with my wife about whether we can risk both of us going.

so many deleted drafts

I would like Democrats to understand that doing literally anything is not the escalation they think it is. Doing something is DE-ESCALATION. Doing nothing is ESCALATION because it will cause people to take matters into their own hands.

ICE just shot another one of my neighbors. They had the person on the ground, being beaten by several agents, and then fired multiple shots. In front of the donut shop where we like to get donuts for our kids.

There has been an increasing sense in Minneapolis that we are on our own, that our elected representatives are unwilling and/or unable to take action to get these murderous Nazi thugs out of our community. I really hope that changes today. The time for pleading TV hits ended weeks ago.

I just watched the shooting video. It's a horrific beating and execution in the middle of the street.

If local and state officials don't move to arrest everyone involved for murder, they need to resign. Making arrests will de-escalate the situation. Do nothing and this is going to explode.

Always someone who did more, always someone who did less. We all just have to do what we can!

That being said, it was cold AF out there today

so glad that landed 😅

we keep us safe

photo of march, signs for renee good and against ICe, crowded street.

this photo. minneapolis. 💜

📷️ Alex Kormann/Star Tribune