Melia Dicker

I have this thought every day. We need fewer silos and more villages.

One of the most remarkable things of the last 9 months is how many Americans seem to believe the President is all powerful and Congress has no say.
Actually Congress has been ineffective by choice. It has immense power if it had the courage to use it.

For the record, I looked baffled and then laughed. But yep, you’ll still be hanging it

Why should I write better when a machine can do it for me? Because actually no one can do it for you, because your voice is unique among all the people on earth. Siri never petted a horse's neck. Alexa has never been ghosted by the captain of the football team. But you have lived, your heart is beating, you have suffered, and you have something important to say. It's a human's job, to use words, and whatever job you give to a machine, that part of your brain goes dark. Maybe it's worth it when it comes to remembering phone numbers and directions, but when that part of your brain that uses words goes dark, that's a vast area that's very close to your soul. Don't let some internet platform convince you that what you have to say and create isn't worthwhile. Words are the echo of your soul. Honing that echo matters.

this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like

Mike Judge is a master of highbrow-lowbrow 💯

it's actually so frustrating that nature gave us groups of people who could cover many different contingencies in group living (morning vs evening alertness, optimists and pessimists, detail oriented analyzers & big picture theorizers)

They should invent a kind of news that isn't bad

😂😂😂 amazing

This is correct. Any candidate cynically “triangulating” on trans kids is a non-starter, and now is the time to say so. There’s still so much time to advance candidates that DON’T suck.

What’s going on with my “Earthers,” “Martians” and, in some cases “Belters?”

You know your body, Gary 🙈

Still from Patriot. A bald smiling man sits next to the series star, a younger scruffy dude wearing a suit on an inflatable bed

Oh my god I just finished Patriot on Amazon and it is CRIMINAL there is not more of this. It is one of the best crafted things I’ve seen. Spy show, family drama, deeply funny. Actors putting on a clinic. Writing, cinematography on point. Beautiful European locations. Watch ittttttt

This process is truly bananas

You love to see it 💪

ICE has only existed since 2003. A Bush-era creation, it is a militarized federal secret police that has been imbued with the Supreme Court with the unconstitutional power to ignore the fourth amendment.

Abolishing it and salting the earth where it grew is the moderate stance.

Gilroy: You could say: Why has Hollywood for the last 100 years been progressive or been liberal? I think it’s much larger. I’ll go further and say: Why does almost all literature, why does almost all art that involves humans trend progressive?

Let’s stick with Hollywood. Making a living as an actor or as a writer or a director — without the higher degree of empathy that you have, the more aware you are of behavior and all kinds of behavior, the better you’re going to be at your job. We feed our families by being in an empathy business. It’s just baked in. You’re trying to pretend to be other people. The whole job is to pretend to be other, and what is it like to look from this? People may be less successful over time at portraying Nazis as humans, and that may be good writing or bad writing, and there may be people that have an ax to grind. But in general, empathy is how I feed my family. And the more finely tuned that is, the better I am at my job.

That is what actors do: I’m going on Broadway, I’m playing a villain for six months. I got to live in that. I’m playing the slave, I’m playing the fisherman, I’m playing the nurse, I’m the murderer — you have to get in there. You have to live lives through other people. I think that the simple act of that transformation and that process automatically gives you what I would describe as a more generous and progressive point of view. It just has to.

And I don’t see how you can buy, if you’re going to reissue the Hardy Boys or try to twist a knot and say that Melville or the Coen brothers made a piece of right-wing art because you see something in there — I think it really misses the larger point of the struggle that that movement is going to be up against. Does that make any sense to you?

I’m late to this interview with Tony Gilroy but I think his answer, about why most art is progressive, hits the nail on the head. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/05/o...

I like this energy. I think there is a huge opportunity right now to reclaim and redefine personal freedom in opposition to increasing authoritarianism and conformity. This is a natural leverage point and is wide open

It’s a hard veto on this one 🙅‍♀️

There’s a strong body of research showing that naming things clearly—esp. systems of power and injustice—is essential to public understanding, mobilization and change.

We shouldn’t avoid calling things what they are just because it’s uncomfortable.
Power relies on our hesitation to speak plainly.

The most relaxing soundtrack as I sip my morning coffee ☕️

I like that you own this. 😄 To be fair, I threw my running shoes in there on the way home 👟

I think this interview is very good and provides a comprehensive way of understanding our current situation:

My only permanent pope stance is that politicians should not be able to be to the right of the pope. Whatever the pope's position is, should be as right wing as you can get without being shunned from public life.

The American demand for instant outcomes makes us lose sight of what actually matters

Neurodiversity is biodiversity. We need neutral, de-pathologizing terms for the natural variations that benefit each species, e.g. identification vs. diagnosis, traits vs. symptoms, neurotype vs disorder.

we will never let you edit posts. you must wear each typo as an albatross. you will bear the weight of your hubris

Sinners, y’all … believe the hype.

Proud of @djschwin.me for writing this story and getting it published! He put a lot of thought into each historical and creative detail, and it’s a delight to read 💕

That sounds so cozy! ☕️