Jason Read

Me and Bento (dog)

Me and Bento (dog)

Bento and me

Class Monsters, Or Monsters of Class: Simone Weil's Contribution to a Bestiary of the Present

It is also Simone Weil's birthday
www.unemployednegativity.com/2019/02/clas...

Bento (dog) in skate park running up wall to catch ball in front of "Fuck the Police" grafitti.

“Gramsci used to say 'Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will'. What he meant is: understand how the bloody system works.” - Stuart Hall, born Feb. 3, 1932

"The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie—a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days—but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please." --Hannah Arendt, Interview with Roger Errara, 1973 “Experts fear that Americans are losing their ability to distinguish between fact and fiction — and that fewer people seem to care about the difference. The online churn that now accompanies any major news event obscures the common reference points that once helped guide the country forward. With technology, impudence and apathy all colliding at once, the shock to American attitudes toward reality — and the public consensus required by the democratic experiment — may be a permanent one, experts said. “In moments past, we thought that this online fever would break, and now it is a systemic feature rather than a bug,” said Graham Brookie, the senior director of the Digital Forensic Research Lab, which studies online communities. “This is just how it is right now — we’re all collectively navigating that for the worse.” --Stuart Thompson, Tiffany Hsu, and Steven Lynn Myers, “Chaos in Minneapolis Exposes an Internet at War With Truth,” The New York Times, February 3, 2026

‘They Couldn’t Break Me’: A Protester, the White House and a Doctored Photo

At a certain point how a technology is used is what it is. AI is more about disinformation and spreading racist myths than it is some bold new world of learning and creativity.
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/u...

Florida, Man! Part II: What is So Critical about Critical Race Theory

Reposted for Stuart Hall's Birthday
www.unemployednegativity.com/2023/06/flor...

2026 Trans Girl Scouts To Order Cookies From! This year, consider ordering your Girl Scout cookies from a trans girl scout to make their day!

Hey everyone!

Huge news! Our trans girl scout list has sold a total of 146,000 boxes as of today!

But MANY trans girl scouts only have 20, 30, 40 boxes sold.

I just resorted our list to put those on the top.

Go get your girl scout cookies and make a trans kid's day!

I don’t think I can say this forcefully enough: hundreds of thousands of Haitians will lose status tomorrow with racist ending of their TPS & are spending today refreshing their feeds for a court order that could literally save thier lives.

This is nothing short of psychosocial torture.

I am a little obsessed with the Zillow listing of this abandoned home at the edge of the woods.
www.zillow.com/homedetails/...

Because they did. It has been the stated goal for these groups and individuals for well over a decade.

They are accelerationist fascists whose goal is the end of the world so they could rule over the ashes.

Born of a Factory Mistake, This Sad Toy Horse Captures China’s Mood

“Its expression perfectly reflects the helplessness of an office worker,” Ms. Hao said. She bought four, two sad and two smiling.

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/w...

White House posts digitally altered image of woman arrested after ICE protest Guardian analysis shows images are the same, with Nekima Levy Armstrong looking composed in original but sobbing after alteration

Again, we’ve suffered through a decade of pearl-clutching think pieces about the existential threat of wokeism, but nobody seems to care that the most powerful people in the world talk, think, and behave like meme-poisoned incels.

Bento (dog) in woods with vest

Bento (dog) in snowy woods with vest

It was warm enough to go for a long hike

A not-‘toned down’ Trump regime prepares for ethnic cleansing in Ohio A plan for immigration raids this week on thousands of Haitians in Springfield, Ohio shows that nothing has changed.

Trump's immigration human-rights nightmare isn't pulling back. It's about to get much worse

A planned op this week in Springfield, Ohio targeting hard-working Haitians who came here the right way is nothing less than an ethnic cleansing on U.S. soil

My new column www.inquirer.com/opinion/trum...

As someone who grew up mostly in the midwest and northeast, Groundhog Day's promise of any early end to winter always seemed to be the most fantastic premise of any holiday: it is easier to imagine global overnight toy delivery by way of magic sled than winter ending in February.

Bento (dog) bathed in red light under full moon

The snow moon

Not because, due to him cramming his name on it while undertaking an authoritarian assault on society, rights, and life, no respectable artist will willingly touch the Kennedy Center steps and one of the most prestigious venues in the *Entire World* can't keep its doors open, no. "For construction."

Liam Ramos gets to meet the pilot and visit the cockpit on his flight home from the Texas ICE camp

This little boy has become an inadvertent symbol of resistance

A reminder of why we fight

What ICE did to this child was wrong.

May the kindness he receives today help heal the damage.

Sir, “white settlement” has gone woke.

Protest sign from MN that says, “DEARLY BELOVED. WE ARE GATHERED HERE TODAY TODISMANTLE THIS THING CALLED ICE.” with a picture of Prince in the left hand lower corner.

10/10 ICE protest sign

Living in a Mythocracy: Projecting 2025 - Notes - e-flux Jason Read examines the myth-telling powers of the US right.

Reposted one year in
www.e-flux.com/notes/652818...

'Reminds me of Anne Frank': Jewish seniors are offering to hide their Haitian caregivers as Trump's TPS end looms - Jewish Telegraphic Agency The end of Temporary Protected Status has Holocaust survivors offering to hide Haitian staffers, according to the CEO of a senior-living center in Florida.

“Every worker soon to lose their status is receiving “$2,000 and a hug” from the center; many residents are contributing more out of their own pockets.” 😢

www.jta.org/2026/01/30/u...

I would say that is the most pathetic thing I have seen, but I am afraid that would be kink shaming

YouTube video by Short Attention Span CATHERINE O'HARA & JOHN CANDY | TAXIDERMIST Sketch, SCTV 1977

RIP Catherine O'Hara. This is a great sketch for anyone who thinks humor and horror have a lot in common.

youtu.be/KZBY4Z-qces?...

Me and Bento (dog) in front of construction equipment

Pals

btw the civility panic a few years ago was about precisely this: the ability to have polite conversations about how black people are racially inferior in public without criticism or backlash bsky.app/profile/hann...

Portland's Service Workers strike predominantly took the form of some two hundred or so businesses, restaurants, bookstores, tattoo parlors, coffee shops announcing they were closed today, with dozens more saying that they would open and donate a portion of their profits to legal defense funds and immigrant defense groups. It is unclear how many of those businesses decided to close, or were compelled to when workers did not show up. People did show up in the streets, with one of the largest crowds every assembling in Monument Square during the middle of the day, as workers were joined by students walking out of schools. It is easy to be skeptical, to say that this is far from a general strike, however, an important connection was made between work and power. Opposition to a government policy, and agency, was connected to a refusal to go on working as normal. Moreover, the establishment of a strike fund, along with organizations providing support and protection to immigrant families, connects the refusal to work with the creation of alternative structures to meet needs. It was an important day, and a step toward a better world.

I think that Trump might have misjudged his base in releasing a Melanie documentary. They are more into memes than movies--and they are misogynists.