Brian Fitzgerald

"The Stories we Share" was my subject for the Stronger Roots Conference in Prague yesterday. Incredibly inspiring to hear so many stories of hope from these champions of democracy, freedom, and a just and empathetic civil society.

Yi’s companionship I Ching with Clarity podcast – I Ching with Clarity · Episode

And now for something completely different. The wonderful Hilary Barrett interprets an I-Ching reading I cast in 1982, which nudged (or shoved) me to join Greenpeace. Who knew a 3,000 year old book could say "DUH!?!?"

Today I learned: About the "Millennial Pause." A Tik Tok phenom that separates people who grew up on video as a staged, prepared, analogue, professionally shot and unspontaneous form and the Gen-Z ers for whom immediate-on phone video is a native format.

vm.tiktok.com/ZGdayR...

In a few weeks the government’s funding will run out. If Democrats vote for a new spending bill, they will be funding Trump’s autocratic takeover. How can they? Read the full transcript here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/opinion/trump-senate-democrats-shutdown-schumer.html Watch more on ‪@ Stop Acting Like This is Normal | The Ezra Klein Show

Trump's Government is corrupt. Shut it down, Dems, shut it down.
@chuckschumer

Leatherhead teen calls for Surrey council junk food advert ban Oli Porter, 18, says he wants to see junk food adverts removed from Surrey County Council property.

On the train home from working with teen Junk Food activists Bite Back I discover Oli, who was in my workshop yesterday, in my news feed today via the BBC. That's Culture Jamming.

@BiteBack2030
#CommercialBreak

On the Eurostar, preparing a training for the A-MAZING young activists of Bite Back. Their #CommercialBreak campaign is pure campaign improv: they flipped the refusal to run their award-winning ads into a people-powered pivot. #EverythingIsAGift

Loving Gavin Newsom’s Trump trolling. Taking him on at his own game. Superbly. His social media team is 🔥… or maybe he’s writing his own? Either way, it’s the first effective pushback I’ve seen from Dems.

Bill McKibben on Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” Her reporting was quickly attacked by the industry she called into question, setting the playbook for companies that profited from tobacco, opioids, and fossil fuels.

A book that was written when I was 4 years old would one day change my life. Bill McKibben on Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.

www.newyorker.com/ma...

The Crime Stunned the World. What Came After Seemed More Unbelievable by the Day. The almost unbelievable last days of the Rainbow Warrior.

The 1985 spy story of how the French Secret Service bungled their way across New Zealand to sink the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in order to "anticipate" her protests against nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific. slate.com/news-and-p...

“South Park” Skewers a Satire-Proof President The new season première goes after Trump as never before—and solves a problem that’s plagued comedians since his first term in office.

This is satire as nonviolent direct action. South Park episode goes meta with outrageous (1 of 50) taunt to parent company Paramount & Trump to cancel it "for financial reasons." #ColbertLives


www.newyorker.com/cu...

Age verification?

My phone number used to begin with a word, because I lived in a town with more than one exchange. "Riverview 5-7710" translated to RI5-7710 where R = 7 I = 4 because every number on the phone dial was associated with 3 letters.

Standing Rock was an Indigenous-led movement. Why did Greenpeace take the fall? The inside story of how Greenpeace stood with water protectors — and got hit with a $666 million court judgment.

Outstanding long read from Grist on the story behind Energy Transfer's 666 million lawsuit against Greenpeace. grist.org/project/indi...

Paramount cancels Colbert for "financial" reasons. In unrelated news, Paramount's Star Trek has cast a new Captain, with Donald Trump set "to boldly go someplace where, frankly, a lot of people tell me, a lot of people, that nobody, and I mean nobody, has ever gone before."

Tackling a global industrial complex of abuse and neglect - Hope and Homes for Children Hope and Homes for Children's CEO writes about the St Mary's institution in Tuam, and how our work gets children Back to Family.

Until Dancing Fox worked with #HopeAndHomesForChildren, I generally thought orphanages were a good thing. They really opened my eyes to the need to get kids back to family, and not "warehouse" them in institutions. This story from Ireland is shocking.

www.hopeandhomes.org...

Report: Colbert and Stewart on Shaky Ground as Skydance-Paramount Merger Nears Completion - LateNighter A new report from veteran media reporter Oliver Darcy suggests that the pending Skydance-Paramount merger could spell trouble for two of Donald Trump’s most high-profile comedic critics: Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart.

If they come for Colbert, they'll have to get past the millions of us for whom he's the last bastion of sanity, essential therapy, and the light of hope. Pitchforks at dawn, people. #Paramount #CBS # Shakedown @colbertlateshow

latenighter.com/news...

A lot of us elder hippies know exactly where they were on this day 40 years ago.

open.substack.com/pu...

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. - YouTube

It ain't 4 dimensional chess, it's Improv Donald - the improv game where when he hears the bell, he needs to make a new choice - for example, "I hate dogs" 🛎️ "I hate cats" 🛎️ "I hate authoritarian narcissists" #Improv #Trumpmemes #Trumpsucks

youtube.com/shorts/U...

My personal definition of a civilized city: not just no need for a car, but the same care and attention for the alternatives that car infrastructure gets.

Netherlands down a Nobel Prize as winner loses his Dutch nationality The Netherlands has lost one of its Nobel Prize winners. Andre Geim, a Dutch-British physicist awarded the prize in 2010 for discovering graphene, has lost his Dutch nationality, the Volkskrant report...

Umm, maybe Brexit is where he should focus his actual anger. "Netherlands down a Nobel Prize as winner loses his Dutch nationality | NL Times" nltimes.nl/2025/07/02/n...

Shouldn't he be vowing to reward Republicans who show a spine? Money shouldn't be the determining factor in an election, but if you're gonna wield it, wield it to reward integrity rather than a cudgel to do what you demand.

Finding your activist friends Solidarity, common ground, and intersectionality in the climate movement

Finding your Activist Friends. Yes, I've linked it before, but it's such a goody from @epilepticrabbit. blog.weareopen.coop/...

Canva Ads: Phil Agnew cites these as examples of "𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠...the idea that people judge value by the 𝐚𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐫 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞 that went into something." They're also very clever, which makes my heart sing more than the cost.

This is what courage looks like. Don't let tyrants redefine protest as insurrection.

"No Tyrants" protest to stage outside U.S. Consulate in Amsterdam on Saturday | NL Times A few hundred people are expected to take part in a protest Saturday afternoon outside the United States Consulate in Amsterdam. Organizers of the "No Tyrants" event tell NL Times it is in solidarity with similar protests happening across the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. The date coincides with a military parade planned in the U.S. on President Donald Trump's birthday, amid concerns of his administration's attempts to consolidate power.

So in the Netherlands there's a bit of a branding problem with "No Kings" since we have a King, but he's a decent enough fellow who rides a bike and doesn't send armed forces against his own when people disagree with him. #NoTyrants nltimes.nl/2025/06/1...

Should "Taco Trump" Be on the Democrats' Message Menu? A cautionary note on a very funny meme

+1 cautionary note about messaging Trump Always Chickens Out (TACO). I don't want him pettily deciding "I'll show those Dems" as he contemplates sending Marines to attack domestic protestors, or considers a nuclear strike. Think toddler psychology, people.

www.messageboxnews.c...

Everyone knew the Israeli military would seize the Madleen. Everyone knew the brave activists aboard would be arrested. And that’s precisely what makes their actions so powerful.

"[The crew of the Madleen] knew they wouldn’t reach Gaza. But they also knew that the world needs reminders, loud, visible, defiant reminders, that what’s happening in Gaza is not normal, not justifiable, and not tolerable." -- Yossi Cadan

www.greenpeace.org/c...

The Rule of Idiots In the last days of all empires the idiots take over. They mirror the collective stupidity of a civilization that has detached itself from reality.

"We wake up to the news of Trump considering declaring California a police state, and Netanyahu considering killing Greta Thunberg if she dares to dock her humanitarian aid boat in Gaza." Michael Moore on Chris Hedge's paeon to Colonia Trumpiana.
chrishedges.substack...

Our Climate Needs A Mythology We have enough climate logic, we also need some magic

Our Climate Needs a Mythology: "This is the great paradox of climate change: it is both the most scientifically documented crisis in human history and the most poorly narrated.

We have an abundance of evidence, and a deficit of meaning."


solitairetownsend.su...

Brian Eno on Instagram: "Not in My Name: An Open Letter to @microsoft from Brian Eno" 209K likes, 4,430 comments - brianeno on May 21, 2025: "Not in My Name: An Open Letter to @microsoft from Brian Eno".

"If Sound can signal a change let it be this one." Brian Eno, who created the Microsoft Windows opening chime sound, bites the hand that once fed him for its complicity in genocide in Palestine.

www.instagram.com/p/...

The Land of Hope and Dreams vs Make America Great Again.
Great piece on two competing visions of the US.

www.nytimes.com/2025...