Kelly Swails

Phantom View - Reactor A disabled son care-taking for a disabled father tries to understand the mysterious blur haunting them.

If you are reading for awards, I would be touched if you would consider my novelette, "Phantom View." It's one of my most personal stories, about disabled people helping each other, whether they're alive or dead.

Southwest Side businesses are struggling amid the immigration blitz: "This is worse than COVID." blockclubchi.co/4nEQJLC

Not to mention Elton John

Maybe say you don't know and pretend to Google it and then tell her?

Better Off Ted

Trump's warning on replicating a DC police takeover in Chicago an empty and illegal threat: local officials The president asserted that his takeover of DC police and use of troops to battle crime in Washington could potentially be applied to cities like Chicago. But Gov. JB Pritzker emphatically dismissed T...

chicago.suntimes.com/donald-trump...

A tweet from the official FBI Twitter account dated June 2, 2025, reads: "Help the FBI protect children. As the Attorney General has made clear, we will protect our children and hold accountable those who mutilate them under the guise of gender-affirming care. Report tips of any hospitals, clinics, or practitioners performing these surgical procedures on children at 1-800-CALL-FBI or tips.fbi.gov." The tweet has 106K views.

The FBI is now going after trans people and their healthcare. Today it's gender affirming care, tomorrow abortion. This is the authoritarian playbook on display.

2.3 Use of AI Technologies. Kobo agrees that Works will not be used to train generative AI technologies. Kobo may utilize artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning algorithms or similar technologies (AI technologies), to read, analyze, and process the Works for the following purposes: (a) enhancing the discoverability of the Works by categorizing and tagging content appropriately, and providing a personalized experience and targeted recommendations for customers; (b) evaluating the suitability of the Works for sale on Kobo’s platform and ensuring adherence to Kobo’s Terms of Service; (c) generating resources to assist prospective customers in making informed decisions, including, but not limited to creating keywords, promotional content, targeted advertisements, customer engagement strategies, and other materials designed to enhance the sales of the Works; and (d) enhancing the experience of a purchased book by providing recaps, reading assistance, and accessibility features.

Just got this update from Kobo which says it's going to use AI to read my works to "enhance" discoverability and marketing, and determine the "suitability" of the works and "adherence to Kobo’s Terms of Service" among other things.

Which is why I'm immediately pulling my books from Kobo.

Chicago, too. Didn't generally see them this far north and now we have a handful a year.

financial advice in a weird time:

-- develop a plan
-- find friends who support you
-- preferably 10 of them
-- steal $160 million from the Bellagio, the Mirage, and the MGM Grand
-- yes those are Terry Benedict's casinos
-- get your wife back
-- one of the friends should be Don Cheadle btw

simple

They will also blow up any "bad" thing you do to be the ABSOLUTELY WORSE THING EVER so they can play the victim and make you feel like utter shit for three weeks because you dared to, I dunno, used the joint account to buy yourself Starbucks instead of your allowance.

Imagine this: On the evening of March 8, you and your spouse unlock the door to your apartment building. As you step inside, two men—not in uniform—push their way in behind you. They tell you your visa has been revoked and that they are there to deport you.

A few months ago I watched the 80's movie "Missing" with Sissy Spacek and Jack Lemmon. One, great movie. Two, really, really relevant to today. Being out after curfew is a big enough crime to be shot on sight.

every single person who is currently supporting what’s happened to Mahmoud Khalil is a fascist sympathizer, a coward, or both

this is “they came for” and it’s happening right now

This is a big deal.

I don’t think many Americans realise what shit Trump is getting them into.

Just signed up for a short film screenwriting class because apparently part of my resistance is making art about the hellscape.

Rural ones? Within 6 months.

It may not be cool or hip in some circles, but we legitimately do need a massive amount of people to run for office.

Flood the school boards, councils, county seats, state legislatures, Congress, etc.

Big changes at the top happen when the ground shifts at the bottom. And that can start now.

Updates on National Endowment for the Arts FY 2026 Grant Opportunities The National Endowment for the Arts is updating its FY 2026 grant guidelines, with deadlines in March and July 2025. These changes impact organizations applying in the Grants for Arts Projects or Chal...

So, the National Endowment for the Arts announced today that they are reworking the guidelines for all 2026 grants and will be prioritizing projects that center the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It's now just a propaganda fund.

www.arts.gov/news/press-r...

Workplace sabotage is a lost art.

The cognitive dissonance of getting up every morning and making coffee and walking the dog and going to meetings and answering emails and wondering what to make for dinner while there is a real live actual coup d’etat happening is BONKERS

@thebarbarienne.bsky.social are we in French Revolution territory?

Elon Musk now has access to your Social Security number. The world’s richest man has gained access to the confidential personal information of every taxpayer in the United States.

If a 19-year-old Canadian who calls himself Big Balls marches into your federal agency and demands access to your system, telling him to fuck right off should be the mildest reaction you have.

I intend to say both.

A screenshot of a white page of text topped by a blue banner showing the logo of the CDC contains the most recent content of the journal MMWR, dating to 16 Jan. The content can be found at: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/index.html

For the second week in a row, the CDC's crucial Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report — THE first-line bulletin for outbreaks and chronic disease developments — has not been published. This screenshot shows that its last edition was the Thursday before the inauguration. www.cdc.gov/mmwr/index.h...

I talked to Vulture about Severance I talked to Vulture about what the TV show Severance reveals about workplace life -- including the inauthenticity of corporate life, how the Overtime

www.askamanager.org/2025/01/i-ta...

Original post I saw is gone now, but I have a screenshot.

So apparently other countries have been protesting on our behalf since Monday and I'm just now learning about it.