Alex Danvers

I have tried hard to match my friends in their pessimism about the world (is it just my friends?), but I keep encountering people who, in spite of all the evidence of terrible things happening everywhere, give me hope. Especially young people, in whom the future rests. Wherever I go, I find such people. And beyond the handful of activists there seem to be hundreds, thousands, more who are open to unorthodox ideas. But they tend not to know of one another’s existence, and so, while they persist, they do so with the desperate patience of Sisyphus endlessly pushing that boulder up the mountain. I try to tell each group that it is not alone, and that the very people who are disheartened by the absence of a national movement are themselves proof of the potential for such a movement. Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zigzag toward a more decent society. We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world. Even when we don’t “win,” there is fun and fulfillment in the fact that we have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile. We need hope. From: The Optimism of Uncertainty By Howard Zinn • ZCommunications • September 30, 2004; The Nation • September 20, 2004

An optimist isn’t necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places–and there are so many–where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory. From: The Optimism of Uncertainty By Howard Zinn • ZCommunications • September 30, 2004; The Nation • September 20, 2004

Homework:

"Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world." -- Howard Zinn

www.howardzinn.org/collection/t...

MSNBC Grandmas in Skechers seamlessly reclaiming the frog from 4chan Nazis in about six weeks has gotta be the political upset of the century.

“You can win elections by tacking to the middle; lots of people have. But you can also win elections by staking a moral position and convincing people to agree with you. You can earn support by demonstrating what is important to you instead of just being determined to nod along with what you hear.”

I’ve been reposting all of the crowd videos of today’s NO KINGS rallies because at some point they’ll try to say it didn’t happen.

M.I.T.
Brown.
Penn.
USC.

Now UVA — “the fifth school to rebuff a White House proposal to give universities preferential treatment if they uphold a set of White House demands.”

@nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/17/u...

Head to a protest today. I can almost promise you will feel less hopeless. That's exactly what they don't want. There are more of us than there are of them.

The president is making a lot of comfortably middle class white people feel like revolutionaries.

to this i would add a good amount of self-loathing stemming from a belief that liberal political views are somehow “inauthentic” or an affectation of “elites”

I've never seen and felt as much love for America as we're seeing across the country today.

Proud papa moment: my son J published a letter in the @nytimes.com today (in print tomorrow) on the need to think our definitions of autism.

I feel it

they call it Spirit Week because it fuckin haunts me

This is one of those posts I think about a lot now. Especially on a day when the White House press secretary replied "your mom" to an earnest question about peace negotiations.

Good.

@DHSGov account says "Ratio." They are QTing a post that I wrote (next picture reproduces in full) asking, with a fair amount of snark, why DHS was blaming Governor Pritzker for the Hanover Park PD having hiring someone who allegedly was a visa overstay. They post two headlines about an Illinois law which authorized noncitizens with valid work authorization to become cops.

The post that set this off, in which I too was QTing the DHS account. The DHS post about the Hanover Park PD incident reads as follows: ". @GovPritzker doesn’t just allow illegal aliens to terrorize Illinois’s communities, he allows them to work as sworn police officers. Radule Bojovic overstayed a B2 tourist visa that required him to depart the U.S. on March 31, 2015. Over a decade later, he was still illegally in the U.S. working as a police officer for the Hanover Park Police Department earning a salary of $78,955. Criminal illegal aliens have NO PLACE in our communities, especially on our police forces." My QT response to this was: "What the heck does Governor Pritzker have to do with a local police department hiring decision? Do the people running @DHSgov not even know the basics about how state governments work?"

Excited to inform you all that the Department of Homeland Security is currently attempting to ratio me (and failing, as of more than two hours later).

With a heavy sigh, I repeat: bring back professionalism. For the love of god. You're running comms for the government of the USA. Act like it.

It costs ~$70 to produce a year’s supply of insulin.

Yet, the average annual cost of insulin went from $2,864 in 2012 to $5,705 in 2016 to $18,000 in 2025. A 25,714% markup. That isn’t inflation or supply chain—It’s corporate greed.

Now—California will sell insulin for $11. Make this nationwide!

Heavens to Betsy
Betsy to Heavens
Heavens BACK to Betsy
Betsy GOOOOOAAAALLLLLLLL

This is what the official website of the US Department of Agriculture, an agency whose job and duty is to represent the interests of all Americans, looks like currently.

www.usda.gov

Our US laws explicitly bar Administration officials from publishing political propaganda (5 U.S.C. §§ 7321–7326)

What I don't have in experience, I make up for in integrity.

And what Andrew Cuomo lacks in integrity, he could never make up for with experience.

A getty image by Mike Powles of a chameleon that is mall enough to sit on someone's thumb, its tail is curling ever so slightly

another getty image, this time by Alexis Rosenfeld, of another stump-tailed chameleon, this one small enough to sit comfortably on the tip of someone's thumb. Its mouth is slightly open, and its little toes are so small it is making me want to die a little bit.

BREAKING: I've just learned that there are teeny-tiny chameleons called stumped-tailed chameleons and they look like this AND I CANNOT HANDLE IT

more of this

Vertical comic structured like flow chart. (1) Einstein had an insight that overturned physics, thus proving his value. (2) I hope *I* have value. I’ll try to have an insight that overturns physics, to check. (3) [Time Passes] (4) Oh no! My insight didn’t overturn physics! But I don’t think I’m worthless… [arrows to two different options] (5a) Healthy Path: Maybe this was not a well-thought-out test of my value. (5b) Path of Ruin: The establishment must be *suppressing* my insight!

Physics Paths

xkcd.com/3155/

Nobody ever says "I wish I'd played more video games" when they die. Video games haven't been around long enough. I may be the first to say it.

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez 80000 60000 40000 20000 0 Bernie Sanders 200000 Number of Donations 150000 100000 50000 Elizabeth Warren 60000 40000 20000 01 25 50 Donor Age 75

Hakeem Jeffries 40000 30000 20000 10000 Nancy Pelosi 100000 Number of Donations 75000 50000 25000 Suzan DelBene 2000 1500 1000 500 25 50 75 Donor Age

AOC has just officially become the top House fundraiser, beating out Hakeem Jeffries. Now lemme take a big sip of coffee as I look at the age distribution of donors to AOC vs Jeffries

USC declines Trump administration compact - Daily Trojan The University of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brown University have also declined the compact which was sent to nine colleges Oct. 1.

USC IS OUT!

Let me tell y'all, the emergency meetings that got called yesterday and today...

dailytrojan.com/2025/10/16/u...

“Young adults aren’t having enough kids” bro I’m employed full-time with a damn PhD and I’m struggling to afford both groceries and rent.

I love kids but I can barely afford my pets.

Want us to have kids? Try UBI, rent control, universal healthcare, cheaper child care.

oh fuck, it's people isn't it

Good morning to everyone, but especially women who don’t like the vehicle