Milan!

Toad!

men can be baddies

A screenshot of the program.

Just downloaded/installed/used the ✨completely free✨ "O&O ShutUp10++," and disabled a lot of the spyware/phone home/surveillance aspects of my Windows PC.

Clean, compact, quick. Single .exe, no install, one-click "disable recommended" option. Great program.

www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10

Digital pencil drawing. My fursona Tower, a fat maned wolf, holds up a huge Murray cod in two hands. He's pulling a goofy smile for the camera.

Catch and Release

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy passed away today according to the House of GG. She was a veteran of the Stonewall rebellion and a lifelong organizer for the safety and dignity of trans people, sex workers, and the incarcerated. She came from the same generation and milieu as Marsha and Sylvia. She was 78.

Jack-o-Lantern grinning with the words "It's ween" over it.

An older Black femme, laying in a hospital bed. She's smiling and holding a pink, lavender and yellow dragon stuffie.

Miss Major, one of the mothers of the trans liberation movement, has been in the hospital for 10 days with sepsis and a blood clot. She has looked out for us for generations, now it’s time to look out for her. Donate if you can: fundly.com/missmajor

The current, former worker-owners, and staff part of the sunsetting crew are gutted to be delivering this news. After 26+ years of serving marginalized communities as an independent feminist bookstore, event hub, and all-around radical community space, the daily operations are unfortunately no longer sustainable on multiple fronts. Your support and contributions have sustained the spirit of this radical bookstore for years. We cannot thank you enough for everything you’ve done for us, and this beautiful, messy, space! This closure was our absolute last resort. On top of our crew’s ongoing struggle against the organized abandonment of New York City and constant crises, the remaining worker-owner and staff are at the limits of what they can manage in terms of health, disability, and finances. It would be unfair to the Bluestockings’ community at large to keep the storefront open, as needed as radical spaces are, and be unprepared and unresourced for future crises, and abruptly shutter. It’s time to sunset, transition on our terms, and envision new chapters. Here’s what to expect: our doors are closed for business as of today, we plan to fulfill any book orders through the end of 2025, and we will also aim to send out any outstanding membership perks within this time. If you’re a member, we will officially turn off memberships December 15th, and absolutely understand if you’d like to cancel earlier. We will unfortunately not be able to host any programming or events that may have been scheduled after today, and we’re deeply sorry for these abrupt cancellations.

All remaining funds from the WithFriends membership platform, the GoFundMe, Venmo and elsewhere will be going directly towards settling the shop’s considerable outstanding debts, paying out our many vendors, and wherever possible, compensating the crew handling our sunsetting process. For more responses to questions we anticipate y’all may have, see this link: https://bluestockings.com/about-us/sunset-faq This decision comes after the shared failures of multiple cohorts to come to consensus around the guiding principles and practices Bluestockings should embody to move forward as a worker-owned cooperative that serves as a radical bookstore, cafe, and community event space. We’ve made a lot of mistakes, but the lack of political and business-operations alignment on upholding the responsibilities of our space has directly led to many of the setbacks we’ve faced the last two years. Of course, $12,000 a month in rent, thousands in utilities, and racist, classist violence from “neighbors” certainly didn’t make our work any easier. We hope to share more in the near future on what’s next. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you to everyone who’s shared space with us. To everyone who came to Bluestockings and found a book that helped defined their radical ethos, who came to an event to support collective liberation, who found love and community over what our world could be…the care we’re taking to sunset this space, as best we know how, is because of your support over these 26+ years.

We hope to share more in the near future on what’s next. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you to everyone who’s shared space with us. To everyone who came to Bluestockings and found a book that helped defined their radical ethos, who came to an event to support collective liberation, who found love and community over what our world could be…the care we’re taking to sunset this space, as best we know how, is because of your support over these 26+ years. Please understand if we’re slow or unable to respond to emails in the coming months. We’re doing our best to attend to this sunset and also our many communities’ inquiries. In Love & Rage, The Bluestockings Cooperative Sunset Crew

Absolutely gutting to learn of the closure of Bluestockings, a hub for so much of my activist life in NYC, where I had readings and book launches and just met up with my friends. A huge loss for the community and the city www.bluestockings.com

HOW TO LET BSKY KNOW THEIR POLICY CHANGES HARM ARTISTS: A GUIDE FOR MOBILE USERS! 🧵

Sending feedback is SUPER easy, and takes just a few clicks!

1. Open the left tab menu, and click that "feedback" button
2. Put your concern in the box. I'll copy paste a script to use! (CONT.)

hades 2! highly recommend the first one

Stanhill, Lancashire, 1764. Wear and carpenter James Hargreaves invents the Spinning Jenny, the first practical spinning-frame, to make the tedious task of producing cloth a little bit faster. He doesn't know it yet, but this will destroy the world. Spurred by inventions like his, the industrial revolution will transform everything -- work power, the wealth of nations. Society as we know it began here, and it wasn't great for everyone. But a group of weavers and textile workers saw this future coming. And did their best to prevent it.

"Curse you spinning jenny, you ruined everything!" The standard narrative does that LUDDITES were foolish lunatics who, in fear of technology, decided progress was bad, and started hitting it with sticks. But the truth is entire ways of life were being destroyed. Previously, skilled craftsmen were respected for the time and effort it took to do their work. The entire family usit would form a cottage industry - creating something valuable, and command a decent living. But when a machine can work 10 times faster its owner can charge less for the prodcts- craftsmen couldn't compete and were left out of work almost overnight. And as factories became a fixture of the british landscape, these now unemployed labourers often ended up working the factories that had just destroyed their way of life. Britain was the most prosperous nation in history, factory owners became extremely wealthy and influential. But the people doing the actual work saw almost none of it.

Factory work paid little, since "the machines" did "the real work" human labourers were deemed unimportant and replaceable. FUN FACT!: Factory owners preferred to hire ORPHANS since less people would notice if they were maimed or killed on the job! Now the owners quickly realized the workers might notice they did all the work for almost no pay. If they went on STRIKE or ARGUED FOR HGHER WAGES, this would threaten their tremendous wealth. In 1799, Parliament passed the Combination Act, which made FORMING TRADE UNIONS, COLLECTIVE BARGAINING, AND GOING ON STRIKE ILLEGAL. Organizing against the rich became a crime.

If you were living through it, opposing the industrial revolution wasn't techno-phobia. It was SELF-DEFENSE. The combination act forced unions underground into secret societies. And the greatest secret of all was their leader - Ned Ludd. Ned had been a folk character for years. In one version after being whipped by his master, he smashed two knitting frames in a rage. In more fanciful versions, he then escaped to the Sherwood forest, here he lived among the animals as their king. Some versions specifically call him 'Much Better Than Robin Hood'.

Happy Labor Day!

Today we're bringing you The First Union, as told by HBomberguy (@hbomberguy.bsky.social) and illustrated by Skutch (@skutchdraws.bsky.social) It's the dawn of the industrial revolution, and of the way many of us work...

Have you ever heard of the term "Luddite" from an elder?

holy shit

sorry happiness is a dj sabrina collab???

I think about this James Baldwin quote a lot, especially now.

“The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.”

I never thought I would see this in my life, and that they’re making it immediately generic so it’s affordable is making me want to cry

getting really tired of having need of this meme

"Calvinball" making it into a major SCOTUS dissent is a grim achievement for comics

everybody transgender now!!!

People often mistake my commitment to wanting everyone to have human rights and healthcare to mean I love everyone or something.

I do not.

I just think baseline survival shouldn't be based on who I personally like.

I reserve the right to hate folks and never ever give them a moment of time, tho.

the intensity of my anger at those who would criminalize the homeless — a population literally created by the greed and callousness of the ruling class — is very hard to contain. it was you who dismantled the safety net. if you don’t like the results, put it back

NANCY by Olivia Jaimes, where Nancy says Cartoonist is the best type of artist

So you’re telling me the Wizard of Oz presented itself as a towering force of overwhelming technology, only to be unmasked as just some guy, off-screen?

you don't understand. as someone who isn't inherently good at art, stealing paintings from the museum is the *only* way i'm able to express myself creatively. i wouldn't be able to paint beautiful portraits. but by breaking into a museum and stealing the paintings, now i am

If "AI" was actually useful in software they would charge you extra for it, not force you to opt out.

A 3 panel comic of Angelo, a trans male anthropomorphic pitador with a curly mohawk doing pushups. Panel 1 shows a flashback to when he was more fit. Panel 2 shows him in the present with a chubby body, on his knees, sweaty trying to catch his breathe. Panel 3, he goes back into pushup position despite it all. Speaking in thought bubbles he says "I used to be able to do thirty pushups no problem...now I can only do five. Ten on a GOOD day if I pushed myself!" / "Oh welp...at least I still have perfect form."

Good ol' Pushups

#furryart #comic

I don’t know whether the AltNPS account is active disinformation or just someone with a loose and crumbling grip on reality, but either way, it is not a reliable source of information and should not be regarded as any more authoritative than a shitpost.

revolutionary war update

Meme, upper text: The Myth of Artistic Freedom Man says: I want to draw it Woman says: I want to see it MasterCard and Visa logos say: I DON'T! Bottom text: ISN'T THERE SOME RANDOM PAYMENT PROCESSOR YOU FORGOT TO ASK?

whenever im talking to a new person and they mention "the family group chat" i am all at once fully aware we are functionally Different Species of Guy

my view is that everyone should be able to earn a living wage doing whatever it is they like. if you love working in a bookshop, you should be able to live a comfortable life doing so. if you loving being a barista, the same. and if you want to do more traditional blue collar work, that’s cool too!