Ryan

If I Must Starve a poem Nour Abdel Latif July 22, 2025 If I must starve, let it be with dignity in my children's eyes, not with my hands tied by silence. Let the world witness that I did not bow to the hunger but stood, even as the sky emptied and the earth closed her mouth. If I must starve, let it be while I still cradle my child's hope, not as a number lost in footnotes. Let the sea carry my name to shores that forgot my people, and let the wind whisper: she fed love when bread was gone.

From "Refaat Writes Back" newsletter, here: refaatwritesback.beehiiv.com/p/if-i-must-...

Bret Stephens (and all the editors over there for that matter) has seen the same footage from Gaza that you and I have seen—skeletal babies and grown men collapsing from hunger and gaunt corpses. And he still writes that it’s not a genocide. And the NYT still publishes it.

Red mountain bike with orange and yellow panniers. Parked alongside several other bikes

My mountain bike leads a different life than it used to!

U.N. Warns Iran Stockpiling Creatine To Develop Washboard Abs

trump should’ve been in handcuffs in jan 2021 and there is no way to quantify just how much human suffering will result from the disastrous decision to slow walk his prosecution or even avoid it altogether

the thing with Mamdani is that he’s obviously an incredible political talent - the campaign he’s run has been extremely impressive even if you don’t like his policies

the party should be delighted, and that they’re instead pulling out all the stops to beat him speaks volumes

Congress, Now More Than Ever, We Need Your Cowardice

Columbia protester Mahmoud Khalil freed from immigration detention Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil has been released from federal immigration detention. The former Columbia University graduate student left a federal facility in Louisiana on Friday after 104 days ...

Mahmoud Khalil has been released.

A screenshot of a Wired article by Dell Cameron and Dhruv Mehrotra, published May 14, 2025, with the headline: "CFPB Quietly Kills Rule to Shield Americans From Data Brokers."

A screenshot of a Wired article by Lily Hay Newman, published June 16, 2025, with the headline: "Minnesota Shooting Suspect Allegedly Used Data Broker Sites to Find Targets' Addresses."

One month apart.

In light of Mamdani's performance, is astonishing there aren't more insurgent primary campaigns. Democratic establishment is discredited. Power is just sitting there like a mountain of gold but instead of being guarded by a fire-breathing dragon, it's fossils like Chuck Schumer

Three months ago today, plain-clothes ICE agents abducted Mahmoud Khalil in his apartment building lobby after they'd followed him home.

Free Mahmoud.

there really is no alternative to tearing up CBP and ICE root and branch

BREAKING: Pope Francis Dies at 88. Here's How He Should Be Remembered The late pontiff was a progressive pope who was outspoken on Trump, Gaza, the climate, and more.

"almost every night since Oct 2023, even during his hospitalization, Pope Francis made a daily phone call to the only Catholic parish in the Gaza Strip to check on their safety and offer words of prayer and support. His last public act, the day before he died, was to call for a ceasefire in Gaza."

for all the folks from the congressional dipshit caucus asking what more we want them to do, take a look at this guy. if you're not getting physically dragged somewhere you should resign and let someone else into your seat.

Kurt Vonnegut tells his wife he's going out to buy an envelope: "Oh, she says, well, you're not a poor man. You know, why don't you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I'm going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I'll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don't know. The moral of the story is — we're here on Earth to fart around And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And it's like we're not supposed to dance at all anymore."

Kurt Vonnegut man

right about now the funk soul brother check it out now the funk soul brother right about now the funk soul brother check it out now the funk soul brother right about now the funk soul brother check it out now the funk soul brother right about now the funk soul brother check it out now the funk sou

Thank you for keeping me informed Grant, big if true

A picture of David Lynch with the caption Fix your hearts or die

Happy Trans Day of Visibility

Government abductions are unconstitutional.

Denying anyone the right to due process in America is unconstitutional.

If you’ve rationalized your silence or support for any of it because it’s happening to those you disagree with, give it a minute…

They’ll get to you soon enough.

Seen people wondering why so many major institutions are prostrating themselves before Trump and maybe this is obvious but it's because the incentives for cowardice are immediate and obvious while the disincentives aren't. All they lose is their dignity and you can't pay the bills with that anyway

Texas Banned Abortion. Then Sepsis Rates Soared. ProPublica’s first-of-its-kind analysis is the most detailed look yet into a rise in life-threatening complications for women experiencing pregnancy loss under Texas’ abortion ban.

"After the state banned abortion, dozens more pregnant and postpartum women died in Texas hospitals than had in pre-pandemic years... As the maternal mortality rate dropped nationally, ProPublica found, it rose substantially in Texas." www.propublica.org/article/texa...

NEW: Noor Abdalla, an American citizen of Syrian descent and eight months pregnant, spoke with @cbssundaymorning.bsky.social about the Trump administration’s efforts to deport her husband, Mahmoud Khalil.

every person involved in this needs to be in prison

Marco Rubio should be sent to The Hague for this.

The New York Times is the first to put out comprehensive estimates on the cost of a year without U.S.A.I.D. and they’re higher than I thought:
- 1.65 million deaths from AIDS
- 500,000 from lack of vaccines
- 550,000 from lack of food aid
- 290,000 from malaria
- 310,000 from TB

Among the material devastation to everyday people, Senate Dems have now blown a hole in their ability to work with the House.

We had an agreed upon plan, House took immense risk, then Senate turned around midway and destroyed it w/ a fear-based, inexplicable abdication.

They own what happens next.

Supreme Court rules 5-4 on letting corporations shit directly into your mouth

Michelle Beutler cleared 67 trees off a U.S. Forest Service road in two days. It was the spring of 2023, after a record-breaking winter in the Stanislaus National Forest in California’s Sierra Nevada. Beutler, 59, worked alone with a chain saw to remove every fallen tree on a 10-mile stretch of road between the town of Long Barn in Tuolumne County and the popular Hull Creek Campground. She single-handedly finished the work so the road could open in time for Memorial Day. As a recreation technician based out of the Summit Ranger Station in the Stanislaus National Forest, Beutler’s job was to clean toilets, pick up trash and maintain recreation sites and campgrounds up and down Sonora Pass. She’d typically drive her Forest Service truck 100 miles a day. She sprayed pit toilets with a fire hose. She wiped away graffiti and removed thousands of pounds of house trash, old furniture and useless stuff that people dumped in the forest. She extinguished hundreds of abandoned and illegal campfires. She assisted law enforcement during emergency accidents, helping officers navigate a swath of rugged forest land that she grew up on and knows intimately.

When OMB head Russ Vought talks about deliberate efforts to put federal employees "in trauma" and make them quit their jobs, he's talking about people like Michelle, recently fired by Musk/Trump.

www.sfgate.com/california/a...