Michael Scott

Replacing the pledge of allegiance with a performance of Sprout and the Bean in its entirety each morning

I have an MA in Spanish (lit. crit. focus), and would have *loved* a Latin American/Iberian intellectual history course to supplement my regular coursework. Admins, people love and think about stories and self-expression all the time, they are hardly irrelevant.

Friday Feb 13 as Valentine’s Day Eve, a portentous combination

I don't this post is a newsflash or anything, but I think many are still underestimating how much of an effect the shutdown had on everyone. Massive cultural/social/economic shifts afterwards. (I was pro-shutdown and wish they had been longer with broad social support, but we had a dumb government.)

How Do We Get Out of This? At Monterrey, Mexico’s MARCO, artist Teresa Margolles seeks an exit from the apocalypse.

Great article about the Mexican artist Teresa Margolles: www.theborderchronicle.com/how-do-we-ge...

I think that a lot of people realized during COVID that their lives do not have to center around their jobs, that rest and recreation are central to a good life, and that capitalism is literally based on human sacrifice.

This is the aftermath of an ICE kidnapping a few blocks from my home in St. Paul—an hour ago. A quiet street full of broken glass and at least three wrecked cars. The target of the kidnapping was taken away by ambulance. He was on a stretcher and covered by a sheet, though a cop said he was alive.

We have received numerous credible reports of torture, killing, and inhumane treatment of detained individuals at the Camp East Montana migrant detention facility, located within Fort Bliss. #txlege

A gray tabby cat sits on a headboard and gazes up at a light to its left. There is also a mirror with a reflection of my right arm in it.

Our youngest cat Walter, and part of my right arm #cats #arms

The Pennsylvania lottery commercials feature an animated groundhog that interacts with live actors, it's unsettling.

This is the 38th time that the U.S. military has unlawfully killed civilians on the orders of Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump. At least 130 people — never charged with crimes, their identities unknown to their executioners — are now dead.

We already have a submission that's only a couple of hundred dollars more than the lowest submission we got in the AY19-20 spreadsheet.

b) the people in charge wanted it this way. I have realized for a long time that the ultra-wealthy wanted to be sure they stayed ultra-wealthy, but I never connected the dots to actual physical movement or free will. I know they wanted serfdoms for a long time, and the serfs can't go anywhere.

I feel like I was super naive, but it wasn't until recently that I really made the connection between the Epstein files and, well, everything else that's going on. I think during the pandemic, a lot of people figured out that a) our work lives mostly suck, or at least could be better and...

Bro literally came out and said “it’s our labor and culture that has always made the Americas great: y’all are just the beneficiaries of slave owners from sea to shining sea,” and I am here for it.

Any recommendations for book/article about the #disabilityrights movement? Thanks

I would be a regular at a restaurant that only serves garlic bread.

Yes, I understand this. The parallel I'm talking about is someone *within the region* saying that there is no distinction between NYC and Jersey City or Westchester.

(Not if non-creepy rent-to-own programs exist at all, maybe through some kind of public trust?) #pittsburgh #housing

...for "housing policy" in Pittsburgh these days. Nothing about tax breaks and other programs for management/renovation of old buildings, rent control, or non-creepy rent-to-own programs. I'm happy to be corrected, of course, but the thinking about it just seems super limited.

....still seems to be getting more and more expensive. It's still super cheap here compared to many other cities, especially for buyers, but I can't shake the sense that real estate developers just want to keep building shiny new places over and over and over, and this is kind of it...

I keep seeing that low inventory is the main reason housing costs are so high. But I'm also seeing a bazillion new places being built, nearly always quite expensive, of course. I get how having more availability makes things cheaper (yay capitalism), but housing here...

That's said, it's not really *that* isolated. We're two hours from Cleveland, and yes, Cleveland is worth a visit. And four from DC, five from Philly, three from Columbus. It just feels like it's own little world. #pittsburgh

I don't have any great point beyond I guess regional identity is strong here. The geography and relative isolation makes it feel like it's kind of this island made up of hills and rivers, and it's all just "Pittsburgh."

...I just saw someone from the area, called Sewickley and Upper Saint Clair "neighborhoods." I get the confusion between, say, Dormont or Bellevue and the city, but Sewickley is clearly separate, even almost rural in places.

One thing I've noticed in Pittsburgh that I haven't seen other places I lived is that even people from here tend to make no great distinction between the city proper and suburbs.

Any zip code starting with 152 can be called "Pittsburgh," even if it's a separate municipality. But even then...

YouTube video by afarcrymusic A Far Cry Performs Osvaldo Golijov's "Tenebrae"

youtu.be/W6RR3Ir_kkM?...

Get ready for my new shoegaze band called No Likes Yet

New profile pic is "concerned face". (Really just "I don't know what my face is actually doing when I take a selfie face.")

YouTube video by Sleater-Kinney - Topic The Drama You've Been Craving

youtu.be/MwXtL6TbcLU?...