elkelktick.bsky.social

Alice Wong, Writer and Relentless Advocate for Disability Rights, Dies at 51

“One of the things that really gives me joy is the fact that there are so many amazing, brilliant, creative disabled people out there. But part of my rage — and it’s a very real rage — is that most people don’t really know about them.”

Obit:

Black text on a yellow background - This is Alice's friend Sandy Ho, posting. Per Alice's wishes, this message is being shared at the time of her passing. Hi everyone, it looks like I ran out of time. I have so many dreams that I wanted to fulfill and plans to create new stories for you. There are a few in progress that might come to fruition in a few years if things work out. I did not ever imagine I would live to this age and end up a writer, editor, activist, and more. As a kid riddled with insecurity and internalized ableism, I could not see a path forward. It was thanks to friendships and some great teachers who believed in me that I was able to fight my way out of miserable situations into a place where I finally felt comfortable in my skin. We need more stories about us and our culture. You all, we all, deserve the everything and more in such a hostile, ableist environment. Our wisdom is incisive and unflinching. I'm honored to be your ancestor and believe disabled oracles like us will light the way to the future. Don't let the bastards grind you down. I love you all.

“Don’t let the bastards grind you down. I love you all.”

Trump administration will require SNAP participants to reapply for benefits Food aid recipients are already required to recertify their information regularly. But the move is part of USDA chief Brooke Rollins’ effort to overhaul the program.

USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins plans to make all SNAP recipients reapply and prove "that they literally are vulnerable and they can’t survive without it.”

The 'genuinely disabled'

The 'literally vulnerable'

They keep moving the goalposts.

They were never going to fund SNAP. It's eugenics:

Probably would have died of a childhood illness. Glad we had vaccines & herd immunity when I was a kid but chilled to think about how much longer that might or might not last

I see the “technically it’s ephebophelia” crowd is out today, so just a reminder that A) this is NOT a case where technically correct is the best kind of correct and B) the minute you say this, the gods dump you in the “irredeemable creeper” basket and wash their hands thoroughly after touching you.

Getting a lot of new followers who have weirdly stiff language in their bio referencing their democratically aligned politics and their love for san francisco bay area sports teams. Blocking them all on the assumption they’re bots or op accounts

I’m really sorry you lost a friend. Sending love from afar, though we don’t know one another.

I received this email about Democrats caving to end the shutdown from one of the SNAP recipients I spoke to:

THE LANCET Infectious Diseases COMMENT • Online first, November 07, 2025 Negative results in long COVID clinical trials: choosing outcome measures for a heterogeneous disease Lara Goxhaj • Lisa McCorkell • Femke van Rhijn-Brouwer . Letícia Soares . Julia Moore Vogel . Chloé de Canson

Many Long COVID trials have reported negative results in 2024 and 2025. In our Comment for @thelancetinfdis.bsky.social we argue that inadequate outcome measures might have played a role. (1/12)

When people talk about the excesses of MeToo, they have to lie, because the reality is that there was no massive social reckoning forcing people to believe survivors or hold perpetrators accountable. In fact, there has been a significant backsliding and new punishments in rejection of MeToo

"I want no advantage over my fellow man, and if he is weaker than I, all the more is it my duty to help him." - Eugene Debs

BREAKING: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is illegally closing 13 campus buildings (including ~100 laboratories).

Report coming from GESTA, the Goddard employee union

This is insane. Teen Vogue had fantastic political coverage, and if that astonishes you it's because you've not been paying attention. This is part of a concerted effort by capital to silence any voices capable of actual analysis. It should enrage you.

Before photo showing areas of green lush forest

Same area, no forest

Closeup, rees stripped bare

Massive, massive deforestation of Western Jamaica -- Melissa apparently stripped every last leaf off every last tree.

#HurricaneMelissa #Melissa #Hurricane #disasters

The USDA is the fail safe for SNAP.

They have a contingency fund to ensure it’s covered in the event of a shutdown.

They’re refusing.

Grocery stores stepped up to try and help by offering discounts to any SNAP recipients and the USDA told them they had to stop.

Starvation as a policy choice.

N95s can prevent more than just Covid!

They stop colds, flus and other airborne illness.

They’re also highly effective against pollen, pollution, wildfire smoke and environmental triggers.

Many maskers haven’t been sick in years.

Respirators are pretty amazing.

If I say what needs to be said I’ll get banned, so I’ll offer the late Shafiqah Hudson’s words. She was right & still is. Kevin’s right too. Most won’t accept reality until it’s too late to save millions from death and harm. Even their own kids. It’s why public health wasn’t supposed to be “opt in”.

It's notable that so much of the excitement about AI images and videos is about creating women who can't say no, can't object to being mistreated, can't ask why they're being told do submissive and degrading things.

The question of “can a LLM/Gen Ai achieve human intelligence” is in fact pretty much totally irrelevant when addressing the cold hard risks around “how should we integrate these tools into human society”

That memory hole is partly why so many people refuse to mask even though covid is still killing and disabling people. Given the choice between continuing to manage chronic risk and being as carefree as trump was in 2020, most people have chosen the latter. Doesn’t say great things about our society.

Not a lot of advantages are conferred by having had a nightmare childhood except for being 100% immune to nostalgia. Go back to the time of my youth? No thank you. I’d rather you kill me.

I've lived with one pan, one plate, and no furniture, and I've been homeless with a mental map of what restaurants put wrapped food on the porch at end of shift. Lived in a long-stay motel with just a microwave, no fridge.

I always forget that a lot of people don't know people live like that.

I really can't emphasize enough that OpenAI is, as Dr. Gilliard has described in the past, a social arsonist enabling racism, and I urge colleagues in education using OpenAI's products - including ed-tech platforms that incorporate its products like Khanmigo and MagicSchool - to stop.

This is how you do it

You can pretty much assume any former base is polluted and polluting the surrounding area. If it’s not nuclear waste it’s heavy metals from other munitions or decades of petroleum seeping into the groundwater. If it’s not that it’s PCBs from all the carbonless copy paperwork improperly disposed of

I’m not going to argue the point that many people are willing to ignore the brutalization of racialized people - that’s just true and obvious - but I feel like you’re kind of mixing your messages

i feel like you should define your “they.”

Gaza has always been politicized - this is kind of a nonsensical statement. The land we know as Palestine and Israel is at the center of the world’s two largest religions and that is a huge part of what draws an inordinate amount of attention to it

Top researchers consider leaving U.S. amid funding cuts: 'The science world is ending' A poll from the journal Nature found that 75% of researchers in the U.S. are considering leaving the country. That includes a man who’s been dubbed the "Mozart of Math." Stephanie Sy examines what’s b...

A Nature poll found that 75% of U.S. researchers are considering leaving the country.

Guyz, even the *historians* are leaving or contemplating / likely to go. Including, at least 3 historians that I know of in my subfield. 😢

Woman Baffled When Cops Accuse Her of Random Crime, Saying They Have Cameras Everywhere "You know we have cameras in that jurisdiction and you can't get a breath of fresh air, in or out of that place, without us knowing, correct?"

If only people had warned us all about this.

A Call for the Universal Use of Respirators in Healthcare - Add Your Name In an effort to advance global public health through turbulent times, a group of experts from around the globe in medicine, public health, law, industrial hygiene, and other disciplines, met at the Un...

Just discovered this call for universal respirators in healthcare. Add your name--today is the final day!

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...