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🧵🧵🧵
Trump often lies about Chicago, using a great American city as a punching bag to entertain out-of-town racists who are scared of Black and Latino Chicagoans whom they’ve never met. He’s threatening a military occupation. Here’s a thread about Chicago, Trump and crime. 1/

On the Perennial Embarrassment of Worldcon In the interest of fairness, I will begin with something that we already know: running a convention is hard. This is the one concession I will make: running a Worldcon really is hard. It’s hard in …

Welp, time to blowup my notifs!

Thesis: Worldcon COULD be good, but we may have to drag it there kicking and screaming.

I learned so many things about WorldCon "processes" from your recap of that panel.

Things I think have left me more cross-eyed than my disability already has??? Thank you for this, it's really helpful.

There’s nothing like attending Worldcon in-person as team @khoreo.bsky.social's representative, as one of the actual Finalists for Best Semiprozine, only for our masthead to be entirely skipped over, while everyone else’s names and mastheads were read in full, exactly as it was on the program sheet.

I am genuinely happy and surprised to see a change and an apology.

www.lacon.org/2025/08/21/s...

what, your favorite pasttime isn't "watch people go back to the beginning over and over and over by setting all the things we helped them learn on fire"? 🙃

This whole essay is great, & worth reading. but this particular part leapt out at me so strongly:

"When you claim to be an ally to those different from yourself, do you accept (both intellectually and emotionally) that they have certain issues which you cannot comprehend but should believe?"

It's baffling in its complexity of ignorance and lack of care to have gone through ALL that

And yet

No pronunciation guide. No indication that they studied the names in advance. No name practice, even if it was just sending a recording to a nominee to check.

I have had so many drivers be surprised that I ask, "did I pronounce your name correctly?" and even more who have said in shock, "you got it perfect! Do you speak (X)?" and I have to go "no, I'm just a linguist." Breaks my heart.

istg I will pronounce names at the Hugos for free

Next year's WorldCon is in Los Angeles, and the theme appears to be Westward Expansion or possibly Manifest Destiny. The guests are referred to as Pioneers and the venue as The Frontier. This year the awards were swept by Indigenous writers. The choice is stunning in its ugliness.

This is a heartwrenching, extremely relatable work. I've written veritable reams of words about names and the importance of getting them right. I'm someone whose own family won't learn to pronounce my name right. And I'm the kind of person who checks the pronunciation of my Lyft driver's names.

Something very very weird happened during the Hugos award ceremony... It's been on my mind for days, and so I wrote this blog: "When People Giggle at Your Name, or the 2025 Hugo Awards Incident"

grigorylukin.com/2025/08/21/w...

#Worldcon

New Illinois law guarantees immigrant students access to public education The law prohibits public schools from denying access to a free education based on immigration status. It also requires schools to have procedures for law enforcement requests to enter a building.

"The law prohibits public schools from denying access to a free education based on immigration status. It also requires schools to have procedures for law enforcement requests to enter a building."
chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

I say this regularly: we’d all be better off if we focused at the local level.

Some details on the massive assault on the humanities (and tenure) unfolding at the University of Oregon here: newsletter.uauoregon.org/after-accept...

Trump's promise to end vote-by-mail is yet another attack on disabled voters The president credits democracy superfan Vladimir Putin with the idea. Yes, really.

The president credits democracy superfan, Vladimir Putin, with the idea. Yes, really.

Hello my friends ☕❤️

Today marks our 5th Coffee Day, and I’m so happy we get to share it together. This week is even more special because two cafés in Italy will be joining us in raising a cup for Gaza 🫂

I see a lot of people promoting their gaming podcasts on here, and week after week, it's always men chatting to other men.

invite a woman onto your podcast ffs!!!! if your instinct is that there are no women that you consider peers in the industry, then maybe it's time to think about why that is!

this is the vibe

I’m a queer Palestinian. Stop using my identity as cover for the destruction of Gaza | Jad Salfiti Rightwingers in Israel and the US claim they are defending LGBTQ+ rights while Gaza’s people are killed. Don’t dare do this in our name, says British-Palestinian video producer and journalist Jad Salfiti

I’m a queer Palestinian. Stop using my identity as cover for the destruction of Gaza | Jad Salfiti

I'm sorry THREE? That's the universe kicking you while you are down frankly good lord

@clairewillett honestly the best marketing scheme in history is men successfully getting away with calling women the "more emotional" gender for like, EONS, because they've successfully rebranded anger as Not An Emotion 6:00 PM • Aug 12, 2020

once again I must tap my own sign

"The horror genre has come to feel oversaturated with message films: artistically rendered stories that use scares less to frighten and more to manifest psychological or philosophical themes."

Excuse me while I go scream forever

if you're still offline, stay offline

this rules

"I am old, and I am a legend, and fuck you all I'm going to use my platform to support trans people"

good for him

Locus Mag: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror 2025 Celebrating and uplifting authors, artists, and story -- the guide to the world's imagination | Check out 'Locus Mag: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror 2025' on Indiegogo.

There's 1 day left in the @locusmag.bsky.social funding drive, & if you're able to kick any support their way I'd love if you did; there's really nothing else like Locus out there, I've been a subscriber for years, & their reviews & reporting & interviews are a superb treasure trove of good works.

A friend of mine alerted me to some fun fandom discourse (about a property she pays attention to; I'm not familiar with it.)

Basically, there was a bit of a furor over an anonymous opinion stating, "<Artist> draws <butch4butch couple> well, but it's not REALLY butch4butch representation."

Ah yes, as guaranteed in the First Amendment, Americans may enjoy free speech as long as it’s in sync with what the administration is trying to accomplish

So basically BlueSky is treating "being Palestinian" as a violation of their terms and conditions 😒