Sapindaceae

Congrats to BART rider and Oakland legend Alysa Liu on winning a gold medal at the Olympics and making the Bay Area proud!

Getting shown up in the arena of elite impunity by *the British monarchy* is an incredible “America at 250!” achievement

A valentine from Public Health of Seattle and King County. A man shivers in bed while a smiling lady in a red mask shows off her bandage on her arm. Text: Noses are red Ice packs are blue I'm vaxed so miss me with severe symptoms of flu.

A valentine from Public Health of Seattle and King County. Two lady scientists shrug lackadaisically. Text reads: My love for you can't be explained by science. Just like the new federal vaccine guidelines.

A valentine from Public Health of Seattle and King County. Protesters in Minneapolis wear thick clothes and hold signs of support for immigrant neighbors. Text reads: To the health departments in the Twin Cities: Love unites us. Our hearts are with you.

Oh my GOD King County Public Health is just wilding out for Valentines Day (and a lovely one).

YouTube video by Eleanor Morton Anne Bronte's Book Signing

Anne Bronte's book signing

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VXn...

everyone’s saying “people are NIMBYs about concentration camps” and yeah, I don’t want a concentration camp in my neighborhood, or anywhere

you know who I don’t mind in my neighborhood?

free immigrants, undocumented or otherwise

that whole man needs to go in the trash.

Oh, ew ew ew. Yeah, there's nothing good that can come of that.

When i started reading romances in the early 90s, my library still had a bunch of serials from the late 70s and early 80s, and it wasn't across the board, but some of it was very....yeah, ooof. Bunch of criminal stalkers! Not so occasional kidnappings!

LOL.... i wanted to hear JD getting booed at the Olympics and when i searched for it on YouTube i got this

Bark | Rust & Moth We name the forest— trend, pattern, significance— as though a word could hold the ache of a single pine stripped by beetles, or the birch that bent in last year’s storm but did not break. Fixed...

New #poetry from Michael Blaine: "Bark".

Communion There's no bread. The bakers have gone into hiding. The seats at the table are empty. The Twelve are out marching with the thousands. The streets are filled with a new song. Only Judas sits at Target Plaza, counting his silver, while Pontius Pilate issues a carefully-worded statement. Meanwhile, the centurions have quotas to fill. But out on the streets there's a Communion. Jesus takes the city in his hands and says, "This is my body, broken for you." Rob Hardy February 2, 2026

Communion, by Rob Hardy
📓

turns out it's not so much Democracy Dies in Darkness but more WaPo Dies in a Billionaire's Pocket

A concise, spare poem.

More attention here, please.

Poll Shows Massive Participation in Minnesota Shutdown Against ICE 1 in four Minnesota voters took part in January 23 day of action, or had a loved one who did.

A new poll finds that 1 in 4 Minnesota voters took part in the Jan 23 shutdown against ICE, or have a loved one who did. Of those, 38% DID NOT WORK, either because they made the choice to stay out, or their workplaces closed. By me, @thomasbirm.bsky.social, @bloomekatz.bsky.social

It's a great opinion by Judge Ana Reyes (and sound on the law—Noem was too busy posting to follow even the basics of the statute). Worth a read, and don't skip the footnotes.

When Professor [ _ ] Says My Poor Memory Is Why I’ll Never Be Great | Rust & Moth I am not remembering how oikos and logos join hands in The Song of the Earth, I am remembering the way my breath made frosted fairies in the air outside of the coffee shop on 14th avenue where I first...

New #poetry from Ariel Machell: "When Professor [ _ ] Says My Poor Memory Is Why I’ll Never Be Great".

Thinking about whoever said that by accepting a meal from people and then arresting them ICE agents broke a cultural taboo that was invented by, like, the first humans to set up a tent

Who recruits him recruits horse and foot…
//he can make every word he speaks draw blood...
//Obedience does not master him, he masters it. High up out of reach he stands turning a concentrated light…he turns the pivot with his finger

Walt Whitman’s poet as the original Chuck Norris figure.
🌿

Patience | Rust & Moth Light tears itself apart over the lake— the Perseids dragging their bright incisions. I believed you. I believed the lake could swallow a man like a fish swallows the hook, could hold him under fifty-two...

New #poetry from C. Sessums @csessums: "Patience".

Ooooh, i could see this!

Pining the end of #monthofdick? We start Leaves of Grass tomorrow! 🐋🌿📖

Note Found with the Urn | Rust & Moth Too heavy to pick up, impossible to carry. It weighs down the chest of drawers upstairs. My hands hold each other still while you’re a whirling sky, a night of rustling leaves, starless as the chosen...

New #poetry from Ron Stottlemyer: "Note Found with the Urn".

Poem The Lie By Mary O'Malley The lie that a protester shot dead by ICE in Minneapolis was a terrorist, the lie that killers set loose on their own cities are victims, the lie that a poem is a gun. A poem is not a gun, though a poem from the pen of Akhmatova or Neruda or Mandelstam, not one of whom ever to my knowledge fired a shot, might in certain conjugations of the stars lodge in the heart and spread out across mountains and borders across languages and the sea and you can't shoot it down, or lock it up or alter its pixels. It is played on the hollowed reeds of dead bones. A poem like that is a bomb. * * * * * Mary O'Malley's most recent collection, The Shark Nursery (Carcanet), was winner of the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry 2025

Poet Mary O'Malley is one of my favorites, and she had this response to recent events in Minneapolis in the Irish Times yesterday. 📚💙

Taylor Rehmet is our last 2025 @runforsomething.net still in elections this year -- he signed up in our pipeline years ago; this was the moment he decided to run. KEEP AN EYE ON THIS.

🐳Many thanks to @jacobharr.is and all the other Moby Dick readers! I read this once in my 20s on my own and it was so much more fun--and I got so much more out of it--reading it with the bluesky bookclub crew!

🐳 ...oh shit, man, that thing's trailing ropes? Harpoons? I am not dealing with that. And that he gets to swim in peace, free of infection and monomaniacal sea captains.

🐳Man, I hope that no one comes after Moby Dick again. It actually started to really bug me when Ishmael kept ascribing malice and deceit to him, like NO SHIT MAN, you whalers keep trying to KILL HIM, malice is an appropriate response. I hope that other whalers see him in the distance, and go...

An image of a centipede with the text "To the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee."

🐳I am still boggled by the image of Ahab in yesterday's reading as a centipede. Who says that? What on earth would make you choose that way to describe your soul? Anyway, now imagining him saying all his final iconic lines as a centipede, so there's that.