Stephanie Smith

Charlie Kirk, Redeemed: A Political Class Finds Its Lost Cause By ignoring the rhetoric and actions of the Turning Point USA founder, pundits and politicians are sanitizing his legacy.

Ta-Nehisi Coates on Charlie Kirk and the pundits and politicians sanitizing his legacy.

The destruction of the Gaza city mosque is a devastating loss to humanity as a whole. A part of our global medieval heritage destroyed in furtherance to a genocide. I despair.

Remember the international response when there was a fire at Notre Dame Cathedral

By creating an Account with Academia.edu, you grant us a worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license, permission, and consent for Academia.edu to use your Member Content and your personal information (including, but not limited to, your name, voice, signature, photograph, likeness, city, institutional affiliations, citations, mentions, publications, and areas of interest) in any manner, including for the purpose of advertising, selling, or soliciting the use or purchase of Academia.edu's Services.

I'm sorry, worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable permission to my voice and likeness? For what now? In any manner for any purpose???

This is in academia/.edu's new ToS, which you're prompted to agree to on login. Anyway I'll be jumping ship. You can find my stuff at hcommons.org.

As was posted earlier, how to delete your account without agreeing to the ToS:

Opening this "privacy policy" link www.academia.edu/privacytakes you to a page where you can access the drop-down menu and reach "account settings." From there I was able to delete my account without agreeing.

I don't really go in for 'the BBC is biased'. But there can be a worrying contrast between how the media treats populists (as if it's overly-grateful for their attention) and how it lays into moderates. We shouldn't lose perspective: only one side is committed to democracy!

St Francis might've had something to say about that

Rue Rue Jo Cox, Députée Britannique, a street sign in Burgundy reads, Assassinée pour ses convictions. No British road is named after her, I found on returning home, for fear it could have proved controversial. I remembered in Shakespeare rue even for ruth, called 'herb of grace' because it was used in exorcisms, by the angel to clean Adam's eyes, and Gulliver back home for his nose against the smell of his countrymen.

I think about this poem by Ian Duhig — about Jo Cox, the Labour MP assassinated by a man shouting ‘Britain first’ — every day at the moment. No other contemporary poet has looked so clearly at the political reality of the far right as a minority who must always be appeased

The scenes on our streets are shameful consequences of decades of austerity - government after government fanning the flames of anti migration instead of tackling inequality.

We can & must make different choices. Solidarity to all communities under attack. We stand together.

Black-and-white photograph of John Cage sitting on a box, wearing a party hat; there is a stepped box behind him, and balloons on the floor.

John Cage, #botd 1912

#WhatWouldJCDo

Extraordinary scenes at Reform UK conference as Greater Lincolnshire Mayor Andrea Jenkyns arrives on stage singing her rock song 'Insomnia'

What looks like a small smooth newt in a ceramic dish

Just found this — smooth newt? — feeling rather sorry for itself in the back garden.

Is it wrong to say I prefer it?

🟦 BREAKING NEWS 🚨 | the National Gallery announces a MAJOR expansion and two of the largest single donations ever received by a museum

🏛️ a global competition to design a new wing will be launched tomorrow

the project — expected to cost £400m — has already secured £375m in donations, including two single £150m gifts

these are some of the biggest donations ever given to an art museum anywhere in the world

the new space is needed as no longer will the National Gallery limit itself to works created before 1900, as was informally agreed with Tate in 1996

the two institutions have now reached a new landmark agreement on how to expand Britain's national collection together 🖼️

ICA | GLUE: Book Fair and Creative Programme The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is London’s leading space for contemporary culture. We commission, produce and present new work in film, music, performance and the visual arts by today’s most...

ica.art/talks/glue-i...

New @fallowmedia.bsky.social with a Marguerite Duras film script & companion essays by Daniel Fraser & myself, Lisa Robertson on Adnan, Maija Makela on Notley, Owen Hatherley, Stephen Sexton, Lalla Romano, JC Vaughan, Maria Sledmere, Devki Panchmatia & Russell Persson fallowmedia.com/shop/fallow-02

Such sad, sad news. This was my local bookshop, and we'd often chat about books (obvs), reviews, and often whatever music he was playing (invariably good); he'd ask about the Writing programme, too.

These places are so important, and the people who make them, too. Such a terrible loss.

The fact that universities have been around for longer than capitalism gives an indication of who should be learning from whom

Melvyn Bragg has been one of the last standard-bearers for a really important, and unfashionable, idea: that good conversation, between people who really know their stuff, on complex or difficult subjects, can be fantastic radio - and that the national broadcaster should do this.

I hope it endures.

I don't believe in mob violence nor government censorship of speech but it's very hard not to notice that the government that are imprisoning pensioners for opposing genocide with writing on cardboard are worried that people might not be free enough to call for acts of violence against trans women.

Can Transitional Justice be Decolonised?

My brilliant elder daughter has just had her first paper published

*proud Dad emoji*

A Baptist minister has been arrested in Oxford for holding a placard reading ‘I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action’. Rev Grote of New Road Baptist Church said ‘I am doing this because of my faith. I’m doing this because I’m a follower of Jesus Christ, who broke the rules and created peace.’

Norway to donate profits vs. Israel to Gaza aid Ahead of a World Cup qualifier with Israel, Norway's soccer federation says it "cannot remain indifferent" to humanitarian suffering in Gaza.

Why hasn’t Israel been suspended from the World Cup anyway?

Israel double tap strike. It murders journalists then sends a drone in to kill the paramedics trying to retrieve their bodies.

A war crime, broadcast live and sponsored by the US and Europe.

🚨Boycott EVERY news channel that doesn’t show this footage today🚨

Was the 'mishap' that they did this on live TV?

how much more can the heart break? how can this not have ended?