Melissa

When he plays, his face is always pure bliss. He does get a little cranky between songs if the beer and snacks stop flowing though (understandable)

Also I have known the marathon bassist since he was a teenage roadie. It’s fun to watch people grow up.

I am at a festival for a music scene that currently only has one bassist. The festival is in a hilly forest venue and he runs the trails between stages to get to every set, carrying his stand-up bass. People give him beers and snacks as he passes.

Anyway, I have an idea for a new Olympic sport.

Spending the weekend visiting the pieces of my heart that I keep buried in the Shawnee Hills.

The best road trip food in the US is obviously obtained at the array of indie taquerias that are scattered throughout this vast and beautiful land. BUT *in a pinch* the Taco Bell bean burrito is always there for you and it deserves more respect.

They are not planning "a violent crackdown" on 10.18. What they are doing is sending a signal to their shock troops to try to cause havoc. But those shock troops will be vastly outnumbered. Go out and protest freely. Do not be cowed.

Throwing dildos at them. Trying to track their periods. Are men OKAY? Just be normal about women.

White People’s Performative Ignorance Is Exhausting—Opinion Disbelief over authoritarianism in America isn’t a cutesy personality trait. It’s a confession: You haven’t been paying attention.

“Authoritarianism is as American as slavery, as internment camps, as police brutality, as voter suppression. To fight it, white people have to stop pretending government oppression arrived overnight and start dismantling the systems that have been incubating it all along.”

Please acknowledge what is happening to American professors right now.

We do not deserve this.

I’ve got the devil blues, but I ain’t as blue as most people

It really can't be said enough: the goal of the "anti-woke" movement was always to destroy social norms against bigotry. And it worked. And there's a whole lot of purportedly "left" thinkers & commentators who helped it -- indeed, it couldn't have been done without them.

They should feel bad.

NYCLU statement: We have been receiving reports that ICE agents are unlawfully banning all books from entering the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility (Batavia). Titles include a dictionary, books about religiong, drawing books, and even a Sudoku puzzle book. Banning books in immigration detention facilities plainly violates the First Amendment, which is afforded to all people in the United States--including those trapped in immigration detention. The Buffalo Federal Detention Facility must take immediate steps to end this practice and comply with the First Amendment"

#bannedbooksweek

I don’t know what the specific policy solutions are. I wish I did! But I do know how I want to organize at this time—I want to work with my community to protect those who are being targeted and to develop and implement policy democratically. I have no use for politicians who don’t support that.

Seeing many posts about how ICE isn't trained. That's not really the problem. The problem is what they were sent to do, not whether they're qualified to do it.

bury our bones in the midnight soil by ve schwab

Next up: the new VE Schwab. This library copy advertises itself as a signed copy, but I cannot locate any signatures.

Abortion Arcade: Good world building and storytelling. Like all good genre fic, it’ll make you feel things. Intense body horror and gore. It’s 3 novellas on the theme of abortion written by a man—your tolerance for that sort of thing may vary.

God damn, this one got me. "I cannot make peace with the world such as it is, and so I cannot anesthetize myself into acceptance—and I am okay with that."

🥴

I understand why people *want* the police to intervene--normies are like, 'I thought cops are supposed to arrest people doing crimes, ICE is right there doing crimes, go do your thing'

but police organizations take nearly every opportunity to be like, 'oh you misunderstood what our thing is'

Page from fox in socks by dr seuss. Drawing of weird little four legged bugs with faces. Text reads: What do you know about tweetle beetles? Well When tweetle beetles fight, it's called a tweetle beetle battle.

michael?
peter.

Defund the police

"If [Israel] is treating Greta Thunberg this way, imagine how they are treating [Palestinian] women and children."

It cost me less to see the Cavs in the playoffs during the LeBron years than it does to see *any* live sport in Buffalo. This is part of the reason that I simply cannot embrace Buffalo teams. (Except the Bandits ofc). The Bills and Sabres are straws the Pegulas use to suck money out of WNY.

I was exposed to George Floyd's murder played over and over on social media AND network TV.

that made the brutality plain and many folks—including liberals—*increased* their support of police.

I am still healing from the last time a law enforcement officer brutalized me—I will be for a while. It happened last week. This was nowhere near the first time. It will not be the last. It's part of the struggle. But don't fucking romanticize this shit or talk about it like it's an end in itself.

I support nonviolent action. It's literally what I do. But telling people that allowing themselves to be harmed to demonstrate the character of their enemy will be politically transformative denies the desensitized reality of the present.

How many videos have you seen of protesters being brutalized? Pretending this imagery still changes the math the way you wish it would is an insult to the people whose bodies you would treat as props. Ghandi's era was more complex than many of you make out. This is not the 60s either. Things change.

See also: academic libraries and AI

I always get annoyed when writers say the sky is the color of a bruise, but that is in fact the best way to describe the color of the sky in my neighborhood this morning.

💻WEBINAR 10/7: From El Salvador to the US: Resisting mass detention and right-wing authoritarianism. The transfers of immigrants to offshore detention in El Salvador brought increased awareness of the torture and abuse in El Salvador's CECOT mega-prison. Now what? 🔗REGISTER: bit.ly/cncoct7