Roxana Hadadi

from me!

"adversary" is a very nice way to say "enemy driven by islamophobia"

Tweet from Daniel Pipes: "The uprising in Iran in early January suggested an even greater insurgency would then follow on the U.S.-Israeli campaign to erode regime power. Yet, the populace now appears cowed into near-silence. This ranks as the most surprising and disappointing development of the past week. Without a new uprising, the regime will likely remain in power, less powerful but more awful than ever. (The picture below is from Jan. 10 in Tehran.)"

Amazing how quickly "We're fighting this war for freedom of the Iranian people" becomes "The Iranian people are at fault for not rising up."

I should buy the Deftones soccer jersey

dmx_-_do_you.mp3 i just feel like putting it out there that i don't write to describe what people can hear for themselves. that's boring. anybody can do that lol

#ICYMI or just want to read it in print, my piece on the stellar BLKNWS: TERMS & CONDITIONS where I spoke to filmmaker Kahlil Joseph is in today’s Seattle Times. You should pick up one for yourself then watch his one-of-a-kind film on VOD today or watch the film then pick up a copy 📽️

bit.ly/47rMlKw

This week on @podcastlikeits The 2000s @emilystjams.bsky.social and I wrapped up our Pixar miniseries by talking Up with @mousterpiece.bsky.social and @scottrenshaw.bsky.social! We discuss the fantastic voice cast, Miyazaki and the brilliant and heartbreaking opening sequence.

A few hours after NYT reported that the U.S. bombed an elementary school in Iran, killing many children, the White House last night posted this video mixing airstrike footage with Top Gun, Iron Man, Gladiator, Halo, Breaking Bad, Star Wars, John Wick, Superman, Transformers and Dragon Ball Z

Corporate Media Buries Story of US and Israel Killing 168 in Girls School Attack No front-page stories in NYT, WSJ, WaPo. No mention on NBC and CBS Sunday Shows. No stand alone segments on Evening News shows. A death count on par with the OKC bombing is relegated to the back page.

I wrote about how the US and Israel carried out an attack on an Iranian girls school on par with the OKC bombing and US media relegated it to a back page story. No stand alone evening news segments, no front page stories, it made A11 in the NYT then everyone moved on.

WASHINGTON (AP) — White House says Spain has agreed to cooperate with US operations in Mideast after Trump threatened financial penalties.

MADRID (AP) — Spain's government denies cooperation with US operations in the Middle East, contradicting White House.

that's so kind, thank you for listening and sharing!

I’m taking this prompt to shout out a recent podcast episode with @roxana-hadadi.bsky.social

The convo (starting around 27:20) on who different viewers extend sympathy & humor to was sooooo emblematic of broader cultural themes.

pca.st/episode/011d...

I simply cannot describe the amount of deja vu I am feeling from post-9/11, when nearly every other democrat was revealing themselves as a mask-off racist who cared only about whether they could vacation in the middle east and could justify every single illegal and amoral action to do so.

The King and Queen of Confrontational Cinema Ronald Bronstein is the co-writer of ‘Marty Supreme,’ and Mary Bronstein is the director of ‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.’ After two decades of trudging through the indie film world, husband and wife are both nominated for Oscars at the same time.

Ronald Bronstein is the co-writer of ‘Marty Supreme,’ and Mary Bronstein is the director of ‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.’ After two decades of trudging through the indie film world, husband and wife are both nominated for Oscars at the same time.

Avatar: Fire and Ash—Dreamwalking and the Book of Eywa Avatar: Fire and Ash—the end of one trilogy and the potential beginning of another—is the darkest, most complex, and personal of the three.

I wrote 6,000 words on AVATAR for @brightwalldarkroom.com, diving into how James Cameron's stereoscopic dreamland is a conduit for a radical, transportive empathy that harkens back to the origins of cinema itself:

www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2026/03/02/d...

loved talking to THE lorraine ashbourne about S4 of BRIDGERTON:

“If you want to know how it feels to have slaves, in the modern world – and not be blamed openly for this desire – visit Dubai.”

newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...

uhhhhhhh

I know many of you already know this because it’s obvious but you can absolutely take a survey of an opinion desk’s output over time and pretty accurately surmise the views—or at least the intentions—of the people who are in charge of deciding what gets published. I thought we were all adults here

Wonder if the “Campus left” or Thomas Friedman was more correct about the outcomes of the Iraq or Afghan wars? 🤔

Perhaps we should base who we listen to on their previous track record.

Giving this one last wee push! There’s an electric bill I’d love* to get comfortably paid 💜

*I’d love living in a world where no one else knew anything at all about my electric bill more, but, alas

Coming up on a month of the Spliced Personality Substack and I wanted to thank everyone who’s subscribed for helping me out. It means the world. If you haven’t checked it out yet, feel free to drop by and see if there’s anything here you’d like to let me put in your inbox.

I saw this and at first thought "no, there's no way 'we definitely had alternative leadership in mind for Iran but I blew them up alongside the schoolgirls using AI' is what the White House is actually saying, that's too clueless and evil to be real"

if you think polymarket bets on war are bad, wait til you find out how many in Congress are invested in defense contractors

This guy is a corrupt, wannabe Trump who’s bullied his way into a position of prominence within the Iranian diaspora so of course MAGA CBS is fluffing him.

Screenshot of text: First, it’s a mistake to say that Trump got America into war on Saturday. What he did was respond to a war that Iran has been waging against the United States since 1979.

Cool hey did anything happen *before* 1979 between the United States and Iran

shockingly people are capable of simultaneously,

1. Hating their government

2. Hating the people who bomb and sanction their country, making regular life impossible and murdering members of their family, even more

"The Islamists oppose women getting an education," I mutter, as I aim my missile at the girls school

This is basically legalized insider trading

Shortly after the first set of explosions, Iranians received bursts of notifications on their phones, not from the government advising caution, but from a prayer timing app called ‘BadeSaba Calendar’ which has been downloaded 5 million times from the Google Play Store. The messages arrived in quick succession over a period of 30 minutes, starting with the phrase ‘Help Has Arrived’ at 9:52 am Tehran time. No party has claimed responsibility for the hacks. Screenshots shared with WIRED Middle East show messages urging Iranian military personnel to surrender their weapons with the promise of amnesty. It also urged army personnel to join “the forces of liberation” and to “defend your brothers.”

Airborne leaflet propaganda in 2026: hacked push alerts from a prayer timing app

www.wired.me/story/hacked...