Angela Pancella

U2 are back on the barricades with their most political work in years Born of bloodshed from Minnesota to the Middle East, this fierce EP even ropes Ed Sheeran into its protest cry

I am thankful that some artists are ready to stand up and be counted. The protest song is back with a bang.
www.telegraph.co.uk/music/news/u...

Cover of book Advocacy Made Easy by Cynthia Changyit Levin

“I just feel so helpless right now.”

More than one friend has said this to me recently.

Then I read the large, friendly letters headlining the introduction to Cynthia Changyit Levin’s new book Advocacy Made Easy: “YOU ARE NOT POWERLESS.”

open.substack.com/pub/apancell...

An E made up of the word YES in different fonts with various images in it, with the title of a Substack post: Building the boat, a parable, from the Substack Eclecticity.

Launch day! open.substack.com/pub/apancell...

They should absolutely bring back A Celebration.

The Boss.

Finally saw the exhibit on Sunday. Extraordinary.

Honestly, threatening him with anything causes him to back off. That's one of the frustrations I am feeling with members of Congress, law firms, some media companies and universities right now. Why is it so hard for them to stand up to this decrepit old bully?

@revu2.bsky.social Happy Christmas, you 2! Just started listening to your Linear review and heard you say you were on Bluesky. Glad you are here since I don't go on Twitter anymore. The fan community is a bit scattered these days but I run into folks here, on the U2 Conference Discord, Instagram etc

Quoting this as a tribute to Rob Reiner, and also so I can reference it later.

Hear, hear!

On a semi-related note, have you stumbled around the corners of the Internet that have declared JB Pritzker to be the great Khan? He seems to be living up to the hype.

Becoming increasingly clear we’re gonna have to build a parallel infrastructure for all the media we really love. The reason all of this is happening under the color of law is hyperconsolidation, dissent being traded straight up for merger approval, or fear of harassment.

Make a band singular.

Tear for Fear

This is a moment when it is most appropriate to tell someone, "You need Jesus."

Pointing out the reality in the midst of the craziness is a step in the right direction. Thanks for calling it like you see it.

Gary of Arabia

Important bit of self-knowledge: I really enjoy playing chess when the other player is not particularly good at chess.

How much would you like to blame him for?

The Veiled Prophet's endorsement deals?

Could this all be stopped by giving Trump a "Nobel Prize" that's actually just a big gold foil-wrapped chocolate coin?

Hi Travis, I was listening to the latest episode and you mentioned the myriad French conspiracy connections... have you looked into the city mysteries books popular in the 19th c.? The genre started w/Mysteries of Paris, and I have read that the Protocols might have been inspired in part by them.

Apparently I missed my calling in life.

And Mary Louise Kelly can be heard name-dropping Cursed Media!

Ooh! Thanks for letting me know @ichris.bsky.social was here!

Great thread! I will absolutely adopt this as a descriptor.
(I used to write for a U2 fan site. I discovered I was pony famous after U2 played the Sphere. I struck up conversation with another woman who had been to the show, she asked my name, and legit squealed when I gave it. It was mind-blowing!)

Doesn't seem great!

A lesson we have learned from Ukraine is that Stephen Colbert will make an excellent President.

I reiterate: If Trump can turn his show being cancelled into a Presidential run, so can Colbert.

Having a Tolkien nerd as POTUS would certainly get us a better grade of judicial appointments...

“It was a very healthy reciprocal acceptance of suffering,” he said. “Which does not mean being defeated by suffering. Acceptance is not defeat. Acceptance is just awareness.” He smiled in anticipation of the callback: “ ‘You gotta learn to love the bomb,’ ” he said. “Boy, did I have a bomb when I was 10. That was quite an explosion. And I learned to love it. So that's why. Maybe, I don't know. That might be why you don't see me as someone angry and working out my demons onstage. It's that I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.” I love the thing that I most wish had not happened. I asked him if he could help me understand that better, and he described a letter from Tolkien in response to a priest who had questioned whether Tolkien's mythos was sufficiently doctrinaire, since it treated death not as a punishment for the sin of the fall but as a gift. “Tolkien says, in a letter back: ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ ” Colbert knocked his knuckles on the table. “ ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ ” he said again. His eyes were filled with tears. “So it would be ungrateful not to take everything with gratitude. It doesn't mean you want it. I can hold both of those ideas in my head.”

when i think of Colbert, i think of an interview he gave to GQ when he first took over The Late Show, and had this to say about losing his father and brothers in a plane crash. www.gq.com/story/stephe...

Oh, that's exceptional.