Lal Dhillon

YouTube video by mikedawesofficial Sleep Token on one guitar sounds HUGE

I remember learning from Mike *years* ago when I was just a kid, and clicking towards the end of the lesson just how talented he was. I think the sign of a real generational talent is that you get so caught up listening to how good it is that you forget how impressive it is.

Gonna add to the scrivener recommendations here - really good for scrapbooking chapter ideas, character profiles etc. Currently in the redraft phase and quite enjoying the ability to drag my first draft pages into the notes archive for later reference

It's much easier to take a kid who wants to write because it lets them express themselves and then show them how grammar works in service of that expression, than it is to teach grammar rules to kids who've never been taught literacy as empowerment.

Yeah we teach grammar first when we really should teach it last. It doesn't just get in the way of reading for fun, it creates anxiety in young readers because they think reading and writing is about 'getting it right' not 'communicating ideas'

Paper for Contracts And the desert on our doorstep

New substack - some thoughts on the things we think keep us safe, the things that actually do, and how everything falls apart if we don't believe we have a shared life.

open.substack.com/pub/laldhill...

Except by all evidence so far the tension between Rome and Washington remains - the new Pope opposes the government on race, immigration, justice and compassion.

Deeply encouraged to see the appointment of a Pope who believes in empathy and loving the other. The Pope isn't a political appointee, but governments that build their foundations out of cruelty, hatred and violence make politics theological, and therefore something we need to speak into.

It may well do though. The culture war is a global justice issue which is causing massive theological distortions (sin of empathy etc). It's absolutely the sort of thing the Pope should respond to.

Sacred doesn't mean 'divorced from the concerns of the world'. Some would argue quite the opposite

A Chicago Pope implies the existence of an MLA Pope and APA Pope

For the stuff you'll actually care about, he's openly criticised the administration (Vance specifically, on empathy and immigration). An American Pope standing in opposition to a Christian Nationalist regime is going to be a really interesting dynamic.

filling time on air until the new pope is announced is known as "pontiffication"

Think the battle here is with Google, not apple (and tbh there's very good Google alternatives atm)

Being considered a legend of a parent is worth way more than dignity or a few other old people's sneering giggles. Embrace it all, the louder the better!!

What we mean when we say 'progress' And what it means to move against the times

"When the new Pope took on his role it was seen as a foretaste of the world to come, but now at the time of his death it feels as though he was fighting against a raging tide which has welled up on our shores."

Some thoughts a week on from the passing of Pope Francis.

I'm not sure he was though - he aligned with progresives on some issues, but only some, and from a distinctly 'Christian' standpoint. I think there's a line of cynicism here between respecting his contribution to progressive causes and co-opting him.

The Quiet Day Some thoughts on the day when God lies dead

Some thoughts for the quiet of #holysaturday, about the moment where our idea of God collides with the real thing.

#easter

Even accepting the premise that AI produces useful writing (which no one should), using AI in education is like using a forklift at the gym. The weights do not actually need to be moved from place to place. That is not the work. The work is what happens within you.

I wish - I really wish - that we'd studied language like this rather than masks and bomb shelters when we were taught about WWII.

Records like this are illuminating. Words like this could role off the tongue of twenty or more politicians in any western democracy. They normalise depravity in an artistic and subtle way that we aren't really inoculated against.

It's 100% on purpose. This is the man who wanted to call Amazon 'relentless' after the way he wanted to price out smaller retailers. He's a blunt metaphors man.

A tool that promises omniscience, but in practice lets those more powerful than you twist your perceptions according to their own interests. A tool Gandalf (Gandalf!) was afraid to use.

The clue has always been in the name.

In among the reeds Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, ‘Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live.’

New substack is live! Some thoughts on desperation, and the place where we find God.

Exceptions made for 'Mole's bedtime story' and 'where oh where is kipper's bear', probably because the interactions in those books take him inside the story instead of replacing it.

As a toddler-parent, kids are hard-wired for narrative. It's how they make sense of literally everything. Gimmicks can be fun, but only if there's a good narrative behind them. My kid has some really clever interactive books but will invariably junk them for a 'regular' book with a story he likes.

They've also attributed the American failure to economy+migration and reliance on celebrity. They're trying to follow 'voter concern' without thinking that voter concern is shaped by messaging more than lived reality.

The problem is they pivoted right after Corbyn and won, so internally they'll feel like the tactic is somewhat vindicated.

He won two elections (one possibly by accident), and people have since decided that he's a genius, and any apparent disaster is actually a cunning plan to end the world.

Which, yes, sometimes it is weaponised incompetence, but sometimes it's just plain old regular incompetence too.

Give a toddler a toolbox and free reign of your living room, and you'll be *amazed* at all the new ways they find to break things.

A tricky thing about modern society is that no one has any idea when they don’t die.

Like, the number of lives saved by controlling air pollution in America is probably over 200,000 per year, but the number of people who think their life was saved by controlling air pollution is zero.

As none of them should. What we've called a trade disagreement is the violent exportation of American exploitation, a demand that no state shield it citizens any more than the US shields theirs. 'If it's good enough for our poor people, it's good enough for yours'.

Nigel would agree, I'm sure.