One of my most popular tweets.

We live in an era where testing, grades, writing, teaching conditions, and reading are all simultaneously in forms of crisis, and, to my mind, the common denominator is a complete lack of focus and intention on learning as the desired outcome of education.

'Trade unionists are the backbone of our public services, standing up against cuts and privatisation. When you attack one of us, you attack all of us. Discovery Schools Academy Trust, stop union-busting! Reinstate Tom Barker! #ReinstateTomBarker #NoUnionBusting #UNISON

Run on this! It's a real thing! People want to hang out IRL but hanging out IRL is too expensive.

I’m taking my daughter and her two cousins to an indoor water park next weekend. A 2 hour session cost us £90. Ninety. Pounds. Laughable.

Capitalism will take away the wilderness and parks you once explored, then it will take away the malls and shops it replaced those with. It'll take the bars and restaurants and any place you can gather. It will take away the theaters and arts and any place you mught feel a stirring of spirit.

Don’t miss that summer camps aren’t just about fun - they’re the summer child care option for a lot of parents when kids are no longer in school. When they’re unaffordable, more moms drop out of the workforce or more children stay home unattended.

The Fun Shortage Is Real, and It’s Making America Miserable. “With fewer places to relax and socialize, and steeper prices for entry, having fun is quantifiably harder than it used to be.” [bloomberg.com]

I am continuing a long tradition 👍 Found on Reddit r/depressionmemes

Writing a tourism campaign centred on a Titanic exhibition, and being asked to remove mentions of what actually happened to the ship because it was "too negative".

A professor at Kansas State told me I shouldn't have made a car in a short story I wrote a Chevy Nova because "Nova makes me think about the PBS show and then I got disappointed that your story wasn't the PBS show"

Mine was when someone said that my novel (set in 1803, as it stated at the top of Chapter 1) was "anachronistic for the Middle Ages." ...I mean, it's hard to argue that point, since it was set in the Georgian era. ;) So I wasn't upset, just genuinely baffled!

If you see this, please tell me the worst/most baffling bit of creative feedback you've ever recieved. Mine is still the time somebody told me my aliens had names that were too alien. Not that they were unpronounceable, just that they didn't sound enough like human names.

Attacking trade unionists is illegal, not to mention morally offensive - #NoUnionBusting! I was proud to be at this demo a few weeks ago; an attack on one is an attack on all. Reinstate Tom Barker, Discovery Schools Trust! #ReinstateTomBarker #UNISON @andreaegangs.bsky.social

Reinstate Tom Barker! #ReinstateTomBarker #NoUnionBusting #UNISON

This painting is called 'Evening Light', 16x20 acrylic on canvas. It's available at The Gallery at Mattick's Farm in Victoria, BC

Nurseries and schools might shut again this week given the forecast, hold on to your butts working parents

The government is actively encouraging this direction of travel, treating protesters' sincere motivation - hitherto regarded as a mitigating factor - as an *aggravating* factor, to prove that they are *terrorists*. Yet at the same time, it will neither name nor prosecute far-right terrorism.

A massive shift is taking place here. Well-organised far-right terrorism is being treated as ordinary criminality, while conscience-driven protests against genocide are treated as terrorism. A highly conservative (and deeply weird and fantastical) Court of Appeal ruling embeds this shift.

Utterly unsurprised to hear (from friends in the Digital Services department) that my VC’s Linked-In posts are now produced by ChatGPT. Now wondering how much of his output in other channels is beneath him to write.

Overheard: ‘They’re slopey-shouldering that shit.’

My kingdom for a UK leader who will say "immigrants are a key part of our communities, they are our neighbours, friends, colleagues, partners. We will not tolerate racist and fascist violence against them" and who is willing to walk the walk of defending us. Without "legitimate concerns"-ing it.

Every time a politician blames migrants and refugees for problems created by our unjust economic system it fuels hatred. Every act of scapegoating adds to the cesspit of racism. It needs to stop. All our leaders must go beyond condemnation and stop emboldening the far-right.

Unions rebuff Farage: Reform ‘cosplaying’ as workers’ champions Andrea Egan “It’s a con to think Nigel Farage & his rich cronies are interested in unions for anything but cold, hard cash. They don’t believe in basic rights or fair pay & voted against every measure to improve them” unsn.uk/3Qc1FWg

Our rights and equalities protections are there to defend ordinary working class people — those who run our public services and rely on them. The Tories and Reform want to roll it all back to divide and exploit us. We won’t let them.

My taxi driver today told me that it’s foreign people coming over driving lots of cars that leads to congestion charges. Important points: 1. I am a foreigner and have no car (thus the taxi) 2. He is British and drives a taxi (thus having me as a customer) 3. There is no congestion charge here

Rest In Power

The EHRC Guidance on single-sex spaces is unjust and unworkable. That's why UNISON are demanding MPs stand with trans and non-binary workers and oppose the guidance.

🏁 This is your last call to participate in UNISON’s 2026/27 higher education pay consultation, which closes at 12 noon TOMORROW! 🏁 HE is in crisis, use your voice and make a difference 💜 unsn.uk/4uZCtkH @UNISONinHE

Vote now! Reject this pathetic offer!

while I am just me, I want to be clear that as a Cis-woman, I fully support trans people using toilets of their affirmed gender. I think it is unsafe to ask trans women to use male loos, and I'd much rather trans men used male loos. Switching off replies, cos I don't want to hear the trans-hate.

The opening page of the Florida AG's lawsuit against OpenAI is quite the statement.

Someone asked me how I can continue to write fiction where people find a way to be better when the world now shows it's not the case. And fella, nothing the fash want you to do more than give up on hope but you really must not. If it's getting too dark to see you don't turn out the lights.

it’s cool that the very fact that someone lies awake at night roiling with hatred of me is in itself a justification for their hatred

Racists 'feel anxious' and have 'sleepless nights'! So do antisemites! Do you think violent misogynists, queer-bashers and anti-trans weirdos with a chip on their shoulder don't feel 'anxious'? I don't give a damn. We should not change society one iota to make them feel comfortable!

This is a deeply unserious and ubiquitous framework in the UK: why focus primarily on the private emotional states of people? Literally who cares? We, as human beings, are obligated to rectify some causes of 'feeling anxious' and 'sleepless nights'; others are: you should stop being a weirdo!

I think about this a lot.

I’m extremely proud of this member-led campaign! The fight for fair pay is a marathon rather than a sprint, so the work is by no means over - but this is a win for workers that our branch is rightly celebrating. 💪🥳

We rarely shout about our successes but we can confirm that over 100 colleagues working in certain roles in the Library and Tech Services will be re-graded as of 1 July 💪🏻 This is a significant achievement for our pay campaign but we continue to support other colleagues with grades and workload 🤝

Confidential to the folks who think "Golden Age" SF/F writers would be sad about current SF/F writers' lack of excitement over "AI": Why would you think the generation of writers who founded SFWA to defend the rights of working SF/F writers would somehow be cool with the plagiarism machine?

I met Bridget Philipson yesterday alongside Ivan Bonsell of our Higher Education Service Group and @drjogrady.bsky.social of the UCU. We raised the funding crisis facing our universities, which is threatening the livelihoods of our members, and made the case for a comprehensive solution.

Your last saved meme is your moral philosophy

your last saved meme is your moral philosophy

your last saved meme is your moral philosophy

Your last saved meme is your moral philosophy.

Your last saved meme is your moral philosophy.

Your last saved meme is your moral philosophy.

I was proud to march with hundreds of thousands in London today for Palestine and against the far-right. In the labour movement, we know an injury to one is an injury to all. And we reject the racist logic that says some lives are worth more than others ✊🇵🇸

still not quite over the fact that i watched 15 year olds get sued for millions of dollars for downloading twelve songs and now we all have to accept AI slop because every tech company in the known universe decided that IP laws don't exist now that they're inconvenient for them

this is a good thread but the best observation in it is actually not in the threads but in one of the early replies where OP talks about the board of said university and who sits on it