Historian of abolition here, history tells us how we got here, to put it succinctly “John Brown was hanged for treason and Robert E. Lee was not.”

#BookstoreRomanceDay bookstore registrations have cracked 650 indie bookstores for the first time *ever* & there's still three+ months to go! Still looking for #Alaska & non-US Romance-loving stores to join the fun. bookstoreromanceday.org/participatin...

Dickhead apparently said "I'm rich, I can pay the fine," but was unaware that the fine would be collected with a series of punches to his skull. Some things money can't buy. www.surfer.com/news/tourist...

it’s mother’s day weekend and as mother i can tell u one thing: the best way to celebrate mothers who mother is to leave them alone and not ask them to mother for a day or two also ask the mothers in ur life what they want and they will tell u (as we’ve done in our household)

I've been to DC. I quite *like* DC (the fact that it's just a scuzzier Montreal with pretensions is probably part of why). However, if the suburban halo of DC were to drift off into an alternate universe or something I wouldn't be terribly sad, no.

This 1952 memo from the Pentagon UFO files is superb There is no point preparing for aliens ‘because no one of consequence is going to take this rubbish seriously unless it happens. At that point, our policy will be determined in the traditional manner of grand panic.’ 🤣 www.war.gov/medialink/uf...

This song is always such an overwhelming emotional experience. The very greatest anti-war song written by the man who also wrote the second greatest, the magnificent Eric Bogle. Liam Clancy never sounded better. A song that never gets old sadly. youtu.be/nDit0DyItsM?...

Every three minutes on Bluesky today: oh that's a delightful name for a town! Dudly-on-Friendton. I see they have voted for the Murdering Orphans party.

#NotMyJob 🤣🤣🤣

I think I’m traumatized by technology I don’t control and that force things I don’t want into my life. And a VCR never made me spend ten minutes on updates. A VCR never let a stranger steal my personal information.

also the press, one of the main vehicles of how the public experiences politics, has very little ability to self-examine over their own role. quite the opposite, in fact, the NYT is still jerking itself off over how principled its ow own politics coverage is.

Says everything about the lunacy of Britain's first past the post electoral system that the local election results if repeated at a general election would give Reform a 60 seat overall majority with 28% of the vote.

On this day in 1920, Barbara Howard was born in Vancouver. She was the first Black woman to represent Canada in an international competition. She won a silver and bronze at the 1934 British Empire Games. Howard died in 2017 and is in Canada's Sports Hall of Fame.

They don't understand what working class is any more ...mostly white collar, mostly women, not all white, mostly third level educated but plently badly paid and potentially with collective interests ...this resentment version of the working class hasn't existed since the 1950s ...its a construct

I knew humanity was doomed the moment I saw social media posts complaining that She-Ra, a kids toy and cartoon, "WASN'T SEXY ENOUGH. " Never mind Brexit or Trump, humanity has earned the apocalypse.

Destroyed? Farage?? Farage's whole thing is that he's the guy who will reliably show up to offer some "common sense" "balance" to whatever, to allow the Beeb or whomever to prove that they really are in touch with Real England or whatever the fuck. They created him.

Lesson here for Irish parties. Trying to appease and outdo the far right, by aping them, doesn’t win you any new votes and loses you your own.

also in kind of annoying car culture news, went to get my eyes checked. Last time I got my eyes checked, I got a new prescription...and it was for driving, even though I told them I needed specs for reading. This time I insisted, no driving, reading. They still kept arguing with me about it.

yes.

Ozymandias is a perfect poem bc it proves that no matter how powerful and historically significant you are a shitposter can show up and dunk on you so hard that people only remember you as the guy who got dunked on.

"Online activist" They'd stretch language to smithereens rather than concede to calling a fascist gobshite what it is www.rte.ie/news/dublin/...

The Pyramid shows how deeply connected to Egypt Tallaght is, and we all know what that means don't we? (That the traffic is shite in both places, I guess. Though far shiter in Cairo?)

Some of you may not be familiar with my "no go zone" oeuvre....This remains some of my finest work. metro.co.uk/2018/02/05/f...

Feckin' banjaxed. Also got some nice emails about my impromptu philosophy seminar. And people liked the banana bread

In a conversation about absurd body counts in Irish myth, someone reminded me I'd made this post once about a modern incarnation of Cú Chulainn's adolescence: Fight breaks out at local high school, leaves 150 corpses "There weren't even 150 people there!" remarks traumatized witness

Well, that's the last time I use a malapropism on main

Are we surprised?

Quiz Time. What song does this come from and what instrument is it written for.

We have both genders in the library today: Jocks AND Geordies

This is exactly why language matters: “women were given the vote” frames equality as a gift from men, instead of hard won political power extracted through organized resistance. Nobody gave women anything. Women fought, marched, strategized, endured violence, went to prison and died for it.

'Your society's broken. So who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, let's blame the people with no power and no money and immigrants who don't even have a vote yet. Yeah, it must be their fucking fault.' - Iain Banks

tw/cw SA telegram group has 4000+ ppl only a handful have been identified & is being tried. they drug women tenants and colleagues, as well as partners and spouses. substance is provided by professional doctors in the group chat sometimes shipped overseas. it’s not just in germany they are all over

Research into History of Women’s Education in England for Manners & Mutiny gailcarriger.com/2015/10/30/m...

speaking of webcomics I still think this Hark A Vagrant panel is like. the single funniest image of all time

much better than "reached"

Random fireworks display over Burrard Inlet near the #Vancouver Convention Centre — happy Cinco de Mayo?! 🤪 🎆 The sliver view from my condo… (and through a window so apologies for the horrible quality)

In case you're in BC and are as jumpy as I am, a little advance warning of the next test of the emergency alert system #BritishColumbia #Vancouver

And that is - frankly - really fucking dangerous. So much for an informed electorate. Those journalists who aren’t asking the tough questions need to move onto the memoir stage, or “How I Helped Trump Stay In Power For So Long: Job Security and Other Considerations”

I have baked The banana bread the was made from the musical bananas Of which there were too many purchased for music Forgive me they were already brown so aged and...musical? ("So we have 57 bananas because we needed them for a musical instrument, so could every make banana bread")

I just hosted a discussion session on philosophy with no preparation and people loved it. Surprising. (I blame the very serious espresso in that latte)

Good Morning, my loves! Happy Tuesday! Happy Murderbot day to all who celebrate (which is everyone, right? RIGHT????) Gas finally tipped the $6 mark here for regular. Other than that, it's a pretty good day. I hope YOU are also having a pretty good day!

For poets and writers wondering what to do with your archives and how... The WashU Libraries’, with support from the Mellon Foundation, have created an incredibly helpful guide for you on digital preservation practices. library.washu.edu/research-sup...

"We are blessed and protected by the power of God, but juuuuuust in case..."

"She never imagined the Met Gala would start being seen as a symbol of excess" is just an absolutely incredible line.

Interesting how we have all these books in the library that are meditations on lost time and lost places. But that lost time is the American century and the lost place is some nostalgia shrouded Americana location. Nostalgia for another country's dreams

I’ll be damned. The Pulitzer board did it. Good on them

Memorable description of a donor to a non profit I was aware of: "Ah it's Spring, it's time for Mr. Rich Dude to rise like a cicada from the dark earth"