Fennel update 🥺

The counterfactual isn’t really worth considering since destruction is obviously baked into this administration, but it’s wild that had they instead left research alone they might have been able to claim they found ways to prevent forms of cancer, MS, and other horrible diseases.

ICE are running around in the streets using facial recognition on random people and telling anyone filming them they're a domestic terrorist and Democrats solution is to equip every ICE agent with their very own body-worn surveillance camera

So much love for @moonpalacebooks.bsky.social

tomorrow, StandWithMinnesota.com will hit a million site visits and over 650,000 unique visitors. i made it 10 days ago with $600 from you guys for hosting and cloudflare. thank you. thank you.

Wise words from WEB DuBois to gird us today: "It would be shame and cowardice to surrender this glorious land and its opportunities for civilization and humanity to the thugs and lynchers, the mobs and profiteers, the monopolists & gamblers who today choke its soul and steal its resources."

ICE has detained a 2-year-old girl in Minneapolis, despite a judge ordering the baby’s release.

Top two articles are about ICE abducting a 5 year old and a 2 year old. Below that, news about a historically large protest and general strike. Then articles detailing how ICE lies about their actions and how the White House makes/publishes fake images about the anti-ICE protests.

Future historian looking for an opening anecdote: Today, Jan. 23, 2026, the people of Minnesota hold a general strike to protest the federal gov't's assault on their persons and rights. Also today, someone (perhaps a billionaire) will pay ~$5,000,000 for a copy of the Declaration of Independence.

Fraud which was committed during a Republican administration! I’m glad that the government threw money out the door during the early days of COVID. This was one of the known consequences. The next administration began aggressively prosecuting. The system worked.

the knitters too. this is the top pattern on ravelry right now

$75 billion would pay tuition for every college student in America for one year.

What are they even simulating here? It’s a spreadsheet, right? She’s talking about a spreadsheet where they sort the rows?

Great piece, particularly this passage:

Bill Watterson is my favorite cartoonist. I adored the relationship btw Calvin and Hobbes as a child. But as I've gotten older, these strips feel even more tender and insightful. My respect for him grew when I learned of his stance against merchandising. Such principles are almost unheard of today.

Sam Alito does not and has never known ball

" It was political hate that drove her family out of Missouri given Becca’s statement they were looking for a safer place to live. It was hate that sent ICE to her neighborhood & it was hate that led that ICE agent to shoot her. It is hate that is now justifying her murder." This is the Kyriarchy.

Let’s get the second Reconstruction right.

The 250th should be fertile ground for ambitious national politicians to make their case. American scholars and journalists are making these comparisons really effectively. I wish electeds would run with this message.

“This is the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and from my vantage point this looks like a Boston Massacre, an event that can galvanize public opinion.” @jamellebouie.net lays out what public officials, and ordinary people can do right now.”

I found out yesterday that I was awarded a 2026 artist grant from the Somerville Arts Council! I will use the funding to work on my short story collection, but I also plan on creating a community project. If anyone is in the #Boston area, what type of writing activity would you be interested in?

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! Just sharing one of the most correct and true pieces I ever wrote www.barrelhousemag.com/online-lit/n...

A small (personal) example of this book’s intellectual dishonesty: My father-in-law is reading In Covid’s Wake, and excitedly told me he found a passage where I’m quoted. The quote in question is me saying the FBI worked to censor speech on social media. Huh? When did I say that?!

In Central Pennsylvania for the holidays. This is the first time since 2020 (when I first visited) that I’ve seen no MAGA or MAGA-adjacent signs. Zero. Normally I see dozens over a 30 minute drive. The people do not want this.

This is an almost shockingly wise essay. I'm glad I've finally read it.

Republican politicians and the media oligarchs who fund them regularly distort reality to further their agenda, and half of the Senate Democratic caucus won’t even try to acknowledge — let alone correct — the distortion.

“This is going to ruin the tour.” What tour? “The world tour.”

'MOON: Inspires melancholy. Is it perhaps inhabited?' - Gustave Flaubert, Dictionary of Received Ideas, 1870s

Good Cop Federalism / Bad Cop Federalism

Starting to wonder if the software industry’s primary positive contribution to society is all of the novel collaborative text editing and plain-text version control management tools.

I have a new short story out today in Blue Mesa Review. It’s a retelling of the “One-Handed Murderer.” Although this folktale was written a long time ago, we are still writing about the same shit. But I hope we can change how we tell the story. I’d so appreciate it if you’d take the time to read:

You need to read this story.

Two days ago we at @roomy.space had an interesting epiphany: Roomy's server wasn't just another off-protocol server or AppView, it was it's own kind of PDS with similar advantages of data ownership. This opened up a different way of thinking about services similar to Roomy and they might co-exist.

@fivefourpod.bsky.social request for y’all to talk about the Corporate Power Reset idea as a way to get around Citizens United 🫡

“‘If the results are bad & we don't publish & they leak,’ this [Meta] employee wrote, according to the brief, ‘is it going to look like tobacco companies doing research & knowing cigs were bad & then keeping that info to themselves?’"🧪🛟

Employer: What can we give you this holiday season as a thank you for all the hard work you’ve done this year? Employees: Ooo a bonus, a raise, more time off— Employer: OKAY SELF-CARE TIPS IT IS!

This article is excellent, but I wish there was an online magazine that could elevate ideas like these. Does any such magazine exist?

Petition demanding her release www.change.org/p/demand-the...

No obvious ICE presence in my corner of Rogers Park tonight. No helicopters, or SUVs pulling up and grabbing people off the street. Just kids and families out trick-or-treating.

It’s me! Thanks, @villaineralit.bsky.social!

If dispatching on enum variants in #Rust bad practice? It seems like there's not an idiomatic way to treat enum variants as their own types. I don't want to `std::mem::discriminant`!

3.7% you say… www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/carr...

There’s fine lines between “cringe” and “earnest” and “popular”. As Tris @noboilerplate.namtao.com.ap.brid.gy says: popularity matters. Loved participating in the most popular display of resistance yet here in Boston.

Boston. Wow.

It is alarming that the Trump Admin & rogue ICE agents would abduct a 13-year-old child from Everett, transport him to a facility over 500 miles away & reportedly subject him to harrowing conditions. They must stop violating our constitutional rights. My full statement:

Exploring some ideas for how to create a macro-free (or macro-light) implementation of the tidyverse in #julialang (get out the jolly roger 🏴‍☠️): www.randy.pub/posts/piracy/

The war on rainbow crosswalks has come to Texas. After DeSantis cracked down and tore up rainbow crosswalks across Florida, the community has resisted in protest. Now, Abbott is doing the same in Texas, seemingly at the direction of Libs of Tiktok. Subscribe to support our journalism.

I have two new poems published today in @emergejournal.bsky.social! Read em here: emergeliteraryjournal.com/the-connecti...

All the money in your checking account is mine unless you opt out by reposting this and sending it to 5 friends