“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.” - Mary Oliver - “The Uses of Sorrow”

I quite happily live in a neighborhood where most people do not share my religion, where multiple languages are represented, and where people have come from a lot of different countries. Bigoted assholes always assume everyone else actually shares their bigotries.

No shade to the OP for admitting this, but it shocks me that people my age don’t know this. You fundamentally cannot understand how the world functions, how power works, if you don’t know history.

Quixotic quest completed!

#folkhorrorfriday, woot! This is my The Severed Sun thread; mute or read as you like! Not that I’m any good at threading.

New — I wrote about the terror and loss of the last few days, mostly so we don’t forget. www.thehandbasket.co/p/trump-iran...

This community has already reached more than 55% of our Virginia goal 👏 Now let’s finish the job. Just under 35,000 voters left to reach before our mailing deadline of April 14th. Join in: votefwd.org/campaigns

“If you can’t define the question, I’m not gonna answer the question” really needs to be the stock answer going forward for anyone targeted by culture war bullshit. We should be able to have conversations with each other, but if you’re trying to use someone for a headline, fuck off forever.

you do not have to hand it to tucker carlson or marjorie taylor greene or alex jones or megyn kelly. they're all rats who see trump as a sinking ship and they're getting ready to jump in preparation for their next act. you do not have to fall for it.

The threat itself is an impeachable offense. Don’t let it slide.

We must not become less of ourselves in the face of annihilation. We must hold to who we are, hold tight to our joys. i came into this world dead, grey and silent. I shall go out of strange, full of love and wondrous curiosity. I shall go a fully-grown changeling with a kiss of intent on my lips.

Today “a whole civilization will die” around the world from me because of greed, ego, racism, and blind hate. Today I also have to do laundry and run errands and call senators and blearily exist and check the news constantly. I’m no doomer, and I believe in action and hope. But god, today hurts.

Trump’s America-last budget.

I have officially been on Zepbound for a year (as has my husband @innocence.com). A few observations: - the use of GLP drugs is an economic privilege. My husband’s work covers our prescriptions.The out-of-pocket cost is prohibitive and unsustainable for a ton of people. 🧵1/6

So, to sum up, a couple of days ago Christina Koch became the first woman to see Earth in its entirety, and today – right now, in fact – she is the first woman to see the Moon up close, and the first woman to see the far side. 🥹

Yep. I engage here and on Letterboxd, I read Reddit less and less (and never post), and that’s it. Even (especially?) in passive consumption, social media is exhausting. I’d be off Reddit too if it didn’t have so many cat pics. I know my weakness.

"But they don't have the votes for impeachment so you can't criticize them for not saying it" is fallacious. Dems don't have the votes to do anything. Even post-midterms, they still wouldn't have the votes to override vetoes, either. It's nonsensical to say they therefore shouldn't advocate stuff.

On the 58th anniversary of Dr. King's assassination, it's time to reckon with the media's troubling role in the civil rights struggle. (I pitched this to @nytimes.com who found it "fascinating..[but] the news is making deeper & certainly more historical pieces very hard." But they're the news.) A 🧵

I used to write the WaPo editorials on US-Africa policy, as well on as human rights and politics on the continent. To describe hundreds of thousands of deaths on the continent as “messy” is an absolute abomination.

Valerie, girl. You’ve already established yourself as a crap judge of character. Take the traaaaain. #folkhorrorfriday

It’s #FolkHorrorFriday and time for Daughters of Darkness! Mute if you don’t want a thread of commentary; otherwise, enjoy!

Ooooh great lineup. Looking forward to tonight!

My #LastFourWatched are very targeted this week - my husband and I went to a series of Mexican noir films and then continued diving into Mexican cinema when we got home. Great stuff! 🎥

Aligning yourself with patriarchy won't cancel out that, as a woman, you're inherently expendable. Just sayin'.

Happy Trans Day of Visibility ❤️🏳️‍⚧️❤️

Oh is it science-fiction-shouldn't-be-political-o'clock again already? It is. It always is. Writing is. Writing is a political act. Possibly why tech bros want to take it away from us. Keep writing. The madder the better. You mightn't hear the song you're putting out but others will.

"my least woke opinion is---" That's enough. We've had enough people indulging in the "thrill of a little conservatism", as a treat. Of considering reactionary thought to be a salacious and taboo in a world descending into reactionary mania. Give me your MOST woke opinions. We're bringing it back.

Blow me, NYT. People are doing things everywhere, on camera and off. In the meantime, legacy media keeps slumping into complete irrelevance.

patiently explaining to national political reporters that the people who organize No Kings are also doing the daily advocacy, voter registration, mutual aid, and immigrant defense, and that just because the cameras show up for the big crowd does not mean that work did not exist before and after

#tdih 1898, SCOTUS issued landmark U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, decision: Children born in U.S., including to parents not eligible to become citizens, were nonetheless citizens themselves under the Reconstruction era 14th Amendment. #TeachReconstruction Read 🧵⬇️ www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/wo...

hey, #NoKings people who aren’t able to come out in person today did you know about this virtual rally? join the fight from wherever you are

The idea that (white) American farmers and ranchers are the "true volk" while cities are a sore on the body politic, filled with greedy merchants and mobs of laborers, is the foundational, racist blood-and-soil myth of America that still pervades all of society including mainstream media.

La Otra was a fantastic beginning to the Mexico Noir series at @viffest.bsky.social, curated by @silviamg.bsky.social. This is going to be a great weekend of film. 🎥 boxd.it/dHjex3

Settling in with @smichele.bsky.social for the first night of @viffest.bsky.social’s Mexican Noir series, curated by @silviamg.bsky.social — La Otra, starring the great Dolores del Rio and directed by Roberto Gavaldón who is new to me. Always cool visiting a new cinema, too. 📽️

What you think of the quality of HP, whether you think it's bad or good or embarrassing or important, doesn't matter. What matters is its author is making money off it to funnel into stripping trans people of their rights. I'd give up literally anything if that was the consequence of loving it.

GUYS! Tomorrow, Thursday 26 March, at 8pm Irish time (4pm Eastern/ noon Pacific), I'm doing a live reading from BONE & BLOOD, an interview, & a Q&A with @octocon.bsky.social, where I'm a Guest of Honor this year! Please come along! It would be so neat to have you there!

And because I remember the reactions to this thread, let's just buckle down now and try really hard to understand that when I say "America has always been this way" I mean that we are built on oppression and have always wielded it internally and externally as a tool bsky.app/profile/karn...

My latest. "The only place I know how to begin is here: We are at war, and I want it to stop."

🚨 Some Democrats might fully cave in the DHS funding fight and back a new "deal" struck by Trump and GOP senators to fund Border Patrol and some ICE operations — potentially without any reforms. That means we need to flood Democratic phonelines today.

This is Biscuit, a neighborhood cat who was very interested in the #nokings flyers @innocence.com and I were posting just now. Cute cat approval earned - it’s an excellent omen for the 28th. Thanks, Biscuit!

I’ve posted a few times about @votefwd.bsky.social — right now they have efforts going to inspire and educate voters in VA and PA, with deadlines in April and May. These are great volunteer opportunities with very few barriers to participation. Ive been proud of every letter I’ve sent. votefwd.org

I've been working on one of my Sims 4 videos today (using Wondershare Filmora), and good gracious, AI is everywhere. Just about every toggle and option pushes the user toward letting AI take over. It's immensely frustrating for someone who just wants to share their own creativity.

movements don’t need heroes. history should never be built or taught around great men, or women. the collective is why change happens—that is what should be celebrated.

you do not, under any circumstances, have to hand it to joe kent

Once again, he’s part of the group expecting to buy EA this year. This is who gets our Sims 4 money if the sale finalizes.

I grew up in a Civil War battlefield town in Virginia, and our field trips were to that battlefield, other nearby battlefields, and up to DC for a variety of Smithsonians. Mostly battlefields, though.

It is the anniversary of the My Lai massacre today. I'd say that even more than most years, it's important to remember what happened. And the role Hugh Thompson, an active serviceman, played in both stopping and publicising it. Despite enormous military, political and public pressure to stay quiet.

Today, we launch I AM HORROR. A global archive documenting creators of color shaping the horror genre across disciplines and continents. The work exists. The archive should, too. 👻 📽️ 📺 🎭 📚 🌎 Submissions are now open: nighttidemag.com/iamhorrorjoin/

No, I am not worried about 'declining' birth rates, I accept them as post-modern birth rates, the birth rates that naturally happen once the conditions are set that children can be expected to survive to adulthood reliably and that women are allowed to be educated and become full citizens.