Another favorite essay of the year: Daniel Yadin's essay in @thedriftmag.com on romantasy and the desire for escapism in catastrophe. It was so funny while speaking to the very real temptation to abdicate agency. Some favorite passages:

One of my favorite essays from this year was Robin D.G. Kelley's "Between Fires in Los Angeles and Fascism in America" in @hammerandhope.bsky.social. hammerandhope.org/article/los-...

For today’s newsletter, I shared a “rage tangent” from a longer work in progress about artwashing, genocide profiteers who fund major arts organizations, the false scarcity they create, and how artists in the imperial core can envision liberatory arts spaces. jesseroth.beehiiv.com/p/screaming

This Sunday, I'm co-leading a workshop on some research I've been working on over the last few years on "artwashing", genocide profiteers who fund major arts organizations, and activists organizing against them. Come check it out at the Seattle Liberation Center from 3pm-5pm!

I used to write a newsletter, and I've now revived it under a new name: I HAVE A RIBCAGE; YOU HAVE A RIBCAGE. Every Friday, I'll be sending out a new piece of writing. Looking forward to sharing with you! jesseroth.beehiiv.com/p/introducin...

⭕️ BREAKING: The latest Nat'l Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) drafted in the US Congress would require a “continual assessment … of international state arms embargoes on Israel” — with language aimed at filling any “defense capability gaps” those embargoes create, Zeteo reports. This means the...

Together we can close this gap. Make sure they can stay housed.

🇮🇪🇪🇸🇸🇮🇳🇱 BREAKING | Four major broadcasters – Ireland, Spain, Slovenia and the Netherlands – have pulled out of the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest after the EBU confirmed Israel will be allowed to compete despite the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Despite a wave of pressure and boycott threats urging the...

The vibe shift today is, I think, due to the fact that New Yorkers were on the offensive instead of the defensive. Usually with protests, demonstrators have to defend the space, defend their right to march, etc. They get beat up and pushed around and antagonized into chaos and trauma. 1/

I just saw a headline describing the incredible work yesterday of preventing dozens of ICE from doing a mass raid on Canal st as "police arrest and pepper spray dozens of people outside garage". That IS NOT the story!!!

Hey @erinbiba.bsky.social I hope this finds you

Art in the last 24 hours: Freakier Friday—way better than it has any business being. I cried! Hamnet (the book): Stunning! Also cried! The prose! Giving birth in the woods! The final scene in the theatre! The Substance: So scary. Can't sleep. Very good storytelling. Hated the ending.

No bailouts. The US should extort these companies when the crash happens so they get minimal compensation in return for nationalizing the entire panopticon industry and then destroying it once harvested for socially useful parts. It won’t happen but it should

I've also been banging on and on about this essay! Each re-read offers new gifts (like this one!) proteanmag.com/2023/12/08/n...

A majority of the city of Seattle are renters and a huge fraction don't drive at all or very often. Finally both those constituencies will have a major that shares their lives. Has that even happened before (since automobiles became the default) in Seattle??

Burn in hell

Lol grammarly just "suggested" I rephrase a James Baldwin quote.

UCPD has charged four UC Berkeley undergrads with *felony vandalism* because they attempted to hang a cardboard bug on Sather Gate.

This seems like good news... www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

If you voted in Seattle, check to make sure your vote was counted! If not, you may have a chance to cure your ballot: info.kingcounty.gov/kcelections/...

We’re on the right track! Make sure you track your ballot to confirm it is accepted, NOT challenged. Check our links in bio to do so! More votes will be counted on Monday!

the fuckers are finally dead.

The sun will now never return to Seattle so I guess I've got a SAD lamp and a Kylie Minogue playlist.

get in losers we're repenting

It’s hard to convey just how much Chicagoans are mobilizing against ICE. Don’t want to downplay the harm, or make it seem like a fair fight. But in neighborhoods across this city, ICE is getting chased by people blowing whistles and shouting. People are running TOWARD ICE to protect their neighbors.

The genocide is not over. Ceasefire is not liberation. Keep giving. chuffed.org/project/help... “Donations for mutual aid groups dropped by 50% since the ceasefire announcement. Most of the bombing stopped but the genocide continues and Palestinians in Gaza are in dire need of material support.”

Reader, they have only gotten stronger.

BREAKING: Amazon has fired Palestinian tech worker Ahmed Shahrour, five weeks after he was suspended for speaking out about the company’s ties to Israel.

God protect you and keep you.

This week in 1988: 1,000+ ACT UP demonstrators shut down the FDA headquarters, demanding (and eventually winning) action on developing HIV/AIDS treatments. ACT UP's militant and creative actions always included powerful visual artwork, and paved the way for movements in the decades to come.

The MSM does not interview community organizers. It's part of why they miss so much of what happens at the local level.

My publisher’s been very patient. I’m not doing everything I said I’d do to promote this book (out in a few weeks) because I’m an organizer in a city under federal attack. My days are full and emotionally exhausting. Any help getting the word out means a lot. It's a book people need right now.

"It’s not as if there aren’t plenty of media-ready Palestinian or Palestinian-American guests to choose from, chief among them Palestinian-American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who has not appeared on any of the major Sunday news shows since 2019." inthesetimes.com/article/gaza...

This moves me immensely.

2 years of genocide. I mourn the dead, and I mourn the living. None of us will ever be the same, none of us should ever be the same.

Okay fine also turtlenecks.

Reluctantly, I suppose I'm also now looking forward to radicchio and seeing theatre/dance (which I can't bear to do in the summer because its INSIDE).

I also have no nostalgia for the road to fascism, which is a trap I think a lot of liberal and progressive folks are falling into—romanticizing the conditions that preceded this moment of acceleration. The path that led to this mess is not the way out.

It was really quite romantic!

i wouldn't call myself an expert on capitalism or anything but this does indeed seem like something of a problem

This piece reminded me of when I was nineteen and we learned about Meisner technique at drama school. My peers started playing a game (drunk, late at night) called "Yes/No/Paranoia."

Particularly compelled by how Sarah Khatry and @aprzhu.bsky.social's @nplusonemag.com interview shows the ways Chen's poor craft obscures Israel's colonial project. www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...