'In memory of them, in memory of their inedible beauty, today is International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. In other words, for the elimination of violence by the little Trujillos that rule in so many homes.' —Eduardo Galeano, 'Children of the Days'

There are 30,000 humanitarian reasons for Rodrigo Duterte to stay in prison.

If you stop thinking that Germany's response to anything Israel is about Holocaust guilt and instead about rewriting German history, you'd understand German politics better. 🧵

I feel like Google's NotebookLM has been designed to annoy the hell out of me. I tested it with some bits of fiction I wrote, and it kept getting details wrong. The audio overview 'hosts' kept saying 'mischievious.' It was like listening to two pretentious idiots talking.

'I Am from There' by Mahmoud Darwish. 77 years on, the Nakba continues.

'Technology partnership.' This is going to be a rotten deal.

Stationary? STATIONARY? Really, Esquire? You don’t employ copy editors now?

Drawing for the sake of drawing. I missed doing this.

Here's an icon pack to show a product doesn't contain any AI content. hinokodo.itch.io/human-made

You know you're getting old when you manage to capture the right skin tone for a test portrait but immediately forget which colours you mixed. 😔

While investigating Nike’s claims about sustainability, I started collecting paystubs from its suppliers. It’s been almost 27 years since Phil Knight acknowledged that Nike products had become synonymous with “slave wages.” I wanted to know what people in Asia earned producing Nike apparel. (thread)

Categories used by the state to sort people into boxes are never neutral. Some thoughts on the UK Supreme Court case ruling and the wider anti-trans campaign to narrow sex and gender categories in policy, data and law. 📝 kevinguyan.com/2025/04/16/t...

'[Meta’s Director of Public Policy for Israel and the Jewish Diaspora Jordana] Cutler actively instructed employees of the company to search for and review content mentioning Ghassan Kanafani, an Arab novelist considered to be a pioneer of Palestinian literature.'

It's alarming how deeply US right-wing organisations have penetrated the UK. We might laugh off Trump and his antics, but our country is in real danger of falling under chaotic authoritarianism if these organisations get their way. counterdisinformationproject.substack.com/p/how-the-us...

Welcome to the Oxford English Dictionary, 'gigil'! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

In practical terms, siding with the strong against the weak is easy, but morally, it is far more difficult for others.

Revisiting old Those We Lost portraits and reposting them as videos while I’m working on new ones. Impossible to document all 30,000 lives lost, but it’s important to remember that each life mattered and each death tore a hole in the fabric of our collective humanity. #Duterte #PhilippineDrugWar

On 22 January, GB News presenter Josh Howie repeated a homophobic slur linking the LGBTQ+ community to paedophilia. This is offensive, wrong and unlawful. Join me and @GoodLawProject to file a complaint to Ofcom :point_down: action.goodlawproject.org/ofcom-stop-g...

Why yes, my current poetry reads follow a specific theme. #BookSky #poetry

I've been so out of the loop on Philippine news that I've only just found out about Edcel Lagman's passing. He was a real servant of the people with a rare combination of courage and progressive ideas. Rest in power, sir.

It has been 1000 days since Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed by Israeli forces while covering an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on May 11, 2022. Despite efforts for justice, no one has been held accountable aje.io/56v4aj

I'm starting to read Szentkuthy's 'Marginalia on Casanova' and finding myself baffled by parts of the introduction from Zéno Bianu. 'Rigorous bulimia of a thousand burgeoning stories' is a bit much for me. 😩 #BookSky

My consolation this Wednesday after a tough work and life day #annecarson #lrbwinterlecture #booksky

If the UK cover isn't as trippy as this, there will be WORDS.

Neil Gaiman's books were a huge part of my life. For decades I felt secure in the knowledge that I was, as the kids say, stanning the right person, having met the man and chatted with him at several book launches. I even took my kids to his book readings. www.vulture.com/article/neil...

Not only are tech billionaires a massive, evil influence on society, but every single one seems to be inter-personally loathsome and embarrassingly awkward. Having a conversation with any of them sounds like a nightmare.

Holy shit this filing update is wild! It states that: 1. Zuckerberg gave the ok to train off copyrighted works 2. Engineers wrote scripts to remove copyright info 3. Meta downloaded illegal torrents to train models of GenAi is a house of cards, I swear. techcrunch.com/2025/01/09/m...

this choice of photos by the Carter Center is shadier than a Georgia peach tree in summer

Climate chaos is coming for us. Some places face bigger risks than others, but no matter where we live, we're going to struggle to adapt to events unlike anything we've seen before. I'm a climate futurist. Let me level with you about what this means. (Imported) 🧵 (Img: Old Marshall Jail Hotel)

The LA fires are a profound example of what climate scientists have been struggling to prevent for decades. I hope everyone remembers that oil and gas companies, with full knowledge, created this future, in exchange for their windfall profits and geopolitical power.

It's terribly heartbreaking the way The Washington Post has been gutted by its owner and the man he appointed as CEO.

The emotion is real: Matobato is free at last — thank God Almighty he is free at last! It points to a generous heaping of hope, that Rodrigo Duterte and all accomplices named with him will face the bar of justice in the International Criminal Court. #ThoughtLeaders https://www.rappler.com/voices/th…

Looking at my newsletter now and realising that I only wrote three posts last year. Fiction was too hard to resist. Anyway, I'd like to write more book reviews in 2025. My essay on Melissa Chadburn's novel A Tiny Upward Shove will always be a personal favourite: tinyurl.com/jwatfordnews... #booksky

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. Day 1 #BookSky #Books #BookChallenge #20daybookchallenge

@arielthefroth.bsky.social Reading your post about Catullus made me look at some of my Greek poetry books. Have you read Anakreon's poems yet? I thought you might like this Guy Davenport translation of a couple of fragments.

The protection of copyright should be top priority, if we're to keep things like art, culture and public services alive.

Sad about Nikki Giovanni's passing, but always, always pleased when her dialogue with James Baldwin for 'Soul' resurfaces. The bit near the end of their conversation is my favourite part. youtu.be/y4OPYp4s0tc

NEW: X has become a hotbed of neo-Nazi content under Elon Musk. We identified the operators of four anonymous accounts that share racist, antisemitic, and neo-Nazi content. Three live in Texas. Musk has replied to two of them. One works for the Navy. www.texasobserver.org/revealed-ope...

The family of the late Syrian advocate & former political prisoner Mazen al-Hamada will be receiving condolences following his detention by the Syrian regime and the recent discovery of his body. 💔 Condolences in-person in Damascus and Beirut and virtually in Deir Ezzor.

The liberation of prisoners from Branch 215, the branch from which the Caesar photos emerged… Back in September and October 2011, I was a prisoner in this vile prison. I am truly happy for the release of the detainees. Your families will be waiting for you.

Assad is gone. Sednaya is liberated. The Syrian people have once again given an incredible lesson to the world.

Oh, to wake up to the news that Syria is free. Let the courage and resilience of the Syrian people be our beacon of light in these dark, dark times.

Terrible news.

Trump's Cabinet appointments are shocking, but part of a plan. We should be wary of shock, which excuses inaction. We have to get through the surprise and the shock to see the design and the risk. snyder.substack.com/p/decapitati...

The Assad Regime: "We would like to reassure the people of Hama, we have not abandoned you and will back to liberate you soon." The people of Hama:

In tears reading the updates from Syria. Please let the long night be over soon.

From James Baldwin, in his talk with Margaret Mead:

Awful. OpenAI (and other AI cos) are making a hard push for getting AI into K-12 schools, which they see as a burgeoning market. Most teachers I've spoken to, meanwhile, say AI is terrible. Outside of computer class, there should be no gen AI in K12 schools, period. techcrunch.com/2024/11/20/o...

How we survive, from @carolecadwalla.bsky.social. DO NOT BEND TO POWER. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Abominable.