Samwise "we can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old" Gamgee

I don’t speak corporate bullshit but I do think the fact that they call it “leveraging AI” rather than simply “using AI” sort of implicitly concedes that it doesn’t add functional value on balance

Every frigid day like this, I think about this 2022 piece by @katieprout.bsky.social. No one should have to be outside today in Chicago, much less staying outside unsheltered overnight. That that might be preferable to the available shelter is incredibly damning. chicagoreader.com/news/lukewar...

​Right now, Chicago City Council is weighing drastic cuts to the very safety programs that have driven this unprecedented drop in severe injuries and fatalities on our streets — cuts that would mean more dangerous speeding, more violent crashes, and more families grieving loved ones taken too soon.

This piece that I wrote about Chicago ICE watch in October, before Greg Bovino and his goons flew south for the winter, is now available to read online!

This piece that I wrote about Chicago ICE watch in October, before Greg Bovino and his goons flew south for the winter, is now available to read online!

NO SUPPORTIVE HOUSING REFERRALS IN MORE THAN A YEAR

Spotify Wrapped season never fails to remind me of just how many Mountain Goats fans I've created in the past 15 years, one of my bigger life accomplishments so far tbh

For World AIDS Day, ACT UP New York has created posters as part of their Healthgate campaign, which capture the deadly consequences of creepy RFK Jr as head of HHS. Dismantling Healthcare = Death! You can download the posters here: actupny.com/act-up-ny-an... #WorldAIDSDay #IllnessPolitics

"I had no idea that the harsh winter ahead of us would be even more difficult than the trauma of losing my home in Rafah" A dispatch on brutal winter conditions in Gaza by Hassan Herzallah, whose home and university were both destroyed by Israeli bombings last year. @theprogressivemag.bsky.social

Does anyone want a survivorship bias shortbread

Universities are assembling larger and larger teams to deal with academic integrity issues--mostly focused on AI--while simultaneously holding AI "writing" contests, AI-themed events, "hey, come play with these fun tools!" The messages are so mixed, it's criminal. Because AI is bloated with money.

This Thanksgiving I am thankful for my unshakeable faith that everyone currently making millions off AI will end up bankrupt or facing criminal charges ❤️

Reposting this because of an infuriating experience I had today that fell exactly in line with what I wrote about in the article (context is from my insta story)

Also from October to April if you are valiant and pure of heart

I can only imagine 🤔 hypothetically speaking 🤨 that this would be a surreal moment to live through if you had lived through psychosis at an earlier point in your life and had the incredible fortune to recover from it, only to then watch a huge psychosis spike unfold worldwide!!

Moments ago: tenants of the South Shore apartment building that federal immigration agents raided at the end of September held a presser to announce they're forming a tenants union. They're demanding, among other things, sewage removal and heat and electricity restroration. More updates TK.

Yesterday my partner and I counted all the ads along Chicago's Brown Line for "Friend," a company selling an AI chatbot pendant, and tallied how many of those ads were defaced. Still working on a longer piece on this, but here's the quick and dirty: we counted 104 "Friend" ads total, 42 defaced.

when you have the conference room booked for a recurring meeting but the previous people just won't leave

Chicago people sure love when there's an animal that isn't normally around here and we're correct to do so

Southwest Rapid Response posted a video story of Josue, a Chicago HS senior from Gage Park, whose mom was taken in sept while she sold tamales. She is currently in ICE detention in Michigan. This is a GoFundMe to support him and his mom.

If you were integrate some very basic word processor functions into InDesign it would become the most powerful software of all time, but instead Adobe lets its current functions crumble in favor of integrating AI into everything because it has utter contempt for each and every one of us

just learned we won an award for our blog post about Tom Holland and stormwater management. remember, when you see an article about stormwater management, you repost it. i don’t make the rules.

Message me to request whistles, or check out links to get you started on your own whistle operation! linktr.ee/apwhistles

:’)

huh

I feel like we have the opportunity to turn David Lynch's quote into this moment's "Keep Calm and Carry On" and it's a far better rallying cry too.

i'm very glad this technology is being forced onto us everywhere on all levels

Some screenshots from itp_chicago IG. You can see how federal agents stake their presence around some of these communities in intersections in the middle of traffic and sidewalks in front of businesses. This feels very particular to the SW Side with Little Village being a prime target for this.

Something I realized while I was in New York this past week is that despite all of the great reporting being done, the scale of ICE’s war on Chicago hasn’t fully permeated the national consciousness. People know about it in the most general terms, but when you actually describe it, their jaws drop

I have whistles on the Southside (Bridgeport) I can hand off. Hit me up! (not 10's of thousands like Em though 😁)

NEWS: Ruben Torres Maldonado is coming home to his wife, sick daughter and four-year old son. An immigration judge granted the 40-year-old Portage Park man detained by federal immigration agents while his 16-year-old daughter, Ofelia, is undergoing cancer treatment. Story coming

"Auntie is what happens when you understand the expansive proposition of family" goes so fucking hard

Hey blueskyers—I wrote this a little while back about Zohran Mamdani's politics of mental health care, and his intent to swim against the growing tide toward expanded use of involuntary psychiatric detainment and forced treatment in this country. It would mean the world to me if you gave it a read!

🌹❤️ 🌹❤️ 🌹❤️

Their activity over the last week has included: car crashes, arrests of citizens, rapid responders and bystanders, four days straight of tear gas attacks on dense residential neighborhoods, real guns and pepper ball dispensers pointed at faces, breaking windows and dragging people from cars

ordinary americans are filming ice agents and trying to save their neighbors. for all the hemming and hawing during 2024 about how democracy was an elite concern, the elites gave up far more quickly than average people.

Border Patrol has reportedly detained several people in Little Village this morning. Video from Facebook shows Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino and his agents walking the streets as warning whistles blow in the background.

It’s really bad out today—wherever you go, have your whistle on hand (a bunch of far north side businesses along Broadway and Clark are giving them out, as well as the aldermen’s offices)

If you are on ICE watch in the Rogers Park vicinity please have a buddy and exercise extreme caution. ICE has assaulted verifiers today and arrested at least one of our people. If you are vulnerable to ICE in this area, I recommend staying inside if possible.

Let me know if you’re interested in stepping up and being a cohost of a whistle event. Looking at working with a location in Lakeview to set another one up

One thing that would help me in this regard is if my current landlord or any of my previous landlords were forced to actually do recycling instead of just having a “recycling” bin in the alley out back that gets funneled into the regular garbage

exhibit a of “has never been a reporter” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/19/b...

If you travelled a year back in time and asked 2024 me to guess why, on October 16 2025, present me said “I really wish there was a whistle emoji,” I could not have arrived at the right answer in a hundred tries

Spooky season in our neighborhood already going hard