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Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom. –Ursula K. Le Guin
I’m seeing a lot of straight, white male voices who can’t be bothered with how upset some people are by the new reality. Adopting a “look at me, I’m stoic” attitude is the definition of privilege. People freaking out are not being performative, nor are they part of an outrage machine. Attempting to delegitimize the way people feel one day into the new regime is messed up - Me
“Libraries raised me. I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.” -Ray Bradbury, speaking to The New York Times
Mangione’s act, regardless of anything else, has had the effect of speaking to systemic cruelty of the American healthcare system that all Americans suffer under and which has caused untold amounts of death and pain. And so people—including me—want to know who Mangione is and what made him allegedly do this. – 404 Media
Best Thanksgiving prayer ever by Ricky Bobby “Dear Lord Baby Jesus, or as our brothers in the South call you: ‘Hay-suz’. We thank you so much for this bountiful harvest of Dominos, KFC, and the always delicious Taco Bell. I just want to take time to say thank you for my family: my two beautiful, beautiful, handsome striking sons, Walker: Texas Ranger, or TR as we call him. And, of course, my red hot smokin' wife Carley, who is a stone cold fox.”
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
John McRae, 1915
Stop benefitting from the internet, it’s not for you to enjoy, it’s for us to use to extract money from you. Stop finding beauty and connection in the world, loneliness is more profitable and easier to control. Stop being human. A mindless bot who makes regular purchases is all that’s really needed. — Cat Valente
You can be in my dream if I can be in your dream. - Bob Dylan
“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.” ~ E.E. Cummings
One of my favorite quotes of all time - When I’m in a slump, I comfort myself by saying if I believe in dinosaurs, then somewhere, they must be believing in me. And if they believe in me, then I can believe in me. Then I bust out. - Mookie Wilson, New York Mets, Left Field
Bitcoin is 15 years old.
To put that in perspective: The web started in 1991. 15 years later, in 2006, we had youtube, twitter, amazon, ebay - the world was unrecognisable. What have we got in that timeframe from #blockchain? Ashes. “A thriving market for magic beans doesn’t make the magic beanstalk real." - lib.rs
Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on Earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position either. It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism. Each redemptive or loving act, as small as you like, such as reading to your little boy, or showing him a thing you love, or singing him a song, or putting on his shoes, keeps the devil down in the hole. It says the world and its inhabitants have value and are worth defending. It says the world is worth believing in - Nick Cave
England is a cup of tea.
France, a wheel of ripened brie.
Greece, a short, squat olive tree.
America is a gun.
Brazil is football on the sand.
Argentina, Maradona’s hand.
Germany, an oompah band
America is a gun.
Holland is a wooden shoe.
Hungary, a goulash stew.
Australia, a kangaroo.
America is a gun.
Japan is a thermal spring.
Scotland is a highland fling.
Oh, better to be anything
than America as a gun.
by Brian Bilston
I think Apple can either take a commission on all commerce they want on the App Store or they can be the exclusive place to get software for you iPhone and iPad, but they cannot be both. - Matt Birchler on Bitchtree
“Without labor nothing prospers.” — Sophocles
No celebrating the grind life, celebrating all the workers who actually make stuff, the under-appreciated bedrock of society.
One of my favorite quotes of all time -
“I will not stay silent so that you can stay comfortable.” - Mary Engelbreit
“The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.” - Jean Paul
Let’s cut the bullshit and spell out a few things. The IT security industry is about as trustworthy as the food supplement and vitamin industry, but somehow they escaped the same reputation. Their products are overwhelmingly based on flawed ideas, and the quality of their software is exceptionally bad. And while not everyone will agree with the harshness of my words, I’ll say this: Essentially everyone in IT security who knows anything in principle knows this. - @hanno@mastodon.social
This landscape is our home, and we rarely stray long from it, or endure anywhere else for long before returning. This may seem like a lack of imagination or adventure, but I don’t care. I love this place; for me it is the beginning and the end of everything, and everywhere else feels like nowhere - James Rebanks, A Shepherd’s Life
I love that quote about the Scottish Highlands from Rebanks book. It reminds me of my feelings for my own home on the coastal plain of NC in the remnants of the great Eastern pine forest.
“We have, I fear, confused power with greatness.” - Stewart Udall