we all have that one homie whose aphorisms are superficially witty but lack a certain intellectual verve

If Gaeilgoirí reacted to English names the way English speakers react to Irish names:

Ciara Ní É, reposted on TikTok by TG4

i hate being on my corny shit but sometimes mass movements and protest movements can be very beautiful. they bring out the worst and best in humanity. during the arab spring, when people were camped out in tents in tahrir square, there were so many beautiful moments that it convinced a whole nation to believe in a better future. i find it difficult to talk about now but it was the collective sense of community—the feeling of being responsible for everyone, for living on principle instead of self-preservation for once in your life. many people risked their lives for other people during the protests. people died for strangers who were no longer strangers. sometimes it was also small things: funny signs, doctors volunteering medical aid, people giving out food and water, muslims protecting churches, christians protecting muslims while they're praying. things like that. and i've seen a lot of people and countries have protest movements since then and i think everyone feels the same way, when you're within a mass movement, there is a sense of hope and determination that is so much stronger than fear. everyone falls in love with their country, everyone falls in love with their people, suddenly a country you hate is a country you're willing to die for

these kind of protest movements were easy to call beautiful and easy to call powerful bc they were so obviously against a tyrannical force. and yes while the regimes did call the protestors everything from spoiled kids to infiltrators to traitors, the world usually saw it for what it was. and the protestors had a sense of pride about it. the eyes of the world are on us, we matter, we're making a difference

truthfully i think the campus protest movement has escalated so suddenly and is so maligned that nobody is taking a moment to call it what it is. it is very brave and it is very beautiful. in some ways i find it more touching than protest movements for your own country and your own future, because while the protests for palestine are also about what it means to be a citizen of a nation complicit in genocide, many of these protestors are just there because they care about palestinians. some of them are there against their better interests; risking their academic careers, their personal safety, their future. in the case of anti-zionist jews many are risking their communities and their familial relationships. i just saw a video of a USC student in the middle of a literal police riot where her classmates are being brutalized by cops being asked if she's scared and she said "no, i think the children in gaza are more scared than i am." on a human level, this is so moving. it's truly the best and bravest of america there, and it's so sad to me that some people can't see that.

last week speaking out for palestine was risky, but this week it has taken personal and physical bravery to show up, and people (mainly young people of color) have absolutely shown up. this is no small thing. it really isn't. its a historic thing. and i promise you if you think i'm exaggerating by comparing US campus protests to arab spring protests—a lot of arab spring students are on US campuses right now and they see the parallels too. the response to the protests has been american in the way america was in the 60s and 70s, but it is starting to take the shape of a broader and much more global crackdown, where militarized police brutality is the norm. this is familiar to everyone in sudan, in egypt, in palestine. university campuses and students go from safe havens to targets for punishment overnight. things are changing very rapidly right now; a lot of the things said about college campuses last week don't apply as of today.

there is a sense that these protests are full of spoiled and innocent kids and that is transparently not true. these are people (including grad students, faculty, etc) who have also experienced upheaval across the world and in their own communities. the fact that they're receiving the same treatment on university campuses now as protestors did in ferguson, as people have on their streets, means that while US colleges are profit-oriented neoliberal institutions and their administrators are fascists, their student bodies are on the forefront of history once again.

If I ask nicely will people reblog this and tell me what their most common breakfast is? Not your favorite necessarily, just what you have for breakfast most frequently? 🙏🏽

Hundreds of Jewish anti-war demonstrators have been arrested during a Passover seder that doubled as a protest in New York, as they shut down a major thoroughfare to pray for a ceasefire and urge the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, to end US military aid to Israel.

The 300 or so arrests took place on Tuesday night at Grand Army Plaza, on the doorstep of Schumer’s Brooklyn residence, where thousands of mostly Jewish New Yorkers gathered for the seder, a ritual that marked the second night of the holiday celebrated as a festival of freedom by Jews worldwide.

The seder came just before the US Senate resoundingly passed a military package that includes $26bn for Israel.

Local Whiteboy SHOCKS restaurant by beheading his landlord with a scythe for setting unfairly high rents in the area while ordering

you're right it' giving

GAMER CONTAINMENT CHAMBER.

I need to share with you the bedroom i saw on a house listing today

u don't like gamer cave? 🎮🎮?

I need to share with you the bedroom i saw on a house listing today

people who love to say “the only foolproof method of pregnancy-prevention is abstinence” with that smug grin really do not want to think about abstinence as something with a statistically measurable fail rate that is probably higher than that of condoms

I will not elaborate

nothing makes me go "ooooh we are NOT the same" quite like reading some post about how people talk with their parents about their interests. what do you mean you told your father about stevebucky. what do you mean he asked further questions

it's 2023 and I still very much miss Dirk Gently

The new Luddites—a growing contingent of workers, critics, academics, organizers, and writers—say that too much power has been concentrated in the hands of the tech titans, that tech is too often used to help corporations slash pay and squeeze workers, and that certain technologies must not merely be criticized but resisted outright. I’ve been a tech journalist for a decade and a half; I did not begin my career as a critic. But what I’ve seen over the past 10 years—the rise of gig-app companies that have left workers precarious and even impoverished; the punishing, gamified productivity regimes put in place by giants such as Amazon; the conquering of public life by private tech platforms and the explosion of screen addiction; and the new epidemic of AI plagiarism—has left me sympathizing with tech’s discontents. After years of workers and citizens serving as Silicon Valley’s subjects, a movement is now under way to wrest back control. I consider myself a Luddite not because I want to halt progress or reject technology itself. But I believe, as the original Luddites argued in a particularly influential letter threatening the industrialists, that we must consider whether a technology is “hurtful to commonality”—whether it causes many to suffer for the benefit of a few—and oppose it when necessary.

Jonathan Wells, “April Morning”

"You Missed the Point by Idolizing Them" Starter Pack