John F. Duffy - Picket Fire Press

My good friend Ryan died of cancer. I wrote about saying goodbye to him but couldn’t get the piece accepted anywhere, which pissed me off, but fuck it, it’s on my author site now. Read it if you’d like. johnfduffy.com/can-you-hear-m…

@barbarismcrit I think people misunderstand the concept of nothing. I also think they don’t realize how many average people are doing well.

Still amazed at how fast this country is hurtling towards giving the vast majority of the population nothing to lose

@truhtnac @WhatHoARat Excellent post! I love this strip and my daughter and I reference it regularly.

i died in a dream once and when my soul left my body the best i can describe it is that it looked like two connected devo hats, one pointed down and one pointed up, with a small helicopter rotor on top. i flew through the sky in that form, finally liberated from this flesh.

I think I’m going to start saying YOLO again.

@WhatHoARat So if I’m understanding you correctly, you want corporal punishment back in the classroom.

Since I began working as an educator, I've witnessed something akin to a holy fervor to get more technology in the classroom, normally on the rationale that electronic texts and tools make learning more 'accessible' to lower income students. But what we've all witnessed over this period is a visible decline in reading and writing skills across the entire spectrum. Students are presented with learning materials on screens where, at the press of a button, they can also access an entire ecosystem of other activities actively designed to spike their dopamine and keep them engaged in a way that education cannot compete with. It's no wonder that students can't focus, and it's time to call out screen-based education for what it is: a well-meaning but failed experiment. The results are in. A physical book is far superior to a digital text, because a physical book is an object that can be focused on - and which teaches one to focus. One which doesn't also contain vast reams of entertaining slop, video games, news, and communication tools. Screens out. Books in. This simple change would yield noticeable benefits almost immediately.

@thedadlitpod Give an inch they take a mile. Her “fans” want her to march in lockstep with their ideological beliefs. Every time she concedes she is giving strangers control of her life and her work. These people don’t want novels, they want pats on the head for what wonderful people they are.

thejc.com/news/world/bes… No description of the scene, no attempt to explain what it might mean in context, no recognition that the moment may have been lived by the author. The knee jerk reaction is that the mere mention of Israel without critique or calumny is evil. #depressing

@WhatHoARat I get it.

Good to know. I'll check out the online one. If they have the things i want, i'll switch! Bezos really did something here with Amazon that I as a reader have never been able to resist - push a button and literally any in print book arrives at my house free tomorrow. You can't beat that!

The amazon order of a maladjusted man.

@WhatHoARat Depends on the book. Used store for Shakespeare. Direct from publisher where possible with indies. Bookshop.org if you need online.

@SmashedEars Where the heck should i buy books? The nearest bookstores have none of these titles except maybe the Shakespeare, and even that's a maybe.

@alvvaysdreaming I liked the last part a lot, too.

livro perfeito. não sei se é uma opinião impopular mas a última parte é minha favorita e as vezes acho que ela me assombra até mais do que a parte dos crimes

@BillKristol This is cosplaying no different than the Tankie college kids who discuss the violence their willing to commit in service of the revolution.

"Christian nationalist" has become shorthand for this type--I've used it myself. But it is worth noting that serious Christians would reject his claim to speak for the religion, and decent nationalists who aren't racists or antisemites would reject his version of nationalism.

@norabird Twitter: Where people state doomerist opinions for clout.

I walked all over London doing whatever with my phone so I do think this is overstated sorry

@teachrobotslove @JoyceCarolOates Totally. Does it mean maybe diverting some money you would otherwise spend on yourself to your child? Sure. And I think that’s what scares people. But I raised my kid the first few years in an off grid cabin while working as a bartender. Heated with wood. Had only rainwater.

@SmashedEars @JoyceCarolOates The "kids are expensive" thing is a bit of a psyop. Like, yeah, they cost money, but the poorest person you know can pull off having them.

It’s likely that having children is literally harder, more stressful & just plain more costly than decades ago. College never used to be so expensive. No Internet, video games, pornography available to children in those days. Those who have not had children are immensely grateful to those who did—seriously. “Hostages to fortune.”

@MQuitney @norabird Neil Gaiman sucks anyway.

@norabird @SmashedEars Got rid of my Neil Gaiman collection, couldn’t separate the art from the artist and felt gross seeing them on my shelf

Letter of recommendation: Sally Rooney, unproblematic final boss of literature

@tylercdempsey Lighting the beacons to alert Rohan of the attack on Minas Tirith with your best pal?

What I was doing on this day 6 years ago:

@JoyceCarolOates TBF, preventing illegal immigration used to be a left position (think Ceaser Chavez and anti NAFTA and Bernie 15 years ago). Defense of wages of the lower classes was a left position until Donald came out against immigration and the whole left decided to flip.

Fetterman’s hard-right turn can’t have been anything other than practical: the offer that was so huge it couldn’t be refused.

@HamiltonCain This has been predicted forever. It’s not going to happen. Our supposed differences are not regional. They are urban vs rural. There’s no way to “balkanize” that makes sense.

Where I land.

@JoyceCarolOates Being a father is the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. I love my daughter more than anything, and I don’t even think about the “cost” of raising her. I just pay it, and pay it gladly.

@JoyceCarolOates Setting aside college, having a kid isn’t that expensive. For the first few years they barely eat anything (Theyre small). Clothes can be purchased second hand. Maybe if you have three or more kids because of the needed space it gets pricey. Also, you GET a lot for your money. 1

@jrostopovich @Incindery1 They’re everywhere in Phoenix.

@Incindery1 Nightmare fuel.

Omfg just saw my first waymo in NYC. Creepy af.

@JoyceCarolOates The US also has a history of non slave states and abolition. People who hid and smuggled slaves to freedom. People who died in a war to end slavery. People who marched through the south and were beaten, imprisoned and killed to end Jim Crow. Why ignore all of this success?

we've heard it thousands of times, & (I am sure) I have said it myself: US has a history of slavery. however, can we not acknowledge that post-slavery, the US has been transformed by literally millions of immigrants, & those immigrants have had children, & those children, more children; & the US today is so little identical racially from the US of 1860, it seems just eccentric to keep blaming a living of population of such diversity for an evil perpetrated by individuals living generations ago.