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Allen Warren

@allenwarren.bsky.social
993 followers 19 following 70 posts

Fiction, music, and lots of D&D / plucky Pittsburgh transplant / find me near the crick or at the record store / writing at allenwarren.me/blog

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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
I reflected on these closures on my Substack: open.substack.com/pub/allenwar...
open.substack.com
What Pittsburgh Lost This Month
With the Post-Gazette and City Paper both ending publication, the Steel City will have increasingly few ways of knowing itself.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
So sad to hear about both the @post-gazette.com and @pghcitypaper.com shutting down this week. I’m not sure what Pittsburgh journalism will look like on other side of this.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
Klaus Mann's Mephisto may not be the perfect book for the moment, but its parallels with the U.S. today are worth studying: allenwarren.substack.com/p/mephisto-r...
allenwarren.substack.com
'Mephisto' Won't Save Us, But It May Keep the Antifascist Fire Burning
Klaus Mann's account of the fall of the Weimar Republic is too self-assured, but its parallels with contemporary U.S. politics are hard to ignore.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
Recommend: KPop Demon Hunters. Stunning animation, a fun take on the hero's journey, and songs that all slap.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
Have we had a song of the summer yet? Last year it was so clearly a competition between "360" and "Hot to Go" -- and I don't see anything approaching that so far in 2025. Am I missing something?
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
What would acting chalant look like? As opposed to nonchalant
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
I’m reminded of an anecdote I read about Chinese students in America being part of the reason China is unwilling to wage war with the U.S., since Chinese leaders have personal interests in the U.S. with their children. Is it worth testing that theory?
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
In 2020, a poli sci prof of mine was explaining to the class how who’s president has little effect on our daily lives. He asked if anyone’s life had been directly impacted by any of Trump’s policies. No one raised their hand. I don’t think that would be the case today apnews.com/article/inte...
apnews.com
Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the US will begin revoking the visas of Chinese students
Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the U.S. will begin revoking the visas of some Chinese students, “including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.”
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
For years, I've enjoyed writing music I'd imagine in video games. Now, I've gotten a chance to try just that! I recently entered the Indie Game Music Contest, and you can vote for my entry to win the popularity poll! Check this link out for more: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gF6...
youtube.com
Indie Game Music Contest: TetherGeist (O & Co. Games) — Allen Warren
YouTube video by Allen Warren
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 29/04/2025
America needs fun names for congressional districts like Canada has for federal ridings. Who wouldn’t want to represent someplace called Notre-Dame-de-Grâce-Westmount or Nanaimo-Ladysmith?
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 27/04/2025
More on the Duolingo Chinese update: you can now see a score for your learning progress, which was something I complained about being missing from this course in my blog post
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
Of course, a couple days after I publish this blog post, they update the course:
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
And if you're curious about learning Mandarin Chinese on Duolingo, I recently finished the course! I wrote about it here: allenwarren.me/2025/04/22/d...
allenwarren.me
I just finished Duolingo’s Chinese course. What it does right — and wrong
While learning Mandarin Chinese on Duolingo isn’t perfect, the app gets users learning grammar, characters, and even slang, with more features being added all the time.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
I met Duo the owl earlier this month, and he told me you need to do your Chinese lesson.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
Is it /good/ we spent four years building 12 housing units in Pittsburgh? This a rate of building we're /proud/ of? www.wesa.fm/development-...
wesa.fm
Officials celebrate new affordable housing in the Hill District
Officials broke ground Tuesday on Herron Village Apartments, a development whose three buildings will house 12 affordable units and commercial space.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
The Nintendo Music app just published the soundtrack from the OG Legend of Zelda. Check out the Famicom’s version of the title track — the Famicom had additional audio voices, meaning that version of the song is a fuller version of the one North American fans are used to
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Reposted by Allen Warren
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
I had been doubtful that we were going to have a "this is the crisis moment" with Trump, as opposed to "everything about this is a destructive catastrophe." But the Abrego Garcia case is the crisis moment. 1/
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Reposted by Allen Warren
Claire Adida @claireadida.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
@gelliottmorris.com's chart of the week shows us that more Americans consider Signal-Gate a serious problem than considered Hillary's emails a serious problem.
Chart from YouGov surveys shows that 53% (21%) say Signal-gate is a very (somewhat) serious problem, compared in 41% (21%) in 2022 for Hillary's emails and 30% (26%) in 2015 for Hillary's emails.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
Also, why would Republicans want this? Don't they want the ability to be able to succeed a term-limited president? Is all their personal ambition going to remain circumspect to Trump's indefinite reign?
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
“A lot of people want me to do it” reminds me of Porfirio Díaz, who ruled Mexico for decades as a dictator, saying he ran and ran again claiming he was only doing so because the people wanted him to.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
No, there are not methods for running again. abcnews.go.com/Politics/liv...
abcnews.go.com
Trump won’t rule out running for a third term
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
And they were so worried about her emails.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
Visited some Civil War sites last weekend #poetry #bskypoetry #harpersferry #antietam
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
I’m literally on a PRT bus route right now (36 Banksville) that would face elimination
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
Yinz, write your state legislators — this is scary www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/n...
cbsnews.com
PRT proposes service cuts, fare increases due to lack of state funding
PRT has proposed a 35% service cut that will take effect in February of 2026.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
High-key surprised Jewels Sparkles didn’t call out Arrietty for stealing her jokes at any point during that episode… do I have respect for Jewels now? #dragrace
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
They’re not sending their brightest on this mission apnews.com/article/dei-...
apnews.com
War heroes and military firsts are among 26,000 images flagged for removal in Pentagon's DEI purge
References to a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan and women and minorites are among the tens of thousands of photos and online posts ma...
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
Is “prower” the male version of “prowess?”
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
Tl;dr, while on its face this executive order should not change much of American policy, it is indicative of the direction the current administration wants to take the American popular imagination, orienting it away from pluralistic, poly-cultural, and multi-lingual representative democracy.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
I’d argue, though, that the longer-term impact will be on furthering these othering projects, of creating a culture where English is meant to be understood as the *only* language of discourse. Arizona during the 90s is an extreme example of this impact www.nytimes.com/1998/04/29/u...
nytimes.com
Arizona Court Strikes Down Law Requiring English Use (Published 1998)
Arizona Supreme Court overturns 1988 law requiring state and local government business to be conducted in English; measure, approved by voters as amendment to state Constitution, has never been implem...
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
People will have a harder time accessing and interacting with the government. And that could have live-changing impacts — literally, this could cost people their lives if, for example, they’re not able to get language-specific info on the details of their Medicaid/Medicare policy
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
As the AP notes, this will have real effects on how government agencies & orgs will interact with the nation’s tens of millions of Spanish-speaking residents. The exec order will end a mandate requiring language assistance for non-English speakers from these groups.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
Compare this to the White House’s move today, which provides fodder for antagonism against those who don’t speak English. It is fueled by a conservative movement wanting to add legal definition to a fantasized version of America’s past, which has never been purely English speaking.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
These kinds of laws are set at opening up the ways residents who don’t speak English as their primary language can still interact with the government — in Puerto Rico’s case, because most people there speak Spanish, though elsewhere, this is mainly at righting colonial wrongs.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
Now most U.S. states & territories have set English as the official language (tellingly, mostly within the last half century), though a few also have other official languages: Hawaiian in Hawai’i, Spanish in Puerto Rico, and several Native Alaskan tongues in Alaska, for example.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
This has happened in Canada, France, Spain, Russia (as an empire onwards), Korea under Japanese rule, and many, many other places over time. Setting an official language gives the government a reason to dis-establish, disenfranchise, and dis(-)integrate those who don’t fit the majority.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
And honestly — while it makes sense in a multi-lingual nation to say, “We want to make sure most people here understand what the gov’t is doing, so we’re going to make these languages ‘official’” — across place and time, official language establishment has also meant to undermine minority tongues.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
(This is a simplification of the psychology that goes into this effort, but hey, this is a Bluesky post, innit?)
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
Establishing an official language, then, has the unspoken intent of silencing others. It’s a written, legal code that supporters can point to and say, “See? This is who we are. If you aren’t like us, you don’t belong here, and in fact, you should probably leave.”
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
What is the real root of this fear? It’s a sense of feeling other in the nation one has always lived in. This discomfort, which most English-speaking Americans never otherwise experience, prompts some to want to fight the supposed cultural threat to their established livelihoods.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
The form we typically see this today is as anti-Spanish fear-mongering. For decades, most new people coming to live in the U.S. have spoken Spanish, and for a myriad of reasons, efforts to establish English as the official language have been against a perceived threat from those who speak Spanish.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
This belief has taken many forms and been supported by a variety of groups, mostly during large waves of immigration or times of saber-rattling. This poster (via Mennonite Church archives) was issued during WWI, at the confluence of war abroad but also heavy immigration from Eastern Europe
A poster from 1918 that depicts an American flag and text saying, “We are Americans / Talk the American language in this place.”
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
The problem is, formal establishment has mostly been promoted by reactionary forces who are scared of non-English speakers. They believe they’re under threat. They are afraid this other language might supplant English in importance — even though that’s never really been a real threat.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
And that’s why, in a vacuum, establishing English as the official language would merely be the written observation of what’s already the case on the ground: People generally speak English in the U.S. They mostly interact with the government in English. Why not say it is the official language?
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
Which is to say, America has functioned with English as its understood official language for nearly 250 years. To establish it now would theoretically be a nothing burger. No one is proposing the U.S. stop printing laws in English or fire National Park rangers who speak English to visitors.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
English was imposed on slaves brought into the country and Natives already living here. Millions of immigrants for generations have operated under the assumption that they and their children need to learn English, if nothing else, then to interact with the English-speaking government.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
These officials were all English-speakers speaking to a voter base of English-speaking, landed men descended from other English speakers. It was already so established in the nation’s legal vocabulary by the 1780s that anyone immediately following must never have thought of a need to formalize it.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
It’s honestly a mystery to me why neither the Founders nor the admins following them in the 19th century ever chose to take up establishing English as the official language. Most likely? They found no need.
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
(There’s some legends about German being under consideration as an official language during the 1790s, but these seem both apocryphal + overblown) constitutioncenter.org/blog/april-f...
constitutioncenter.org
Did German almost become America’s official language in 1795?
For centuries, stories have persisted about Congress almost approving German as our official language, except for one vote by its German-speaking leader. So how close is that story to the truth?
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Allen Warren @allenwarren.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
English has been the de facto official language of the U.S. essentially from the nation’s founding — it was already the administrative language of the British colonies, absorbed without break into the legal tradition of the independent nation
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