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Brendan O’Connor

@grendan.bsky.social
2.4K followers 536 following 581 posts

freelance journalist, Blood Red Lines (Haymarket 2021), dissertating at CUNY geography, aprendendo PT-BR, fieldworkfc.substack.com

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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Before it was a commodity, before it was a means of displacement and a method of accumulation, before stadiums became sites of ritual human sacrifice and schoolyards the cradles of child labor, sport was a threat.
substack.com
Some Mischievous Design
Ireland and Revolutionary Sport from the GAA to the Green Brigade
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
last week, I gave a talk to the Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Society about the Irish tradition of revolutionary sport, nationalism and internationalism, and diasporic identities
substack.com
Some Mischievous Design
Ireland and Revolutionary Sport from the GAA to the Green Brigade
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
eyyyy I'm trying to build a $2 billion multi-sport conglomerate here
open.substack.com
Sunny With a Chance of Meatballs
Brooklyn FC had its biggest win of the season over the weekend, but Matt Rizzetta's ambitions remain elsewhere
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
“The tactical heart of soccer,” Richard Cleary writes, is “the contest to create and control space.” What might the experiments conducted in these "laboratories of spatial invention" tell us about spatial contests elsewhere?
fieldworkfc.substack.com
Laboratories of Spatial Invention, Fan Disorder, and the Sporting Commons
On Richard Cleary's "The Architecture of the Playing Field"
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
excited for this new project from one of the most interesting English-language publications going phenomenalworld.org/issue/issue-...
phenomenalworld.org
PW Issue 1: American Power
Thirteen essays and interviews on the foundations of American power and its expressions around the world.
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
I can’t believe someone with a master's degree in "truth" from New York University would do this www.wired.com/story/future...
wired.com
We Asked the ‘Future of Truth’ Author to Explain How He Used AI. It Didn’t Go Well
A book about how AI shapes perceptions of reality came under fire for using AI-generated quotes. Its problems go beyond that.
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
some thoughts prompted by a cool book open.substack.com/pub/fieldwor...
open.substack.com
Laboratories of Spatial Invention, Fan Disorder, and the Sporting Commons
On Richard Cleary's "The Architecture of the Playing Field"
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
still wanting for a definitive account of why gen AI's primary use case seems to be the materialization of the fascist dream world www.nytimes.com/2026/05/28/w...
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
“Get your fucking hands up before I shoot you!” an officer in Galveston shouted while pointing her gun at a 17-year-old she had cornered in a yard. The teen had run off campus after he was caught with a vape.
nytimes.com
Texas School Police Pepper-Sprayed, Tackled and Tasered Students
School officers across the state turned to heavy-handed tactics on children, often in response to minor misbehavior, our investigation shows.
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
the office laptop workers need to go back to the office so the coffee shop laptop workers don’t have to hear their meetings anymore
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
yes!
thebaffler.com
Beyond All Boundaries | Brendan O’Connor
The Enhanced Games, Aron D’Souza’s new multisport competition, embrace doping “to safely transition mankind to a new super-humanity.”
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Passion Pit's "Sleepyhead" is an insane omission
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
I feel nothing until Lange and Vinai's heads are on spikes
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
haven't read a piece this thoughtful in the Times in ages
nytimes.com
Opinion | A Cattle Ranch Is Doing What the Ivy League Can’t
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
horrifying article in at least three different ways www.wsj.com/lifestyle/ca...
wsj.com
The Tech Bros Are Going to Etiquette School
Founders who built their names on coding and hard-charging leadership are learning that in the AI era, soft skills matter more than ever.
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
can't knock the hustle
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
to whatever extent this is true, it is because people like Briahna Joy Gray and Sana Saeed are part of a class fraction of "left" content creators that is even more disconnected from actually existing movements of workers, the poor, and the oppressed than the organized left is.
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Reposted by Brendan O’Connor
Rich Raho @richraho.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
Pope decries the rise of AI-directed warfare, saying it leads to a spiral of annihilation. apnews.com/article/pope...
apnews.com
Pope decries the rise of AI-directed warfare, saying it leads to a spiral of annihilation
Pope Leo XIV has denounced investments in AI and high-tech weaponry, warning they lead to a “spiral of annihilation.”
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Reposted by Brendan O’Connor
Equator @equatormag.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
On 28 May, @equatormag.bsky.social will host a free online event featuring @newlefteviews.bsky.social and @mona-ali.bsky.social – about the fallout of the war in the Middle East and the end of American hegemony. Register here! equator.org/events/after...
equator.org
After America: Oil, War, and the New World Order • Events • EQUATOR
13 May 2026, Online, 2PM EST / 7PM BST
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
Really cool
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
I love googling "africa is a country" and getting a smarmy AI response from google that no, actually, africa is not a country. just give me the website!!!!
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
take the hearing aides anon
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
for those interested in land struggles and resisting the forces of organized abandonment: pitch in to help build the first meeting of the Internationalist Abolition School, to be hosted this summer by the MST
gofundme.com
Donate to Escola Internacionalista para a Abolição 2026 , organized by Amós Caldeira
Hi, this is the campaign to help us build the 2026 Internationalist Aboli… Amós Caldeira needs your support for Escola Internacionalista para a Abolição 2026
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
just a historical note that I never miss an opportunity to bring up, Taibbi infamously fought (and overruled) the Rolling Stone fact checkers who flagged that the vampire squid does not actually have a blood funnel with which to jab anything
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
looks like Jeremy Corbyn IS beating the allegations
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
"It’s not that soccer has no history in the United States, but that the history of soccer in the United States is the history of a social form constantly struggling to take root and constantly being uprooted." substack.com/home/post/p-...
substack.com
Silk City Sickos: Away In the Rain With Brooklyn FC
Match Notes 4/25/26: New York Cosmos 0 – 3 Brooklyn FC
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
I won the pulitzer prize for writing niche thinky blogs about lower league american soccer for my 45 closest friends #thankyou #blessed
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Reposted by Brendan O’Connor
Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 05/05/2026
While the world’s eyes are on fashion’s biggest night, we’re turning ours to the garment, retail, and warehouse workers who keep the industry running. From true love found on the picket line to a free tailoring school out of a Brooklyn basement — meet the New Yorkers who make it all possible.
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
reflections on my first away day, with Brooklyn FC, in the New Jersey rain
open.substack.com
Silk City Sickos: Away In the Rain With Brooklyn FC
Match Notes 4/25/26: New York Cosmos v Brooklyn FC
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
only in The Atlantic do you get such braindead ledes as "Has the president been reading Hegel? No. But imagine if he did?"
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
thinking about that Tyler the Creator tweet a lot these days
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
I remember when they were running these stories about millennials posting on twitter www.nytimes.com/2026/04/25/s...
nytimes.com
Make Way for the Investment Bank Influencers
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Reposted by Brendan O’Connor
Kylie Eleison @gonebabygone.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
Discussions of "violent rhetoric" are so annoying because nine times out of 10 it's just a plea to silo it where it belongs, like the president threatening to kill every single person in Iran
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
Do I need to know about “shoplifting discourse”
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
for one thing it'll take union leaders who don't collaborate with the bosses in spreading the technology that destabilizes teachers' and students' lives
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
Very healthy empire we’ve got here
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
as far as aging goes I'm fine with grays I just can't handle the three eyebrow hairs sticking out in every direction
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
what if, instead of making things better, we made them worse www.ft.com/content/3634...
ft.com
The coming global food crisis
Hunger and even famine are foreseeable consequences of the war on Iran. Now the world must act to shield the poorest from effects that will continue long after the fighting stops
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
smoke bombs and the emerging contradictions between club, stadium, and fans
fieldworkfc.substack.com
Match Notes 4/11/26: Scoring Goals, Popping Smoke
Brooklyn FC 3 - 0 Charleston Battery
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
well, Tottenham Hotspur have disappointed me once. now to tune into the New York Knickerbockers
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
What troubles me isn’t really ‘what happens if people don’t show up?’ so much as ‘what happens if they do?’
open.substack.com
World Cup 2026 Might Be a Disaster. But What If It Isn’t?
In spite of... everything
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
"MAGA Republicans want the Church’s opinion on abortion, but nothing else." you don't say
substack.com
JD Vance Twice Tells Pope Leo XIV to Stay Out of American Politics
A stunning reversal for a Republican Party that once raged at JFK for promising to keep his Catholicism out of the White House — eight weeks before Vance publishes a book on his Catholic conversion.
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
I have an announcement
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
might be something to do with the pedophilia and rape
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Reposted by Brendan O’Connor
Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
an initial attempt at understanding the ownership group behind Brooklyn Football Club, featuring Kelly Ripa, "Chicken Finger sensation" Raising Cane's, and Antonio Gramsci
fieldworkfc.substack.com
Who owns Brooklyn Football Club?
A multi-club, multi-sport ownership group extending from Quebec to Naples
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
I love to read a good magazine story www.curbed.com/article/dogs...
curbed.com
Where Does a Dog Belong?
Tensions between canine lovers and other New Yorkers are boiling over.
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
an initial attempt at understanding the ownership group behind Brooklyn Football Club, featuring Kelly Ripa, "Chicken Finger sensation" Raising Cane's, and Antonio Gramsci
fieldworkfc.substack.com
Who owns Brooklyn Football Club?
A multi-club, multi-sport ownership group extending from Quebec to Naples
021
Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
have been distracting myself from The Situation in the Middle East with this preliminary investigation into who owns Brooklyn Football Club: little did I know, BKFC is part of a multi-club, multi-sport ownership group stretching from Quebec to Naples
open.substack.com
Who Owns Brooklyn Football Club?
Notes Towards an Investigation
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
very exciting hell yeah
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Brendan O’Connor @grendan.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
"Hormuz does not yet signal the end of this hydrocarbon dollar complex, which has always been a combustible mix of power and volatility. But it does reveal the structural changes that would be needed for a hegemonic transition."
equator.org
The Reckoning • EQUATOR
Hormuz and the end of American hegemony
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