iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

alex @nonmodernist.com · 04/08/2026

i decided to build a dashboard to help me understand and research the land use history of some of ICE's biggest detention centers. prototype shown here. more coming soon.

a map of 78 ICE facilities across the US, color coded by contract type and sized based on average daily population

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 24/07/2026

archived version of the article is here, and it's still live on the pm site web.archive.org/web/20250711...

screenshot of the post millennial story about prairieland showing andy ngo's byline and a july 10, 2025 publish date

screenshot of the post millennial story by andy ngo from july 10, 2025 showing that it uses the phrase "north texas antifa cell"

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 21/07/2026

i haven’t taught luis but the community scholars program brings in our best, and ice is stealing them from us www.gofundme.com/f/support-lu...

Who Luis Is:
Those who know Luis describe him as genuine, hardworking, selfless, honest, dependable and humble.
Luis was Sam Houston High School' Class of '24's Valedictorian. Involved in cross country and AVID at Sam Houston HS, he earned multiple scholarships to attend TCU. He is pursuing a double major in Accounting and Business Information Systems at TCU with hopes of one day giving back to his family and community through his education.
At TCU, he joined Lamoda Theta Phi Latin Fraternity Inc in Spring 2025, and has served as Chapter Treasurer bringing a consistent, active presence in service to his community. He is known for mentoring and encouraging others to pursue their goals, always putting others first without asking for recognition in return and especially in promoting higher education among Latino youth.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 05/07/2026

okay im so sorry atlanta fam, i truly did not realize that not only is this 5 year old land swap issue still contentious but also ryan millsap is RUNNING FOR CONGRESS in GA-10 as a MAGA WARRIOR who will stand up to ANTIFA???? i am screaming

Not your typical politician
Meet Ryan Millsap

Ryan Millsap isn’t a career politician. Like President Trump, he’s a builder, a businessman, and a battle-tested outsider who has created thousands of jobs, strengthened communities, and stood up for what’s right when it mattered most. As a film studio executive and entrepreneur, Ryan helped fuel Georgia’s booming film industry — investing in people, creating opportunity, and proving what’s possible when the government gets out of the way.

When radical left activists — including ANTIFA — targeted his property and attempted to destroy everything he built, Ryan didn’t back down. He stood his ground, defended his rights, and exposed just how far the radical left is willing to go to silence and intimidate those who disagree with them. That moment didn’t just impact his business — it opened his eyes to the broader fight facing every American who believes in law, order, and freedom.

Washington insiders have failed Georgia’s families long enough. From weak leadership to endless political games, career politicians have put their interests ahead of the people they’re supposed to serve.

Ryan Millsap is stepping up as a political outsider and a proud MAGA warrior to smash the status quo and fight back against the radical left and the RINOs who have lost their way. He’s running to defend the Constitution, protect American families, restore common sense, and stand with President Trump to put America — and Georgia’s 10th Congressional District — first.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 26/06/2026

back on my bullshit (tracing the history of the land underneath a prison)

a historical map of alvarado texas with a modern map laid over it, showing who owned the land in the 1850s

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 26/06/2026

this is an average demonstration/counterprotest for antifascists in dfw (from www.salon.com/2022/06/09/e...) cw for slurs and threats

Doyle jeered at counterprotesting students by asking, "What is wrong with Christian fascism?" and saying, "I am radicalizing the youth and you can do nothing about it." In another video from that event, Doyle taunts his foes by saying, "You guys better improve your tone because when we and all my friends take power, bad things are going to happen to you."
Last Saturday in Dallas, Doyle used his megaphone to call counterprotesters and attendees "faggot" and shouted at parents with young children, "Why do you want to put an axe-wound between your son's legs?" and
"You people are the symptom of a dying society." In an interview with Frausun, he said that "being gay is the issue" his group was there to protest and that "Sexually deviant people create more sexually deviant people by getting together and grooming children. That's the only way."
In another video captured by local activists, Doyle suggests that Texas sheriffs should enter Mr. Misster "and put bullets in all their heads. They'd be rewarded for it. That's what the badge is for."

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 25/06/2026

one thing i try to convey in this story is that the specific loose association of friends and acquaintances now sentenced to 30-100 years in prison were being targeted and harassed by the state for YEARS before the july 4 noise demo at prairieland.

I should tell you that my husband doesn’t want me to write this story. Not because he thinks it doesn’t matter, but because he fears it matters too much, to the wrong people, in the wrong way.

He has reasons. Two years ago I was doxxed for the first time, while I sat with Liz, Ines, and Savanna on the sixth floor of a Fort Worth courthouse taking notes on the felony trial of an antifascist. The person who set the dox in motion was a self-described "Christian fascist" who has spent years building bridges between elected Republicans and men in swastikas, and who has learned that the surest way to make both groups pay attention is to point at a crowd of queer people and the people defending them and say the word antifa.

The arrests that led to that trial happened at a drag brunch in Fort Worth on April 23, 2023, six days before I sat in that community center eating popcorn and writing letters with Ines, Liz, and Savanna. That afternoon, three antifascists were shoved to the ground and arrested while a far-right reporter circled with a camera on a stick, ready to feed footage, charging documents, names and addresses, to a network of extremists who coordinate harassment campaigns. A Christian-nationalist group later sued some of the people who'd shown up to defend the drag show. In the days before the brunch, an anonymous account had asked the Tarrant County district attorney to investigate an "antifa militia" supposedly planning to descend on it.

At least two of the people caught in that invented emergency—one arrested at Fort Brewery, one named in the lawsuit—have been arrested in connection with the events at Prairieland. The conspiracy theory workshopped by a handful of local extremists to get a drag show shut down has now been adopted wholesale by the federal government.

They had been arrested in July, immediately after the noise demo. But no federal terrorism case against them existed yet. The federal indictments for terrorism didn't come until October and November, after the executive order and the national security memorandum. The government drew the category knowing they already had people to put inside it.

And so a fiction that once lived in a right-wing conspiracist's Twitter reply now lives in a federal sentencing memorandum. It is why people I know, and care about, may grow old in prison.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 25/06/2026

we know the name of one possible detainee witness to the fireworks demo: leqaa kordia, palestinian woman detained for over a year while the government tried to make a case that sending money to her relatives in gaza was “material support for terrorism” (from hotel-florida.ghost.io/the-seeds-of...)

On July 4, 2025, a group of people gathered in the dark outside the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, and set off fireworks—a noise demonstration meant to carry to the people locked inside. That summer no, less than six months into the second Trump presidency, ICE was detaining people faster than it could house them; Prairieland, built for around five hundred, was running well over capacity. Among the people locked inside that night was Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman from New Jersey who had been arrested at a 2024 Columbia protest against the war in Gaza and then, a year later, detained over an expired student visa—what her lawyers called retaliation for her activism. The government had also accused her of providing "material support" to a terrorist group, pointing to money she'd sent to relatives in Gaza; an immigration judge found no evidence of it. She had been at Prairieland since March, sleeping on the floor of an overcrowded room because there weren't enough beds. She was still there on the Fourth of July-one of the people the noise was meant to reach.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 24/06/2026

i wish more of the reporting on the prairieland trial/sentencing would give the context of the july 4 noise demo—like who was inside prairieland detention center and why. i tried to include a little in my story, but i was working quickly so it's just a sketch. hotel-florida.ghost.io/the-seeds-of...

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 26/12/2025

blocking this 🐈 so he can become a cushion !

A needlepoint canvas showing a cat wearing an Elizabethan ruff, on a background of radiating green and pink stripes

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 26/11/2025

soon this will be a cat

A needlepoint canvas with a few scattered stitches on it

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 06/11/2025

im now at the “receiving mean emails” phase of having published this article about being harassed by extremists

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 18/10/2025

left: UT, a public uni subject to the whims of the state; right: TCU, a private uni where they restructure our departments unilaterally on a friday afternoon

theguardian.com
目
University of Texas at Austin faculty fear changes from new taskforce that could restructure humanities programs
Alice Speri
Fri 17 Oct 2025 14.44 EDT
< Share
Faculty at the University of Texas at Austin fear entire academic departments may be on the chopping block after the university quietly appointed a committee charged with studying the restructuring of its liberal arts programs.
The university - the largest in the public University of Texas system - has not made any announcements about cuts or restructuring, but faculty there have learned the committee was established earlier this semester and tasked with a review that they believe is focused on ethnic and regional disciplines such as African and African diaspora studies, Mexican American and Latina/o studies, as well as women's and gender studies.

Department Restructuring
• Inbox
WF
Hiner, Teresa
On behalf of Wormley, Floyd To Wormley, Floyd, Watson, Sonja, +1
Yesterday
...
Dear English Department,
I wanted to inform you of recent structural changes taking place within the AddRan College of Liberal Arts. To fulfill our obligation to ensure institutional fiscal sustainability, and to ensure a more efficient and effective use of faculty and
administrative resources, the Departments Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies, Women and Gender Studies and English will merge, effective June 1, 2026. This is, in

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 19/09/2025

meanwhile 1.5 MILLION BIRDS migrated over gwinnett county, ga, last night dashboard.birdcast.info/region/US-GA...

website screenshot. 1,525,000 birds crossed gwinnett county last night (est.)

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 17/09/2025

happy wednesday to this queen only

a small american alligator wearing a dragonfly on its head

the same alligator from a different angle

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 13/09/2025

i hope your day is going better than this brown thrasher's

a brown thrasher in a tree looking like "holy shit what the fuck"

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 05/09/2025

[vanessa carleton plays in the distance]

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 01/09/2025

im obsessed with this dr. seuss ass butterfly

a butterfly with a long snout like an anteater.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 27/08/2025

the novel was also notable for being the first anti-nazi purchase by hollywood after some senators accused the film industry of trying to force the u.s. into wwii (according to the film daily on october 1, 1941) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_...

"Above Suspicion" Acquired by Metro "Above Suspicion," Helen MacInnes novel, currently fourth on the "best seller" list, has been acquired for screening by Metro, it was learned yesterday. It's the first anti-Nazi purchase by Hollywood since the storm raised by charges of film war propaganda preferred by Senate isolationists.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 27/08/2025

macinnes's novel seems to have been somewhat autobiographical, in that her husband was an MI6 agent and classics scholar. the novel also got the classic "women running from houses" gothic cover treatment from dell at some point...

a book cover depicting a menaced woman running from a house.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 27/08/2025

one more mhdl find before i take a break: delmar wrote "pretty sadie mckee" specifically for crawford, at least according to this july 1932 issue of new movie magazine #tcmparty

vina delmar and joan crawford pictured together, with a caption about a story delmar was writing for crawford.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 27/08/2025

the los angeles branch of the american association of university women did NOT care for the film, but several new york reviewers praised the two things that stand out beyond joan crawford: the directing and edward arnold's incredible performance #tcmparty

SADIE McKEE » » Joan Crawford, Gene Raymond, Franchot Tone. From the story by Vina Delmar. Direction by Clarence Brown. M-G-M. It is generally conceded that Joan Crawford has ability and that she appeals to many audiences. She is, however, rarely given a story which is not so preposterous and cheaply melodramatic that it is offensive. As Sadie McKee, daughter of a cook, she elopes, is left stranded, marries a debauched millionaire, divorces him for another man and of course, reaches her heights through the usual, “easy” path of cabaret dancer. There is no character development and no moral intended. It offends the intelligence and bores emotionally. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 12 Very objectionable No

Mirror: Joan Crawford gives two admirable performances in this handsome and highly entertaining film. She performs brilliantly as an actress and just as brilliantly as a sport in permitting Edward Arnold to steal her film. Arnold plays one of the finest character roles ever exhibited on the screen.

Post: Though it would be accurate to say that the plot is the heartiest kind of tripe, the same cannot be said of the picture, for the good reason that Edward Arnold's performance is a brilliant piece of redemption. It is not only one of the best drunk characterizations we have ever seen, but Mr. Arnold's presence together with that of Jean Dixon supply the only genuine acting contributions to the picture.

News: "Sadie McKee" is not a pretty picture, but it is a singularly truthful transcription of a novel to the screen. Clarence Brown has taken off his kid gloves for the Vina Delmar story and has given us a bare-knuckle, two-fisted screen version of it. The unpleasant, but nevertheless interesting group of characters emerges on the screen just as Miss Delmar created them.

Herald-Tribune: In a series of panels printed by Clarence Brown with bold sweeping strokes, the story of "Sadie McKee" comes to life on the screen as a fascinating study of one woman's life. That the film is, in its writing and treatment, a lurid canvas cannot be denied; nor is its melodrama typical, yet certain of the characters ring so true that the false ending may be discounted.

Journal: "Sadie McKee" was expertly tailored for its star, Joan Crawford. With a story by Vina Delmar that brings in a bit of "Bad Girl," a bit of "Dancing Lady" and an ending that gives the glamorous Miss Crawford every opportunity to be glamorous, the picture will undoubtedly delight Crawford fans.

World-Telegram: It is a quite standardized plot, but it is extremely well worked out and capitally played by its entire cast, so that it results in a thoroughly effective and entertaining melodrama. Miss Crawford plays Sadi…

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 27/08/2025

good morning #tcmparty! i got a bit of a late start on the joan crawford marathon, but i'm catching up on SADIE McKEE (1934), adapted from viña delmar's "pretty sadie mckee." the story was serialized in liberty magazine in 12 parts, starting in june 1933

cover of liberty magazine, june 24, 1933, showing a fisherman and a girl painter standing on a beach.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 27/08/2025

does anybody know the term for this era/style of paperback art?

a paperback book cover with a bizarre collage style painting of a giant bird floating above a man's head, a woman's head, and a house. there's a rowboat in the foreground too.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 25/08/2025

Alexander and her painter husband were part of the artists colony in Woodstock, NY. She had her portrait painted by George Bellows in 1924. Maybe the experience inspired her story?

Portrait of Elizabeth Alexander by George Bellows, 1924.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 25/08/2025

PS Alexander was herself married to a portrait painter, though he had the far less godly name of Norbert Heermann. I wonder if he blushed a lot?

"Adelaide stared at the big athletic boy in frank amazement..." Romance writing circa 1926.

Norbert Heermann, Elizabeth Alexander's husband.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 25/08/2025

In the film, Jason Robards plays Thorvald Ware. Exact same name. He's not exactly who I would cast as a big hunky Viking... but it's absolutely proof that TRIAL MARRIAGE is based on Elizabeth Alexander's story.

Jason Robards in 1927, looking decidedly not like a Norse god.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 25/08/2025

There's a character named Constance Bannester in the story, and one named Constance Bannister in the film. That's pretty firm proof that the film is an adaptation of the story. Oh, and then there's Thorvald Ware. Described as a big, blond Viking who blushes when women talk to him.

Introduction of the character Thorvald Ware.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 25/08/2025

At first I thought, maybe they took Alexander's title, threw out the rest of the story, and had Soyna Levien start from scratch. But then I started reading the story as it appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in 1926... archive.org/details/sim_...

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 25/08/2025

But when the film TRIAL MARRIAGE came out in 1929, only screenwriter Sonya Levien got credit—for both story and screenplay. What happened to Elizabeth Alexander?

lobby card advertising the film "trial marriage."

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 25/08/2025

In 1928, Columbia Pictures ran ads boasting they'd bought "Trial Marriage," a Saturday Evening Post serial by Elizabeth Alexander, for their new sound films program.

Columbia has always given yon sound values in its silent productions. You'll get even greater values in Columbu Sound Pictures. Our choice of the Western Electric recording and reproducing system (the same as that now being used by Vitaphone and Movietone) is a guarantee of sound quality in Columbia Sound Pictures. Through our foresight in providing sound box-office vehicles for our "Perfect 36," we now possess a number of outstanding stage plays and stories which are admirably suited for reproduction as sound pictures. Among the plays that we are now carefully considering for this purpose are "The Donovan Affair" by Owen Davis; "The Younger Generation," from the play "It Is to Laugh," by Fannie Hurst; "The Fall of Eve," by John Emerson and Anita Loos; "Redemption," by Count Leo Tolstoy. Among the stories on the current season's program available for production as sound pictures are "Acquitted," by Mary Roberts Rinehart, and "Trial Marriage," the Saturday Evening Post serial story by Elizabeth Alexander. Theatre-owners can rest assured that when Columbia finally decides to put a vehicle into production as a sound picture, it will have all the necessary values and qualities to make it a superlative box-office attraction.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 22/08/2025

I've been building a database documenting how ~500 American women writers shaped Hollywood from 1910-1963. The site just soft-launched with about 1130 films & some initial data analysis Read more about Pickford's strategic use of women's literature: herhollywoodstory.com/patterns/mary-pickford.html

a film still included in the book shows pickford and her hunky male lead, next to a page from the novel about her character getting kissed.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 22/08/2025

Fun detail: The book advertises other Grosset & Dunlap titles including "Tess of the Storm Country" - also starring Pickford! These editions created feedback loops between her films & their sources.

a page of ads from the book, promoting books written by grace miller white, one of which also mentions mary pickford.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 22/08/2025

There are at least 2 versions of this edition. An earlier printing has stunning photo endpapers (babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hv...). Mine's the later version without them, but otherwise identical. The fact they did multiple printings shows how well these sold!

photo endpapers from a scan of the book. mary pickford is attempting to stop a man from shooting another man in this still image from the film.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 22/08/2025

Inside: 6 production stills (including 2 double-spreads) are tipped into the text at dramatic moments. Pickford appears in every single image and is even given billing on the title page alongside the author, Anna Alice Chapin.

frontispiece and title page of the book. mary pickford's role in the silent film is heavily emphasized.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 22/08/2025

trying out something new— #PhotoplayFriday —to share the wild early 20th century movie tie-in books i've been collecting. first up: The Eagle's Mate (Grosset & Dunlap, circa 1914): The publisher's first deluxe movie tie-in, establishing the template for silent era photoplay editions. 🧵

the outer dust jacket of a book from 1914, showing mary pickford in character on the front and the back.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 06/08/2025

i found a new favorite pre-code film poster

film poster for "the sin of nora moran." black background. in the center an illustration of a white woman with blond hair kneels/crouches. she is wearing an absolutely transparent scrap of fabric that clings to her curves but obscures her nipples, somehow, magically. it is a truly stunning and very horny work of art.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 18/07/2025

making progress on the database site

screenshot of "Her Hollywood Story", a research database in development. This is the page for the Twenty-Timers Club - 5 American women who had 20+ films adapted from their novels and short stories

The Twenty-Timer Timeline, a gantt-style chart showing the long span of the authors being adapted.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 18/07/2025

why tf do the democrats think they can speak to me like this

Text Message • SMS
Today 8:03 PM
not mad, just disappointed. I'll ask one LAST time before the House votes tonight:
Sign the petition to OPPOSE defunding NPR: dems-whowin.org/l/BB5nfG
End2End

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 16/07/2025

“the writer” is the kid who launched a harassment campaign against me last year, including getting high-ranking city and county officials to call for my firing. he sucks and i put it in the newspaper that electeds should not engage with him 🤷🏻‍♀️

Later today, a Dallas publication then incorrectly reported that the City

Manager has made a decision on who will be the next police chief for Fort

Worth and named a candidate as the new police chief. This is a fabrication,

and after multiple attempts of asking the publication to correct its article,
the writer has refused.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 16/07/2025

🎬📚 I've reached the letter S in my data entry marathon for the "Adapted from American Women" project! To celebrate: feast your eyes on this gorgeous photoplay edition of Harriet Beecher Stowe's "The Pearl of Orr's Island" - complete with romantic cover art and film stills!

outer dustjacket showing an illustration of a boy on one knee proposing to a girl who is resting in a chair

frontispiece and title page of the book, showing a still from the lost 1925 film version of the novel.

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 15/07/2025

i don’t just mean “gosh that sounds nazi-adjacent”. i mean that the style, tone, aesthetics, and rhetoric are identical. here’s 3 examples: patriot front, fascist blackshirts, and christian nationalist new columbia movement

screenshot of a patriot front telegram thread showing American fine art and neo-Nazis rallying

screenshot of a blackshirts telegram thread showing quotes about fascism and an engraving of a ship with an apocryphal socrates quote

screenshot of a Christian nationalist telegram thread showing neo-classical fine art and far-right anti-immigration talking points

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 14/07/2025

here are three things you can do right now to support the prairieland anti-ice protesters: 1. phone zap!! call judge boedeker and let him know that it's not okay to abuse and coerce those in custody

monday july 14
phone zap
horrific abuse of prairieland defendants at johnson county jail

we've received reports that the johnson county jail is mistreating and abusing the prairieland defendants and refusing to follow their constitutional rights.
the defendants have been denied access to public defenders, medicine, visits and calls by loved ones, vegetarian/vegan food and appropriate placement based on their sex. they are being held in solitary confinement including medical cells and punished for exercising their constitutional rights.
this is unacceptable.

call and email
johnson county judge boedeker
(817) 556-6360
judgeboedeker@johnsoncountytx.org
what to say:
"hello. my name is (insert a name). i am calling in response to the violation of the prairieland defendants' constitutional rights. their treatment is unacceptable. the prairieland defendants have a right to counsel, to remain silent, to a speedy trial, and to not be abused or coerced. people across the united states are watching how johnson county is handling this case."

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 11/07/2025

if you know anyone who has been arrested & is still in jail, a really easy thing you can do to support them is add money to their commissary fund. most jails have info on their website about how to do it. stuff in jail is expensive so this is a really caring thing to do!!

screenshot of a website for putting money on inmates' commissary funds

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alex @nonmodernist.com · 10/07/2025

since last night, the fundraiser for the anti-ice arrestees in texas has has collected almost $4k, surpassing the halfway mark. please donate and share !

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