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Sid

@sidlarsson.bsky.social
37 followers 48 following 44 posts

Just a writer in the woods 💘

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Reposted by Sid
Alex Ip 葉清霖 @alexip718.com · 05/10/2026
All prisoners should have the right to vote while in prison
Norman Rockwell's Freedom of Speech
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Jenny Holzer @jennyholzer.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
IF YOU HAVE MANY DESIRES YOUR LIFE WILL BE INTERESTING
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 03/10/2026
whoever my photographer is, he sometimes liked to get a little artsy, as in this photo.
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
There is a moment at the very very end of Abdul El-Sayed's podcast with Ezra Klein (book recommendation section) where he talks about the idea of "speaking truth to pain" and this will be staying with me for an extremely long time. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/o...
But there’s also something about truth to pain. We talk a lot about truth to power, but I think it’s actually a lot harder to speak truth to pain. I say that as someone who went to medical school, realizing that in a lot of our politics right now, we’ve got to get a lot better at speaking truth to pain if we’re going to get through some of these challenges that we have.

What does “truth to pain” mean?

It’s one thing to look power in the eye and say: You’re wrong about this. But there’s a way in which pain is very difficult to reason with. Because when somebody is in their pain, they’re in their trauma. They see that pain, and they may not see what’s causing it.

I remember just very explicitly being in a trauma ward with a gunshot wound patient and watching this big guy with his hand on his gunshot wound. All the folks are trying to pull his hand off his pain, that point of his gunshot wound, this clear vulnerability.

And this emergency room doctor had the presence of mind to be like: Everyone, stop. And she looks him in the eyes, and she’s like: I get that really hurts, and I’m so sorry that you’re here. You don’t want to be here. We don’t want you to be here. But if you don’t let us fix this, you could die. So I’m going to take your hand, and I’m going to move it off, OK? Because I need to get there so that you can live.

She was speaking truth to pain. He understands he’s at the hospital, he needs care, but he also doesn’t want anybody to touch the wound. Which is a natural thing. And I think it is a really great metaphor for how we think about a lot of these challenges we talked about today.
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Elias Eells- Bar Cart Bookshelf @eliaseells.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
One could argue that as the most widely read genre, romance is most deserving of care and attention, a refusal to concede to bland extruded text from the Average Intelligence machine. The potential to reach the greatest number of readers with your art, with your intellect, can be through romance.
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
They quoted me in this New Yorker piece about AI today. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
“Let’s say there’s a world or time line I exist in where A.I. has been subject to regulation. It is ethical. It has no footprint environmentally,” the novelist Jeff VanderMeer, a prominent critic of A.I., told me over the phone. “With those guardrails in place, would I read an A.I. book? All I can say is no. And the reason is, in part, because I want to read something coming from a particular mind.” Using A.I., he said, “feels like a betrayal of the whole point of why you’re a writer.”
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FT @fucktheory.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
In 2013, the Daily Princetonian revealed that in 2008, Princeton University had paid to conduct a survey of students about sexual assault - then buried the results when *one in six* female undergrads reported unwanted vaginal penetration within the past year. That’s just under 17%.
dailyprincetonian.com
Survey quantifies sexual assault
More than 15 percent of female undergraduates reported experiencing non-consensual vaginal penetration during their time at the University, according to an unpublished survey conducted in 2008 by seve...
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
It's really really difficult to see what's happening to you from inside your own life. You can't tell that you're being coarsened until you leave an environment that is key to making you more coarse. That's my experience at least.
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
For those not in NYC or who cannot attend, you can find the full list of exhibitors here: nyabf2026.printedmatterartbookfairs.org/exhibitors-1 - if you click on the names you can find their websites/social media. It's a great way to discover new publishers from across the world.
nyabf2026.printedmatterartbookfairs.org
Exhibitors — NYABF 2026
cargo.site
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Jenny Holzer @jennyholzer.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
DEVIANTS ARE SACRIFICED TO INCREASE GROUP SOLIDARITY
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Soraya Nadia McDonald @soraya.press · 22/09/2026
Culture is statecraft!
theguardian.com
‘An embodiment of white fears’: how zombies went from Haitian spiritual tradition to Hollywood monsters
Maya Annik Bedward’s fascinating new documentary goes beyond reductive imagery to place the zombie and vodou in their true historical context
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
www.theguardian.com/news/2026/se...
theguardian.com
Nearly 4m records of enslaved people in 20 former British colonies now searchable online
Exclusive: Collection’s 300,000 pages record lives of enslaved people in countries including the Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, Mauritius, South Africa and Trinidad
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dusty dirty @upfromsumdirt.blacksky.app · 18/09/2026
keith haring, grace jones, fela kuti, and jean-michel basquiat photographed by andy warhol. at mr. chow, nyc (june 1986)
a white man, a jamaican woman, an african man, and a black man walk into a restaurant....
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Andy Diggle @andydiggle.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Hallucinating AI "almost started a war" by FALSELY claiming China was smuggling nuclear materials. "The US military swung into action with plans to intercept the vessel... Military planes were in the air"
edition.cnn.com
Exclusive: US military had close call after using AI for false intelligence report, sources say | CNN Politics
The episode shows the risks of using this new, relatively poorly understood technology in the middle of the Iran war
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Rex Huppke @rexhuppke.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
At the end of the day, beyond the hatefulness, he's really just a spectacularly dumb guy. Like I'm not sure he's achieved object permanence yet. He has to be reminded which hole the food goes in. His internal monologue is the sound of one hand clapping. He calls electrical sockets "finger zappers."
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 18/09/2026
"Students are using it for everything, including cheating, and a recent report out of M.I.T. said it is triggering 'cognitive surrender.' Many university leaders are embracing A.I. with enthusiasm anyway." 🫠
nytimes.com
An M.I.T. Report Warns A.I. Is Causing ‘Cognitive Surrender.’ Universities Are in a Bind.
As A.I. upends education, university leaders have been all over the map about how to respond. It can be very confusing for students.
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Abigail Larson @abigaillarson.com · 15/09/2026
A cruel love, strange love 🩸
Illustration from "Carmilla" depicting the vampire Carmilla caressing Laura while she sleeps fitfully. There are large windows in the background with dark red drapery.
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Some of you on here simply never know who you should ACTUALLY be mad at and instead spend your time punching down. You should ALWAYS punch up but some of you seem afraid to do so.
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Individual trans people NEVER have to shut up and accept disrespect. Never. The people who need to shut up and stop disrespecting trans people are the POWERFUL and these include fucking elected officials. GET IT STRAIGHT IN YOUR MINDS.
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Anyway, pick your lane and fight like hell where you are.
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 13/09/2026
I should be inured to it by now but stories like this continue to just fucking infuriate me. The people in our society with the most wealth, the most social & institutional capital, were the *weakest* in the face of Trump's authoritarianism. Utterly cowardly and contemptible.
nybooks.com
The Dartmouth Exception | Jacob Weisberg
Among its peers in the Ivy League, Dartmouth was perfectly positioned to resist Trump’s attack on higher education. It chose not to.
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FT @fucktheory.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Also: gay
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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
“The United States now has the largest gap in reading performance between its lowest and highest-achieving students of any of the dozens of countries that participated in PISA.”
edweek.org
Reading Ability Craters on PISA International Exam, Both in the United States and Abroad
The U.S. outperformed most countries in reading and science, but the results show a global phenomenon of poorer readers.
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 08/09/2026
"Undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022. ... In a large majority of states (40), undocumented immigrants pay higher state and local tax rates than the top 1 percent of households living within their borders."
itep.org
Tax Payments by Undocumented Immigrants
Undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022. Providing access to work authorization for undocumented immigrants would increase their tax contributions both be...
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 06/09/2026
Always worth re-reading:
democracyjournal.org
Politicians Think Voters Are More Conservative than They Really Are
Legislators usually believe their constituents are more conservative than they actually are. Pick an American state legislator at random, and chances are that he or she will have massive misperception...
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Jenny Holzer @jennyholzer.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
IT IS HEROIC TO TRY TO STOP TIME
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jj skolnik @supremenothing.myatproto.social · 02/09/2026
wrote about dolly’s consistent support for queer and trans people for the last four decades (both publicly and privately)
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Rebecca Brückmann @historleans.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
“I came to this country to pursue my education. I didn’t come here to commit a crime or hurt anyone. Yet now I’m walking through the streets with a GPS monitor on my leg, carrying a feeling of shame and humiliation that I never imagined I would experience.” www.springfieldnewssun.com/local/spring...
springfieldnewssun.com
Springfield Haitian student takes his own life after being fitted with ICE ankle monitor, advocates say
A 20-year-old Wright State student took his own life on Interstate 70 out of anguish over a required ICE ankle monitor, according to local community advocates.
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Paul @pawlbologna.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
It's actually very easy. Markey supports Medicare for All. Moulton opposes a single payer healthcare system. Markey doesn't trade stocks. Moulton made millions on private equity defense industry stocks. Markey supports the rights and dignity of transgender people. Moulton does not.
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FT @fucktheory.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Basement, one of the world’s best nightclubs and one of New York’s most influential venues, has announced a zero-tolerance policy for smart glasses. Try to bring them in and you’re banned for life.
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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Update your priors, when you see "Johns Hopkins" you shouldn't think "good school" or "medical research," you should think "hedge fund that lives off taxpayer money and drops its claimed standards to collaborate with fascists" because that's what the school decided to make itself.
chronicle.com
Conservative Scholars Are Rare. Johns Hopkins Wants More of Them.
Ronald J. Daniels says the ideological imbalance is bad for the academy and for the country.
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TarZangief @tarzangief.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
"Neutral in the culture war"
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FT @fucktheory.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Imagine being talented and beautiful and rich and famous and still the most noteworthy thing about you is how good a person you are.
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Bill McKibben @billmckibben.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Mamdani is succeeding in part by projecting joy Ossoff is succeeding in part by projecting steely ferocity We’re in a moment when attitude is nearly as powerful as ideology, because we all need courage. And these are two ways of summoning it
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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Americans are socializing less across the board, but especially on Friday nights. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
This study examines how Americans’ time with friends has changed over the week, focusing not on how much social interaction has declined but on when it has. Using American Time Use Survey data from 2003 to 2024 (N = 243,095), I map hourly patterns of “friend time” across the days of the week. In the early 2000s, social life followed a clear weekly rhythm: Modest weekday interaction built toward pronounced peaks on Friday and Saturday nights. Since the mid-2010s, that rhythm has collapsed. Friday night, once a central site of social activity, now looks like a typical weeknight. Saturday remains elevated but less so than before. Overall, time with friends has fallen by more than half. The mix of social activities, however, has remained stable. Americans have not replaced one form of interaction with another; they have reduced social interaction across the board. These findings point to a temporal reorganization of social life marked by the disappearance of the “night out.”
When Americans are with their friends
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Vicky ACAB @vickyacab.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Goddammit I'm so fucking mad at people giving up on our movements in the face of total fascism and convincing themselves they're doing it because they're wise, reasonable people with better perspective
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Ohio Capital Journal @ohiocapitaljournal.com · 14/08/2026
Haitians living in Springfield, Ohio are being required to wear ankle monitors and turn their passports over to United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ohiocapitaljournal.com/2026/08/14/h...
ohiocapitaljournal.com
Haitians in Springfield are required to report to Ohio's ICE offices and wear ankle monitors • Ohio Capital Journal
Haitians living in Springfield, Ohio are being required to wear ankle monitors and turn their passports over to United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
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FT @fucktheory.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Ethics is not about figuring out what you should do, it’s about living with what you have to do
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molly conger @socialistdogmom.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
authors who put a single endnote at the end of a long paragraph and then cite half a dozen different books without any indication of which factual assertions came from which sources are actually going straight to hell, I'm so sorry to be the one to tell you!!!!
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Maris Kreizman @maris.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
But our industry is "dying" www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...
publishersweekly.com
Publishing Sales Hit $32.5 Billion in 2025
Total estimated industry sales rose 2.5% over 2024, according to the year-end report from the AAP, and the number of books sold inched up 0.4%, to 3.15 billion units.
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Ana Marie Cox @anamariecox.com · 07/08/2026
"Women accounted for 100 percent of the decline in the labor force in July, according to a National Women’s Law Center analysis of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s latest dismal jobs report. Overall, the economy lost 23,000 jobs in July: Women lost 32,000 jobs, while men gained 9,000."
newrepublic.com
Trump’s Terrible July Jobs Numbers Only Hurt Women
And the number of women who have left the workforce since January is more than double the number of men.
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Haitian Bridge Alliance @haitianbridge.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Judge Reyes has issued her conforming order, officially ending Temporary Protected Status for Haiti. As of August 5, 2026, TPS protections for Haitian nationals are no longer in effect.
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✨Kirm✨ @antonballdeluxe.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Given all of the recent genAI discussion, I wish to repost this.
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Jenny Holzer @jennyholzer.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
IT IS IN YOUR SELF-INTEREST TO FIND A WAY TO BE VERY TENDER
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Candice Frederick @candicefrederick.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
I've said this myriad times before, but we need a new, good film on Ida B. Wells. In addition to the fact that her story is so interesting, I need a break from the long monotony of white journalists centered in film.
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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Great point Matthew
Speaking of the former, none other than Yglesias himself — in reflecting on his support for the Iraq War some years later — once offered a genuinely perceptive comment about the nature of centrist contrarianism:

Being for the war was a way to simultaneously be a free-thinking dissident in the context of a college campus and also be on the side of the country’s power elite. My observation is that this kind of fake-dissident posture is one that always has a lot of appeal to people.
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Lee Hurley @hleehurley.com · 26/07/2026
150,000 marched yesterday in London for trans rights. Opened the Sky News app. Scrolled and scrolled. Nothing. BBC News app. Nothing. Guardian app. Nothing. This is what actual silencing looks like.
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Despite the whining about “ historical accuracy,” the racist backlash to the casting in Nolan’s Odyssey is about the right wanting to justify racial hierarchy by projecting it into a past where it did not actually exist. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
When some on the right speak of reverence for “civilization,” what they’re doing is trying to anachronistically justify the hierarchy of race they would like to see enacted today by rooting it in antiquity. You cannot cast Black people in The Odyssey, because The Odyssey is a pillar of “Western civilization,” which they consider to be white. This faction of the far right imagines antiquity as a kind of idyllic Jim Crow universe of utterly separate civilizations, one in which the integration they despise could not possibly exist.But Greece is not as far from Africa as the North American continent is, and the modern construct of race, a pseudoscientific product of the Atlantic slave trade, would not be invented until thousands of years after Homer. Black people are depicted in Greek art. Egypt, Libya, and “Aethiopia” are frequently referenced in ancient writings. As the Black classics scholar Frank Snowden Jr. wrote in the 1970s, at least one of the characters in The Odyssey, Eurybates, is specifically described as “black-skinned and woolly-haired.” As the Stanford classics professor Sarah Derbew notes in her book Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity, Black people are referenced in plays by Euripides, Sophocles, and Aeschylus. They also appear in the writings of Hesiod and Herodotus. One of the lost epic poems is The Aethiopis, in which Memnon, the Aethiopian king and an ally to Troy, plays a major role.
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Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York (ART) @nycarchivists.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
ART is excited to share the Summer 2026 issue of the Metropolitan Archivist, Taking Care of Business, which features a variety of topics from institutional archivists, meditations on the nature of archival work, and concrete advice for those in our field. Link to issue: medium.com/metropolitan...
Collage of notes, sketches, and photographs pinned to a white wall, featuring a photo of two people, a bold note that says "THE ALTERNATIVE," and various artistic musings.
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WIRED @wired.com · 23/07/2026
MAGA-coded adult content playing off immigration crackdowns, white supremacy, and obeying the “natural order” is finding rabid audiences on X. www.wired.com/story/people...
wired.com
People Are Getting Off to Porn About ICE Raids
MAGA-coded adult content playing off immigration crackdowns, white supremacy, and obeying the “natural order” is finding rabid audiences on X.
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