iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

this is just a reboot of the Y2K hysteria

I can't transcribe all this but it's the tech crowd warning of wargaming scenarios, catastrophic events etc instigated by AI

randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

this is my new buddy, Suwałki, having coffee with me out on the balcony here in Warsaw; he was abandoned in Poland's podlasie region not far from the borders of Belarus, Lithuania, and Russian Kaliningrad and he tells me he is a committed antifascist, too:

selfie of me and a new doggo who is likely some kind of Jack Russell mix; he is looking back at me, I am in pajamas and holding a cup of coffee

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

pretty sure if your name is BUDZIBOJ you are destined to be a rapper

Budziboj
Budziboj is an old Polish male name, derived from two words: the term ‘budzi’ – from the verb ‘budzić’, or ‘to wake up’ - as well as ‘bój’, meaning ‘to fight’, or from ‘bać się’, meaning ‘to fear’. (‘Budzić’comes from the proto-Slavic ‘buditi’, again meaning ‘to wake up’.)

The name could, therefore, mean ‘the one who causes fear’, or ‘the one who starts a fight’.

According to the Dictionary of American Family Names, a pet form of Budziboj is Bojko, popular across Eastern Europe.

The name day for Budziboj is 5th September.

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

have been collecting old Polish vinyl records since I got here and I finally built a little display for them in my apartment: behold, the PRL record collection:

9 vinyl records on my wall using a "picture rail" system

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

"half of Scotland's paved roads spend more than they earn"

BBC: than half of Scotland's universities spend more than they earn - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c539mgyvyy9ro

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

not a lot of ppl know this but this is nothing new? it goes back at least to the 1980s and maybe even the 1970s - my theory is that once women's rights and lgbt rights started having some success these white evangelicals started thinking a lot more about their muslces, about Jesus' muscles, etc

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

dunno but I'm from Oklahoma, spent 12 years living in Dallas, and I've never heard this "Choosin Texas" song, and I'm guessing I'm better off this way

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

@patblanchfield.bsky.social saw this near my apartment this morning, thought you should know - they are safe

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

less and less sure I'll be able to read Lalka in Polish any time in the next few years but I bought this copy mostly for the insanely gorgeous - and bizarrely queer coded - cover

cover is pink with a muscled, shirtless man with folded arms

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

regardless, it seems the Kremlin is feeling its oats after that last "peace" talk with the Grifter Twins

Kushner and Witkoff shaking hands with Putin

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

this isn't democratic politics (call it fascist, authoritarian, whatever, but it's not a part of a functioning democracy) and it's not just that it's become the norm for the GOP but that the younger GOP pols and aides are even ... more radicalized

Bulwark screenshot of GOP yelling "he should be shot" about 3 Democrats

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

cheap oil pax americana hasta la vista

homepage of NYT https://www.nytimes.com/ with articles about Houthis etc

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

aside from - well, everything else - I'm really curious how/why the word "TWINK" figures in here - is he proudly saying he *is* a Nazi Twink? or is he denigrating queers? or just nonsensical trolling?

NewsWire# @NewsWire_US • Aug 27
Republican Senate candidate Mike Collins’ former staffer posted KKK
and Nazi images
[Image: Young italian american man with short fluffy brown hair, posing for the photo in goddamn klan robes, holding the pointed hood in one hand.]
1 B. Preston Alfonso Parra Mejia Luca Matteo
^7 @PrestonDelToro
[Tweet contains the word "Twink" in allcaps, arranged to form a goddamn swastika.]
2:25 AM Jul 10, 2026

Reply to Beshearstan:
Preston Alfonso Parra Mejia Luca Matteo del... @PrestonDelToro

Italian, actually.

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

meanwhile, a woman I've known since I was 14, an avowed atheist Unitarian who now calls me "son," came to visit me in Warsaw last week and it was wonderful; chosen family is real and fuck the haters

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

update: me, coffee, Bigos, Hubba, Bubba, and W.'s studio/our communal living room + heat wave (97 today, no AC) 😅

a cluttered room, a bank of windows, a dog and two parrots, paintings on easels

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

“Wherever it extended, the area was ungrounded.” This is what has struck me the most, looking at photos of Gaza - the ungrounding. The literal scraping of streets off the face of the earth. There's only one word for this.

text: The Architecture of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza
A new book describes the destruction of Palestinian life street by street.
August 4, 2026, 6:00 AM

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

this is me walking Bigos; in case you don't know, bigos is a Polish stew comprised of sauerkraut, cabbage, onions, and sausage; in the soviet era Polish trains were known to smell of it, overpoweringly; our apt does not smell of either Bigos or bigos but it'll be 100 degrees soon and we have no AC -

me with a Ukrainian trzub shirt and Bigos on a leash, he is looking back at us, sort of, he is shades of brown with light charcoal and darker brown splotches; a medium size dog

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

one thing I can't help thinking about constantly in Warsaw, where you are constantly shown photos of the entire city leveled after WWII, is that the photos look just like Gaza - so much so that my alt text on both is the same

empty shells of buildings, piles of rubble, and dark figures walking in the distance

empty shells of buildings, piles of rubble, and dark figures in the distance

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

too many of my fellow western leftists share this bizarre assessment even though the history is clear: it was democratic forces - govts, referendums, media campaigns - which capitals east of Berlin employed to gain some security via NATO and emerge from the wreckage of decades of red army occupation

tweet: https://x.com/leonidragozin/status/2082740816120873354

Leonid Ragozin
@leonidragozin
·
1h
The Western reliance on and promotion of East European ultranationalism over decades would have always boomeranged back. You pretend you are fighting Putin, but you nourish a myriad of Putinoid forces in post-communist countries and facilitate Putin-styled securocraric state capture in your own major Western states, to sum up what neocons and neolibs have been doing during this century.

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Braden "Clavicular" Peters says he is going to Moscow

screenshot of this post: https://x.com/Clavicular0/status/2076352506955715023
Clavicular
@Clavicular0
Happy to announce our next trip will be to Russia, if all goes well with my Visa.

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

many of the claims in this post by @ukrainianana.bsky.social are not backed up by scholarship but I think it's a pretty good window into where a lot of Ukrainians are rn in re their neighbor, Poland

text from X: https://x.com/UkrainianAna/status/2074504584744030293

Anastasiya Paraskevova
@UkrainianAna
·
21h
Oh we understand.
We understand that Polish are incapable of taking accountability or evdn acknowledge they were fucking colonizers and settlers and they still view themselves as noble shlyachta and us as their former colony that needs to kneel for them.
We understand that their nationalism is built on perpetual biggest victim complex.
We understand that "the reconciliation" is one sided as fuck and it's only our dude that needs to endlessly apologize.
We understand that people are stupid and easily aggravated by right wing politicians with grievances of the past while an actual invader and fascist state is raging genocidal war against us while we are the shield that stands between them and the Poles.
We understood that real reason is purely economical because us in the EU will damage Poland as the cheapest goods guys, but it's much easier to scream "Volyyyyyyyyyn" then that.
We understand perfectly
🙂👍
It's just that we ain't gonna grovel anymore, especially not for people like that.

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

the revolution will be televised reruns from yesteryear

lawrence welk in a bright baby blue suit and his band

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

DC is a real city, one that doesn't just live and breathe politics; it's almost a million people, living on streets most Americans have never seen - a southern town, where ppl walk slowly in summer - of all American cities, it's maybe this city Donald Trump is terrorizing most

rows of DC townhomes with front porches where ppl often hang out in the warmer months

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

here in Warsaw it's 100 degrees today, 101 tomorrow, fewer than 10% have AC, and many older ppl especially live in Soviet-era apartment blocks built so poorly that higher floors become ovens; possibly related, here's a graphic for ya:

graphic boils down to this: "The year before, more than 62,700 Europeans died of heat-related causes. Gun deaths in the U.S., by comparison, totaled 44,447 in 2024 according to the CDC, before falling in 2025 to roughly 38,700. By the raw numbers, it's not close."

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

if you printed this out and walked around showing it to people on the street you wouldn't find one single person with any clue what he's talking about

Noah Smith being an idiot, suggesting that the UK is an Islamist regime

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

if you know of BAP primarily thru his X account it's pretty wild that this (otherwise great) piece never mentions the homoeroticism

the "media" tab for BAP's X account; I've been following it since I attempted to do a story on it 10 years ago and ... couldn't stomach what I found

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

suddenly stikes me that Trump's White House cage match is some kind of sequel to Apollo Creed's bicentennial fight

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

my first trip here was 4 years ago, June 2022, when Poles invited Ukrainians to hold a joint Pride parade in Warsaw - as far as I know, it was the first Pride parade forced to relocate due to falling bombs - and now I live here and covered Pride for a local tv station as ... a local ...

photo: Randy R Potts
two Ukrainian women kissing, 2022 Warsaw Pride Parade

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Best film adaptation of the Odyssey, wrong answers only

still from Tampopo with Tampopo on the left and Goro on her right, both with an intense, watchful gaze

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

really enjoying this poetic take on a memoir - every now and then there's a sentence that will just make me gasp

cover of Native Realm: A Search for Self-Definition by Czeslaw Milosz; cover is trees in what I think is meant to be rural Lithuania

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

timeline snapshot: both Europe and US building out camps infrastructure:

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

how the closeted gay leader of the Polish right "congratulated" Peter Magyar's win in Hungary today ... so many brains, so much toast ...

text Translated from Polish
‼️ Jarosław Kaczyński stated that Hungary's new prime minister Peter Magyar "baked a puppy" in a microwave and beat his wife. Upon hearing from a journalist that this was untrue information, he replied that he believes it.

Source: Polsat News
from: https://x.com/goniecpl/status/2044006365861945538?s=46&t=hsPiZMMm8YRlkF0Dt4B0iw

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

proposing we turn Orban's "farm" into a gay bathhouse and tell Dreher he can live there for free, as a treat

Orban's "farm" which looks more like Versailles hit an outlet mall in Nebraska

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

when the Polish tv station I freelance for voiced this over today they had to bleep the President of the United States

text

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump

"Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP"

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

the Israeli model for Gaza is also apparently being followed now in southern Lebanon; already there are multiple photos of Lebanese villages razed to the ground, some of them half a millennia old

photo of Gaza City two years apart; in the first, a normal modern coastal city, in the second a mess of ruins evoking images not seen since WWII

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

today's haiku po Polsku: dzis, szare niebo Polacy ustawiają swoje koszyczki

Poles of all ages gather and wait, having placed their Easter baskets before the priest for a sprinkling of holy water

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

behold Ms. Jackie Shane, my favorite unsung trans woman -

Jackie Shane in platinum blonde wig, satin dress, fierce eye makeup

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

just gonna put it out there that not bowing to golden idols is one of the most consistent themes of Christian rock

still from AI video Trump released of his future library; Trump is pictured both on a screen and as a golden idol, arm raised before an audience

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

Edward Said's takedown of Bibi's *1986* book, "Terrorism: How The West Can Win"

I don't have the text for this but it's from Said's review of said book.

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

on No Kings day we remember: this is how the Red Coats and King George talked about us, too

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

so many star systems slipping through so many fingers

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

that birthday party is already giving these vibes

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

remains to be seen if the current govt will actually honor this; most likely they will do all they can to deny/delay until the elections in 2027; we can thank the (semi? pretty much everybody knows) closeted leader of the Polish right for this ......

Jaroslaw Kaczynski in front of Polish flags

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

Poland has taken another step towards marriage equality. Unlike in the US where, for instance, my husband and I getting legally married in NYC in 2012 was not accepted by TX, Poland can continue refusing *Polish* gay marriage licenses but has to accept them from other EU states.

tweet: https://x.com/BartStaszewski/status/2034926731014840437

with photo of the courtroom and 3 judges and Polish state seal

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

Poland is both at the top of this list and, even a month ago, one of the US's closest allies in Europe - but - that's quickly changing and I'm not sure it is going to come to Trump's rescue in the strait. 🤷‍♂️

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

We’ve closed the #StraitsOfHormuz by mistake, can we use your phone?

Janet and Brad in Rocky Horror stand outside the door in the rain

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randy r. potts @thephatic.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

related: even Germany's far right (NAZI) AfD is now saying that bc Iran, Trump is a war president, not a peace president

from X: https://x.com/afd/status/2028790095097029010?s=46&t=5SVHrIXq7ksQJQZXd2Kd7A

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