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tynan

@tynan.unimportantbird.com
282 followers 95 following 296 posts

i write stuff, sometimes it's good / unimportantbird.com

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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 27/07/2026
It's not a good review, but it's also not even a good rant! It pulls its punches in the final paragraph when it should be bringing down the hammer! Unforgivable
"Despite all this, the release of The Odyssey is still an event to celebrate. In what we are told is the streaming era, this epic is bringing audiences back to cinemas. In what we are told is a time of declining literacy and the ‘death of the humanities’, translations of The Odyssey, including mine, are flying off the shelves. Some of those who buy the book or show up in cinemas to watch Tom Holland may go on to study ancient Greek. Perhaps the film will persuade a few college administrators not to cut their literature, language and history departments. Nolan, who studied English at University College London – where students still study The Odyssey as a first year ‘foundational text’ – is doing his best to get the general public reading again, and I am grateful."
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 20/07/2026
Solrad kindly let me ramble at length about truth and fiction in the context of Joe Sacco's latest book. give it a read!
I want to be careful here: The Once and Future Riot is not some nihilistic post-truth diatribe that declares reality unknowable or unimportant. Sacco still believes in the processes of journalism, as flawed as they are; he dedicates the book to “the hardworking rural journalists of India” and praises the work of multiple local reporters in the acknowledgements, including his guide Piyush. But Sacco doesn’t want you to forget that they — and he — are constantly being gaslit about the circumstances of the riot. The book puts its readers in the same uncomfortable position as the journalists: Like Sacco, you can never be completely sure who is telling the truth and whether it’s the whole truth. It’s an artistic strategy that forces readers to question whether the violent scenes that Sacco illustrates are, in fact, distortions of memory.
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 16/07/2026
Looks like Scalawag magazine got duped into publishing something from a pretty well-known AI scammer. I'm glad they quickly unpublished it. But the editors seemingly didn't do a single google search to check on this new contributor's credentials?
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 10/07/2026
I don't care how often I see this, I'm still not going to buy the panopticon shades
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 09/07/2026
The primary villain in The Atlantic's massive cover story on the "end of reading" is short form video and the internet, but the author didn't forget to make a little dig at comics (because of course)
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 04/07/2026
happy fourth
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 24/06/2026
I found it, the perfect security question
A website security question that says "Where were you when you first heard about JFK assassination?"
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 18/04/2026
could be wrong but i think this guy running for mayor of arlington is just the fake mandarin from iron man 3 fortworthreport.org/2026/04/14/j...
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 26/03/2026
one of these doesn't belong lol
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 29/10/2025
I guess Peters also doesn't listen to the Daily or read his colleagues work lol www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/p...
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 29/10/2025
A minor but hilarious detail about this story. Peters got a fact blatantly wrong (Mamdani wouldn't be the first democratic socialist mayor) but instead of correcting it, the Times stealth edited the story and still didn't actually fix the error?
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 18/10/2025
here's a few shots from our no kings in lincoln, nebraska today. a huge turnout!
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 10/10/2025
CBS editorial standards have already plummeted
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 04/09/2025
i don't mean to be snarky, but i genuinely don't understand why news organizations think including a little box like this at bottom of their stories is going to help with news literacy or trust or anything else. if folks already don't trust the media, surely they will just ignore this too?
A grey box that says: 

Type of Story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 20/08/2025
me, too often
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 14/06/2025
the best sign at my local no kings protest
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 11/06/2025
the perfect patch
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 14/05/2025
this exchange brings me so much pain
a passage from the study that reads:

Original Text: On such an afternoon, if ever, the Lord High
Chancellor ought to be sitting here—as here he is—with a foggy
glory round his head, softly fenced in with crimson cloth and
curtains, addressed by a large advocate with great whiskers, a
little voice, and an interminable brief, and outwardly directing
his contemplation to the lantern in the roof, where he can see
nothing but fog.
Subject: Describing him in a room with an animal I think? Great
whiskers?
Facilitator: [Laughs.]
Subject: A cat?
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 22/04/2025
thank you so much google docs, this is so helpful
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 18/04/2025
Ursula K Le Guin on the word "blog"
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 17/04/2025
i'm sorry, it functioned like a what?
a paragraph that reads: "For the first half of the 2010s, any teenage girl in her room had a chance of amassing more political influence than a junior Spad. She could define political terms and concepts, blacklist undesirable elements, and argue for a different kind of society. Thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of other teenage girls would be following her, reading and engaging. These were the days of Tumblr, a youth blogging website that functioned like a dysfunctional think tank."
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 02/04/2025
this is a new one to me
a breakfast receipt with a line that reads "Bird flu recovery efforts (3%)"
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 26/03/2025
for the first time? really?
the first paragraph of a letter to the editor in the lincoln journal star that reads: "For the first time in my near 70 years as an American citizen I am ashamed of my country. Trump's and Nebraska’s Congressional delegation's behavior is an affront to the values I hold."
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 14/03/2025
vance's main job at this point seems to be subjecting himself to public humiliation
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 13/03/2025
for anyone else having a tough week: have a pic of my guinea pigs doing literally nothing and enjoying it so much
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 09/03/2025
this is so manipulative lol
A screenshot that reads: "Cancel A-List Memebership. We're sorry to see you go! If you decide to cancel your A-List membership, you will not be eligible to sign up again for 6 months."
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 07/03/2025
bet you didn't know that a rest stop in kansas is leading a pokemon go renaissance
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 25/02/2025
the atlantic would like you to believe that trump's influence on culture is somehow responsible for "not like us." smh
"Trump does have his own neo-Baroque aesthetic: The Village People, Luciano Pavarotti, the grand chandelier he envisions hanging from the ceiling of the Oval Office. But these personal flourishes—like his desire to pave the Rose Garden to more closely resemble his patio at Mar-a-Lago—seem to have little chance of trickling down into the culture at large. Trump’s effect on the culture cannot be easily sussed out from a programming guide or a glance at the gold figurine recently screwed into a molding at the White House. He has been more effective at glorifying and encouraging a style of meanness, which appears in unlikely places but is easy to hear if you’re listening for it. Even Kendrick Lamar flaunted this style by making a diss track the focus and theme of his Super Bowl halftime show."
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 25/02/2025
come up with silly names for elon if you must. but muskrats are perfect bois and do not deserve to be associated with him
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 18/02/2025
this book is kinda weird. and not even in a bad way. it's just written in a strange style
a hand holding "the age of surveillance capitalism" by shoshana zuboff
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 17/02/2025
this is some of the saddest shit i've ever seen
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 17/02/2025
this thought brought to you by
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 15/02/2025
conservative writing about this moment is quite literally bad fanfiction. they are writing fantasy stories about what they believe DOGE is doing
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 09/02/2025
Matt Taibbi using an MST3K background for his ugly humorless podcast is a hate crime against me personally
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 09/02/2025
print isn't dead! very excited to get my grubby little mitts on this @explodingarrow.bsky.social
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 06/02/2025
me, being entertained by other people's low-stakes drama
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 05/02/2025
my favorite star trek setting: planet green screen
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 05/02/2025
ouch
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 04/02/2025
like him knocking this Kosinski guy down a peg with a catty little smirk is perfect
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 01/02/2025
someone at the NYT gave Ross Douthat the keys to the recording room and he has hijacked the opinion podcast feed to broadcast interviews with the most wretched people imaginable
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 01/02/2025
we need Tasha Yar to be HHS secretary. RFK can fuck off
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 02/01/2025
want i want: a primary care provider what i get: this little whoopsie cartoon
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 31/12/2024
it feels like every day now that i try to revisit an old (i.e., 2010s-era) piece of writing that i liked — only to discover the website that published it has been obliterated. today's casualty:
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 22/05/2024
a timeless headline
Headline in the Dallas Morning News: "Many College Students Try Marijuana" (January 30, 1968)
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 23/04/2024
even the scammers are tired and phoning it in at work
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 06/03/2024
i truly hope this part about teacher excitement is a lie
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 17/02/2024
very helpful, no notes
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 22/01/2024
RIP to the old comics alternative website which i just learned was devoured by crypto ghouls
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 18/01/2024
i really don't enjoy being threatened by my newsletters. also i signed up literally yesterday!
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tynan @tynan.unimportantbird.com · 13/01/2024
Fort Worth's stock show parade isn't bringing its best today
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