iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Nox is the most beautiful book I have ever seen, physically -- and also of course in content and form. As a person who also lost a brother in an ambiguous death, I cherish this book. So glad she's won the Nobel.

Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Returned from France to a stack of mail, including this issue. Reading of Anita Brookner's bio, I remembered the 1980s, which I spent reading Brookner + Colwin, balancing depression and hope-then turned the page to this piece! My 20s: depressed yet hopeful, could I be free yet also married?

Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I've been away traveling (luxury problems) so I'm sure I missed these guys turning into butterflies, but I still am excited to get home and check on the tree pit garden.

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Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I do not believe the Cornell Case suggests we need parents to better educate their children about consent. We need to actually punish rapists to the fullest extent of the law. And punish anyone who impedes a rape investigation.

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Reposted by Vicki Madden

Dustin A. Chacón @lingdustin.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I've heard people make claims that AI would lead to a new Renaissance, but I didn't imagine it'd happen like this:

Screenshot of a Tweet from Pope Leo XIV. It reads:

"In this era of artificial intelligence, it is becoming urgen to distinguish human art from what machines produce. There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others. Algorithms lack the spark of humanity. For this reason, the Church wishes to renew an alliance with artists and cultural institutions to safeguard our humanity."

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Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

This is extremely disappointing. I am currently in France where you can use a coin or a credit card to use a public toilet. How could this design and purchasing process gone one with so many people along the way and nobody questioned this absurd smartphone-centered vision of peeing?

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Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

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Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

“If we were to think about work in terms of our humanity — making people feel dignified, valued, and whole — then caregiving is the most important work we can do with our time on earth.” Angela Garbes I'm lighting candles in cathedrals for leaders who care for human dignity, freedom, equality.

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Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 16/09/2026

Here's this week's Better Offline: I'm joined by Cal Newport and @adambecker.bsky.social to get the word out that the narrative about existential risk from AI is driven by a religious cult of effective altruists and rationalists. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oVS... linktr.ee/betteroffline

youtube.com

Stopping The AI Safety Cult ft. Adam Becker & Cal Newport | Better Offline

YouTube video by Better Offline

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Reposted by Vicki Madden

Emily Gorcenski @emily.gorcen.ski · 28/09/2026

Here’s the most incredible story you’ll read today. A small plane with four people aboard crashes in a field. Another pilot witnesses it. That pilot happens to be flying a bunch of skydivers. They offer to jump to assist, are given permission. The skydivers happen to be EMTs. Everyone survives.

wisn.com

Skydivers alert emergency crews, assist after plane crashes near East Troy airport

Four people were aboard the single-engine plane when it went down in a cornfield near Carvers School Road in East Troy at about 1:30 p.m.

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Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This is so useful for teachers + presenters of all kinds. Most important: the point of slides is to help listeners follow along. In the case of classes, when you break for table talking and application/work time, there should be directions on the slide. People can't remember every word you said!

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Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I am very grateful for the encouragement!

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Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Well, one of my Montana Noir family history essays is on the short list at The Masters Review! Ramona Ausubel will choose 10 for an anthology. "Two Black Eyes and a Long Tail" explores my grandparents on Crow land and broken promises and misogyny. Fun stuff! mastersreview.com/best-emergin...

mastersreview.com

Best Emerging Writers 2026 Shortlist! - The Masters Review

Guest Judge Ramona Ausubel is in possession of the final thirty submissions for this year's Best Emerging Writers anthology! Congratulations to all of our writers on the shortlist below, and thank you...

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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 24/09/2026

Never been to the opera before? Now’s your chance. We’re giving away 70,000 free tickets to the @metopera at the iconic Lincoln Center. Go to on.nyc.gov/opera to enter the lottery. There’s not a bad seat in the house.

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Reposted by Vicki Madden

Michael Warburton @michaelwarburton.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

This aired just the once in 1998 on the live SNL show for which McKay wrote it. It was effectively banned as it never aired again. I wonder why. MEDIA-OPOLY

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Reposted by Vicki Madden

Sustainable Farming @sustainablefarming.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

An excellent new video with Benedict Cumberbatch explaining how we can sustainably live on Earth. Already in the first 6 minutes we see the devastating effects on farming from pesticide use since the 1980s: we now have to hand pollinate crops because the bees are gone.

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Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Just re-reading a little literary horror, Northanger Abbey.

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Reposted by Vicki Madden

I resigned from ExxonMobil today. I spent the last three years doing fossil fuel extraction research at both BP and ExxonMobil. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing to maximize extraction while the window to act closes, and gambling with our lives. More below.

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Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

2001 as we were -- Everything Changes, the Buddhists tell us, so what does it mean to Never Forget? I wrote a little something. vickimadden.net?page_id=178

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Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Everything Changes, the Buddhists tell us, so what does it mean to Never Forget? Only 1/3 of people now living in NYC were here on 9/11. People die and move away. Others are born or move here from elsewhere. I remember that day vividly, but perhaps not forever. I was home, listening to @wnyc.org

vickimadden.net

Vicki Madden

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Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I just discovered this and have listened multiple times.

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Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I adore the Sub Sub Librarian.

Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

I went to Barnard and then TC and lived up there for a decade. Without being able to cross 116th Street, a person would have to walk for many additional blocks to get from Bway to Amsterdam. Like many Adams admin decisions, this was absurd.

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The Real Work It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings. -Wendell Berry

“It is easy for me to imagine that the next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as machines.” Wendell Berry

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Domestic violence is a crime, not a personal issue.

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Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

A Tree Pit Grows in Brooklyn I planted. Dog pee, exhaust, trash, drought ensued. Yet: monarch caterpillars! Where is the nearest patch of asclepius? Maybe their twitching antennae will lead them. No matter how hopeless things look, take your little local action. #nativegardening #gardening

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Yeah, I stopped reading just to ponder that.

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Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

The wrong old people keep dying.

Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

The wrong old people keep dying

In These Times @inthesetimes.com · 01/09/2026

Reposted by Vicki Madden

Railroad workers, independent water testers, whistleblowers, and poisoned communities are realizing they're up against the same playbook. A @maximillianalvarez.bsky.social moderatted roundtable from the @rwu-org.bsky.social convention on why solidarity across these fights is the only way forward.

inthesetimes.com

How Communities Poisoned by Data Centers and Toxic Spills Can Stand Together

“No one's coming to save these communities. They have to fight for themselves.”

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Thoughts in the Presence of Fear - Orion Magazine

After 9/11, which was very local (2 men on our block died, including a firefighter), I shared this piece with friends. Some wrote back, angry, refuting the idea that there was anything to learn except that very evil people attacked us. Re-reading it now, I feel like it's hard to argue with.

orionmagazine.org

Life in the wake of 9/11

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Wendell Berry, Writer Who Extolled America’s Agrarian Past, Dies at 92 (Gift Article)

A rebellious teenager, Wendell was sent to Millersburg Military Institute, a boarding school near Lexington. He hated it. “The highest aim,” he recalled, “was to produce a perfectly obedient, militarist, puritanical moron who could play football.”

nytimes.com

A Kentucky farmer, he railed against agribusiness and championed small family farms and the environment, winning widespread acclaim.

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When I posted this, I didn't know Berry had died. In 2000, I sat next to him at a Luddite Conference in Ohio. I was 8 months pregnant. There were Quakers, Amish, Mennonites, Catholic Workers, hippies from California, preppers. Berry's clarity about the place of place and our connection to it endures

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"Be joyful though you have considered the facts. Practice resurrection.” Wendell Berry

Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Watching this film, combined with all my reading about Dolly Parton's incredible accomplishments especially all the ways she financially supported those in need, has me contemplating how I can live out more fully my complete self, this one wild & precious life. www.thirteen.org/programs/ame...

thirteen.org

Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World | American Masters

Celebrate the life and career of Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Mary Oliver. Shaped by a solitary childhood and rising literary fame, Oliver published more than 30 collections of poetry and essays on n...

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Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Fastmail or Proton - which email service should I switch to?

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Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

I planted a tree pit garden last year. I winter sowed asclepius tuberosa (butterfly weed)-they really bloomed this year. There is a little monarch caterpillar! In spite of people cutting down my twine fence, dogs pee, trash and cigarette butts, car exhaust, irregular water! #nativegardening #TryIt!

Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Also DSA knows how to actually organize, knock on doors, connect with people and their needs, and create a sense of togetherness and collective hope.

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Reposted by Vicki Madden

Barb McQuade @barbmcquade.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

The ability of billionaires to influence our politics has destroyed our democracy. So much for one person one vote. They are buying elections. We need a constitutional amendment to rid ourselves of the poison of Buckley v Valeo and Citizens United. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

nytimes.com

Meet the Megadonors Who Have Poured $1.2 Billion Into the Midterms (Gift Article)

The leaderboard of the top 20 donors is dominated by the tech industry and ultrawealthy Republicans.

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Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

One 20 something told me he asks ChatGPT what he should make for dinner if he has brocolli and an avocado. Uhm, do you know how to search? There are literally recipe sites that do this exactly.

Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

It's like a parent of many children where their only leadership move when something upsets them is to should every kids' name and then "get in here!"

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Vicki Madden @vlmadden.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

while we are in a war, sure, great idea. the first time went so well