Toots for the_roamer@mastodonapp.uk account

Written by the roamer on 2025-01-19 at 08:35

I am not a religious person in any direct sense, but in moments of crisis, the language of prayer is all I have.

Today I pray for the safe return of the hostages from 7 October 2023.

I pray that those still alive may return home and may find healing from the unspeakable harm that was done to them.

I pray that those who have vanished will be named and their families can begin to process the finality of their loss.

[#]Israel #october7 #hostages #ceasefire

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Written by the roamer on 2025-01-19 at 00:12

He woke up. Everything was new.

[#]SixWordStories

[#]TrilogyPartThree

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Written by the roamer on 2025-01-19 at 00:08

He thought he would never return.

[#]SixWordStories

[#]TrilogyPartTwo

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Written by the roamer on 2025-01-19 at 00:07

The fever took him far away.

[#]SixWordStories #TrilogyPartOne

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Written by the roamer on 2025-01-17 at 03:27

[Rare excursion into US pol, forgive me.]

Sarah Cooper kept many of us sane in the first Trump era, magically decoding Trump's speeches through her lip synced performances.

Her new format is to use her own voice in multiple roles in the same sketch, in a real-surreal spoof of the event.

Here we have her version of the Pete Hegseth confirmation hearing. Brilliant!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jci1trmvv8I

[#]SarahCooper #PeteHegseth #spoof #USpol

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Written by the roamer on 2025-01-16 at 15:33

They moved closer together, for warmth.

[#]SixWordStories

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Written by the roamer on 2025-01-16 at 14:42

And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ... oh for heaven's sake let's just take the footpath and walk.

[#]FScottFitzgerald #WeaknessIntoStrength #Tao

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Written by the roamer on 2025-01-14 at 21:56

"Who will run the country while Trump is cheating at golf?"

The always excellent Marina Hyde on the Broligarchs' shmooze feast with The Donald.

I liked this: "Considering Zuckerberg in terms of principles is a category mistake, like trying to work out what friction or gravity 'believes in'."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/14/zuckerberg-musk-bezos-trump-inauguration

[#]MarinaHyde #broligarchs #ElonMusk #MarkZuckerberg #DonaldTrump

[#]USpol

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Written by the roamer on 2025-01-14 at 01:25

[#]JohnCrace on #Starmer's #AI speech.

"An entire speech written by ChatGPT when it was asked to come up with one on AI in the style of Keir Starmer."

"He might struggle to reconnect the internet in the No 10 flat when the router went down, but the computers of the future would rescue us all."

John ends nicely with a recursive AI joke:

"John typed: 'Please write me a sketch on Starmer’s AI speech in the style of John Crace.' "

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jan/13/ai-keir-starmer-sketch?CMP=share_btn_url

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Written by the roamer on 2025-01-13 at 00:19

Keir Starmer's governmemt stakes its entire agenda on a universal push for AI. Our health data from the NHS to be made available to train LLMs. Micro nuclear power stations to power the data centres. Regulators instructed to support AI (rather than protect the people).

What a nightmare.

Incompetence + gullibility + the love of designer glasses + macho posturing + political illiteracy: welcome to Starmerism.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jan/12/mainlined-into-uks-veins-labour-announces-huge-public-rollout-of-ai

[#]Starmer #UKpol #AI

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Written by the roamer on 2025-01-12 at 04:31

Glenn Gould in slightly pedagogical mode, but inspired nonetheless, speaking on Arnold Schoenberg and his Suite for Piano op 25.

Linking to this piece as a tribute to Belmont Music Publishers who lost their Schoenberg archive in the fires at Pacific Palisades.

https://youtu.be/N7O_3q-ZttQ?si=xg6dIHIFfFU5P-eW

https://glammr.us/@overholt/113812522764114748

[#]ArnoldSchoenberg #GlennGould #BelmontMusik

@overholt

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Written by the roamer on 2025-01-12 at 01:47

"The air, as dusk came, grew yellow, like the fog in Prufrock that licks its tongue into the corners of the evening. At five o’clock, oddly enough, tennis balls I had ordered online were delivered."

Colm Tóibín on his experience of the fire in Los Angeles, and reflecting on its random cultural destuction. The Thomas Mann House intact, Gary Indiana's personal library, just tranferred from New York, lost.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n01/colm-toibin/in-la

[#]ColmToibin #LosAngelesFire #ThomasMann #GaryIndiana

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Written by the roamer on 2025-01-07 at 20:07

Truth, eh? Not good for business.

[#]SixWordStories

[#]Meta #Zuckerberg #moderation #NoThreads

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Written by the roamer on 2025-01-07 at 19:59

They trusted him, he shot them.

[#]SixWordStories

[#]Meta #Zuckerberg #NoThreads #ThankYouLordForTheFediverse

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Written by the roamer on 2025-01-06 at 18:39

He realised the screams were his.

[#]SixWordStories

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Written by the roamer on 2025-01-05 at 14:35

Illustrator Matt Kenyon is a politico-visual genius. He knows how to condense a complex argument into a single image of simple graphical compositon.

Here he's surpassed himself. John Harris's piece in today's Guardian argues that #KeirStarmer does not know how to explain policy and how to develop a narrative. Kenyon turns this into a lasting image.

Please read my alt-text! (Includes link.)

[#]MattKenyon #UKpol #KeirStarmer

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Written by the roamer on 2025-01-04 at 22:02

"Not that you owe him your agreement. But surely at least you owe him your respect? Your job is to work out how to disagree with him — or anyway raise doubts about what he says — without pretending you know more than you do. Combining intelligent scepticism with humility is not an easy skill to master."

So says a demanding teacher to a 16yo #RichardFarr. A captivating essay on how the young learn to think and write, when they are taken seriously.

https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2024/12/getting-the-essay-back-two-memories.html

[#]learning #teaching

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Written by the roamer on 2025-01-02 at 03:35

Audrey Hepburn's involvement with the Dutch #resistance during WW2. Remarkable.

Her mother was a Dutch baroness, her father an English businessman. Both were pro-Nazi. The young Hepburn lived with her mother in #Holland during the German occupation. Her uncle was in the resistance and was executed. She raised funds in secret dance performances and smuggled messages. Malnutrition ruined her health and prevented her intended dance career.

I had no idea.

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20241231-how-audrey-hepburn-became-a-secret-spy-during-world-war-two

[#]AudreyHepburn

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Written by the roamer on 2024-12-29 at 22:05

"Let's be pedantic about being pedantic", I said to my daughter. "Let's", she replied.

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Written by the roamer on 2024-12-29 at 21:10

Slovenian novelist Ana Schnabl remembers a summer as a young girl, holidaying with her family at the coast, and being initiated by her brothers into the magic of chess, and sensing deeper truths through the game. An evocative, poetic, truly lovely essay on youth, family, life.

[#]AnaSchnabl #chess #youth #family

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/29/learning-chess-hot-summer-slovenia

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