Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

alina pleskova @alinapleskova.bsky.social · 13h

this makes my heart warm even though, obvi, none of it should be happening at all

Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 20h

ICE getting tailed like it’s a heist movie. Chicago is turning the tables.

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David Wearing @davidwearing.bsky.social · 23h

We will also hear a lot about Washington's "diplomatic achievement", a travesty of a framing. The US could have pulled the plug on Israel's genocide at any point over the past two years, and chose not to. The basis of a ceasefire has long been there, but Israel and its allies weren't interested.

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David Wearing @davidwearing.bsky.social · 23h

The discourse in the West for the next few days will be e.g. "for all the caveats, let's just be relieved". And no, let's not. That's a feeling for Palestinians, not us.

Palestinians are human beings who deserve much better than the choice we've given them between genocide or colonial subjugation

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David Wearing @davidwearing.bsky.social · 23h

Palestinians will feel understandable relief. The West should feel nothing but shame. Gaza has been obliterated. The territory rendered uninhabitable. Tens of thousands murdered in cold blood. The entire population subjected to starvation tactics. And now, colonial subjugation under Trump and Blair

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Lucius Fox In The Box @carnegro.bsky.social · 18h

Pope Leo is spitting.

www.npr.org/2025/10/09/n...

Leo questioned a world where the wealth of the elite grows
"exponentially" while many "millions of people die of hunger or survive in conditions unfit for human beings." He also criticized "ideologies that defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation,"
with false promises "that a free-market economy will automatically solve the problem of poverty."

Leo described a "new tyranny," which shuns any kind of oversight and where the economy is structured "in such a way that sacrifices are demanded of the masses in order to serve the needs of the powerful." The poor, he wrote, are only allowed "drops that trickle down."

The pope openly challenged "prosperity theology" and called Christians to the practice of giving charity. "It will not solve the problem of world poverty, yet it must still be carried out, with intelligence, diligence and social responsibility," he wrote.

Popular movements that challenge "the empire of money," invite people to take on the cause to combat poverty alongside the poor, instead of on their behalf, and "make history," the pope said. It our duty, Leo said, to "make their voices heard, albeit in different ways, in order to point out and denounce such structural issues, even at the cost of appearing foolish or naïve."

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alina pleskova @alinapleskova.bsky.social · 1d

alsOoo feel compelled to add that i don’t dislike kids, at all — & don’t understand wholesale dismissing a whole category of humans— but do feel invested (as a personal choice) in enacting other ways to exist in relationship that aren’t replicating heteronormative nuclear family structures

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alina pleskova @alinapleskova.bsky.social · 1d

never wanted kids & don’t feel the “bonus parent” label is for me in relation to my bf’s son (though we’ve been pals for 4+ years & it’s chill!), but giving this 13 y/o my battered copy of The Communist Manifesto (its older than he is!) on request is prob the closest i’ll get to parental pride 🥲

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alina pleskova @alinapleskova.bsky.social · 1d

NEVER apologize for SUIT

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niina pollari @niina.bsky.social · 1d

The reading in Philly last night was so so fun. This city has unparalleled vibes. Thanks @alinapleskova.bsky.social and @olgamikolaivna.bsky.social !!!!

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alina pleskova @alinapleskova.bsky.social · 1d

SUITTTTTT

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the Mountain Goats @themountaingoats.bsky.social · 1d

they don’t want you to know how they treat prisoners because it will grieve you to know it, which is natural and human, and because of your normal human reaction you will want the system changed. It’s important to them that your natural aversion to how the system works not be engaged.

The News & Observer @newsobserver.com · 1d

A 2023 records request to get the Durham County Jail policy manual has spurred a years-long legal dispute.

NC nonprofit still pushing for Durham County sheriff to release jail policies

A 2023 records request to get the Durham County Jail policy manual has spurred a years-long legal dispute.

bit.ly

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alina pleskova @alinapleskova.bsky.social · 2d

thank you!! hope you can make it out to a future event!

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alina pleskova @alinapleskova.bsky.social · 2d

hahaha thank you— this is precisely how i hope to be remembered &/or cited 🥲 🥨

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alina pleskova @alinapleskova.bsky.social · 2d

Philly! this is happening TONIGHT at the venerable Pen & Pencil Club! i’m so stoked to chat with these brilliant poets & hear them read. sliding scale tickets available online til 6 or at the door til 7.

🐎 we ride at 7:30! coordinated universal time, not punk time/poetry time!

alina pleskova @alinapleskova.bsky.social · Aug 27

philly is the center of the known universe & i missed hosting a reading series, so here we are 🥁

very excited to share the first event for the TRACK CHANGES series ft. special visitor @niina.bsky.social + local fave @olgamikolaivna.bsky.social on Oct. 7!

🎟️ tickets & info: bit.ly/45RFbxM

Flyer for Track Changes reading, listening, and conversation series on Oct 7 ft. Niina Pollari and Olga Mikolaivna at the Pen & Pencil Club in Philly

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nilay patel @reckless.bsky.social · 2d

@lopatto.bsky.social banger alert on the glass cliff to end all glass cliffs www.theverge.com/business/793...

Memo to Bari Weiss Re: CBS News: You’re doomed

Bari Weiss has sold her company, The Free Press, to manage the decline of broadcast news at CBS. How many ways can it go wrong?

www.theverge.com

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alina pleskova @alinapleskova.bsky.social · 3d

💘💘💘 thank you, love!!!

alina pleskova @alinapleskova.bsky.social · 3d

tysm Reuben!! 💘

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Reuben Gelley Newman @joustingsnail.bsky.social · 3d

"It might ask instead:

Why lower the rarefied
to regular volume?

Why refashion the sacred
into a vibeless ornament?"

🪩

alina pleskova @alinapleskova.bsky.social · 3d

it's been a minute since i've sent/published new poems anywhere— hope you like this one, written for the At What Cost catalog's Style issue, curated by Jessica Scicchitano

style.atwhatcost.me#alina-pleskova

ALINA PLESKOVA
FOR CONSIDERATION
I aspire to compete in the international space-out competition
which I've unwittingly trained for all this time-
tenderized by blush-hued mushrooms, elderly metalheads,
the time Rachel said the sky over the highway looked like a wrinkled sheet & Dylan said
I was just about to say that, & I didn't take a photo
because I wanted to recall it only so
My practice is rooted in wondering how the same ingenious species that invented concertos, disco balls,
& broccoli - all seemingly for the hell of it - can't endeavor to dismantle the despotic state apparatus threatening its joy & survival, or at least take cues from the birds who repurpose anti-bird spikes for nest-building
My work doesn't interrogate the tension between tempering a certain shame to make one's art more lucrative & knowing your art makes

your friends cringe
It might ask instead:
Why lower the rarified to regular volume?
Why refashion the sacred into a vibeless ornament?
A mote on the stylus of my consciousness messes with the pickup

O accolade-patterned bio-
O frosted plaque of competency-

I've sensed an emptiness at the back o
f your gaze

How else do we intend to carry out
our absurd impermanence?

I endeavor to become lichen,
or the lone mail carrier for one of those seaside towns
built into cliffs-
toned calf muscles
gleaming in my wake

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👻darth jericho👻 @henkaipantomime.bsky.social · 3d

this isn't for another month but in case you want to plan in advance: I have the incredible good fortune of reading at the poetry project in NYC with the always experientially full Roberto Tejada on November 5th at 8 pm.

please consider buying a ticket at this link, support the Project

Jennifer Nelson + Roberto Tejada

Roberto Tejada and Jennifer Nelson’s poems move symbiotically through scales of experience, weaving collective calamities with what’s most proximate, visible to the touch: A forest floor, razor-wired ...

www.squadup.com

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alina pleskova @alinapleskova.bsky.social · 3d

it's been a minute since i've sent/published new poems anywhere— hope you like this one, written for the At What Cost catalog's Style issue, curated by Jessica Scicchitano

style.atwhatcost.me#alina-pleskova

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Reposted by alina pleskova

Lex McMenamin (they/them) @leximcmenamin.com · 3d

Greta Thunberg, deported to Greece, says the targeting of the Sumud Flotilla is "not the story" @teenvogue.com — instead, she says:

"Israel once again violated international humanitarian law by preventing aid from getting into Gaza while people are being starved.”

Greta Thunberg On Her Detention: I'm "Not The Story" — It's Israel Violating International Humanitarian Law

“I could talk for a very, very long time about our mistreatment and abuses in our imprisonment. Trust me. But that is not the story.”

www.teenvogue.com

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soft, black underbelly @upfromsumdirt.bsky.social · 3d

justin phillip reed
OPEN SEASON
from his collection, The Malevolent Volume

OPEN SEASON
for Jayson

What they wont do is enumerate
the ever-fresher types of way I've learned
to live beneath the gun. Amid this country's
latest crazed nostalgias, my body
has been quickest to choreograph a future.
This body didn't teach them all they know
about gore, but damn if it didn't try.
I fashion from my panic a corona
of divergence, and they want my head
as trophy for its danger heirlooms.
What they fear in my father is already
breath in my chest. Other than my mother
who else can braid a wealth from rain and smoke?
What they don't know is this work.
Remember I was dinner theater, mug-shot
and mounted and made to serve face.
I haven't been hunted to anybody's brink.
I am the brink. Fuck what they heard.
My whole herd has chewed the cud of toed
lines and had it with their hoarding borders,
heaping triggers but can't even get a grip.
What they can catch are my cloven hooves:
I'll be all kinds of demon. Put that on
a list of shit for which I am now here.

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alina pleskova @alinapleskova.bsky.social · 3d

ahh thank you so much for reading !

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stevie nicks' considerable agonies @chovepaddles.bsky.social · 3d

'I endeavor to become lichen,
or the lone mail carrier for one of those seaside towns
built into cliffs-
toned calf muscles
gleaming in my wake'

alina pleskova @alinapleskova.bsky.social · 3d

it's been a minute since i've sent/published new poems anywhere— hope you like this one, written for the At What Cost catalog's Style issue, curated by Jessica Scicchitano

style.atwhatcost.me#alina-pleskova

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Reposted by alina pleskova

Daniel J. Cecil @danieljcecil.bsky.social · 3d

Another fantastic poem from @alinapleskova.bsky.social

alina pleskova @alinapleskova.bsky.social · 3d

it's been a minute since i've sent/published new poems anywhere— hope you like this one, written for the At What Cost catalog's Style issue, curated by Jessica Scicchitano

style.atwhatcost.me#alina-pleskova

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