Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Aris Merquoni @aristgd.bsky.social · 7h

It asks important questions of other biographies of Benjamin Franklin that I think are useful and gives an interesting look at more domestic life of the time

Reposted by Aris Merquoni

Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 7h

Not sure if this is a hot take, but reading some of these convinces me that people who have not personally raised children tend to overestimate how much control parents have and how predictable children are.

Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 2d

Do you have any extremely niche, but serious, ethical stances?

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Aris Merquoni @aristgd.bsky.social · 7h

I also recommend reading "The Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin" by Jill Lepore

Richard M. Nixon @dicknixon.bsky.social · 7h

Franklin is like Lincoln in he can't be contained. But Brands and Wood are very good. Read them first, then the Autobiography. To appreciate the Autobiography you have to know when and how to read between the lines. Then of course Schiff on Paris. There are recent good books just on the science.

percolating.bsky.social @percolating.bsky.social · 7h

What do you recommend as far as a great book or books about Mr. Franklin?

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Reposted by Aris Merquoni

rahaeli @rahaeli.bsky.social · 15h

I haven't had the capacity to keep up with moderation lists for a bit, but this one is really obvious, so I'm stealing some energy from Future Me: a list for the extremely obvious wave of inauthentic accounts following today's newly-created US gov accounts

bsky.app/profile/did:...

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Reposted by Aris Merquoni

Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans) @iwriteok.bsky.social · 9h

I'm sure I'll get accused of being anti fun or whatever, and I'm not gonna lecture anyone about wearing inflatable costumes, etc. just try and give a shit about where you send money.

on a related note, the Portland Defense Fund is doing a street faire to raise money today. details in flier

A flier for the Portland Street Fair, October 18, 2-7 PM on Clinton St and 25th. Music vendors raffle, family friendly. All proceeds to the bail fund.

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Reposted by Aris Merquoni

Bear Wilner-Nugent @saltlick.bsky.social · 9h

Hassled by cops in Portland? Don’t consent to any searches, don’t make any statements, affirmatively ask to speak to a lawyer. I’m an available local lawyer at 503-351-BEAR (Signal is cool at the same number.)

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Reposted by Aris Merquoni

Secret Base @secretbase.bsky.social · 12h

Welcome to Dorktown
Mayor, Shohei Ohtani

chart with title 10/17/25 dodgers-brewers

y-axis is total bases
x-axis is at-bats
shohei ohtani is plotted high and to the left with 12 total bases in 3 at-bats
the brewers (an entire mlb organization) against the opposing starting p;itcher, who happened to be shohei ohtani, are at bottom right with 3 hits in 19 at-bats

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Reposted by Aris Merquoni

Jon Bois @jonbois.bsky.social · 9h

shohei's 10 strikeouts and moonshot home run distances were really just for style points. short of pitching a complete game he completely maxed out all channels through which he could deliver objective value, so he poured his leftover brilliance into knocking out side quests. it seems impossible

Secret Base @secretbase.bsky.social · 12h

Welcome to Dorktown
Mayor, Shohei Ohtani

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Aris Merquoni @aristgd.bsky.social · 9h

This is true but it's also fun and useful to point out that racism and other bigotries make you ignore history and facts in order to maintain them.

If you are curious about your neighbors in good faith you will be less hateful towards them, and often get to share food.

Alasdair Beckett-King @misterabk.bsky.social · 12h

It seems pointless to fact check someone saying "curry isn't proper British food like fish and chips", just like it's futile to correct someone saying "there are no pronouns in the Bible". They haven't made a mistake. What they're saying is, "Britain is a white country".

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Reposted by Aris Merquoni

Mekka Okereke @mekka.mekka-tech.com · 10h

By the time a Black person in the US reaches adulthood, they have *hundreds of thousands* of data points of interactions with white people in the US, where the white person had an opportunity to be racist.

And there are ~40 million US Black folk.

That's a pretty good data set.

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Reposted by Aris Merquoni

Professa Murray @kalimurray.bsky.social · 10h

During the civil rights movement, SNCC trained college students on how not to engage when people were spitting on them and throwing food in their faces: non-engagement was itself a speech tactic to demonstrate the unworthiness of someone’s else speech.

cait (and adonis) @cait.bsky.social · 12h

it is my pleasure to report they are indeed mad as fuck on the other site over being blocked and ignored. keep up the excellent work everyone

Free the World @PatriotVerity
x.com
I joined Bluesky 6 hours ago, have not said anything rude or abrasive, and I'm already blocked by over 58,000 people.

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Aris Merquoni @aristgd.bsky.social · 10h

So when they escalate to this stuff it's like they're saying "the deal was we could do this and you wouldn't complain if we were polite!"

And we're caught off guard because we didn't listen to the people who knew.

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Aris Merquoni @aristgd.bsky.social · 10h

I feel like this is all really insidious because white racists then have used the cover of their compliance with social norms to push public policies that would be fair if racism didn't exist. That they want the freedom to ignore the rules when our back is turned is kept a secret.

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Aris Merquoni @aristgd.bsky.social · 10h

In honor of the previous Auden post, a reminder of what we are fighting for: closetprofessor.com/2021/11/09/t...

The Platonic Blow

The Platonic Blow By W. H. Auden It was a spring day, a day for a lay, when the air Smelled like a locker-room, a day to blow or get blown; Returning from lunch I turned my corner and there On a ne…

closetprofessor.com

Reposted by Aris Merquoni

Jarrett Walker @humantransit.bsky.social · 20h

For Tolkien fans, a timely passage for No Kings Eve, from WH Auden’s review of Lord of the Rings.

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Aris Merquoni @aristgd.bsky.social · 11h

Anyway if you thought I was joking about the pro-pornography stance because I mostly reblog left-liberal political shit

surpriiiiiise

Aris Merquoni @aristgd.bsky.social · 11h

So if we're writing porn about these men, using their points of view to inform our characterizations, then no wonder some of it comes off as weird. We're trying to filter a queer character voice informed by the men we know, trying to pick the right models, and sometimes some crap slips in

Aris Merquoni @aristgd.bsky.social · 11h

A lot of the men whose minds we have access to as women are incredibly straight. They write endless think pieces explaining how women are all bitches who should fuck them. Or about how they were right to fuck their grad students or hit on their AI secretary.

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Aris Merquoni @aristgd.bsky.social · 11h

Like, I'm trying to put into words something about: the men on the page in porn written by women aren't necessarily gay men? They're men informed by the author's experience of men in the world

Some of those men are gay! But a lot of the men whose minds we have access to are... well, straightish

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Aris Merquoni @aristgd.bsky.social · 11h

We should be able to engage with messy stuff in our fiction and have so many more queer stories available

so as to not be fighting over the respectable porn genre as the only representation available

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Aris Merquoni @aristgd.bsky.social · 11h

The discussion I just yelled incoherently about comes along with this. Yeah, women should interrogate our porn and our relative with queer men when we make it, but also, porn and fiction in general shouldn't inform how you treat real people?

Keezy Young🌼 @keezyyoung.bsky.social · 1d

this also comes right along on the heels of "you don't have to include queerphobia in your story if you don't want to" and I'm like. yes okay yes I hear you. true. the thing is I want to, really bad, and are you going to also be okay with that?

Keezy Young🌼 @keezyyoung.bsky.social · 1d

there was a long time where I thought I would never write queer tragedy because it was all we had, but I'm feeling expansive and chafing against the idea that I'm betraying my community by accessing the full spectrum of human feeling and pain

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Aris Merquoni @aristgd.bsky.social · 11h

"No one would publish that kind of thing"

you sweet summer child, the underground zine trade contains wonders beyond your imagination

Just because there is one stem of the genre that looks mostly legit doesn't make it not porn

Aris Merquoni @aristgd.bsky.social · 11h

"But it's objectification"

there is literal sissy slave market fic from the 80s on that archive, I know because I used to jerk off to that shit, don't test me about men's objectification of man

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Aris Merquoni @aristgd.bsky.social · 11h

But "I came in expecting one kind of story and got a completely different set of genre expectations because I was tricked into reading someone else's porn and I'm squicked about it" is no reason to declaim that the genre is being disrespectful to men.

Men can be plenty disrespectful to each other.

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Aris Merquoni @aristgd.bsky.social · 11h

Should more gay men write romance novels? Sure! I think anyone who wants to write a romance novel of any gender should write theirs. You just have to jive with something in the genre or have something to say about it.

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