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jmcdaid.bsky.social
jmcdaid
@jmcdaid.bsky.social
540 followers 570 following 540 posts
science fiction writer, folk/filk singer-songwriter, theatre critic, adjunct professor of media ecology. SFWA, ATCA. he/him johnmcdaid.bandcamp.com Opinions mine.
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jmcdaid.bsky.social
This week, the Pirate Cove Music Fest features headliners The Harding Memo (Fri), Desuetude (Sat), and The Euthanized Iguanas (Sun). Three days of bureaucracy, decay, anatomy, and aftermath—where standards evanesce but bodies remember. Free on the beach. Take only footprints, leave only memories.
A colorful poster for a music festival headlined by the bands The Harding Memo, Desuetude, and The Euthanized Iguanas. If you like this sort of bite-sized absurdism, check out "A Year of Weekends," which collects all the 2024 band posters (2025 coming Real Soon Now). Free download pdf, https://bit.ly/AYOW24 Or, you can order a deluxe trade paperback at Lulu.com, https://bit.ly/AYOW_lulu
February 6, 2026 at 1:24 PM
jmcdaid.bsky.social
Proverb 91 winks at Leeuwenhoek.
A sepia-toned card with a ghostly, spiderwebby organic scribbled half image all around the edges. All text is in an idiosyncratic handwritten font. At the top, the title, "New Proverbs of Hell," and at the bottom, the number 91. Proverb: "When you get right down to it, we're really just blobs of protoplasm." Exegesis: "And instead of spending our brief time doing creative things, we devise reasons to hate blobs of protoplasm with slightly different cilia and make up arbitrary rules for who gets to wave their flagella with whom."
February 5, 2026 at 1:46 PM
jmcdaid.bsky.social
Gotta admit, this *is* peak Rhode Island...
wpri12.bsky.social WPRI 12 @wpri12.bsky.social · 3d
RIDOT has removed more than 700 bridges from its progress reports to state lawmakers, allowing the agency to claim 90% of its bridges are now in good condition, @tednesi.bsky.social reports: https://www.wpri.com/target-12/ridot-removed-over-700-bridges-from-its-count-then-said-it-met-repair-goal/ 
RIDOT removed 700+ bridges from count to meet repair goal
February 5, 2026 at 12:04 AM
jmcdaid.bsky.social
Proverb 90 is an here to jam on a rhizome, not fill a rectangle on an org chart.
A sepia-toned card with a ghostly, spiderwebby organic scribbled half image all around the edges. All text is in an idiosyncratic handwritten font. At the top, the title, "New Proverbs of Hell," and at the bottom, the number 90. Proverb: "It's only a revolution if it's a read-write revolution." Exegesis: "If you’re not subverting the tools (Think: Banksy's shredder), rewriting the rules (winning loses), or reprogramming the human biocomputer (swim like a dolphin)-you’re just perpetuating business as usual.
February 3, 2026 at 4:12 PM
jmcdaid.bsky.social
Latest review up at BroadwayWorld.
Review: THT REP'S SHARP, SHIMMERING MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
THT REP'S SHARP, SHIMMERING MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM. The Hanover Theatre Repertory reimagines Shakespeare in an ‘80s nightclub — and delivers real magic
www.broadwayworld.com
February 2, 2026 at 1:43 PM
jmcdaid.bsky.social
Just posted on Medium, "Rhode Island’s AI Education Plan: Beyond the Horseless Carriage," an 800-word response to this week's AI Task Force report from a media theorist who uses, teaches with, and theorizes about LLMs. Includes a custom ChatGPT instance trained on the report and several of my papers
Rhode Island’s AI Education Plan: Beyond the Horseless Carriage
When the first automobiles appeared, they were called “horseless carriages” and designed to look like the buggies they replaced. It took a…
medium.com
January 30, 2026 at 3:33 PM
jmcdaid.bsky.social
This week at Pirate Cove Music Fest: Pink Coat Lady (Fri), The Underbussing (Sat), and Agentic Shift (Sun). Three days of shock, awe, process, and anomie—identity blurs, rhizomes propagate, and the orangutan is not mentioned. Free. Aug 4–6. What year? Go ask Alice.
A colorful poster for a music festival headlined by the bands Pink Coat Lady, The Underbussing, and Agentic Shift. If you like this sort of bite-sized absurdism, check out "A Year of Weekends," which collects all the 2024 band posters (2025 coming Real Soon Now). Free download pdf, https://bit.ly/AYOW24 Or, you can order a deluxe trade paperback at Lulu.com, https://bit.ly/AYOW_lulu
January 30, 2026 at 1:24 PM
Reposted by jmcdaid
gregsargent.bsky.social
Now THIS is how you do anti-ICE messaging:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNRC...
Absolute Immunity
YouTube video by Lincoln Project Advocacy
www.youtube.com
January 29, 2026 at 6:51 PM
jmcdaid.bsky.social
Proverb 89 is a polar bear working a blast furnace.
A sepia-toned card with a ghostly, spiderwebby organic scribbled half image all around the edges. All text is in an idiosyncratic handwritten font. At the top, the title, "New Proverbs of Hell," and at the bottom, the number 89. Proverb: "Camels evolved in the Arctic." Exegesis: "Those humps of fat -- and the enzymes to live off them without going into ketoacidosis -- evolved to survive frozen winters. Human perception was tuned to the threats of the savannah, which serves us poorly on social media. Evolution can't predict the future. Shrug."
January 29, 2026 at 11:31 AM
jmcdaid.bsky.social
Flock ALPRs for RI State Police denied in Portsmouth, 7-0. Thanks to the Council, who took citizen input seriously. I want to personally thank Larry Fitzmorris of Portsmouth Concerned Citizens, who spoke in opposition. We don't always see eye to eye, and I deeply appreciate his principled stance.
January 28, 2026 at 1:01 AM
jmcdaid.bsky.social
Proverb 88 mourns the dead and fights like hell for the living.
A sepia-toned card with a ghostly, spiderwebby organic scribbled half image all around the edges. All text is in an idiosyncratic handwritten font. At the top, the title, "New Proverbs of Hell," and at the bottom, the number 88. Proverb: "Fascism depends on threats and stochastic violence to frighten and subdue the population." Exegesis: "Not on our watch. We are Americans. We care for each other and we resist."
January 27, 2026 at 11:49 AM
Reposted by jmcdaid
mayor.nyc.gov
ICE murdered Renée Good in broad daylight. Less than 3 weeks later, they killed Alex Pretti, shooting him 10 times. Every day, we watch as people are ripped from their cars, their homes, their lives.

We can't allow ourselves to look away from this cruelty. Abolish ICE.
January 26, 2026 at 10:14 PM
jmcdaid.bsky.social
Sent my testimony on Flock license plate cameras to the Portsmouth Town Council in case things go sideways with the weather on Monday. Oh, yeah, cc'd local media and my state delegation. Full text on Medium.
Anti-Flock ALPR testimony sent to the Portsmouth, RI Town Council
Mr. President, members of the Council, thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is John McDaid, and I live on Gormley Avenue.
medium.com
January 24, 2026 at 5:57 PM
jmcdaid.bsky.social
This week at Pirate Cove: Board of Peace opens a weekend of procedural menace; Saturday, Epistemic Aporia questions who gets to know what; Sunday wraps with The Rubble of Empire's doomcore tales of institutional wreckage. Systems rise, systems fall, and somebody is always left sweeping the beach.
A colorful poster for a music festival headlined by the bands Board of Peace, Epistemic Aporia, and The Rubble of Empire. If you like this sort of bite-sized absurdism, check out "A Year of Weekends," which collects all the 2024 band posters (2025 coming Real Soon Now). Free download pdf, https://bit.ly/AYOW24 Or, you can order a deluxe trade paperback at Lulu.com, https://bit.ly/AYOW_lulu
January 23, 2026 at 2:52 PM
jmcdaid.bsky.social
I just had to get my measles titer checked because of these knuckleheads. This is Kirk Milhoan, chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) which sets vax policy for Bobby Brainworm.
www.statnews.com/2026/01/22/v...
Quote from Kirk Milohan, chair of ACIP: “I think also, as you look at polio, we need to not be afraid to consider that we are in a different time now than we were then. Our sanitation is different, our risk of disease is different, and so those all play into the evaluation of whether this is worthwhile of taking a risk for a vaccine or not,” Milhoan said. “When … we talk about the risk of, let’s say, measles, many of those risks of not getting measles without having a vaccine was in the 1960s. We take care of children much differently now,” he added.
January 22, 2026 at 9:43 PM
jmcdaid.bsky.social
Proverb 87 mashes up Wittgenstein, Kirschenbaum, and ludic affordance.
A sepia-toned card with a ghostly, spiderwebby organic scribbled half image all around the edges. All text is in an idiosyncratic handwritten font. At the top, the title, "New Proverbs of Hell," and at the bottom, the number 87. Proverb: "Proverb: The return key is the core mechanic of the LLM language game." Exegesis: "The carriage return evolves from the typewriter's mechanical linkage to word processing's multivalent selection mechanism, to the talking stick of turn taking when chatting with an LLM."
January 22, 2026 at 2:39 PM
Reposted by jmcdaid
apnews.com
BREAKING: Immigration officers are asserting sweeping power to enter homes without a judge’s warrant, a memo obtained by AP says.
Immigration officers assert sweeping power to enter homes without a judge's warrant, memo says
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo obtained by The Associated Press reveals that the agency allows immigration officers to forcibly enter homes to make arrests without a judicial warrant.
bit.ly
January 21, 2026 at 9:32 PM
jmcdaid.bsky.social
Latest LTE, urging Portsmouth to reject license plate readers (again!) is up at the Portsmouth Times. Write the Town Council or attend the meeting on Monday. Last thing we should be doing right now is deploying more unregulated surveillance tools.
Letter: Portsmouth must reject surveillance cameras - EastBayRI.com
To the editor: On Jan. 26, the Portsmouth Town Council will consider whether to allow Rhode Island State Police to install Flock Safety license plate reading cameras in our town. I urge my …
www.eastbayri.com
January 20, 2026 at 9:15 PM
jmcdaid.bsky.social
Proverb 85 beams in from Alpha 177. The impotent Kirk is wringing his hands and nobody’s sure who’s flying the ship.
A sepia-toned card with a ghostly, spiderwebby organic scribbled half image all around the edges. All text is in an idiosyncratic handwritten font. At the top, the title, "New Proverbs of Hell," and at the bottom, the number 86. Proverb: Proverb: "The transporter has malfunctioned and we're stuck with the evil Kirk." Exegesis: "And right now, we're an entire nation of Cairn Terriers in pink outfits with horns glued to our heads waiting for Spock to make with the neck pinch."
January 20, 2026 at 12:47 PM
jmcdaid.bsky.social
The Legacy Museum is one of the most viscerally affecting "museums" you will ever visit. Anyone who can pause before that great wall containing jars of earth collected at the sites of lynchings and come away unchanged has no soul.
robertscotthorton.bsky.social Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 19d
The Legacy Museum is the most important museum in Alabama and perhaps the entire American South. But the State of Alabama fervently hopes you never see it.
theatlantic.com The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · 19d
The Legacy Museum, which is “perhaps the closest thing America has to a national slavery museum,” is free from government control and displays the “history that the Trump administration aims to de-emphasize—if not outright erase,” @clintsmithiii.bsky.social argues.
January 19, 2026 at 4:35 PM
jmcdaid.bsky.social
Last year, on a Road Scholar civil rights tour, we visited the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery and saw the "Dexter pulpit." A wooden lectern King used to deliver his speech at the Capitol steps after the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery March; just being next to it was an overwhelming experience.
Image of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery AL, where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached during the 1950s.
January 19, 2026 at 3:55 PM
jmcdaid.bsky.social
Cool panels, fun people, and an outstanding filk track (I'll be doing a concert on Saturday). Presidents Day weekend. If you're in the neighborhood, fall on by.
January 18, 2026 at 9:45 PM
jmcdaid.bsky.social
There are few headlines that scan to Donovan's "Intergalactic Laxative," his 1973 novelty ballad about... uh... the logistics of space defecation. "If shitting is your problem when you're out there in the stars/oh the intergalactic laxative will get you from here to Mars." Okay, it's not Dylan.
January 18, 2026 at 4:42 PM
jmcdaid.bsky.social
This week at Pirate Cove: Friday opens with the ominous A Surge of Goons, Saturday brings Click Here For Optimism, and Sunday closes with Lizardman’s Constant. Three days of simulations, regressions, digressions, metadata, mortality and mercy in Vienna, and beach vibes. Free. Aug 4–6. Year TBD.
A colorful poster for a music festival headlined by the bands A surge of goons, Click Here For Optimism, and Lizardman's Constant. If you like this sort of bite-sized absurdism, check out "A Year of Weekends," which collects all the 2024 band posters. Free download pdf, https://bit.ly/AYOW24 Or, you can order a deluxe trade paperback at Lulu.com, https://bit.ly/AYOW_lulu
January 16, 2026 at 12:24 PM
jmcdaid.bsky.social
Some days, it's just a few words in the morning pages. Today, it was a poem about (checks notes) the first two weeks of 2026.

Please Check Surroundings For Safety.
A distorted image from a backup camera showing blacktop and disrupted yellow and red guidelines. At the bottom, the phrase "Please Check Surroundings For Safety" and a poem, in white type: One of the things you learn about surviving tragedies is that, well, you survive them. You make it back to base. They fix you up. Swarm over your aircraft. Patch the holes in survivorship bias. Meanwhile you have to keep waking up. Fuck. It's Thursday.
January 15, 2026 at 10:36 PM