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jmcdaid.bsky.social
jmcdaid
@jmcdaid.bsky.social
science fiction writer, folk/filk singer-songwriter, theatre critic, adjunct professor of media ecology. SFWA, ATCA. he/him johnmcdaid.bandcamp.com Opinions mine.
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.
February 6, 2026 at 1:24 PM
Proverb 91 winks at Leeuwenhoek.
February 5, 2026 at 1:46 PM
Gotta admit, this *is* peak Rhode Island...
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/ 
February 5, 2026 at 12:04 AM
Proverb 90 is an here to jam on a rhizome, not fill a rectangle on an org chart.
February 3, 2026 at 4:12 PM
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
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.
January 30, 2026 at 1:24 PM
Reposted by jmcdaid
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
Proverb 89 is a polar bear working a blast furnace.
January 29, 2026 at 11:31 AM
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
Proverb 88 mourns the dead and fights like hell for the living.
January 27, 2026 at 11:49 AM
Reposted by jmcdaid
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
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
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.
January 23, 2026 at 2:52 PM
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...
January 22, 2026 at 9:43 PM
Proverb 87 mashes up Wittgenstein, Kirschenbaum, and ludic affordance.
January 22, 2026 at 2:39 PM
Reposted by jmcdaid
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
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
Proverb 85 beams in from Alpha 177. The impotent Kirk is wringing his hands and nobody’s sure who’s flying the ship.
January 20, 2026 at 12:47 PM
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.
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.
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
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.
January 19, 2026 at 3:55 PM
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
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
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.
January 16, 2026 at 12:24 PM
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.
January 15, 2026 at 10:36 PM