Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Ben Miller

Boo-is @louisevans.bsky.social · 3h

another data point of a Dem MORE popular on trans issues than they are in the abstract. As with abortion, the theory of a socially conservative electorate before whom libs must cringe is simply not borne out in general.

Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 1d

5. The CNU poll shows Spanberger with a commanding +10 lead in the governor’s race. When asked which candidate would better handle transgender issues, voters sided with Spanberger over Earle-Sears by a 50–37 margin, giving Spanberger a whopping +13 advantage.

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Ben Miller @benwritesthings.bsky.social · 4h

In 2005, Elizabeth shared a special moment with a unique star, Bonkers the Bear.

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Ben Miller @benwritesthings.bsky.social · 11h

The names of all the children that are known, with many more likely buried under the rubble. www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...

Young lives cut short on an unimaginable scale: the 18,457 children on Gaza’s list of war dead

Every name on a list compiled by health authorities in Gaza of the child victims of Israel’s offensive

www.theguardian.com

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Ben Miller @benwritesthings.bsky.social · 12h

Forthcoming.....

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Ben Miller @benwritesthings.bsky.social · 13h

Gay Studies, Queer History, Queer Theory (They/She)

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Ben Miller @benwritesthings.bsky.social · 13h

I can flee to the axis between my office and Virgil's studio

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Reposted by Ben Miller

Saeed Jones @theferocity.bsky.social · 23h

“We don’t have to approach and criticize this album as art, because it isn’t art. The Life of a Showgirl is made of Shein quality rip-offs of other people’s songs that are constructed shoddily and sold in ginormous quantities. Art takes time and care. This is profit. It’s content.”

WHEW.

No Good Art Comes From Greed | Defector

The packages arrived square and thin and carefully wrapped on Saturday afternoon. There were three of them, but only one was mine. If I could have rejected my package, sent it back from whence it came...

defector.com

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Ben Miller @benwritesthings.bsky.social · 16h

we lack the vocabulary for what we are doing to our brains

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Reposted by Ben Miller

Simon Strick @unddieregel.bsky.social · 17h

Interview, in which Jutta Ditfurth Imagines herself as victim of "jew haters", remakes the term "blue blood" as "racism against aristocrats" (herself), and the interviewers write querfront as "queerfront".

Idk if thats misspelled

Its all deranged German genocidal consensus

BDS antisemites want to beat me up. At my last event in Berlin-Kreuzberg, I needed protection from Jew Haters in the hall and to get to my accommodation safely.

OnCurating: How did the legal dispute with Mr. Elsässer come about? Regarding the antisemitic Queerfront, with which speakers did he appear?

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Reposted by Ben Miller

Parker Molloy @parkermolloy.com · 1d

Never, ever Newsom. Fuck that guy.

LGBTQ Nation @lgbtqnation.com · 1d

Gavin Newsom vetoes gender education bill, declines to sign other trans protections - buff.ly/MTUAV85

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Ben Miller @benwritesthings.bsky.social · 1d

updates from the free speech movement

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Reposted by Ben Miller

Jo (unfunded hobbyist) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 @hagenilda.bsky.social · 1d

Broke: blaming institutions
Woke: blaming individuals
Bespoke: blaming disabled people's means of staying alive

Flora Renz @florarenz.bsky.social · 1d

Well there are 1.6 billion cars in the world, so the impact of your asthma inhaler is…not remotely statistically relevant

CNN @cnn.com · 2d

The people who are most vulnerable to the hard-to-breathe air that comes with climate change may inadvertently be adding to the problem, new research finds. https://cnn.it/4pWQMoh

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Ben Miller @benwritesthings.bsky.social · 1d

everyone is 12 now theory

max tani @maxtani.bsky.social · 1d

Bari Weiss introduced herself to CBS News staff today on the network's 9AM call, saying she wants to "win," which requires restoring trust to CBS. She also said she was excited for staff to get to know the Free Press, and ended her remarks by saying: "Let's do the fucking news."

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Ben Miller @benwritesthings.bsky.social · 1d

gayguys rock

Barry Petchesky @barryp.bsky.social · 3d

Overheard, large muscled man to impossibly tiny longhaired dachshund: “Please shit, princess.”

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Reposted by Ben Miller

Ryan Hendrickson @imaginaryhistories.bsky.social · 1d

This is something I wish my AI-cheerleading colleagues in archives and libraries fully understood: all the work we've done in the past 25+ years, all of it, is now actively being used to putting us out of business in the most dire fashion imaginable by the wealthiest people on the planet

Roland Meyer @bildoperationen.bsky.social · 1d

So-called #genAI means the abolition of the future through the proliferation of endless streams of stochastically rendered generic pasts. Having turned large parts of the cultural archive into training data, it now traps us in a foreverized pastness, a 24/7 nostalgia for a past that never existed

QuoProQuid @quoproquid.bsky.social · 2d

have just come across a YouTube account that has been using Sora to upload reels of fake, AI-generated “90s sitcoms” every few hours

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Reposted by Ben Miller

Roland Meyer @bildoperationen.bsky.social · 1d

So-called #genAI means the abolition of the future through the proliferation of endless streams of stochastically rendered generic pasts. Having turned large parts of the cultural archive into training data, it now traps us in a foreverized pastness, a 24/7 nostalgia for a past that never existed

QuoProQuid @quoproquid.bsky.social · 2d

have just come across a YouTube account that has been using Sora to upload reels of fake, AI-generated “90s sitcoms” every few hours

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Ben Miller @benwritesthings.bsky.social · 1d

Beißreflexe...now, in English!

João Florêncio @noisybits.bsky.social · 1d

So apparently this book is coming out soon and it sounds like it’s about the great replacement of gay men by trans people. 🙄 a few notes on some of the sad contributors. I’ll call it “If Nina Power and Kathleen Stock Bred and Birthed 11 Gays”. 🧵 verdur.in/store/invers...

Inversion: Gay Life After the Homosexual » Verdurin

Edited by Amir Naaman and Pierre d'Alancaisez. With contributions by Blake Smith, Roger Lancaster, David Moulton, Stephen Adubato, Amir Naaman, Ran Heilbrunn, Pierre d’Alancaisez, Travis Jeppesen, Oli...

verdur.in

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Ben Miller @benwritesthings.bsky.social · 1d

If you are a grownup you should have taste in music beyond Taylor Swift !

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Ben Miller @benwritesthings.bsky.social · 1d

Poptimism was evil from the moment it arrived

🎃Meister Schreckhart🎃 @derwahremawa.bsky.social · 1d

Opas Poptimismus ist tot

Ben Miller @benwritesthings.bsky.social · 1d

The tell is that not a single one of the positive reviews of the Taylor Swift album say anything about the music. We have arrived at poptimism so advanced that the artist's own legend and myth––which is to say, their PR––is accepted as the sole legitimate subject of supposedly independent criticism.

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Ben Miller @benwritesthings.bsky.social · 1d

The question no one has answered, from a Saul Austerlitz essay more than ten years old now: "should gainfully employed adults whose job is to listen to music thoughtfully really agree so regularly with the taste of 13-year-olds?"

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Reposted by Ben Miller

Emily Dische-Becker @emilydische.bsky.social · 1d

Das Vorgehen von Polizei und Staatsanwaltschaft in Berlin steht deshalb seit Langem in der Kritik. In vielen Fällen entpuppen sich Vorwürfe vor Gericht als nicht haltbar. taz.de/Nahost-Konfl...

Nahost-Konflikt in Berlin: Mit harter Hand

Die Berliner Justiz ächzt unter der Zahl der Strafverfahren mit Nahost-Bezug. Doch viele Vorwürfe entpuppen sich vor Gericht als nicht haltbar.

taz.de

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Ben Miller @benwritesthings.bsky.social · 1d

This is an attitude explicitly encouraged by Swift's approach to songwriting––one where 'decoding' references to who she's attacking so armies of crazed fans can know who they're supposed to hate––and it is, among other things, actually a fascist attitude.

Ben Miller @benwritesthings.bsky.social · 1d

The tell is that not a single one of the positive reviews of the Taylor Swift album say anything about the music. We have arrived at poptimism so advanced that the artist's own legend and myth––which is to say, their PR––is accepted as the sole legitimate subject of supposedly independent criticism.

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Ben Miller @benwritesthings.bsky.social · 1d

But it's easier to retype press releases and do fan service. And less likely to get you crazed death threats.

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Ben Miller @benwritesthings.bsky.social · 1d

Independent cultural criticism and reporting should theoretically engage with the terms on which something was created. In the case of pop music, the legend/persona is part of it, of course. But it's not all of it––and crucially, critics can and should engage with it *critically.*

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Ben Miller @benwritesthings.bsky.social · 1d

The tell is that not a single one of the positive reviews of the Taylor Swift album say anything about the music. We have arrived at poptimism so advanced that the artist's own legend and myth––which is to say, their PR––is accepted as the sole legitimate subject of supposedly independent criticism.

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