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Fobazi M. Ettarh

@fobettarh.bsky.social

3.2K followers 650 following 240 posts

Academic. Librarian. Creator of the concept “vocational awe.” PhD student at UIUC’s iSchool. Game designer of Killing Me Softly.

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Fobazi M. Ettarh @fobettarh.bsky.social · Aug 7

Fobazi is currently in the ICU and could use your support. Apologies to those I haven’t been able to reach out to yet. You can message me for more info and I will be posting updates to GoFundMe. Please share, send healing thoughts, prayers, etc. ❤️ -Elena

gofund.me/c8485b58

Donate to Fobazi’s road to recovery: Kidney and liver transplant, organized by Ysabel Gerrard

Hello all, my name is Ysabel and I’m fundraising for my friends … Ysabel Gerrard needs your support for Fobazi’s road to recovery: Kidney and liver transplant

gofund.me

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Fobazi M. Ettarh @fobettarh.bsky.social · Aug 19

I’ve posted an update on Fobazi. Thank you all so much for all of the love and support! ❤️❤️❤️ -Elena

Update here:
gofund.me/506f89f9

Donate to Fobazi’s road to recovery: Kidney and liver transplant, organized by Ysabel Gerrard

Hello all, my name is Ysabel and I’m fundraising for my friends … Ysabel Gerrard needs your support for Fobazi’s road to recovery: Kidney and liver transplant

gofund.me

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Fobazi M. Ettarh @fobettarh.bsky.social · Aug 7

Donate to Fobazi’s road to recovery: Kidney and liver transplant, organized by Ysabel Gerrard

Hello all, my name is Ysabel and I’m fundraising for my friends … Ysabel Gerrard needs your support for Fobazi’s road to recovery: Kidney and liver transplant

gofund.me

10 170 140

Reposted by Fobazi M. Ettarh

Eee 🪷 Kay 😷 Emm 🇺🇦 Emm💙Dee 🐝@fiatslug on 🐳 @fiatslug.bsky.social · Jul 4

Only appropriate flag for this country

A version of the American flag. All black background with “stripes” made of silver barbed wire, with the area where the stars usually are in a rectangle on the upper left that’s a framed silver chain link fence.

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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · Jul 4

Reading through some of the top comments on the NYTs latest story about Zohran Mamdani

Yale from New Haven says: “This is insanely low, racist, and desperate. Glad to see they’ve just decided to be a tabloid. It sounds like he clarified it well enough with writing in “Ugandan.” Truly insane (and just unacceptable) that this was framed like this. Or reported at all! Who cares!”

Jennifer from Oregon says: “Please, please do not do hit pieces on this man who is one of the few sources of hope that most of us have in this country. Just stop.”

PD from Brooklyn says: “This really does not feel newsworthy, when you see he made his best effort to clarify the check-box identity markers he was offered.”

Paul from Ohio says: “I’m a middle-aged white dude from the midwest. Not a socialist or communist, and never heard of Mr. Mamdani prior to this mayoral race.

But I have to say that the coverage of this guy, including by these reporters, seems biased against him.

Who cares what boxes he checked on a college application for a college to which he did not even get admitted? It tells us some things about some people. But none of them are Mr. Mamdani.”

Taylor from New York says: “The media is desperately looking for anything they can use to smear this man. Adams and Cuomo have well-documented scandals that have landed them in legal trouble. How about we focus on the real corruption in this city”

Ed the Rabbit from Baltimore says: “So you got a hot tip from a eugenicist and gave him anonymity in order to "out" an Asian person who was born in Africa as a person who checked some boxes on a form and thereby claimed to be "Asian" and "African American" before he officially became American, in an attempt to gain admission to a University his mother already worked at—and failed.

This is not your finest hour.”

Robin from Greenpoint says: “Yep. More qualities about Zohran that I identify with. More nuances I see reflected in more New Yorkers.”

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Candace Avalos @candaceavalos.bsky.social · Jul 4

People living under fascism didn’t survive by giving up joy—they protected it.

They held onto the things fascism tried to erase: art, friendship, jokes, rituals, language, memory.

Not as escapism but as resistance. As proof they were still human.

Joy isn’t frivolous under fascism. It’s strategic.

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Keith Edwards @keithedwards.bsky.social · Jul 4

2025 feels like being awake during surgery

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✪ Jonathan H. Gray: “Professor of Halloweenery” ✪ @jongraywb.bsky.social · Jun 29

Firefox extension for those who are interested.

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · Jul 1

How did I only learn today—as the episode played on a restaurant TV—that the classic Adam West Batman included an arc with a villain called The Bookworm, whose henchmen include Pressman, Printer’s Devil, & Typesetter??!!

Look at them in their printer’s caps!!! batman.fandom.com/wiki/The_Boo...

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Melissa @bibliothecar.bsky.social · Jun 30

This is exactly how librarians have been blamed for cuts to library budgets for decades. "You didn't do enough to communicate your value." What that really means is "you don't make any profit, and profit is the only legitimate value an organization can produce."

Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · Jun 30

You hear this a lot on the left but it isn't true. USAID did not "fail to tell its story to Americans," the right targeted the agency with lies and misinformation.

Ultimately this narrative turns conservative attacks into even more calls for the left to reform.
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/29/o...

I Worked at U.S.A.I.D. for Over 8 Years. This Is Our Biggest Failure.

I worked for U.S.A.I.D. in East Africa over the past eight and a half years, selling the story of American foreign aid to people in Rwanda, Ethiopia and Kenya. Our inability to tell this same story to Americans is our great failure. It is what put the agency into the Department of Government Efficiency’s wood chipper first. It’s what allows Secretary of State Marco Rubio to get away with insisting that lifesaving humanitarian aid would continue while the administration drastically slashed its funding. And it’s what I fear will let this presidency cast the deaths from the next preventable catastrophe as unstoppable or inevitable.

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Fobazi M. Ettarh @fobettarh.bsky.social · Jun 30

lol that’s like taking a bet to see if the sky is blue

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skinslip @skinslip.bsky.social · Jun 25

Happy yuri day to all those who celebrate

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Fobazi M. Ettarh @fobettarh.bsky.social · Jun 26

And yet what are the girls who crave seeing badass women supposed to do?

-sigh-

it’s not nearly a huge thing considering…everything else socio/geopolitically. But I definitely miss that era of female action stars for all its problems. -sigh- At least they looked like they could throw a punch.

Fobazi M. Ettarh @fobettarh.bsky.social · Jun 26

It’s funny because as much as these incel types wank off to movies like Kill Bill they would bemoan it as woke if it came out today. Uma Thurman, Vivica A Fox, Lucy Liu, Daryl Hannah, all in one movie? All those different women and ages on screen? God forbid! Look what they’re doing to Ironheart!

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Fobazi M. Ettarh @fobettarh.bsky.social · Jun 26

I have to say that growing up in the pop rock/alt/fueled by ramen fandom as well as 90/aughts comics/fantasy/sci I am used to being surrounded by misogyny/misogynoir. And yet, as I catch up on the John Wick series to prepare for Ballerina I must say I miss the variety of women kicking ass.

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Fobazi M. Ettarh @fobettarh.bsky.social · Jun 26

Oh dear you’re making me so excited! Unfortunately we can’t start it until later tonight. But I promise you’ll be the first to get my commentary. Would you like me to DM you my livestream?

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Fobazi M. Ettarh @fobettarh.bsky.social · Jun 25

lol oh dear unfortunately I have already wrangled Elena into watching he second season with me kekeke

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Fobazi M. Ettarh @fobettarh.bsky.social · Jun 25

Hello friends! It’s been a minute, but I am doing a keynote! It’s for ThriveLib: Reclaiming Joy, Balance, and Boundaries in Libraries from Aug 12-14. There will be some a bunch of other amazing speakers too. Save the date! :) www.thrivelib.com/news/save-th...

Save the Dates for ThriveLib: A New Conference on Creating Workplaces that Foster Well-Being, August 12, 13, 14 — ThriveLib

Mark your calendars for ThriveLib: Reclaiming Joy, Balance, and Boundaries in Libraries , a virtual conference dedicated to supporting the emotional, psychological, and organizational well-being of l...

www.thrivelib.com

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Fobazi M. Ettarh @fobettarh.bsky.social · Jun 22

Post a picture of when your pet was little. As a new dog mom you bet I’ll take any chance to post my dog baby!

A picture of a small black chiweenie with white colored paws sitting on the lap of a Black woman wearing a seatbelt.

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the corgi from cowboy bebop @realqrampage.fightins.online · Jun 22

I’m glad I finally found the love of my life before the world ends in nuclear warfare or some other stupid shit, but also, come on, wtf

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Dr. Damien P. Williams Wants A Better Sociotechnical Paradigm @wolvendamien.bsky.social · Oct 22

Way too many people don't get that christian dominionism is apocalyptic accelerationism VERY LITERALLY SEEKING to hasten their vision of the Biblical end of the world.

That is not hyperbole or misinterpretation or a joke.

And they have VERY CAREFULLY worked their way into the halls of U.S. power.

Sarah Posner @sarahposner.bsky.social · Oct 22

Do not lose sight of the role that American evangelical are playing in cheerleading for war in the Middle East, relishing it in fact:

www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

Opinion | The dispiriting truth about why many evangelical Christians support Israel

For Christian Zionists, what happens to the Jews and Palestinians is, to put it very mildly, collateral damage.

www.msnbc.com

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Dr. Damien P. Williams Wants A Better Sociotechnical Paradigm @wolvendamien.bsky.social · Jun 22

My only working explanatory hypothesis right now is that billionaires and authoritarians *Literally* thrive on human misery; that if people aren't suffering then all their money and power don't actually sustain them, and that cruelty & sheer horror are the only things that flow through their veins.

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The Transfeminine Review @thetransfemininereview.com · Jun 21

One of the reasons AI is so insidious: 90% of good writing is sitting around and trying to figure out what the hell you're going to write next.

I spent more time staring into the void at my laptop than I do writing the actual text.

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Nick Knudsen @nickknudsenus.bsky.social · Jun 21

This is incredibly beautiful storytelling.

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Rika⁷ @commanderrika.blacksky.app · Jun 21

*Ebeneezer Baptist Church of God in Christ on the Mount Gospel Chorus*

WE USED TO HAVE MORE PUBLIC POOLS BUT WHITE PEOPLE CLOSED THEM DOWN RATHER THAN SWIM WITH A NEGRO.

*tambourine*

The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · Jun 21

The idea that pools can be a “third place” for people to meet and chill has existed for decades, @olgakhazan.bsky.social writes. Clean, swimmable water shouldn’t be something only the rich can access.

Why America Needs More Public Pools

Clean, swimmable water shouldn’t be something only the rich can access.

bit.ly

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Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · Jun 21

you want me to give up *research*? a priceless skill that also leads to all kinds of rabbit holes and the fizzing excitement of satisfying my curiosity? are you bananas

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