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slferguson.bsky.social
SLFerguson
@slferguson.bsky.social
840 followers 970 following 3.2K posts
Always curious. Filmmaker/educator/writer/fresh water and mental health advocate/seer of systems/seeker of truth and crunchy salty snacks. Incorrigible slasher.

Traitors are traiting. Clean water. Clean air, indoors and out. Music & beauty, always.
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slferguson.bsky.social
Two paragraphs from the Rolling Stone story linked in original postskeetmessageathingy. They read: Gifted with one of music’s most robust and dynamic voices, Malo was known as “El Maestro” among his bandmates and fans. His singing style, powerful and emotive, had the ability to both stun an audience into silence and spur them to their feet. And with world-class musicians behind him, including Malo’s co-founders in the group, bassist Robert Reynolds and drummer Paul Deakin, the Mavericks earned a reputation as the most eclectic and entertaining of performers. They could be a country band, a rock group, or a dance unit, depending on their tastes. “If you ask 10 different people what the Mavericks mean to them, you’re going to get 10 different answers,” Malo told Rolling Stone in 2015. “And then you’re going to hear our records and hear one song, and you’re going to think this band is like this. Then you’re going to hear the next song, and go, ‘Holy shit, this band is nothing like that song that I just heard.’”
December 9, 2025 at 2:56 PM
slferguson.bsky.social
Fresh outrage carnivores coin new epithet.

"Commies" was on heavy play this past week. Wondering if all of the states beginning with M are going to see a barrage of this.
A social media post from Mike Rogers, former Congressional Representative for Michigan's 8th district. There is text that reads "Michigan's Mamdanis – same radical agenda, different zip code," and a dark-colors-heavy photo-realistic illustration of (L-R) Mallory McMorrow, Hailey Stephens, and Abdul El-Sayed. McMorrow currently is the Democratic whip in the Michigan state senate, Stephens represents Michigan's 11th in the House of Representatives, and El-Sayed was Detroit's top health officer (the country's youngest at the time) and ran for governor in 2016 (losing to Gretchen Whitmer). All three are running for the Democratic Senate nominee in the race that will replace Gary Peters. In the middle of these three is Zohran Mamdani. Not of small note, Mike Rogers won his initial election by 111 votes...which, hey, details schmetails, except one should note Rogers did not complain about that margin at the time. He is now complaining about the results of the 2024 election he lost by a narrow margin to Elissa Slotkin, suggesting there were ballots in a van that were not counted.
December 5, 2025 at 9:52 PM
slferguson.bsky.social
Perhaps the Google search sponsored results tell us what Palantir is.
Screen shot of four offerings from a Google search using the terms "Palantir surveillance company." For the record, "Palantir" was entered, "surveillance company" autofilled as additions to the string. The entries are: Red Canary ("Managed Detection and Response") Huntress ("Huntress 24/7 SOC") Verkada ("Verkada – Streamlined Investigations - Enterprise Video Security") Deep Sentinel ("Deep Sentinel" Real Time Crime Intervention) Each entry includes the logo for each as well as an URL.
December 5, 2025 at 6:34 PM
slferguson.bsky.social
Anyway. The awfulness the article focuses on is plenty.
Screen shot of two paragraphs in a black serif font on white background from the Mother Jones article, which read: New Hampshire therapist Amanda McGuire is infuriated that Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) voted to end the government shutdown without a deal to extend ACA tax credits: after all, McGuire created a video that Shaheen’s team posted on social media during the shutdown advocating for the importance of the ACA. McGuire feels betrayed. McGuire doesn’t qualify for ACA subsidies, though she expects to have to buy a marketplace plan next year as her disabilities, including multiple sclerosis, increasingly compel her to reduce her working hours. McGuire’s therapy practice focuses on patients with chronic illnesses and disabilities, and she’s even more afraid of what the future holds for them.
December 4, 2025 at 2:42 PM
slferguson.bsky.social
A few years ago, when I started learning cold wax.

#ArtAdventCalendar Day 3
Blue blue blue. A square of cold wax oil, entirely dominated by blue, a non-uniform random gradient of blues somewhere in the azure lapis cerulean realm. Across the top a few and just below the middle one gently sinuous lines, the one across the middle and descending left black, two of the upper ones black with pale counter curves half the length of the dominant black one. Rising from the lower right corner, a snake-like figure, simple, a blend of contrasting colors with yellow defining the base and orange tracing the snout and a mottling of greens / blue greens / copper / blah blah blah filling the form between. Blue has ever and always been my favorite color, though if you ask me I will say "magenta," because blue is just always there, the ever always, and being put on the spot with a question demands a spotlight answer, and that answer is magenta. Burnt sienna lurks at the edges of the answer before it dissolves and my inner dialogue says "come on, man, there is no favorite color." I learned cold wax techniques in the same packed two year period I learned to bend and fuse metal with fire and also how to slump and slub and fuse glass. Five years previous, I had sacrificed re-entering filmmaking to tend to a family medical crisis, a situation I thought would be transient but which turned out to be a feature not a bug. A couple of other sharp plot twists, and I found myself back where I started, living inside water, on a pleasant peninsula knowing no one, having to chart new territory. Again. A year into the move, I let go of trying to figure out how to begin again with film, and figured out that gobbling new media was a great companion to survival. Funny thing about writing and art; both require knowing how to know when to keep adjusting, and when to stop. And accepting that "knowing" might simply be "choosing."
December 4, 2025 at 3:42 AM
slferguson.bsky.social
S&H Green Stamps made this house possible. The H part(ner) was responsible.

Nature's lines made for a textbook composition.

#ArtAdventCalendar Day 2 (my first offering)
Photograph, outdoor, daylight. Faded asphalt pavement across the foreground with black spiderweb/veiny patches and one yellow center line dash. Midground, also a horizontal slice, is dully unremarkable not pale green grass rising up from the curb and away from the camera, with a hint of sidewalk tracing across the ridge. Beyond, dead center, flanked by trees leading back to it in near forced perspective, a large stone and frame house. Very large. Blow up the frame and realize it's a three story mansion, cream and green paint with a turrets and gables, sort of Victorian storybook in style. Geometric lines of cirrus clouds stretch like contrails, but aren't, each dramatically originating from points across the top of the frame but converging at the center of the house's roof. Of note personally is that Shelley Byron Hutchinson, the "H" portion of S&H Green Stamps, spelled his first name correctly. Which is funny, because my first name (also spelled correctly) was an homage to someone who did not spell it correctly. That someone being not Shelley the poet, but Shelly the Manne, west coast jazz drummer who had an "e" but in the surname, not the first. See, reading alt text has its entertainments.
December 3, 2025 at 3:47 AM
slferguson.bsky.social
Oh, this is hard to read.
Image of two paragraphs of text from the original post, an essay by X titled "Anatomy of a Fall: The Case of Indiana University (Guest Post)." The first paragraph reads: "More recently, in the wake of its innovative online-program, the Kelley Business School has risen among the best in the US as well. As recently as in 2019, university president Michael McRobbie led a highly successful fundraising campaign based in part on research showing that Indiana University contributes more than any business to the economic success of the state of Indiana. Under his leadership, the university also founded a School of Global and International Studies and a Media School as new windows into the humanities. It seemed well positioned to shape the next decades, in spite of the national trend of lower enrollments in the humanities." The second paragraph, highlighted in blue, reads: Fast-forward three years into the presidency of his successor Pamela Whitten: On April 16, 2024, the Bloomington Faculty Council held a full-faculty meeting where 93.1% of the voting faculty passed a motion of no confidence in Whitten, and 91.5% voted for no-confidence in Provost Rahul Shrivastav. These numbers are astounding and unparallelled."
November 23, 2025 at 11:07 PM
slferguson.bsky.social
Went to grab a copy of the Presidential Oath of Office / look up a collecton of essays on it, and...this.

👀
Screen shot of the message that appears when trying to navigate to the Internet Archive webpage. Down the left margin are the logos for Internet Archive, IA Wayback Machine, Open Library, and Archive-IT. On the right, a message that reads: Temporarily Offline. Internet Archive services are temporarily offline. Please check our official accounts, including Twitter/X, Bluesky or Mastodon for the latest information. We apologize for the inconvenience. Am going to ignore the lack of Oxford comma and focus on watchfulness.
November 20, 2025 at 3:13 PM
slferguson.bsky.social
Screen shot of a 20 October 2025 post to Tom Cotton's FB campaign page. There is text, and an embedded video of a FOX NEWS interview of Cotton. The text reads: "I can tell you that almost every Chinese national who gets a visa to come here to go to a school or university is affiliated with the CCP in some way. They aren’t coming here to study The Federalist Papers. They’re coming here to spy on Arkansans and Americans — and there needs to be a crackdown." As for the person creating this post, clearly they are an unAmerican operative, given how they entered the date stamp for the post. Day / Month / Year. Only Commies and Euro trash write dates that way, amirite?
October 20, 2025 at 11:51 PM
slferguson.bsky.social
Screen shot of a page from the Zazzle website. The item available for $25.08 is titled "Russia Flag necktie." It is a match for the tie Hegseth is wearing to the meeting between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump two days ago, as shown in the photo in the previous comment.
October 20, 2025 at 2:09 AM
slferguson.bsky.social
Screenshot of tweet posted 3:46PM on Oct 17, 2025 by Jake Broe @RealJakeBroe on Xitter. Text above a photo of Pete Hegseth; text reads "Pete Hegseth showed up to the White House meeting today with President Zelensky wearing a Russian tricolor flag tie. These people love Putin and Russia." Photo itself is a front view of Hegseth sitting at a table, visible waist up. He is wearing a lightly saturated medium blue suit jacket, white shirt, American flag pocket square visible in his left handkerchief pocket, his tie a diagonal tri-color pattern of white, dark blue, and red. As will be shown in a following comment, the tie can be found online marketed as a Russian flag tie. The blue in the tie is a different shade from the blue of the American flag...as is evident in the difference between the blues of the pocket square and the tie.
October 20, 2025 at 2:05 AM
slferguson.bsky.social
Graphic pulled from the article:

1a/
Screen shot of a graphic from the National Academies of Science Engineering Medicine article titled "A Long COVID Definition: A Chronic, Systemic Disease State with Profound Consequences (2024)" The text reads: Important Features of LC: LC can follow asymptomatic, mild, or severe SARS-CoV-2 infection. Previous infections may have been recognized or unrecognized. LC can be continuous from the time of acute SARS-CoV-2 infection or can be delayed in onset for weeks or months following what had appeared to be full recovery from acute infection. LC can affect children and adults, regardless of health, disability, or socioeconomic status, age, sex, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, or geographic location. LC can exacerbate pre-existing health conditions or present as new conditions. LC can range from mild to severe. It can resolve over a period of months or can persist for months or years. LC can be diagnosed on clinical grounds. No biomarker currently available demonstrates conclusively the presence of LC. LC can impair individuals’ ability to work, attend school, take care of family, and care for themselves. It can have a profound emotional and physical impact on patients and their families and caregivers. https://doi.org/10.17226/27768.
October 15, 2025 at 8:15 PM
slferguson.bsky.social
Looking for this "girlfriend of a founder of antifa" (Kristi Noem, in the WH yesterday).

Here's a possibility. Image from Alamy, which captions it as "WEIMAR REPUBLIC HYPERINFLATION 1918-1924. Collecting money from a bank."

She must have aged incredibly well.
Image courtesy Alamy depicts six humans descending a short outdoor staircase. Two of them, men in full suits with vests and watchchains visible wearing various styles of hat, are carrying a large wicker basket between them. Five of the subjects are similarly dressed men; the sixth is a woman, hair pulled back at nape of her neck, wearing a pale dress or coat with a low, hip-slung sash belt.
October 9, 2025 at 2:02 PM
slferguson.bsky.social
#DailyDose

𝘈 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘯𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘈𝘙𝘚-𝘊𝘰𝘝-2 𝘷𝘪𝘳𝘶𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘣𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘦 𝘴𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘴. 𝘐𝘧 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘩𝘺𝘱𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘸𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘴𝘺𝘯𝘤𝘺𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘷𝘪𝘳𝘶𝘴 (𝘙𝘚𝘝) 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘦𝘱𝘴𝘪𝘴.

2/
www.bmj.com/content/390/...
Screenshot from the opening of the BMJ article found at link. Four paragraphs, which read: One explanation offered by public health leaders has been “immunity debt”2—the idea that precautions taken in the covid pandemic suppressed routine exposures to circulating pathogens, leaving people more vulnerable to them when restrictions were lifted. The theory landed in the public consciousness at the right moment. A simple idea that sounded like science, it soothed a public seeking answers just as the world was returning to a semblance of normality. And it served a policy function, allowing governments to focus on economic recovery. But its explanatory power has faded as the number of non-covid infections has kept rising each year. A 2024 analysis by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention3 found that invasive group A strep infections saw their most dramatic year-on-year increase from 2021 to 2022, well after most precautions had been lifted in the US. Rates have been abnormally high since then, raising questions about what might be behind the trend. A growing number of scientists believe that the SARS-CoV-2 virus may instead be subtly altering our immune systems. If correct, their hypothesis will change how we understand everything from respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) to shingles to sepsis.
October 1, 2025 at 12:21 PM
slferguson.bsky.social
Energy Sec Christ Wright: "cOal jUSt mAkes the WorLD go aRoUnd"

ourworldindata.org/grapher/shar...
Screen shot of map titled "Share of electricity production from coal, 2024." The map as experienced at Our World In Date (from whom this is taken) offers a time lapse from 1985 thru 2024. The image is static, showing the percentages per country on a world map. The vast majority of countries shown are indicated to derive less than 10% from coal, an even bigger majority less than 20%. Botswana, South Africa, Kosovo, and Mongolia derive more than 70% of their electricity from coal.
September 29, 2025 at 11:30 PM
slferguson.bsky.social
Screenshot of post from Matthew @dthings.bsky.social. The reason I am attaching it as a comment to the post about what information should be in the headlines informing the public that Donald J. Trump has "authorized" military to go to Portland to help combat "domestic terrorists" is apparent upon reading. The text reads: # of paragraphs for news orgs to mention there's no discernable need to deploy troops to Portland, Oregon The Guardian: 1st paragraph BBC: 4th paragraph AP: 5th paragraph Time: 6th paragraph Politico: 8th paragraph NPR: 9th paragraph CNN: 10th paragraph NBC: 12th paragraph Fox News: never mentions
September 28, 2025 at 1:23 AM
slferguson.bsky.social
For amplified stirring the pot, there is this "it's fake" take from the constantly fomenting Tom Cotton FB page.
Screen shot of post from Tom Cotton blue check but not government official Facebook page. A single sentence, in white typeface on a black background. It reads: Climate hysteria is a Marxist scam.
September 25, 2025 at 8:48 PM
slferguson.bsky.social
Fresh category for lies (and the lying liars who tell them):

How the FCC works.

Of course, these takes are very much on brand for the "I am your vengeance" Roy Cohn protege. Not so much for the guy who said he was going to "restore" First Amendment rights.
Tweet on X from Kaitlan Collins (WH correspondent, CNN) which reads: The president on Air Force One: "when you have a network and you have ebening shows and all they do is hit Trump, that's all they do – if you go back I guess they haven't had a conservative one in years, or something – when you go back and take a look, all they do is hit Trump. They're license. They're not allowed to do that." Another tweet on X from Kaitlan Collins of CNN, 18 Sept 2025 2:15pm, which reads: Trump says because he won the election and networks give him "wholly bad publicity" that "I would think maybe their license should be taken away." He tells reporters: "It will be up to Brendan Carr. I think Brendan Carr is outstanding. He's a patriot. He loves our country, and he's a tough guy."
September 18, 2025 at 7:54 PM
slferguson.bsky.social
There is as yet a web archive, so one can still read that report here.

web.archive.org/web/20250911...
Screen shot of DOJ report titled "WHAT NIJ RESEARCH TELLS US ABOUT DOMESTIC TERRORISM," with graphic on the left and text on the right. The graphic is a dark blue background with brighter and lighter generic "person" head&shoulders inside circles, with lines drawn between various persons in a network suggesting representation. The text reads as follows: "Militant, nationalistic, white supremacist violent extremism has increased in the United States. In fact, the number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism. Since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists, including 227 events that took more than 520 lives.1 In this same period, far-left extremists committed 42 ideologically motivated attacks that took 78 lives.2 A recent threat assessment by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security concluded that domestic violent extremists are an acute threat and highlighted a probability that COVID-19 pandemic- related stressors, long-standing ideological grievances related to immigration, and narratives surrounding electoral fraud will continue to serve as a justification for violent actions.3" The footnotes indicated are: 1. Celinet Duran, “Far-Left Versus Far-Right Fatal Violence: An Empirical Assessment of the Prevalence of Ideologically Motivated Homicides in the United States,” Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law & Society 22 no. 2 (2021): 33-49, https://ccjls.scholasticahq.com/ article/26973-far-left-versus-far-right-fatal-violence-an- empirical-assessment-of-the-prevalence-of-ideologically- motivated-homicides-in-the-united-states; Joshua D. Freilich et al.,“Introducing the United States Extremist Crime Database (ECDB),” Terrorism and Political Violence 26 no. 2 (2014): 372-384, https://doi.org/10.1080/09 546553.2012.713229; and William Parkin, Joshua D. Freilich, and Steven Chermak, “Did Far-Right Extremist Violence Re…
September 17, 2025 at 4:12 PM
slferguson.bsky.social
Screenshot of a paragraph from the Beschloss article "It's Villians All the Time" linked in first post. The text reads: "I hope you also recognize that a man such as this is only in power because of a broken political system in which feckless Republicans have turned their backs on the Constitution and the rule of law; a corrupted Supreme Court supermajority has abused its power to abandon our democratic project and strengthen rule by oligarchy; over 77 million voters were convinced that a convicted felon, rapist and bigot who mimicked the hateful, demonizing language and ideas of Adolf Hitler would be a preferred path for America’s future; and over 89 million others cared so little about America’s fate that they failed to fulfill their most fundamental civic duty and vote."
August 29, 2025 at 10:14 PM
slferguson.bsky.social
From the CDC.

"[T]he virus that causes COVID-19, can have lasting effects on nearly every organ and organ system of the body weeks, months, and potentially years after infection (11,12)."

Obvs, this does not encompass recent research indicating (re)activation of disease, such as breast cancer.
Screen shot. Text reads: (Headline) Certifying deaths due to post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (Body) In the acute phase, clinical manifestations and complications of COVID-19 of varying degrees have been documented, including death. However, patients who recover from the acute phase of the infection can still suffer long-term effects (8). Post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC), commonly referred to as "long COVID," refers to the long-term symptoms, signs, and complications experienced by some patients who have recovered from the acute phase of COVID-19 (8-10). Emerging evidence suggests that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19, can have lasting effects on nearly every organ and organ system of the body weeks, months, and potentially years after infection (11,12). Documented serious post-COVID-19 conditions include cardiovascular, pulmonary, neurological, renal, endocrine, hematological, and gastrointestinal complications (8), as well as death (13).
August 9, 2025 at 4:29 PM
slferguson.bsky.social
👀

Things are unwell inside someone's cranium.

www.politico.com/playbook
At the link in this post, one finds an article from Politico Playbook titled "Dems Aim to Close the 'attention gap'." The article is basically a transcript of today's podcast; this image is a screenshot from that article, which summarizes Donald J Trump's posts to Truth Social last night. The selected portion shown reads: TRUMP’S CONUNDRUM: Last night, the president posted on Truth Social more than two dozen times. He posted phony mugshots of former President Barack Obama and an AI-generated video of the former president being arrested in the Oval Office before donning an orange jumpsuit in prison. He posted about the Washington Commanders, demanding they change their name back to the Redskins and suggesting that he could blow up the RFK Stadium deal if they don’t (useful reality check on that from The 51st’s Martin Austermuhle). He posted a three-minute, captionless video with clips of a bikini-clad woman picking up and tossing a snake; a man somersaulting around a dowel down a stairway; a red Lamborghini careening beneath a truck, Clark Griswold style; a man jumping a fence and coming face to face with a speeding train; a woman break dancing; an optical illusion of a conference room; a billiards trick; a man hacking away at some rock formation; a dirtbiker stunting on a trail; a jet ski; a man ascending an obstacle course with a ladder; a man jump-roping; a man pulling a block from a still-standing massive Jenga tower; a man tossing trash into a dumpster from his balcony; a man doing a flip; a person carrying a heavy object on their shoulders; a man juggling a dropped package of paper towels; and a man doing a skateboard trick. One might reasonably wonder: What is the point of all of this?
July 21, 2025 at 5:40 PM
slferguson.bsky.social
Boo.

Duck Duck Go is down.
July 16, 2025 at 1:33 PM
slferguson.bsky.social
10 July 2025
#DailyDose

Noting that infection can lead to long covid, &/or predisposition for cardiovascular disease (including in young adults and children), &/or cognitive decline...further noting vaccination can reduce acuity of infection and possibly LC...

1/
www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....
Screen shot of a Letter to the Editor published July 9, 2025 in the New England Journal of Medicine. It reads: TO THE EDITOR: In their Sounding Board article (June 26 issue),1 Prasad and Makary ignore the fact that the risks of SARS-CoV-2 infection extend beyond acute outcomes such as hospitalization and death. Long Covid can affect anyone, regardless of disease severity and coexisting conditions; according to the latest data from the National Center for Health Statistics, an estimated 1.6 to 1.8% of all U.S. persons 40 to 59 years of age show substantial activity limitations due to the manifestations of long Covid.2 Furthermore, in the months after infection, SARS-CoV-2 infections have been shown to increase predisposition for cardiovascular disease, regardless of prior health status (a finding that extends even to previously healthy children and adolescents3), and have been shown to induce cognitive decline even in young, healthy persons with no coexisting conditions.4 In addition, vaccination can lessen the risk of acute infection and can possibly attenuate the risk of developing long Covid.5 Thus, the policy proposed by Prasad and Makary violates the right of individual persons to protect themselves from an infection with considerable mid- and long-term sequelae. Georgios Pappas, M.D. Institute of Continuing Medical Education of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece Close up screen shot of the last sentence of the letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, highlighted in blue, which reads: "Thus, the policy proposed by Prasad and Makary violates the right of individual persons to protect themselves from an infection with considerable mid- and long-term sequelae."
July 11, 2025 at 12:25 AM
slferguson.bsky.social
Happy birthday, America.
July 4, 2025 at 11:44 AM