Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 16h

Cutting up the branches from tree pruning, I was pleased by the contrast in brown colours, from red to green. That is all. #gardening

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 17h

A horrifying pogrom. ICE = SS. This racist state terror is what Farage, Badenoch and Jenrick want to import from the US.

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 1d

Monstrous.

"federal agents detained nearly every resident of the 130-unit building—including children and babies—placing them in zip ties and separating them by race into vans for more than two hours early Tuesday morning."

Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 1d

Good reporting on the South Shore raid from South Side weekly here.

Confirms one thing I was told but didn't put in my own piece because I didn't have a second source and it seemed too insane: border agents segregated arrested residents by race

southsideweekly.com/federal-agen...

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Reposted by Bill Berry

Peace & Justice Project @peaceandjustice.bsky.social · 17h

18,457 children. Murdered by Israel.

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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Reposted by Bill Berry

Keith W. Dickinson @keithwdickinson.bsky.social · 20h

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

The Verge @theverge.com · May 26

Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry

Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.

buff.ly

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Reposted by Bill Berry

Dom White @domw.bsky.social · 1d

"We want people to be living in mixed communities, don't we?"

Robert Jenrick's home is in Eye, Herefordshire, where 165 out of 166 residents were white at the time of the last census.

Best for Britain @bestforbritain.org · 1d

Wow. Robert Jenrick doubles down by branding a black journalist's questions "ridiculous" and saying that the problem is not his comments, but "journalists like you who pop up and try to knock me down", adding that "this is the reason why terrorist attacks happen". ~AA

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 1d

"Why not give yourself briefs, deadlines and word counts?" 🤔

I do. They hold no weight. I know the guy who sets them and he's an absolute pushover.

Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 1d

What I desperately wish I had was an editor. I pitch some ideas, but you give me a word count, a deadline and a few other explicit expectations/parameters so I can do more writing and less chopping and changing, flapping about what I'm doing and starting over every 500 words. #writing

Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 1d

What I desperately wish I had was an editor. I pitch some ideas, but you give me a word count, a deadline and a few other explicit expectations/parameters so I can do more writing and less chopping and changing, flapping about what I'm doing and starting over every 500 words. #writing

Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 1d

“Discovering that forests are losing their colours was frightening and revelatory. It felt like we were uncovering a hidden dimension of how species respond to environmental change, a dimension that had remained invisible until then, but is incredibly rich.”

Fascinating!

Eoghan Daltun 🌍 @irishrainforest.bsky.social · 2d

"Rainforest that has been regenerating for 30 years after being used as cattle pasture showed a remarkable increase in butterfly colour diversity."

It turns out rewilding even has the power to restore the colours human activities are draining from the natural world.
share.google/0cifnGipUkG5...

As forests are cut down, butterflies are losing their colours

The insects’ brilliant hues evolved in lush ecosystems to help them survive. Now they are becoming more muted to adapt to degraded landscapes – and they are not the only things dulling down

share.google

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 2d

This is brilliant.

"Empathy is not a sin, a toxin, or an evolutionary dead end. It is a tool, and like all tools it can be a weapon. We are going to need it." I'll

Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social · Apr 8

I tried to write about empathy and ended up writing about fascism again

Loathe thy neighbor: Elon Musk and the Christian right are waging war on empathy

Trump’s actions are irreconcilable with Christian compassion. But an unholy alliance seeks to cast empathy as a parasitic plague

www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Bill Berry

Grumpy Rootbeer @grumpyrootbeer.bsky.social · 5d

The best piece of advice my father ever gave me, and that I didn't understand until my mid thirties, was "always have a project". For him this was about always having some woodworking or home improvement thing he could work on in free moments.

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 2d

My tear ducts sometimes malfunction in the proximity of @firstdogonthemoon.bsky.social

Frame from a comic, showing a drawing of a contented fish in the sea (marked “seabass”). It has these words: ...and while the Israeli navy was busy hijacking the flotilla, Palestinians took the opportunity to catch fish which they are normally killed for doing.

A single meal of fish will not stop a genocide but it must have tasted good.

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Reposted by Bill Berry

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 2d

Yes, @firstdogonthemoon.bsky.social

Frame of a cartoon showing lots of small boats, each with a Palestinian flag flying. It has these words: Let us launch a thousand flotillas - ten thousand general strikes - a hundred thousand demonstrations - whatever we can to stop the genocide of the Palestinian people.
The next flotilla
is already on its way.

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Reposted by Bill Berry

Emissary Of Night | ليلى @diplomatofnight.com · 4d

simple as that. if you're ok with mass murder you're ok with death by inaction too.

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Reposted by Bill Berry

Emissary Of Night | ليلى @diplomatofnight.com · 4d

World that lets Gaza burn is the world that will let the world burn

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 4d

There is a word for this and that word is torture.

Paul T. Levin @paultlevin.bsky.social · 4d

““They dragged little Greta [Thunberg] by her hair before our eyes, beat her, and forced her to kiss the Israeli flag. They did everything imaginable to her, as a warning to others,” the Turkish activist ErsinÇelik, a participant in the Sumud flotilla, told Anadolu news agency.”+

Israel accused of detaining Greta Thunberg in infested cell and making her hold flags

Activist tells Swedish officials she has been subjected to harsh treatment, including insufficient food and water

www.theguardian.com

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 4d

I don't know if the numbers would be the same in the UK, but I see no reason why they'd be significantly lower. When Starmer and co. say protests against the Gaza genocide are disrespectful to Jewish people, they are not only erasing the humanity of Palestinians, but a substantial proportion of Jews

Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 4d

New poll of Jewish Americans:

• 61% say Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza.
• 39% say Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

Gift link:
wapo.st/42q0h5z

Many American Jews sharply critical of Israel on Gaza, Post poll finds

Most Jews say Israel is committing war crimes — and 39 percent say genocide — while often distinguishing between the country and its leadership.

wapo.st

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 4d

When my partner and I visited Iceland (a lifelong dream) a few years ago, the song I guess you're referring to was one of the essentials we downloaded. Didn't let us down.

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Reposted by Bill Berry

Defend Our Juries @defendourjuries.bsky.social · 5d

“As a Jewish person… I’m very disturbed and appalled and grieving for what’s happened in Manchester yesterday, I’m also grieving for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have been murdered, displaced, and starved in Gaza” - Zoe explained on BBC R4 why she supports DOJ.

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 5d

Wouldn't respecting their grief mean *not* opportunistically hijacking it to silence protests against genocide?

One racist atrocity is no excuse to enforce support for another racist atrocity.

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 5d

We're not at war with Venezuela, these boats are many hundreds of lines from our waters, much less our shores, there is no threat, this is just murder.

I really do think everyone from the SecDef to the guy who pushed the button should be tried for murder on this.

Jameel Jaffer @jameeljaffer.bsky.social · 5d

Don’t believe anyone who tells you that intelligence shows anything “without a doubt,” but even if the intelligence was water-tight, this strike was still murder. No law permits the deliberate, premeditated killing of civilians.

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 5d

That's outrageous

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 5d

And even with that he's getting heckled "Go to Palestine" by some Zionist. Those who want to use one act of horrific racist violence as an excuse to silence protests against another one are having a field day.

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 5d

And even with that he's getting heckled "Go to Palestine" by some Zionist. It's going to be a field day for those who want to use one act of horrific racist violence into an excuse to support another one.

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 5d

What an electrifying read. I followed the inspiring ZAD movement in the 2010s but didn't know about its sequel at Sainte-Soline.

John Merrick @johnmerrick.bsky.social · 6d

For the @the-breakdown.bsky.social today, we have an exclusive extract from @wimcarton.bsky.social and Andreas Malm's superb latest book, The Long Heat!

@versobooks.bsky.social

EXTRACT: The Long Heat

An exclusive extract from Wim Carton and Andreas Malm’s latest book, The Long Heat, out 7 October from Verso Books.

www.break-down.org

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 5d

Yup. Take it from someone standing on an outdoor platform in the pissing rain because 3 consecutive trains have been cancelled due to a broken windscreen wiper. Manchester's integrated Bee Network was a step in the right direction but there's a loooooong way still to go.

David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 5d

One has grown to expect terrible public transport across the North of England, but sometimes it is genuinely shocking how bad it is.

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