B.G. Firmani
@bgfirmani.bsky.social
Writer. Longtime New Yorker. Believer that while the arc of the moral universe may be long, it bends toward justice. Finché c'è vita, c'è speranza. https://www.bgfirmani.com/
Love Mayor Mamdani celebrating the great-hearted fighter Vito Marcantonio, anti-racist, anti-imperialist, champion of the working class. #ItalianAmerican
Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani@mayor.nyc.gov · 23h agoHappy Italian Heritage Month, New York. Here’s continuing to fight for Vito Marcantonio’s vision of a government that works for all working people.
Rally tonight in Foley Square to protest the shooting of Oscar Belgal by ICE goon squad. #AbolishICE #ICEoutofNY #HandsOffNY #FascistsBoundToLose
EMERGENCY PROTEST IN NEW YORK TONIGHT 5:30PM FOLEY SQUARE. ICE shot a man with his 5 year old in the backseat. We cannot let this be normal. Be there.
I am angry tonight. Because tonight ICE shot a New Yorker. They shot a New Yorker while his five year old child was in the car. ICE makes this city less safe. We want them out. Now.
A heartbreak to hear of the death of Joe Sciorra, such a lovely, warm, delightful man. Dr. Sciorra was a folklorist and cultural historian, part of the beating heart of the Calandra #ItalianAmerican Institute. Riposa in pace, Joe. @calandrainstitute.bsky.social calandrainstitute.org/2026/10/07/r...
At a press conference outside 26 Federal Plaza, immigrant advocates and family members of those detained gathered to raise awareness about the arrests. They urged immigrant New Yorkers who have received a “call-in letter” from DHS to get legal help before their appointment.
'But I'm Not From Ghana': ICE Targets Longtime New Yorkers for Third-Country Deportation
Immigrants with protected status who've lived in the city for decades are finding themselves swept up, shackled and threatened with expulsion.
buff.ly
I just wrote a @theactionnetwork.bsky.social letter: Tell the Senate to Pass Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s Resolution on Israeli Settler Violence in the Occupied West Bank!. Write one here: actionnetwork.org/letters/tell...
Tell the Senate to Pass Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s Resolution on Israeli Settler Violence in the Occupied West Bank!
Israeli settlers and security forces terrorize families in the occupied West Bank, drive Palestinians from their homes, beat and shoot people, and jail children, all with the support of the Israeli st...
actionnetwork.org
"Journalism should comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." Loved watching this #documentary, "Breslin And Hamill: Deadline Artists" (2018), directed by Jonathan Alter, John Block and Steve McCarthy, about the (flawed but) witty, one-of-a-kind, big-hearted Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill.
Ways to address the traffic-hogging and increasing stupidity of #AI #google searches. One reader: "... I go directly to Wikipedia as my first source, then to DuckDuckGo, (with AI disabled) then to Reddit and only to Google as a last resort." www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
‘I miss old Google’: readers tell us how they search the internet in the age of AI
A feature called AI Overviews has been a profound change, and the browsing habits of billions of people are shifting
theguardian.com
Thousands came out to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's trip to New York City. As he addressed the United Nations General Assembly, protesters shouted, "Stop the killing" in Gaza and accused Netanyahu of committing genocide against Palestinians.
"Klein: We didn’t write the book because we think these people are fascinating. We wrote this book because we want people to fight them and beat them." Such a good interview with @naomiaklein.bsky.social and @astra.bsky.social about END TIMES FASCISM. #booksky www.nytimes.com/2026/09/12/m...
Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor Say the End of the World Is Now on the Table (Gift Article)
In a new book, the writers argue that a powerful coalition of “end times fascists” is just fine with the earth’s demise.
nytimes.com
I'm attending No Kings's event, “No Kings: Vote Early: Election Protection 101” - sign up now to join me! www.mobilize.us/nokings/even...
No Kings: Vote Early: Election Protection 101 · No Kings
Join the No Kings coalition for this call to learn how you can take action wherever you are to protect our elections this fall. We’ll cover how to get out the vote, the importance of voting early, pol...
mobilize.us
For this 25th anniversary of 9/11, I wrote about working in the #WTC complex, how as a writer I seemed to be mistaking my life for a systems novel that would have a shapely trajectory, and a friendship with my officemate Michael that sustained me. These are my keys. www.bgfirmani.com/2026/09/10/t...
"Steinem could always care enough to cry in part because she always believed that human beings not only should — but really might — be better than they often are." I loved reading this piece on Gloria Steinem by @rtraister.bsky.social. www.thecut.com/article/glor...
Gloria Steinem Loved Women
The feminist icon, who has died at the age of 92, epitomized the contradictions and hopes of the women’s-liberation movement.
thecut.com
“All my works are steps on my journey, a struggle for truth that I have waged with pen, canvas, and materials. Overhead is a distant, radiant star, and the more I stretch to reach it, the further it recedes.” From INFINITY NET (2011, trans. Ralph McCarthy). Rest in peace, Yayoi Kusama. #booksky
Inspiring story of #unity and #determination. "'We’re just not used to winning,' said Dr Valeriah Big Eagle, who directs the Black Hills work of NDN Collective, an Indigenous-led advocacy nonprofit based in Rapid City....'The only weapons we had were our prayers'" www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
A rare win in Indian country: how tribes drove out a mining company in one week
At the sacred prairie of Pe’ Sla in South Dakota, Indigenous and environmental groups banded together to halt drilling
theguardian.com
Thinking of the great W.E.B. Du Bois, born in Great Barrington, MA, on 2/23/1868, died #onthisday, 8/27/1963, in Accra, Ghana. This sculpture in front of the #GreatBarrington library by Richard Blake was unveiled last year. @theberkshireedge.bsky.social theberkshireedge.com/w-e-b-du-boi...
“Neither a gallery-affiliated fine artist nor a job-hungry commercial artist, he had more or less committed career suicide...living purely through, and for, his work.” Lovely Chris Ware tribute to #artist and "paintoonist" Jerry Moriarty in @nybooks.com. #comix www.nybooks.com/online/2026/...
Jerry Survives | Chris Ware
As an artist in the second half of the twentieth century, Jerry Moriarty did everything you weren’t supposed to do: he painted people, he painted places,
nybooks.com
#amreading PARADISE (1994) by Abdulrazak Gurnah. I loved this book. Gurnah won the Nobel in 2021 "for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents." www.nobelprize.org/prizes/liter... #booksky
#goodgayreads: Thomas Glave — Whose Song? and Other Stories (2000) A collection of queer Caribbean stories that move between erotic, political, and deeply interior. Glave writes gay male desire with a kind of sharp, lyrical honesty that still feels ahead of its time.
“Our ongoing investigation reveals over 1,300 deaths in an inhumane, destructive system that continues to escape accountability.” Devastating #documentary, THE ALABAMA SOLUTION, shot on contraband cellphones by incarcerated men. www.thealabamasolution.com
The Alabama Solution | Academy Award-Nominated Documentary on Alabama Prisons
The Alabama Solution is an Academy Award-nominated HBO documentary by Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman investigating violence, corruption, and over 1,300 deaths in Alabama’s prison system.
thealabamasolution.com
Really digging watching THE PRISONER on @criterionchannl.bsky.social. I watched it on the local PBS as a teenager in the ’80s and loved it so – the mystery, the look of it, the protest against systematization, the excellent weirdness of Patrick McGoohan and his big expressive forehead. #BeSeeingYou
I just wrote a @theactionnetwork.bsky.social letter: Invest in Communities this Summer. Write one here: actionnetwork.org/letters/inve...
Invest in Communities this Summer
This summer, during what is the peak agricultural harvest season in many states around the U.S., we will consume fresh fruits and vegetables that have been brought to our tables because of the labor ...
actionnetwork.org
Delightful piece by @emmaalpern.bsky.social on Joyce Carol Oates and her zesty tweets: “Ironic that I am a judge for the Truman Capote award when Capote in a druggy interview said he hated me & that I should be executed. LOL.” !!! @vulture.com #booksky www.vulture.com/article/joyc...
Joyce Carol Oates Can’t Quit
The octogenarian is on her 50th short-story collection and 15th year as an X power user.
vulture.com
Arthur Machen! Such rich, musical, textured prose, so far beyond just “weird tales.” THE HILL OF DREAMS (1907) is particularly devastating, with a writer in a London garret driving himself mad. Excellent discussion by Michael Dirda in @nybooks.com. #booksky #horror www.nybooks.com/articles/202...
