Elizabeth
@kitabet.bsky.social
earthquake aficionado & disaster studies scholar. outreach lead for PNSN; views and posts my own. now returned to the salish sea, but in the words of my former mayor, “you know first stop is always istanbul."
Unhealthy smoke across most of the NW today. I prefer purpleair.com's map since it updates every few seconds (be sure to use the US EPA "Apply conversion" option). EPA airnow.gov data updates only once per hour and is up to a 12-hour average, so does not show rapidly changing conditions as well.
Pleqse share!! Postdoc opportunity for near-real-time landslide detection in Alaska!!! The successful applicant will get to work with the amazing @ezgikarasozen.bsky.social See this page for more info! earthquake.alaska.edu/job-opportun... 🪨⚒️🧪
Job Opportunities | Alaska Earthquake Center
The Earthquake Center’s success is built through the collaboration of people with different specialties. Our team includes scientists, technicians, engineers, communications professionals, IT speciali...
earthquake.alaska.edu
Today, August 4, 2026, is the setting of Ray Bradbury’s short story “There Will Come Soft Rains” about a fully automated house continuing on after the family who lived there and the world around it died in a nuclear blast.
Helpful piece from fire scientists Mojtaba Sadegh and John Abatzoglou on why the Spokane fires were so extreme and what can be done to reduce wildfire risk across the West.
Why the Spokane wildfires became so catastrophic
Extreme fire conditions converged in suburban neighborhoods built into the forests, shrubland and grasslands and quickly spread.
theconversation.com
tfw you discover your favorite band also sponsors translations of 20thC Turkish feminist literature! Yürümek/Walking was banned for obscenity after the 1971 coup; Şafak/Dawn is based on Soysal's own experiences as a political prisoner thereafter.
the Mountain Goats@themountaingoats.bsky.social · 2d agoI'll tell you something else deeply meaningful to me today: @archipelagobooks.bsky.social is publishing Sevgi Soysal's "Walking." It's the first translation I've sponsored, something I've wanted to do for a long time. When I read Soysal's "Dawn," I knew I wanted to see her other work in print.
Polyphemus appearing in the form of a very slow garbage train
Giovanni Colantonio@marioprime.bsky.social · 2d agothe odyssey is a realistic depiction of what it’s like when you’re trying to get home to your girl at 2 am on the mta. it’s always some shit
I don't even know what to say. This is real, this is true, so, like, thank you all, from the bottom of my heart. This took over 25 years to happen so if there's any lesson here it's either "keep at it, who knows" or "many people are divorced"
yes she does and I’m so glad I got my hands on a copy of The Bloody Chamber around age 16 or so
Louis@louisevans.bsky.social · 6d agoAngela Carter writes like she’s on the run from Horny Interpol
Please stop flying your personal drones over wildfires. They can ground or collide with our firefighting aircraft, disrupting time critical firefighting and threatening people’s homes. Your photos are not worth someone’s home. If you fly, we can’t.
shoutout once again to the eight-grade social studies teacher who showed us this and also Gallipoli. I see what you were doing, Mr. Hoffman, and it worked (at least in my case)
Derf Backderf@derfbackderf.bsky.social · 2d agoMATEWAN is film that all of you should watch. It's a masterpiece that's more relevant now than it was in 1987.
Urban firestorms like the one that devastated Spokane Saturday have been growing more common because of increased development in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) and climate change. In this post, I document 9 such fires since 2016 in the U.S. yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/08/urba...
Urban firestorm devastates Spokane as dense smoke envelops the Northwest » Yale Climate Connections
Climate change, combined with development in high-risk areas, is making urban wildfires more likely.
yaleclimateconnections.org
An initiative on the ballot in Washington state in November would require all athletes seeking to play girl's sports from kindergarten to high school to undergo "genetic screening, a testosterone-levels test, or an examination of their reproductive anatomy" before they can play
Our flight from Seattle to Sacramento was delayed by a few hours last night, but we were rewarded with an epic sunset on Tahoma (Rainier) as it poked through the low stratus layer. The pastel peach backdrop was made possible by the horrific wildfire smoke from all the PNW fires.
Some wildfire smoke resources for WA and OR that might be useful (not updated this weekend, though): Washington Smoke Blog: wasmoke.blogspot.com Oregon Smoke Blog: oregonsmoke.org
Oregon Smoke Information
oregonsmoke.org
The emergency response to Spokane fires has been exemplary and heroic. We also need to remember this isn’t the limit of our ability to reduce wildfire risk. After 100 years of strict fire suppression, millions of acres of WA forest need fuel reduction treatments like prescribed fire & thinning.
Barry Geraghty@bgeraght.bsky.social · 3d agoHere’s the thing that frightens me. Everyone executed their roles almost perfectly in the response to these fires and it was still this bad. Everyone. Responders, city, county and fed officials. Detection and warning systems. Everyone did their jobs very well. This was a best case outcome.
CdA Tribe has offered space to those displaced by the fires
The front page of this morning’s Spokesman-Review, Aug. 2, 2026, the day after one of the worst wildfires in Washington state history. More than 600 structures, mostly homes, have been lost in the #OldTrailsFire. Read local news.
Last-minute impulse trip to Victoria on the clipper. I love boats and this one leaves from pier 69 (nice).
Geologist Marie Tharp was born #OTD in 1920. She built the first accurate map of the Atlantic Ocean floor, discovering the Mid-Atlantic Ridge that provided evidence for seafloor spreading and plate tectonics. 🧪 👩🔬 Image: Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
shirt advertising the library? sure! i genuinely intend to advertise the library. i volunteer as the library's sandwich board guy. shirt that just fucking says ADIDAS on it? no! i am not an unpaid billboard for a shoe company. that is not why god made my perfect body
If every life has equal value, every loss deserves equal mourning. My latest column examines why Seattle rallies after some tragedies but too often looks away when violence strikes Rainier Beach, Hillman City, Brighton, and other South Seattle neighborhoods.
COLUMN | Gun Violence Didn't Move to Seattle Center. Our Attention Did.
Seattle rallied when gun violence struck its "civic living room." Marcus Harrison Green asks why South End deaths have so rarely received the same urgency.
southseattleemerald.org
Yep. I agree with Dan. Also- say it with me folks- there are no 'natural' disasters
Dan Orlowitz@aishiterutokyo.bsky.social · 7d agoI've previously talked about how Japan is going to be shackled to X/Twitter until the algorithm and overwhelming amount of low-signal slop limits users' ability to get information during big natural disasters. It appears that this week's earthquake in Kumamoto is approaching that threshold.
“Trump has rejected disaster aid for Democratic-run states at the highest rate in the 47-year history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.” Right now people in blue states are basically paying federal taxes as if they’re colonized territories of red states. www.politico.com/news/2026/03...
I will never forget the constant sound of sirens on Flatbush Ave during the first two weeks of April 2020 (which I spent flat in bed, laid low by the virus months before rapid tests were available)
Bill Grueskin@bgrueskin.bsky.social · 7d agoRunning out of body bags, using forklifts to transfer corpses into makeshift morgues, a mortician conducting 200 funerals in a month when he usually does 30, crematories running at double capacity… And these senators just want to memory-hole it all www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/n...
not filmy but Kathryn Schulz’s review of @hjm.bsky.social’s H is for Hawk is a masterful piece of writing about a masterpiece of a book: www.newyorker.com/magazine/201...
How to Train Your Raptor
When Helen Macdonald’s father died, she decided to make a life with a sharp-clawed goshawk.
newyorker.com
regular meghan 나영지 🇵🇸@ruemcclammyhand.bsky.social · last wk.curious if any of the filmy types on here have reviews or pieces of criticism that are just like, your fucking favorite and if you could share
the most online movie character from a movie made before the (popular, social) internet is unquestionably Otto from A Fish Called Wanda
