🎶Hamas to the left of me Nazis to the right Here I am Stuck in the middle with Jews🎶
Tomos Doran
@portraitinflesh.bsky.social
Writer, blogger, Welsh. @portraitinflesh on Tw*tt*r. Contact me at aigtban@gmail.com.
The unstoppable spread of AI "art" has been a real blackpill for me, perhaps more than any other horrible development of the last decade. What it's taught me is that a critical mass of humanity, or even a majority, simply DO NOT GIVE A FUCK. They will quickly, gleefully learn to love ANY. OLD. SHIT.
My Nan and grandad still didn’t have a bathroom or inside toilet when the moved out of their house in 1981
OK, this shit is starting to seriously freak me out. I'm not hugely interested in whether AI can, strictly speaking, accurately replicate human intelligence. But, starting from early outcomes like this, it's not at all hard to imagine something truly catastrophic unfolding. Are we prepared for that?
My gran and grandad lived in a literal slum in Glasgow. After he'd served his country in the war and gained a lifetime of chronic pain (they found shrapnel still in him in the early 2000s) deafness and PTSD. But drinking water from the hose etc etc.
Also: the '60s didn't swing for millions of people, and as ever, an often false history is written by a narrow band of people, simply because they have the privilege and means to do so.
Tomos Doran@portraitinflesh.bsky.social · 12h agoA gravedigger and his family, 1962. We think of the 1960s as basically the modern day, but millions of British people still lived like this. Gravediggers were probably paid quite well, too, compared to other manual workers. This is the reality behind the "corned beef of my childhood" nostalgia slop.
A gravedigger and his family, 1962. We think of the 1960s as basically the modern day, but millions of British people still lived like this. Gravediggers were probably paid quite well, too, compared to other manual workers. This is the reality behind the "corned beef of my childhood" nostalgia slop.
"Nothing then like a children's park." What the everliving fuck is this deranged simpleton talking about? Kids' playgrounds weren't invented by loony left social workers in 1988. If this *wasn't* written by a swivel-eyed twentysomething fascist in a blazer, I'll eat any three hats you care to name.
TL;DR: Nazi woman who says Nazi things is very upset by being called a Nazi.
A friend of mine was in a local arts centre with his little boy, who opened up a board game, and this fell out. I've never felt so bad about laughing my head off.
"I'm not denying it's a great opening line, Ms Smith, but I think you'll find Jesus died for *everyone's* sins, *including* yours."
Rich Raho@richraho.bsky.social · 5d agoPope Leo received singer and songwriter Patti Smith in private audience this morning. The Pope and Smith are both Chicago natives. She was accompanied by @antoniospadaro.bsky.social, undersecretary for the Vatican's Dicastery for Culture and Education.
Most of you probably know that Michael McKean, Chuck in Better Call Saul, also starred as David St. Hubbins in This Is Spinal Tap. But did you know he played an evil clown in a 1996 episode of Star Trek: Voyager? It's much, much better than that makes it sound. In fact, he knocks it out of the park.
Neo-reactionaries must explain away the fact that the overwhelming majority of human beings in the West have embraced Enlightenment values, which means they need scapegoats. They often find them in Jews, and people of colour, but clearly their preferred solution is to blame women, aka their mothers.
Just watched The Sheep Detectives (free on Amazon Prime). What an absolute delight, can't recommend it strongly enough. It has much in common with the Paddington movies, taking place in a whimsical, wholesome and diverse parallel Britain, full of beguiling anachronisms. We need more films like this.
I'm tickled by the "perfectly mixed", here. As though there's some proprietary technique to making a whiskey and coke, beyond just... pouring them both into the same container.
I can't decide if this is brain-dead idealism - "if a black man says it's racism, we're not asking any questions" - or breathtaking cynicism - "our donors will keep shelling out for doomed cases as long as we keep up the right 'social justice' patter". Either way, it's a deeply unedifying spectacle.
Good Law Project@goodlawproject.org · last wk.Jason Arday is the youngest Black professor in Cambridge's history – and now rightwing newspapers are trying to smear him with untrue accusations of plagiarism. Not on our watch. Add your name in solidarity with Jason here: https://goodlaw.social/jg0w
There's something almost refreshing about "Free Palestine" advocates openly embracing *literally* Nazi antisemitism in this manner, given the murky web of semi-deniability these people generally operate in. "[W]ho were Zionists even though they said they were not" is a particularly Kafkaesque touch.
This video of former Australian prime minister Paul Keating, laying into Pauline Hanson, who was and is their equivalent to Nigel Farage, is thirty years old. When was the last time you heard any prominent left-of-centre politician, anywhere, offer such a muscular defence of multicultural democracy?
Just had a bit of a rant on Facebook, which, to save time, I've decided to screenshot instead of pasting it into a thread. I can't be the only one who feels this way, surely?
This "poem", which is yet again doing the rounds on Facebook, will one day, I'm certain, be studied as a key cultural artefact of our time. There's no more perfect encapsulation of how reactionary social views come clothed as innocent nostalgia, a defining phenomenon of early 21st century Discourse.
I honestly think that breeding dogs - the animal we claim to love more than any other in the world - into shapes so extreme, they can barely breathe unaided, will one day be seen as an inexplicable cruelty of our time, as we now look upon e.g. cockfighting or bear-baiting. The poor bloody creatures.
Just learned a top-grade bit of trivia: Rebecca Front's father designed the title-logo on the cover of the Beatles' Rubber Soul. Precisely the sort of factoid that makes my day; thanks, universe.
Westminster reacts to Burnham's purge of Starmer supporters.
This might be the sweetest thing I've ever seen. What a lovely kid, and a lovely dad.
If you've been to Dublin, you may have seen the statue of Molly Malone, heroine of the famous folk ditty. It depicts her with a large, overflowing bosom, an artistic choice that has attracted some criticism. Anyway, during a late night Wikipedia session, I came across this FANTASTIC rationalization.
These horrible, quasi-sacrilegious objects will soon acquire the same morbid kitsch appeal as memorabilia of Edward VIII's coronation, which never happened. The main difference being: as Trumpian as Edward was, in many ways, he at least kept his Nazi sympathies mainly confined to the private sphere.
There's always universal praise, when a big name dies. But I think you can tell when people are just going through the motions, and when it comes from the heart, and the reaction to Sam Neill's death belongs firmly in the latter category. He really does seem to have brightened an awful lot of lives.
