in which @annaleen.bsky.social asks us to dream big: “What if we gave public transportation the same amount of money that investors have given to AI? With billions of dollars, what could transit do? And how might it transform our cities and lives?” www.coyotemedia.org/funding-bay-...

A Modest Proposal for Funding Transit Instead of AI

In the ’60s, the Bay Area almost got a high-speed train from Marin to San Jose. What could happen if we dreamed big again?

coyotemedia.org

On top of everything else in this dumpster fire of a month, I came home last night to a leaking kitchen sink. The jokes write themselves. However @trafficfurnitur.bsky.social just fixed it because he's the kind of person who is really fucking good at just fixing things.

In 2023 while in NOLA, a Lyft Driver and I had a conversation about leaving home. It led to him telling me about his terminal diagnosis. “An editor told me once that if you want to understand a war, interview the grave diggers. I’d add that if you want to understand a city, interview the drivers.”

Mister Anthony

oxfordamerican.org

Thank you for all of the kind words about the loss of Paloma. If you need support around grief, pet loss related or otherwise, reach out to a friend or therapist for support. Related, this forthcoming book looks amazing and I'm grateful for it's existance.

s. e. smith@sesmith.lol · 9mo ago

So uh. I've spent the last five years working on a book about grief, mourning, who is allowed to grieve and how, and where we go from here, and... you can now preorder it!

My friend is gone. For 16 years she was my shadow, my comfort, the sweetest cat on the planet, the most amazing 'start up' brrrrrrup, and always there to let me cry into her soft belly. The house is so empty without her, and waking up without her next to me just... hurts.

My heart has joined the thousand. My friend stopped running today.

Been thinking about this framing of Hegseth's insistence on giving cis guy soldiers extra t as 'gender affirming'. It rubs me the wrong way for a few reasons. 1. cis people don't see HRT as gender affirming. 2. Guys like Hegseth think men are entitled to testosterone, not 'affirmed' by it.

My cancelable take is that I don't trust people who are 'any pronouns'.

I truly hate the roller coaster of caring for an elderly cat with kidney disease. It's bringing up a lot of really tough memories of having a cat with cancer, the back and forth on care plans, quality of life, trying to get her to eat, wondering if what I'm doing is helping at all.

I know it's called 'acting' but I just can't imagine Matt Damon as Odysseus.

odyssey? yeah you odyssey about getting a real job buddy

Can't tell if I'm relieved or insulted that my books aren't on this site, but check if yours are. I'm all for supporting trans writers and work, and archiving stuff that's no longer in print but this ain't how to go about it.

Tilly Bridges@tillybridges.bsky.social · 2w ago

friends, please: don’t use transreads dot org they claim to support trans authors, but take our entire texts, post them for free, fundraise off it, and have the gall to claim it’s about preservation they are literally taking money from trans creators and make it harder for us to keep creating

OK, well this looks amazing! Gonna go pre-order it now.

Saffron@dragonsaffron.bsky.social · 2w ago

My next book is up for pre-order! After three years of hard work, I present Making Butches, aka the Butch Lesbian TGTF Anthology, the book that dares to ask the question: what if you got turned into a woman and you *didn't* end up being a dainty femme? saffron-drake.itch.io/making-butch...

Beard's essay opens, "I want to start very near the beginning of the tradition of Western literature, and its first recorded example of a man telling a woman to ‘shut up’; telling her that her voice was not to be heard in public." My essay on the Odyssey, Andrew & Tristan Tate, misogyny then & now:

Listening to Cassandra: Misogyny, Classical and Modern

Last weekend, the film The Odyssey was released and the Tate brothers were arrested in Florida at the behest of the British government, which seeks to extradite them to face a long list of charges. An...

meditationsinanemergency.com

Can we stop framing other people's desires as 'Ick' if they don't align with our own? You don't wanna read about a Minotaur Milking Farm, it's pretty simple to just ..... not. read. it. Framing kinky weirdo monsterfuckers as not 'mature' is also a wild swing.

Who, exactly, longs for this. Who is the audience soaking sliced white bread in water and loudly insisting it’s a gourmet meal. I want to see sales numbers. I want a longitudinal survey of demographics and backgrounds. I want to study these people like bugs under the microscope of my disdain.

The fact that VP JD Vance and Richard Grenell went to Romania—on behalf of the Trump Administration— to advocate for Andrew and Tristan Tate, who by all accounts, were rapists running a coercive sex ring, then permitted them to come to Florida, should be a crazy, crazy scandal.

I actually love that tech bros made streaming music so horrible that people are back to spending $$ on CD's, LP's, and DVD's.

Annoyed that I have to expose myself to a Nolan movie to scratch my itch for a good historically inaccurate costume flick.

If you're old enough, like me, to remember when this dropped... congrats on both your expanded 'understanding' of sexuality, and your enormous bottle of ibuprofin.

shawn@mulchy.bsky.social · 3w ago

on this day in 1995, scientists discovered bisexuality. happy 31st birthday to all my fellow bs

We are currently running our summer fundraiser @mendocinoartcenter.bsky.social , if you're able, your donation goes far to help provide access to residencies, workshops, support our hard-working staff, and upgrade our campus. Last year we made significant ADA improvements with more to come!

Cultivating abundance for long term community — Mendocino Art Center

Summer fundraiser towards residencies, long term growth, scholarships, and exhibitions for art on the California Coast

mendocinoartcenter.org

like I dunno, if I were a strategist in a functional opposition party I might pay smart and creative people to make viral TikTok and Instagram videos pointing out Republicans are illegally turning U.S. local broadcast TV into a right wing propaganda machine but that's just me

FCC to repeal 39% TV ownership cap in boost for Trump-friendly news orgs

FCC chairman claims power to repeal TV ownership limit set by Congress.

arstechnica.com

ART/SMUT is coming Friday, July 31st 6pm Our experimental shorts program features: @axgeg.bsky.social @jizlee.bsky.social @shinelouise.bsky.social @davielshy.bsky.social @jaqquicksilver.com & more! 🎟️ Get earlybird tickets! Save 15% with code BLUSH15. See you at the Roxie! roxie.com/film/blush-s...

BLUSH San Francisco PornFilmFestival: Art/Smut

Followed by a post-screening filmmaker talk moderated by festival director Shine Louise Houston. Doors open at 5:30 PM, 30 minutes before the show. “Ceci N’est Pas Une Porn…” How do YOU define porn?

roxie.com

Finally figured out how to turn off the 'ai' shit on Zoom, so now I have a way better experience. I'm imagining they'll figure out a way to re-introduce that at some point tho.

Genuinely curious about this language switch I'm seeing in certain communities where they use the word 'transfemme', when I think they mean 'trans women'. Femme isn't a swap for 'women', men can be 'femme', nonbinary people can be 'femme'.

Paloma, still a beauty.

Residents of Alameda quality to enter this lottery for a huge discount on an e-bike! I just picked mine up a few days ago and it's really a game-changer for me for street riding - my biggest challenge was feeling like I couldn't accelerate to compete with cars and this really helps.

My review of the 'Dracula Ballet' in SF - needed more swords, more blood, and more lesbian vampires.

Self care + I did take a vacation. However now I'm dealing with the epic 'to do' list which results of actually stepping away from running 2 businesses plus ya know, life. And life keeps ... being a lot.

Rowling is truly vile. Between her and Musk, the way these people use their resources to make other people's lives harder is.. I don't even have the words for how evil that is.

s. e. smith@sesmith.lol · 3w ago

The fact that J.K. Rowling successfully bullied Amnesty International into taking down a report that accurately called out her attack on trans people, especially trans women, is so repulsive and such a display of the power of her money, and her choice to put her vast fortune behind persecution.