Book_Gnome (she/they)💀🌈🦄

Stop New ICE Detention Centers in Pennsylvania The Department of Homeland Security has plans to open 23 detention centers nationwide. We recently learned that two of them would be in warehouses DHS purchased in Pennsylvania, in Berks and Schuylkil...

This cause is close to my heart - please sign: sign.moveon.org/petitions/st...

With democracy in free fall, the media must (finally) wake up Plus: a piece of heartening news amid the barrage of horrors

read @sulliview.bsky.social -->

margaretsullivan.substack.com/p/with-democ...

“These findings follow previous research which concluded that the more people learn about how AI works, the less they trust it.

The opposite was also true — AI’s biggest fans tended to be those who understood the least about the tech.”

🔗 futurism.com/artificial-i...

"AI is a direct attack on the way we verify information: AI both creates fake sources and obscures its actual sources.

That is the opposite of what librarians do, and teachers do, and scientists do, and experts do."

🔗 www.404media.co/ai-is-superc...

I know a lot of people (cough Millennials) feel like they need to START a thing, START a food bank, build a little free food pantry.

My friends, my loves, my dears.

Don't start.

JOIN.

These exist. They have community ties! They have some funding! Accountability! Regulations!

Every mention of SNAP being frozen should include this simple fact:

TRUMP is CHOOSING TO CANCEL FOOD ASSISTANCE. There are literally emergency dollars available to keep SNAP funded.

Young Republican group chat shows JD Vance’s double standard on ‘kids’ | Opinion To the vice president, men — like the one who worked for Kansas AG Kris Kobach — are men until they do something stupid. Women are women from conception. A new guest commentary from Jess Piper:

Here is a piece I wrote for the Kansas City Star.

I’d love for you to read it and share it.

www.kansascity.com/opinion/read...

It does somehow sum everything up neatly. Trashy vulgarian unilaterally decides to tear up an iconic American building as though it’s one of his tacky private clubs, rather than a national monument he has very temporarily (and foolishly) been permitted to inhabit.

When Donald Trump Razed the Bonwit Teller Building, He Promised the Met Its Art Deco Friezes. A New Book Details How He Pulverized Them Instead | Artnet News Read an excerpt from the book 'Art and Crime: The Fight Against Looters, Forgers, and Fraudsters in the High-Stakes Art World.'

See also: news.artnet.com/art-world/do...

In some ways, the regime half-assedly tearing off part of the White House without regard for construction protocols might have more of an impact on the offline folks than the past ten months.

Let’s talk #disability #history and #haunted asylums this spooky season #historytok #disabilitytiktok @The Try Guys @Zach Kornfeld @Project Fear @Sam and Colby TikTok video by PhDRachel

Saw the Try Guys do a ghost hunt at a historic asylum & Zac’s comments about ghost stories & ableism had me thinking about a fav @nursingclio.bsky.social article, “ghosts are scary, disabled people are not”
🗃️
www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8AWJ8KN/

Supreme Court ruling: "This Court now concludes that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption. That speakers may have influence over or access to elected officials does not mean that those officials are corrupt. And the appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in this democracy."

Every now and then I go back and read the Citizens United ruling to see if it is as unhinged as I thought, and every time I do that I see it is actually far more deranged than I remembered.

levernews.com/book

Rapid Response 47 @RapidResponse47 X.com A lot of FAKE OUTRAGE over construction of the big, beautiful (and privately funded) White House Ballroom. FACT: Presidents have been renovating and expanding the White House for more than 100 years. In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt built the West Wing. In 1909, President William Howard Taft added the first Oval Office during a West Wing expansion.

The White House keeps making a big deal of the fact that the ballroom is privately funded but that’s one of the worst things about it.

These people and companies are buying influence. None of this is okay.

*Attention all who did not hit the streets*

"When courts protect protesters' First Amendment rights, they enable the very public mobilization that can, in turn, defend judicial independence. When judges block unconstitutional detention schemes, they preserve the space for democratic organizing."

“We found over 35 cases in which the judges have specifically said what the government is providing…false information. It might be intentionally false information, including false sworn declarations time and again," says Ryan Goodman, law professor at New York University.

The New York Times Argues “Moving to the Center Is the Way to Win.” But the Data Shows the Strategy Is Tapped Out. Democrats already run moderates in nearly every swing district. It's not enough. A data-driven response to the case for centrism as a core electoral strategy.

My response to the NYT’s “moderate to win” argument: The data shows the strategy is tapped out. Being seen as moderate by voters doesn’t boost votes, replacing every progressive with moderates would net 0 seats, and the graveyard of defeated D incumbents if full of moderates, not progressives.

The Case for the Forever Shutdown Senate Democrats actually allowing the GOP to stop funding the government is only the first step. Now they have to make the case that Trump’s government is illegitimate.

Bridging my current life in Chicago and my past life in D.C., I argue today at @newrepublic.com that Democrats should ~never~ vote to fund this government. Make John Thune blow up Senate rules and Republicans wholly own the U.S. extra-military military doing war crimes against us, funded by us.

You need to stop putting your work into these platforms, immediately. [HIGHLIGHTED]I could get up on a high horse and give you a million reasons why you should not ever, under any circumstances be doing this when it comes to the greater collective (theft of others work and effort and time, the fact that it depletes our natural resources). But I only need tell you that you are ruining your chance at creative happiness. It’s ruining your brain. I know this because it’s making you bleed joy.[END HIGHLIGHTING] Your letter troubled me, friend. I worry that you have decided to just let go of all thought and let a computer think for you. That’s not what writing and passion and creativity is about. It’s not art. You do not need generative AI to give you story ideas. You do not need a robot to tell you whether your work is good. Only you can do that. Stop roadblocking your own writing life.

This from @kristenarnett.bsky.social's latest "Am I the Literary Asshole" is going to every single artist I know who has even ever been tempted by the machine: lithub.com/am-i-the-lit...

AI Was Supposed To Discover New Drugs. Where Are They? While some AI-designed drugs have made it to clinical trials, none of them have been approved. Why has it been harder than experts thought?

A few AI-designed drugs have made it to clinical trials, but none have been approved. Here are the fundamental issues of AI drug discovery, and what the future might look like. 💊

Post from WH about Chicago "in chaos," showing scene from another state.

A terrific AFP fact check uses reverse image searches to expose how a White House video took scenes from Florida, Texas, South Carolina and Nebraska and lied that they showed "Chicago is in chaos."
factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com....

Capirote - Wikipedia

In Blasphemous, your character is wearing a tall pointy hat called a capirote that actually exists irl

Notably, the KKK appropriated it *because* it was a Catholic symbol and they hated Catholics. They thought it was funny, a fun joke like calling each other wizards.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capirote

I’m currently building an HIV and STI education website for AMERICAN COLLEGE WOMEN and have more links to Planned Parenthood Canada than I ever envisioned when I started this 2 years ago.

Posting with alt text

As librarians, we hold more power than we think. It's why bigots go after us and our collections. Use that power to help those who benefit the most from it. Orwell doesn't get anything from more attention but a midlist marginalized author benefits greatly from it. If nothing else, be efficient.

Reminder from your resident high school lubrarian: if you plan to do a Banned Books Week display and programming, prioritize living marginalized authors. Use this time to help those who need it the most.

“.. On closer inspection, however, it turned out that the image was not a photograph of a real event in Portland, but instead a fabrication created by combining two photographs of scenes that unfolded in South America nearly a decade apart ..”

@theguardian.com
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Telegraph Club is the 4th most banned book in America — Malinda Lo Last week, PEN America released its fourth annual report on the state of book banning and censorship in America, and I learned that Last Night at the Telegraph Club was the fourth most banned book...

Last week, PEN America released its fourth annual report on the state of book banning and censorship in America, and I learned that Last Night at the Telegraph Club was the fourth most banned book in schools during the 2024-25 school year. How do I feel about it? www.malindalo.com/blog/2025/10...

Imagine paying $1,800+ for a smart refrigerator only to have it deliver advertisements based on your personal data. Anytime you're not using the screen, it's showing you advertisements #technology