Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Laine Ballou

@laineballou.bsky.social

360 followers 520 following 1.7K posts

Trying my best. Probably failing. Really like to overuse the ❤️ button. #ActuallyAutistic, AD(H)D, and oh good, early onset dementia now too, so if I misunderstand you, I'm sorry. She/her They/them works too 🤷🏻‍♀️ 🖖 🖤🩶🤍💜

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Laine Ballou @laineballou.bsky.social · Nov 13

For new followers:
I don't post a whole lot because I don't have the energy to say stuff, even when I really want to, so instead I reskeet things that I think are helpful or positive.
I block follow farmers (people who follow thousands of accounts to get follow-backs).

1 11

Reposted by Laine Ballou

Mrs. Detective PikaBOO, Esq. @clapifyoulikeme.favrd.social · 9h

This is very good and made me feel Emotions

bring on the headless horses @ihavethatonvinyl.com · 9h

i blogged about yesterday's marches and protests. i wrote about the cynicism these actions are being met with, and i wrote about why the event was so, so important to me, to you, to us michelecatblog.wordpress.com/2025/10/19/o...

on protesting

for those who think this means nothing I went to a No Kings protest yesterday. I’ve been to protests and marches before, but never alone. I have social anxiety, I hate crowds, I hate being aw…

michelecatblog.wordpress.com

1 4 28

Reposted by Laine Ballou

Gabrielle Hecht has no more spoons @gabriellehecht.bsky.social · 1d

Purdue to the rescue of IU student newspaper, whose institution was attempting censorship. Details in alt!

Sara Whitmer
• • •
1h • 8
I'm sure many of you have heard by now that earlier this week, IU k*lled the print edition of its student paper, the IDS. The issue that was supposed to print this week contained criticism of the Whitten regime and IUs further slide into scist control, and they couldn't allow that to happen during Homecoming, when all the rich alumni are in town.
Enter Purdue! The Purdue student paper, The Exponent, owns its own presses. Yesterday, in an act of tremendous solidarity with their biggest rival school, they printed the forbidden issue of the IDS. They then drove it to Bloomington overnight and stocked all of the IDS boxes on campus, just in time for Homecoming.
Solidarity is what makes us stronger, and solidarity will be what ultimately allows us to triumph, if we can ever truly get it together. I hope everyone has a fun, safe day if they're going out today, and I hope we can think about what acts of solidarity we can begin taking to really make this movement MOVE - beyond a permitted expression of upset into more active resistance.
75
12 comments

130 1.7K 6.4K

Reposted by Laine Ballou

SpiffySmallSound @doublecollusion.bsky.social · 1d

Guys new scamming method on bluesky. Please share this around. Dont fall for this stuff

Block, move on.

96 6.9K 8.2K

Reposted by Laine Ballou

Micah @rincewind.run · 1d

notice the general mood of the timeline? how everyone is in a good mood and there’s a lot less misery and dooming? how there’s a lot of “we’re going to beat these assholes”?

anyway that’s why these events are important

51 3.7K 15K

Reposted by Laine Ballou

Erica Chenoweth @chenoweth.bsky.social · 2d

My team at the Crowd Counting Consortium (@djpressman.bsky.social, Hammam, & Chris Shay) has a new piece, whose title speaks for itself. A 🧵 with some key descriptive takeaways:

The resistance reaches into Trump country

As organizers for No Kings 2 seek historic turnout on Oct. 18, the broader pro-democracy movement has already broken new ground.

wagingnonviolence.org

6 260 570

Reposted by Laine Ballou

Erica Chenoweth @chenoweth.bsky.social · 2d

2. Our new analysis suggests that protest events in 2025 have occurred across a wider range of US counties than we observed during Trump's first term. And the current protest movement has already reached deeper into Trump country than at almost any point during the first Trump administration.

2 83 350

Laine Ballou @laineballou.bsky.social · 1d

Who’s your favorite reoccurring (that is not part of the regular cast but kept showing up) sitcom character?

Jean Ralfio and Mona Lisa Sapperstein from Parks and Recreation

Lucille Austero from Arrested Development

1 1

Reposted by Laine Ballou

Lupita Nihongo @otsumamiboy.bsky.social · 2d

Hey. It’s my birthday.

Normally people ask for money on their birthdays.

Well. I am too. But not for me.

If you need mutual aid, money for any reason, want to boost something you sell, a service (yes sex work too) or a craft you do, please reply.

I will check periodically all weekend & reskeet.

150 330 680

Reposted by Laine Ballou

Helen Kennedy @helenkennedy.bsky.social · 1d

Update: laist.com/news/politic...

Judge blocks LAPD request to lift restrictions on use of force against the press

The move comes ahead of Saturday's No Kings protests.

laist.com

1 17 89

Laine Ballou @laineballou.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you

Reposted by Laine Ballou

Dr. Johnathan Flowers, Blade Wielding Bisexual (Lordean arc) @shengokai.blacksky.app · 1d

Given his unjust banning, I am taking up Link's charge and doing Fund Me Fridays in his stead.

If you have funding needs, drop them in the thread below. I'll also be grabbing links that I've missed from previous threads and reposting them.

Today is a good day to meet some people's needs.

50 340 490

Reposted by Laine Ballou

Stephanie Zvan @stephaniezvan.bsky.social · 2d

Recommended read. I like "enshittification" as a word. It's cute. It's evocative. But really, it succeeds in the analysis of how consumer power over tech was taken from us and how we can get it back.

Jennifer Ouellette @jenlucpiquant.bsky.social · 2d

Yes, everything online sucks now—but it doesn’t have to. Ars chats with Cory Doctorow about his new book "Enshittification.: arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025...

Yes, everything online sucks now—but it doesn’t have to

Ars chats with Cory Doctorow about his new book Enshittification.

arstechnica.com

1 2 3

Reposted by Laine Ballou

darth™️ @darthbluesky.bsky.social · 1d

people who earnestly try to argue that blocking certain accounts deprives u of important opposing viewpoints are assuming these certain accounts are posting in good faith
which is a dangerous assumption tbh

150 900 5.4K

Reposted by Laine Ballou

Evan Dorkin @evandorkin.bsky.social · 1d

Block fascists. There's no reasoning or arguing with them, you might as well debate with spoiled leftovers. Don't let them bait you. Block fast, block often, block fascists. Let their accounts mummify.

16 480 1.5K

Reposted by Laine Ballou

jenny_tightpants🪑 @jtp.bsky.social · 1d

an underrated feature on here is that if you put a link in a post, once the embed for the link appears under your post's draft, you can delete the text of the link and the embed will still stay. that way you can have more characters free to write your post instead of being hogged by the link

14 42 490

Laine Ballou @laineballou.bsky.social · 1d

Mountbatten-Windsor, but he's also still "Prince Andrew." He's just no longer "His Royal Highness, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, Earl of Inverness, and Baron Killyleagh." It's bullshit he still gets to be a prince and free man, but at least he's deeply irritated he loses his given titles.

Laine Ballou @laineballou.bsky.social · 1d

I highly recommend the block lists made by this account. I use the over 10k one and I no longer get nuisance follows at all. bsky.app/profile/auto...

bsky.app

Laine Ballou @laineballou.bsky.social · 1d

Watching them with the buffer and yelling "you can put sandpaper on that and remove the paint!"

Reposted by Laine Ballou

unraveled @unraveledpress.com · 2d

Crowd here has grown, and people are fired up with chants. Broadview PD and ISP trying to push people out of the street/maintain the "protest zone." Someone plays the accordion.