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Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 4h

I wonder if Terran high-school kids in the Star Trek universe use "Horta-fucker" as an insult.

Anyway, I put all the other distractions far away and wrote for half an hour. I thought, "That's gotta be 500 words." Barely 300.

Oh, these thoughts aren't connected.

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Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 5h

When it's a little late to realize your faith without works is dead.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 11h

Trump: "I don't think there's anything that's gonna get me in heaven. I think I'm not maybe heaven bound. I may be in heaven right now as we fly on Air Force One. I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to make heaven."

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Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 5h

When we went to the grocery store, we passed a neighbor's house where two crows were busy doing something in a large hole. "I wonder what those crows are up to," Omaha said.

"Just two?" Omaha nodded. "That's just attempted murder."

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Reposted by Elf M. Sternberg

Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 1d

This heartfelt and meaningful statement by Portland resident and author Cristina Breshears on another social media platform bears reposting here. I don't think the intent is to idealize Portland but to remind all of us what is important and why. (Posted here with permission.)

For nine nights now, the steady thrum of Black Hawk helicopters has circled over Portland. The sound is constant, invasive; a low mechanical beating above our homes. It’s expensive. It’s intimidating. And it’s unnecessary.

Our protests have been largely peaceful. There is no insurrection here. Yet this federalized military presence makes us feel like we are living in a war zone (the very kind of chaos this administration claims to be protecting us from).

The irony is painful: it is only this occupation that makes Portland feel unsafe.

Each hour of helicopter flight costs taxpayers between $2,000 and $4,000, depending on crew, fuel, and maintenance. Multiply that by multiple aircraft over multiple nights, and you’re looking at hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars burned into the sky.

Meanwhile, the Woodstock Food Pantry at All Saints Episcopal Church — which feeds working families, elders, and people with disabilities — has seen its federal funding slashed by 75%. How can we justify pouring public money into intimidation while cutting aid to those who simply need to eat?

This is waste, fraud, and abuse in plain sight:
* Waste of public resources on military theatrics.
* Fraud in the name of “public safety.”
* Abuse of the communities that federal agencies claim to protect.

Portland is a Sanctuary City. A sanctuary city is not a fortress. It’s a promise — a living vow that a community will protect the dignity and safety of everyone who calls it home. It means that local governments and ordinary people alike will refuse to criminalize survival. That schools, clinics, churches, and shelters will remain safe spaces no matter who you are or where you were born. But the term reaches far beyond policy. It’s an ethic of belonging; a refusal to criminalize need, difference, or desperation.

Sanctuary isn’t weakness. It’s courage. It takes moral strength to meet suffering with care instead of punishment, to believe that our neighbors’ safety is bound up in our own, to insist that safety is not achieved through force but through community, inclusion, and trust. It is living Matthew 25:40 out loud and in deed. It is an act of moral imagination and moral defiance. To hold sanctuary is to say: you belong here.

When we hold space for the most vulnerable — refugees, the unhoused, the undocumented, the disabled, the working poor, the displaced — we become something larger than a collection of individuals. We become a moral body. We do more than offer charity. We offer witness. We declare that the measure of a nation is found not in its towers or tanks, but in its tenderness.

Sanctuary cities are not lawless; they are soulful. They represent the conscience of the nation, a place where the laws of empathy still apply. To make sanctuary is to affirm that the United States is not merely a geographic territory, but a moral experiment: a republic that must constantly choose between fear and compassion, between domination and democracy.

A nation’s soul is measured not by the might of its military, but by the mercy of its people. When helicopters circle our skies in the name of order, while food pantries struggle to feed the hungry, we are forced to ask: What are we defending, and from whom? The soul of a nation survives only when we make sanctuary for one another. Not through walls or weapons, but through compassion and collective will. If we allow intimidation to replace compassion, we will have traded our conscience for control.

Please know that despite the hum of war machines overhead, the conscience of our city — whimsical, creative, stubbornly kind — can still be heard.

Portland is not the problem. Portland is the reminder. A reminder that a city can still choose to be sanctuary. That a people can still choose to be human.

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Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 5h

And people think citrus is promiscuous!

Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 5h

Mods are asleep post brassicas

You either die a brassica or you live long enough to see yourself become a crab.

CAP'N
CRUNCH'S
DOPSIAll
NATURALLY &
ARTIFICIALLY
Brassica oleracea
otened
cer

What vegetable are you?
I'm brassica oleracea
Do you have the slightest idea how little that narrows it down?

Brassica oleracea

Ladies, get you a fella who can do it all

Selection for terminal buds
Selection for lateral buds
Selection for stem
Selection for leaves
Selection for stems and flowers
Selection for flower clusters
Cabbage
Brussels sprouts
Kohlrabi
Kale
Broccoli
Cauliflower

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Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 6h

I used to joke that I loved curling because the women were hot, but then some club issued a "girls of curling" calendar. I wasn't wrong, but it weakens the joke when it's real.

Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 14h

I forgot the futball team, the Seattle Sounders. And the Seawolves, our rugby team. Or the Granite, our curling team.

We regret the error.

Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 7h

I still wish we were enough of a country for this to be useful:

Clinton Calls For National Week Off To Get National Shit Together

theonion.com/clinton-call...

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Reposted by Elf M. Sternberg

Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 8h

The real story here is not about how scared individual cops are (they're almost certainly exaggerating), but about the fact police depts in the US openly intervene in partisan politics, and decline to obey reform-minded politicians. We effectively have no democratic oversight of police in the US.

Mark Misoshnik 🏴 @misoshnik.bsky.social · 1d

Lmao is this supposed to be a bad thing?

A tweet from Bari Weiss that says “"It's shaken me to my core," a lieutenant said of Mamdani's unexpected victory in June. "The absolute dread I feel is palpable.
"
Today in @TheFP our @Olivia_Reingold talks to the cops who say they will walk if Zohran Mamdani is elected in November:”

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Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 7h

Sienna says, "I see you have food, hooman. As you know, I am a food enjoyer, too."

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Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 7h

The sportsball-watching line-up, always. Sienna has to have the middle seat.

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Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 7h

I have often described it as "A soap opera set on starships."

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Reposted by Elf M. Sternberg

Dave @dept-of-dave.bsky.social · 14h

Classic tweet from lauren (@NotABigJerk):

“i'm not falling for that hot take. that's clearly someone with a fetish for getting yelled at. i refuse to participate in that kind of perversion”

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Reposted by Elf M. Sternberg

derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 11h

This two-parter below is exactly why it's hard to make clothes in the United States.

Let's look at how much it costs to produce a button-up shirt in the US. 🧵

Someone on Twitter replies to me: "meh. buy american or stfu."

Two hours later, in a separate thread, the write: "$30 for a single button-up is ridiculous unless it is decent quality silk."

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Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 11h

Once Upon A time, cereals had names like Sugar Smacks and Sugar Pops. But that sounds unhealthy, so now they're "Glazed." My pornographic memory is highly amused.

Three varieties of cereal, special "glazed" editions.

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Reposted by Elf M. Sternberg

A.R. Moxon @juliusgoat.bsky.social · 17h

I wrote about a new Nazi party that seeks to criminalize all human virtue, and how that means that human virtue is the greatest weapon against the new Nazi project.

www.the-reframe.com/the-crime-of...

The Crime of Human Virtue

Sometimes it really is as simple as good vs. evil. This is one of those times. Human virtue is our great crime against the fascist project; it's also our great weapon against it.

www.the-reframe.com

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Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 13h

That was the most anti-climatic ending I've seen in a long time. Two minutes of nothing. Still, the #Seahawks won it without risking injury, so it was probably the right call.

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Reposted by Elf M. Sternberg

Owen Dennis @oweeeeendennis.bsky.social · 15h

I was at this concert and lemme tell you, I've never seen a bigger audience pop than this.

If only there was some kind of message Democrats could read from this. Oh well!

www.thedailybeast.com/pop-star-cha...

Pop Star Pauses Concert to Say ‘F*** ICE’

Chappell Roan slammed the federal agency on Friday, while Chance the Rapper put out the same message at a different concert.

www.thedailybeast.com

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Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 13h

Grief, that's the seventh sack on the #Jaguars quarterback.

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Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 14h

That's the Kraken. My son is a huge Kraken fan.

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Reposted by Elf M. Sternberg

weeder @weeder.bsky.social · 17h

The "you wouldn't download a car" screen but it reads "you wouldn't scrape all the art ever made and use it to create an Anime titty generator"

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Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 14h

I don't disagree. I just wish Harrell didn't think sports was the be-all of civic participation.

Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 14h

The UPS Sunday football ad, on the other hand, is sure to upset the right people with their inclusive, "we help immigrants become citizens" blip.

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Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 14h

Speaking of Seattle things, Truffle Queen salt on popcorn is really friggin' amazing.

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Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 14h

I forgot the futball team, the Seattle Sounders. And the Seawolves, our rugby team. Or the Granite, our curling team.

We regret the error.

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Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 14h

The IKEA ad playing on NFL Sunday demands answers to questions like, "Who washes their bicycling helmet in the dishwasher?"

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