Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Alex Acks

@katsudon.bsky.social

3.1K followers 210 following 1.5K posts

aka Alex Wells, certified gentlethem. Author, geologist, "asshole geographer," cyclist, cat dad. Union strong and queer as hell. 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈✊ All opinions strictly my own. (they/them) https://katsudon.net/

katsudon.net

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Alex Acks @katsudon.bsky.social · Mar 20

How about some biker space witches organizing labor to fight a monopoly? angryrobotbooks.com/books/hunger... angryrobotbooks.com/books/blood-...

Or steampunk rail pirates in an alternate Denver solving mysteries? queenofswordspress.com/product/murd...
queenofswordspress.com/product/wire...

Book cover of Hunger Makes the Wolf by Alex Wells

Hob fucking Ravani (a lady with an eyepatch) standing in front of a scifi-looking motorcycle like a badass, holding a ball of flame in one hand.

Book cover of Blood Binds the Pack by Alex Wells

Hob fucking Ravani and her best friend Mag, in front of a motorcycle. Hob's got her fire going, and Mag has a shotgun.

Book cover for Murder on the Titania and Other Steam-Powered Adventures by Alex Acks

Captain Marta Ramos, wearing a scarlet jacket and looking dangerous and awesome in front of a steam punk-y background.

Book cover of Wireless and More Steam-Powered Adventures by Alex Acks

Three of the pirate crew, standing in front of a locomotive and looking badass as hell. The one man present, Simms, is looking through a spyglass, probably trying to spot where the hell his sanity and self-preservative instincts have run off to.

25 37

Reposted by Alex Acks

Nick @nickduza.bsky.social · 8h

Here are some actual photos of actual protesters taken by actual people in Detroit yesterday.

People in an inflatable chicken, octopus, and unicorn marching in Detroit

A protester in an inflatable dinosaur costume holding a sign that says “we dumped a king in 1776. Stop digging him back up!! Dino says: ‘Even I know fossilized leadership stinks’l

11 99 1.2K

Alex Acks @katsudon.bsky.social · 7h

Chocobos of the Resistance

FINAL FANTASY XIV @en.finalfantasyxiv.com · 13h

Is it a chocobo 🐤
or is it a frog 🐸?

A screenshot from Final Fantasy 14 showing a chocobo wearing a green and yellow barding with a frog-shaped head and a golden crown.

2 5

Reposted by Alex Acks

Kathleen Bachynski @bachynski.bsky.social · 12h

“Although there aren’t available statistics on how many N.F.L. players have made nursing their second career, The Times spoke to five current and former athletes about their decision. Some are still playing and plan to pursue nursing when they leave… while others made the shift after retirement.”

The N.F.L. to Nursing Pipeline

www.nytimes.com

1 49 160

Reposted by Alex Acks

Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 2d

South Korea pushed AI hard in schools. The national program was aborted within months, following massive pushback from students, parents and teachers, after a fortune had already been spent by both the government and education publishers
restofworld.org/2025/south-k...

AI-powered textbooks fail to make the grade in South Korea

South Korea’s AI learning program was rolled back after just four months following a backlash from teachers, students, and parents, underlining the challenges in embedding the technology in education.

restofworld.org

12 580 1.2K

Reposted by Alex Acks

Cristy Clark @cristyclark.bsky.social · 12h

This is why I argue that (ostensibly) progressive movements & parties should stop aiming for the ‘reasonable centre’.
Your ‘pragmatic politics’ is just ceding ground to the right & shifting the centre along the way. It’s essential to commit to progressive values & insist on the politics of hope.

Melanie Richter-Montpetit @mellimo.bsky.social · 1d

German study shows how far right sets agenda thanks to mainstream parties reshaping their communications to respond to what are initially fringe issues, boosting the spread of these ideas and signalling to voters that these ideas and stances were legitimate

shorturl.at/OFfig

German far right setting agenda as opponents amplify its ideas, study finds

Normalisation of far-right stances likely to affect success of such parties at ballot boxes across Europe, say researchers

www.theguardian.com

3 57 160

Alex Acks @katsudon.bsky.social · 8h

Also the republicans love to claim we're all paid protestors, probably because all they know it's astroturf themselves, but it sounds so much sillier to claim that someone paid six soccer moms and a dog to stand on an overpass when you might see at least one of them in the grocery store later.

Alex Acks @katsudon.bsky.social · 8h

It's easy for people in rural areas/exurbs/suburbs to dismiss a big thing downtown, particularly with how media has spent decades casting cities as alien and disconnected cesspits of crime. It's a lot harder to dismiss your neighbors standing on your small town's main drag.

1 1 7

Alex Acks @katsudon.bsky.social · 8h

My decision to go to the local protest rather than the one in Denver started as selfishly not wanting to deal with transit logistics on a Saturday. But thinking about it, I know the pictures of masses of people are important, but sending a message to your neighbors is, too.

1 1 8

Alex Acks @katsudon.bsky.social · 8h

💯 Yesterday was so well planned in Colorado. We had a ton of local rallies, which are SO IMPORTANT because it lets people see that others in their community are protesting in numbers. And the Denver march started a bit later so people could get to that too if they were quick.

Ross Thompson (50ᵗʰ anniversary edition) @wintermute115.bsky.social · 9h

The point is to demonstrate to normies that MAGA is a fringe position.

1 4 22

Reposted by Alex Acks

Queen of Swords Press @qospress.bsky.social · 11h

#Booksky We’re going to kick off @wiscon.bsky.social’s new Vendor of the Month program on 11/1! Here’s how it works: sign up for WisCon’s newsletter and get the discount coupon for our webstore. Buy your queer books from us and we make a donation to WisCon through 11/30! wiscon.net/news/e-newsl...

Email Newsletter | WisCon

wiscon.net

10 15

Reposted by Alex Acks

Shiv Ramdas Mens Rice Activist @nameshiv.bsky.social · 11h

I was going to say that this guy almost certainly has a concussion at the end of the video but then I noticed that he's actually wearing a NY Giants shirt in public in 2025 so maybe he already had the concussion when he left home

Molly Ploofkins @mollyploofkins.bsky.social · 14h

MAGA man eats pavement after shouting slurs at No Kings protesters

17 22 310

Alex Acks @katsudon.bsky.social · 8h

LMAO SHIV 😂😂😂

Reposted by Alex Acks

hpanzironi @hpanzironi.bsky.social · 23h

Hero’s of the day - In a small town of Beckley, WV, Kendra Sullivan staged a one-woman No Kings protest. She was confronted, had the police called on her, but stood her ground. She was physically threatened. Police came more than once and protected her right to protest. This is how we do it.

110 1.2K 6.1K

Reposted by Alex Acks

Gabrielle Hecht has no more spoons @gabriellehecht.bsky.social · 11h

With alt text.

Executive summary: the US killed at least 3 Colombian fishermen who’d put up a distress flag. In Colombian waters

Camila @camilapress
FULL REPORT: Colombian public media reports that a U.S. military strike on a boat on September 15—the second attack on a vessel by the U.S. in the Caribbean that we're aware of—was a Colombian boat and was in Colombian territorial waters.
At least one of the three victims extrajudicially killed in the strike was Colombian lifelong fisherman Alejandro Carranza. Alejandro's identity is confirmed by his cousin.
The Colombian boat was adrift and had its distress signal up due to an engine failure.
EN VIVO SANTA MARTA - EXCLUSIVO
Señal
Colombia
EN DIRECTO
RTVC NOTICIAS
EXTRA SEGÚN CBS NOTICIAS
15 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2025 LANCHA FUE BOMBARDEADA@*
7:53 PM • 18 Oct 25 • 395K Views

1 1.4K 2.6K

Reposted by Alex Acks

Iron Spike @ironspike.bsky.social · Jun 21

A vitally important story, memorialized in Norman Rockwell's "Murder in Mississippi."

Normal Rockwell's "Murder in Mississippi." A 1965 painting by Norman Rockwell, which was commissioned for an article titled "Southern Justice" in the American magazine Look. The painting depicts the 1964 murders of civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner.

1 540 1.6K

Reposted by Alex Acks

Ing aka Tophat Artooning @ingforart.bsky.social · 11h

It's a revival of antifascist clowning

These ppl want to feel macho and tough when they pick fights, but you don't get that fighting a clown.

At best you beat up a clown and at worst you get your ass kicked by a clown and there's no coming back from that

Dan O’Sullivan @osullyville.bsky.social · 1d

The inflatable costume thing with the protesters is really good because it renders the body armor/CoD weaponry aesthetic of the ICE Nazis even more ridiculous than it already was. Suiting up like Rambo to face down a dancing frog. No coming back from that

2 37 120

Reposted by Alex Acks

Jennifer Pinkley @healthyveg.bsky.social · 1d

Favorite signs from the Fayetteville, TN No Kings! We had 80 people. #NoKings @thetnholler.bsky.social

4 66 340

Reposted by Alex Acks

Kerbal Engineering Systems @kerbalsystems.bsky.social · 19h

Austin PD's statement was even more explicitly pro-protest, they literally thanked everyone for coming out lol

20 180 1K

Alex Acks @katsudon.bsky.social · 8h

I was HOWLING

Reposted by Alex Acks

Cami @cafiffle.bsky.social · Jul 9

I think one of the saddest things about being a millennial is remembering a time when technology was advancing in a way that made life better and easier and more exciting instead of actively, intentionally worse

54 1.9K 5.2K

Reposted by Alex Acks

Preeti Chhibber @runwithskizzers.bsky.social · 10h

If you’re in a creative field and you don’t lift up the work of your peers, you can’t expect people to care about your stuff

Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 3d

Do you have any extremely niche, but serious, ethical stances?

13 960 3.5K

Reposted by Alex Acks

Natania Barron @natania.bsky.social · 11h

Please have 17 seconds of kitty purring. She’s soooo much friendlier today.

67 170 2K

Reposted by Alex Acks

Aidan Moher @aidanmoher.com · 10h

I love that skateboard kid couldn’t just hopped on his board and put distance between them at any point, but instead chose to let grampa think he had a chance. Good show of non-violent resistance.

1 16

Alex Acks @katsudon.bsky.social · 8h

And yes I know we should be venerating peaceful protest blah blah blah but frankly, that man should have gotten his ass beat for yelling slurs and the most violent thing anyone did to him was snatch his glasses. The rest, he fucking did to himself with the help of mother karma. 🙏

1 5

Alex Acks @katsudon.bsky.social · 8h

Like I would have been cheering for any of my fellow queers, young or old, if they'd clocked this Nazi loser cause talk shit get hit, but this is so so so much sweeter.

Even the fucking sidewalk in Denver hates you, you fucking pathetic loser.

1 6