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Mezentine

@mezentine.bsky.social

1.7K followers 1.3K following 10K posts

Chicago-based. Bikes. Books. Photography. Lot of politics.

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Mezentine @mezentine.bsky.social · Apr 29

"Peace if possible.

Justice at any rate."

I came across that quote a few years ago while reading a biograph of Timuel Black. I think about those words.

I think about those words a lot.

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Mezentine @mezentine.bsky.social · 48m

There are some authors like Tchaikovsky who I think are doing really good work in continuity with the big novel movements of the 70s and 80s but it feels so hard to find stuff interested in pushing the boundaries of structure and style.

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Mezentine @mezentine.bsky.social · 55m

This originally said fiction except I think there actually is some really good lit fic coming out.

Mezentine @mezentine.bsky.social · 55m

Melodrama has eaten the SFF market in ways that people feel but struggle to describe.

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 1d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

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Mezentine @mezentine.bsky.social · 1h

Ah there it is.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 1h

Ooof.

Walmart Partners With OpenAI to Offer Shopping on ChatGPT

Walmart Inc. is teaming up with OpenAI to enable shoppers to browse and purchase its products on ChatGPT, the retailer’s latest push to incorporate artificial intelligence.

www.bloomberg.com

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Mezentine @mezentine.bsky.social · 1h

Partner has a bachelorette party coming up the same weekend that a local group is offering free trainings for getting a ham radio license...

Reposted by Mezentine

unraveled @unraveledpress.com · 1h

We're told at least one person was arrested—and later released with a citation for disorderly—by Broadview police for simply being on the Maywood side of 25th at Harvard St outside the ICE facility this morning.

They were documenting agents coming and going as electeds have told people to do.

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Laur-eeeeee😱 (spooky scream) @laurie-merrell.bsky.social · 2h

I was very frustrated by the version of this story I heard on Morning Edition. Among other things, it says "ACLU & immigration advocates say federal agents are violating the law" and doesn't mention that a federal judge ruled last week that feds are violating rights!

www.npr.org/2025/10/13/n...

Tackles, projectiles and gunfire: Many fear ICE tactics are growing more violent

Videos taken by eye witnesses of federal agent encounters with immigrants in Chicago and elsewhere have shown increasingly tense incidents. Immigrant advocates and observers say they're indicative of ...

www.npr.org

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Mezentine @mezentine.bsky.social · 2h

I'm both curious and concerned about the next 2 weeks. There have been clear violations of at least two orders from two different judges, plus the imminent deadline to remove the Broadview fence. When they continue not to comply will anyone have the nerve to respond as needed?

Mezentine @mezentine.bsky.social · 2h

Was it always like this?? I do not recall little league or soccer being this way when I was a kid, but maybe I just didn't notice or something?

Mezentine @mezentine.bsky.social · 2h

Carrots have way too much sugar?

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Phineasferatu @phineas.bsky.social · 3h

A squirrel is standing inside and peeking over the top rim of a hollowed out pumpkin. The top of the pumpkin can be seen behind. The squirrel is wearing a slouchy black witch hat with orange stripes and holding a squirrel-sized chef knife. The knife is because the squirrel has carved the words ‘MAYBE IT WILL HAPPEN’ in the side of the pumpkin and in the ground in front the word ‘TODAY’ has been spelled with stringy orange pumpkin guts with seeds scattered all around.

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Mezentine @mezentine.bsky.social · 3h

I think there’s a general problem with reading less widely that is specifically acute in the SFF author scene. You can really feel when a group of people only reading each other’s work.

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Mezentine @mezentine.bsky.social · 3h

I watched one of my favorite SFF authors from the last decade slide in this direction and it was incredibly aggravating.

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they/them might be giants ☭ @babadookspinoza.bsky.social · 6h

“Israeli” ceasefires only ever apply to the other party. They’ll continue to kill whomever they want, whenever they want until they are stopped. They see themselves as occupying an altogether different moral plane than their enemies, like any colonizer.

Tweet from Quds News Network @QudsNen
BREAKING: Three Palestinians were killed after Israeli quadcopter drones opened fire on residents inspecting their homes in the Shujaiyya neighborhood, east of Gaza City.

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Mezentine @mezentine.bsky.social · 3h

This is one of the ones I wasn’t brave enough to say.

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Phil McDuff @mcduff.bsky.social · 4h

You gotta fucking tax these people man. You can't let people get this rich.

Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 4h

The world's richest man, and owner of one of the largest social media platforms, is funding white supremacists seeking to undermine democracy everywhere he can. www.huffpost.com/entry/tommy-...

Far-Right UK Activist ‘Tommy Robinson’ Says Elon Musk Is Funding His Latest Legal Fight

Musk recently appeared by videolink at a massive London rally hosted by the anti-Islam activist, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.

www.huffpost.com

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Katelyn Boo-urns @katelynburns.com · 22h

For my newsletter today, I wrote about the American police state and how Democrats are going to have to kill it if they have any hope of rebuilding from the authoritarian Trump regime. www.burnsnotice.com/democrats-mu...

Democrats Must Kill Their Inner Cops

Who needs the National Guard when your state troopers are perfectly willing to crack protester skulls all on their own? Listen, Illinois governor JB Pritzker is not perfect, but he's my guy. Or at le...

www.burnsnotice.com

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Soren Spicknall @sorenspicknall.bsky.social · 13h

And more than anything else, you must be ready to lose in almost every actual interaction you may have with agents.

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Soren Spicknall @sorenspicknall.bsky.social · 13h

There is a lot of work to do, but if you find yourself doing it entirely with people who are not vulnerable to immigration detention and deportation, you may not be doing what's most needed.

There are times when relative non-vulnerability will be useful and welcome, but it can't be in isolation.

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Soren Spicknall @sorenspicknall.bsky.social · 13h

"Community" is a word that's often used to obscure divides. If you don't actually know vulnerable people in your community, your mental version of what your neighborhood is experiencing is likely centered on very different things than theirs. If you want to help, don't invent tactics from scratch.

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Soren Spicknall @sorenspicknall.bsky.social · 13h

If the regions of focus for ICE and CBP are going to shift, you're going to have to be prepared for what that means. Deep structures of trust to meet people's basic needs. An understanding that you cannot and will not know the full scope of action on a given day. Bracing for loss after loss.

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Soren Spicknall @sorenspicknall.bsky.social · 13h

I say this because the way user demographics skew on this site, it's more likely that somebody here's going to be closely connected to Rogers Park than to Gage Park or Brighton Park. I want you to know that Sunday's tactics are familiar to southwest siders and other highly targeted communities.

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Soren Spicknall @sorenspicknall.bsky.social · 13h

That does horrible things to a community, to people's ability to function. There are families who haven't left their homes in weeks, relying on networks of trust to bring them essentials. Kids staying home from school, fear about every unknown car on the block. And those fears are not unfounded.

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Soren Spicknall @sorenspicknall.bsky.social · 13h

It's horrible no matter where it happens, and organizers + informal community safety networks have worked very hard to interrupt it despite deep disadvantage against state violence and fragmentary info.

Consider how scared and burnt out folks are in Back of the Yards after wave upon wave of it.

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Soren Spicknall @sorenspicknall.bsky.social · 13h

Rogers Park and surrounding neighborhoods were hit hard by immigration enforcement activity over the weekend.

There's no competition here, but I want to name that the same heavy, violent, fast-moving abduction pattern has invaded the southwest side about three times a week for over a month now.

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