Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Ruth EJ Booth (she/they) @ruthejbooth.bsky.social · 2h

Put your diamond shoes away, Rob.

Ruth EJ Booth (she/they) @ruthejbooth.bsky.social · 2h

I bet that thing had been going for at least two decades at that point.

I bet there's also a young Keifer Sutherland type who's still pissed off about it. And totally isn't a vampire.

3

Ruth EJ Booth (she/they) @ruthejbooth.bsky.social · 2h

Police just ruined the best underground (literally) cinema club in Paris.

the babahuck @tylerhuckabee.bsky.social · 9h

In 2004, Parisian police were conducting a training exercise in the french catacombs and found, after moving past a desk and a tape playing audio of snarling dogs, a fully functional movie theater and bar. When they returned 3 days later, the equipment was gone, with a note: “Do not try to find us.”

Members of the force's sports squad, responsible
- among other tasks - for policing the 170 miles of tunnels, caves, galleries and catacombs that underlie large parts of Paris, stumbled on the complex while on a training exercise beneath the Palais de Chaillot, across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower.
After entering the network through a drain next to the Trocadero, the officers came across a tarpaulin marked: Building site, No access.
Behind that, a tunnel held a desk and a closed-circuit TV camera set to automatically record images of anyone passing. The mechanism also triggered a tape of dogs barking, "clearly designed to frighten people off," the spokesman said.
Further along, the tunnel opened into a vast 400 sq metre cave some 18m underground, "like an underground amphitheatre, with terraces cut into the rock and chairs".

There the police found a full-sized cinema screen, projection equipment, and tapes of a wide variety of films, including 1950s film noir classics and more recent thrillers. None of the films were banned or even offensive, the spokesman said.
A smaller cave next door had been turned into an informal restaurant and bar. "There were bottles of whisky and other spirits behind a bar, tables and chairs, a pressure-cooker for making couscous," the spokesman said.
"The whole thing ran off a professionally installed electricity system and there were at least three phone lines down there."
Three days later, when the police returned accompanied by experts from the French electricity board to see where the power was coming from, the phone and electricity lines had been cut and a note was lying in the middle of the floor: "Do not," it said, "try to find us."

1 1 3

Reposted by Ruth EJ Booth (she/they)

The Ignyte Awards @theignyteawards.bsky.social · 4h

Seated? Comfy? Fantastic. Here are your winners of the 2025 #IgnyteAwards

1 4 21

Ruth EJ Booth (she/they) @ruthejbooth.bsky.social · 16h

Sidebar: This is how I imagine my Gen X artist friends in the 90s.

#BruceSterling @bruces.bsky.social · 16h

*Even if you're Vaclav Havel "Living in Truth," your idea of a good time is to have your longhaired pals declaiming Ginsberg Beat poetry in Czech while they play-act dress-up Absurdist theater skits in the back garden

*It's true, ok? Sue me

1

Ruth EJ Booth (she/they) @ruthejbooth.bsky.social · 16h

You can do this.

1

Ruth EJ Booth (she/they) @ruthejbooth.bsky.social · 1d

So that some good might come of this, I'd like to encourage everyone reading this to make a donation towards Barnardos' work with victims of child trafficking. Here's the link.

@barnardos.org.uk

donate.barnardos.org.uk/donations/

donate.barnardos.org.uk

2 4

Ruth EJ Booth (she/they) @ruthejbooth.bsky.social · 1d

So that some good might come of this, I'd like to encourage everyone reading this to make a donation towards Barnardos' work with victims of child trafficking. Here's the link.

@barnardos.org.uk

donate.barnardos.org.uk/donations/

Ruth EJ Booth (she/they) @ruthejbooth.bsky.social · 1d

I can't celebrate. The man did awful things, and while we all had no involvement in what he did, we enabled a life in which he could do it. We can call him monstrous, but I don't feel like it gers to the root of the issue, which is tackling this behaviour.

1 2

Ruth EJ Booth (she/they) @ruthejbooth.bsky.social · 1d

Statistically, this has a chilling innevitability. There's no "positive" side to any of this.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins dies in prison attack

Watkins, 48, was serving a 29-year sentence imposed in 2013 after admitting 13 child sex offences.

www.bbc.co.uk

1

Reposted by Ruth EJ Booth (she/they)

Tade Thompson @tadethompson.bsky.social · Aug 13

We are not trivialising LLMs.

Copyright theft is not trivial.

Environmental damage is not trivial.

Unreliability is not trivial.

Risk to human cognition is not trivial.

Ignoring consent when shoving it into every fucking thing while making us pay our hard-earned money for it is not trivial.

5 430 990

Reposted by Ruth EJ Booth (she/they)

Jenni Coutts (she/her) @jennicoutts.bsky.social · 1d

Keeping up with Drawtober, my latest #art was for the prompt ‘mushroom fairy’, and tbh I’m pretty proud of this one! It’s my first time drawing mushrooms and fungi, and it took absolutely forever…

4 8 50

Reposted by Ruth EJ Booth (she/they)

Stew Hotston (he/him) @stewarthotston.com · 2d

More evidence of what i had to report to the @bsfa.bsky.social and @britfantasysoc.bsky.social this year - that publishers made a lot of noise about inclusion but have largely, in my experience, stopped working on this.

As you might imagine i have opinions.

Louie Stowell @louiestowell.bsky.social · 2d

One of the things about this study is that a lot of baby and toddler books are written in house, by editors. So the study reveals the whiteness of editorial in kidlit even if not explicitly. But, big picture, this trend is unacceptable. I remember so many promises www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

‘Catastrophic decline’ in Black representation in children’s books

A report by charity Inclusive Books for Children found that of the 2,721 books surveyed, only 51 featured a Black main character, down by 21.5% since 2023

www.theguardian.com

2 30 46

Reposted by Ruth EJ Booth (she/they)

Anita Harris Satkunananthan @mythopoetica.bsky.social · 1d

If there’s anything in Watermyth for which you’d like a recipe, let me know! If it’s something I can actually make, that is! If I can’t, I can certainly try to approximate and post the results in future editions of the Cantata Chronicles!

Anita Harris Satkunananthan @mythopoetica.bsky.social · 1d

I may be inserting recipes and food nerdery as well as music nerdery in future editions.

1 3 2

Ruth EJ Booth (she/they) @ruthejbooth.bsky.social · 1d

Cowboys, obvs.

1

Ruth EJ Booth (she/they) @ruthejbooth.bsky.social · 2d

And a Happy Spooky Season Ritual Watch Time to you too!

2

Ruth EJ Booth (she/they) @ruthejbooth.bsky.social · 2d

Thank bot for blessings.

William Shakespeare @shakespeare.lol · 2d

For how can tyrants safely govern home,
Unless abroad they purchase great alliance?

2

Ruth EJ Booth (she/they) @ruthejbooth.bsky.social · 2d

While I'm here, I'm doing a podcast with Madeline Wahl from The Aviary tonight. We'll be talking about how studying Fantasy has impacted my fiction and other things. Link below if you'd like to know more.

@madelinehwahl.bsky.social

theaviaryliterarymagazine.substack.com

Ruth Booth is a caucasian woman with short unbrushed brown hair, glasses, and wearing a navy shirt. She is sitting on a brown sofa.

1

Ruth EJ Booth (she/they) @ruthejbooth.bsky.social · 2d

Alas, they never do break pbs together.

1

Ruth EJ Booth (she/they) @ruthejbooth.bsky.social · 2d

That's a mighty landmark for the series. Any special plans for C?

1 1

Ruth EJ Booth (she/they) @ruthejbooth.bsky.social · 2d

It's World Mental Health day! This is what looking after your mental health looks like: taking your treatment (meds for me), looking after your body (yoga, walk later), doing chores, and wearing your Death and Vanilla shirt but forgetting to brush your hair. Meh!

#wmhd2025 #worldMentalHealthDay

4

Ruth EJ Booth (she/they) @ruthejbooth.bsky.social · 2d

While I realise the petulant toddler has access to nuclear codes, part of me is desperate for any footage of this comedy spoof of The Godfather meets The West Wing.

James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 3d

“I’ll declare war on you if you don’t give me the peace prize” is an incredible bit

4

Reposted by Ruth EJ Booth (she/they)

Hannah Fearn @hannahfearn.bsky.social · 3d

Women, talk to me about jeans. I cannot find a single pair that I like on me anymore. I’m need a petite length (5ft 1in) and am slimish but in my forties and have had 2 kids so there’s a no-longer-taut tum situation. I used to be an 8/10 and now I’m a solid size 11 which DOESN’T EXIST and ugh help

16 1 6

Reposted by Ruth EJ Booth (she/they)

Ghostly Bree @mostlybree.kitrocha.com · 2d

it really has been amazing how much one person in a frog suit destroyed their fantasy visuals over the past week. this wouldn't work everywhere but Portland, you are doing amazing sweetie

Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 2d

www.wweek.com/culture/2025...

Can you put into words what that purpose is? You and the frog have really become icons of this protest.

There’s been a nice overall whimsy that has shown up. The frog is amazing. We had a bunch of other inflatable people here last night, too. I saw people playing Twister the other day.

What they rely on is fear. So by coming out in an absurdist manner, it speaks to them, to some extent, that we’re actually not that afraid.

It also dismantles their narrative a little bit. When they try to describe this situation as “war-torn,” it becomes much harder to take them seriously when they have to post a video saying [U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security] Kristi Noem is up on the balcony staring over the Antifa Army and it’s, like, eight journalists and five protesters and one of them is in a chicken suit.

22 380 1.7K

Ruth EJ Booth (she/they) @ruthejbooth.bsky.social · 3d

OMFG yes.

No, I still won't watch Late Night With The Devil.

🎃 Matthew Jack-o'-lantern 🎃 @awalrusdarkly.bsky.social · 3d

"The consumers won't care if it's AI."

Ah yes, horror fans -- y'know, the people who famously ask "Are the FX Practical?!" about literally every movie -- definitely won't care that you're feeding them prompt-generated slop. Good call there.

1 5