Yo Zushi
@yozushi81.bsky.social
I write and edit stuff (words mostly in New Statesman, Men's Health, etc). Play music in the band Watertown Carps
One to listen to on your way home while looking at the Christmas lights that have just gone up... One of our new Christmas songs. youtu.be/KMi-89Ueeb4?...
Christmas Bells
YouTube video by Watertown Carps - Topic
youtu.be
November 27, 2025 at 7:36 PM
One to listen to on your way home while looking at the Christmas lights that have just gone up... One of our new Christmas songs. youtu.be/KMi-89Ueeb4?...
An important piece about Shabana Mahmood's mangy role in the UK's organised decline... The headline, though, is off-puttingly oblique. Seems almost designed to put people off reading it! www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Shabana Mahmood is an avatar of open Britain – that’s what makes her fable about immigration so seductive | Nesrine Malik
‘She is the daughter of immigrants,’ supporters of her cruel asylum policies say. ‘How can she be wrong?’ Let me put them straight, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik
www.theguardian.com
November 24, 2025 at 8:36 AM
An important piece about Shabana Mahmood's mangy role in the UK's organised decline... The headline, though, is off-puttingly oblique. Seems almost designed to put people off reading it! www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Can imagine an awful near-future when some AI system decides what constitutes an "heirloom" or a piece of jewellery with sentimental value, arbitrarily snatching important items from those who have survived true horrors. Is this what Englishness means to some? www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
Asylum seekers’ jewellery could be seized to pay for processing costs, says Home Office minister
Idea borrowed from Denmark is latest attempt to reduce number of people seeking asylum in UK
www.theguardian.com
November 18, 2025 at 8:08 AM
Can imagine an awful near-future when some AI system decides what constitutes an "heirloom" or a piece of jewellery with sentimental value, arbitrarily snatching important items from those who have survived true horrors. Is this what Englishness means to some? www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
Just a reminder that immigration was only a big deal for freaks not so long ago. The 2020s have been a time of wild hysteria. 2025 is what happens when "centrists" cede all ground to manky racists in the hope of short-term political gain
November 17, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Just a reminder that immigration was only a big deal for freaks not so long ago. The 2020s have been a time of wild hysteria. 2025 is what happens when "centrists" cede all ground to manky racists in the hope of short-term political gain
Reform's Indefinite Leave to Remain plans are immoral and unworkable - and Labour's absurd Shabana Mahmood is only aiding the Farageists. She says she's rubber-stamping xenophobia to save us from "darker" forces but you can't do that by becoming a dark force in your own right.
November 16, 2025 at 10:46 AM
Reform's Indefinite Leave to Remain plans are immoral and unworkable - and Labour's absurd Shabana Mahmood is only aiding the Farageists. She says she's rubber-stamping xenophobia to save us from "darker" forces but you can't do that by becoming a dark force in your own right.
Labour and the Tories have long been too eager to appease Reform's increasingly open racism (eg MP Sarah Pochin's rant against "black and Asian people"). By framing dumb delusions as "legitimate concerns", self-described centrists have legitimised them. This is in large part their failure
October 25, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Labour and the Tories have long been too eager to appease Reform's increasingly open racism (eg MP Sarah Pochin's rant against "black and Asian people"). By framing dumb delusions as "legitimate concerns", self-described centrists have legitimised them. This is in large part their failure
The recent insistence on stripping ILR people of benefits is wildly immoral. My parents receive pensions after a lifetime of paying into the system - and pensions are benefits, regardless of how they're framed. So weird that stealing the livelihoods of the elderly is fine by mainstream UK parties
Mass deporting millions of people legally living here in order to make the UK "culturally coherent" is "broadly in line" with Conservative party policy, says Kemi Badenoch's spokesman
October 22, 2025 at 7:02 PM
The recent insistence on stripping ILR people of benefits is wildly immoral. My parents receive pensions after a lifetime of paying into the system - and pensions are benefits, regardless of how they're framed. So weird that stealing the livelihoods of the elderly is fine by mainstream UK parties
So... Ubisoft cancelled the new Assassin's Creed game set in the post-US Civil War era because it was afraid of upsetting KKK-loving racists? It's not a neutral move to accommodate the fragility of those freaks. www.gamefile.news/p/scoop-ubis...
Scoop: Ubisoft cancelled a post-Civil War Assassin’s Creed last year
Company leadership deemed the project too controversial for the moment, sources tell Game File
www.gamefile.news
October 9, 2025 at 7:54 PM
So... Ubisoft cancelled the new Assassin's Creed game set in the post-US Civil War era because it was afraid of upsetting KKK-loving racists? It's not a neutral move to accommodate the fragility of those freaks. www.gamefile.news/p/scoop-ubis...
Google News really shouldn't include AI-written (or AI-level) articles full of hallucinated falsehoods in its recommendations. This is just a Bob Dylan article from Collider but makes you wonder about its role in ushering in the bogus post-truth era
October 8, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Google News really shouldn't include AI-written (or AI-level) articles full of hallucinated falsehoods in its recommendations. This is just a Bob Dylan article from Collider but makes you wonder about its role in ushering in the bogus post-truth era
Sad to see Japan following its Western allies in attempting to counter a noisy far right by allowing the centre to drift in its direction... Thereby legitimising the weirdos, guaranteeing they'll take more seats next time. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Who is Japan's 'Iron Lady' Sanae Takaichi?
The conservative politician, who sees Margaret Thatcher as an inspiration, is set to be Japan's first female prime minister.
www.bbc.co.uk
October 5, 2025 at 7:37 PM
Sad to see Japan following its Western allies in attempting to counter a noisy far right by allowing the centre to drift in its direction... Thereby legitimising the weirdos, guaranteeing they'll take more seats next time. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Teslas are death traps. www.sfgate.com/tech/article...
Families of college students killed in Bay Area Cybertruck crash sue Tesla
If a Cybertruck's rear door power is out, you need to find the mechanical cable.
www.sfgate.com
October 4, 2025 at 7:14 AM
Teslas are death traps. www.sfgate.com/tech/article...
Those who think of themselves as "centrists" in reactionary times are at the centre of the reactionary BS. Starmer's Labour effectively hero-worships Reform; this policy is presented as a riposte to Farageism but anyone can see it's a validation of its cruelty. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
Starmer to end asylum ‘golden ticket’ of resettlement and family reunion rights
People granted asylum will have to earn right to invite family in plan charities call ‘straight from populist playbook’
www.theguardian.com
October 2, 2025 at 7:00 AM
Those who think of themselves as "centrists" in reactionary times are at the centre of the reactionary BS. Starmer's Labour effectively hero-worships Reform; this policy is presented as a riposte to Farageism but anyone can see it's a validation of its cruelty. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
Shabana Mahmood might claim Thatcher as her hero but she's more like her predecessors Patel and Braverman - a minority stooge brought in to front harmful & divisive policies that legitimise the far right's hateful idiocies. See: her Reform-lite ILR idea
September 29, 2025 at 8:25 AM
Shabana Mahmood might claim Thatcher as her hero but she's more like her predecessors Patel and Braverman - a minority stooge brought in to front harmful & divisive policies that legitimise the far right's hateful idiocies. See: her Reform-lite ILR idea
Starmer's cowardly pandering to GB News/Reform idiocies has helped to poison English culture and leads to this sort of thing... So embarrassing and dangerous on top. Each time he tries to play tough, he shows how spineless he is. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...
Racist couple ask British nurse if she 'came here on a rubber boat'
The couple demanded to know if the nurse, who has worked for the NHS for 12 years, 'came here on a rubber boat' and hurled water at her her during the assault at a park in Halifax on Thursday.
www.dailymail.co.uk
August 31, 2025 at 9:36 PM
Starmer's cowardly pandering to GB News/Reform idiocies has helped to poison English culture and leads to this sort of thing... So embarrassing and dangerous on top. Each time he tries to play tough, he shows how spineless he is. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...
A feature, not a bug - some people drone on about 'legitimate concerns' but this is basically all Reform is about. If you're a Farage fan, or are willing to adopt his party's saddo positions for strategic reasons, this is you. www.northantstelegraph.co.uk/news/people/...
August 27, 2025 at 7:41 AM
A feature, not a bug - some people drone on about 'legitimate concerns' but this is basically all Reform is about. If you're a Farage fan, or are willing to adopt his party's saddo positions for strategic reasons, this is you. www.northantstelegraph.co.uk/news/people/...
Untold miseries inflicted on the great majority just so the super rich can comfortably allow their souls to wither. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/s...
They’re Rich, They Travel and They Love to Complain
www.nytimes.com
August 26, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Untold miseries inflicted on the great majority just so the super rich can comfortably allow their souls to wither. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/s...
I wrote this thing on Billie Holiday for @NewStatesman about ten years ago, sitting in the office and hammering away at the keyboard for a couple of hours - turned out well! Amazed and grateful that I was allowed to do this sort of thing. www.newstatesman.com/culture/2015...
The bottle, the blues and Billie Holiday
Lady Day, a century after her birth.
www.newstatesman.com
August 20, 2025 at 11:29 AM
I wrote this thing on Billie Holiday for @NewStatesman about ten years ago, sitting in the office and hammering away at the keyboard for a couple of hours - turned out well! Amazed and grateful that I was allowed to do this sort of thing. www.newstatesman.com/culture/2015...
Starmer/McSweeney/Cooper are more instinctually drawn to far-right hate narratives - they require no thought - but they'd be better off by far if they addressed how the immigration issue became such a flash point. Here's a good piece explaining part of it www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Targeted by the right, Britain’s asylum hotels are places of fear and disorder. Bad political decisions made it so | Daniel Trilling
In the frenzy of racism and culture warring, the issue of why hotels are used gets overlooked, says author Daniel Trilling
www.theguardian.com
August 9, 2025 at 9:44 AM
Starmer/McSweeney/Cooper are more instinctually drawn to far-right hate narratives - they require no thought - but they'd be better off by far if they addressed how the immigration issue became such a flash point. Here's a good piece explaining part of it www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Some thoughts on AI pop, The Velvet Sundown and implications for artists in Monocle... monocle.com/culture/art/...
July 28, 2025 at 7:36 AM
Some thoughts on AI pop, The Velvet Sundown and implications for artists in Monocle... monocle.com/culture/art/...
The Muppet Show and Sesame Street had such amazing songs in them - almost unnecessarily good youtu.be/h0Hd3uWKFKY?...
Debbie Harry & Kermit The Frog - Rainbow Connection
YouTube video by Rich Mullinax
youtu.be
June 29, 2025 at 10:58 PM
The Muppet Show and Sesame Street had such amazing songs in them - almost unnecessarily good youtu.be/h0Hd3uWKFKY?...
Why do people like Keir Starmer who view themselves as realists always assume that realness is a matter of choosing the cruellest option - and get taken in by weirdos like McSweeney who don't get that data is useful for assessing a situation but should never usurp morality in forming policy?
June 26, 2025 at 7:45 PM
Why do people like Keir Starmer who view themselves as realists always assume that realness is a matter of choosing the cruellest option - and get taken in by weirdos like McSweeney who don't get that data is useful for assessing a situation but should never usurp morality in forming policy?
Reposted by Yo Zushi
By now, we've all seen the video of Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) being forcibly removed and handcuffed for asking a question during Kristi Noem's press conference.
But what Noem said just moments before the video was taken is "classic authoritarian red-baiting," points out @davidcorn.bsky.social.
But what Noem said just moments before the video was taken is "classic authoritarian red-baiting," points out @davidcorn.bsky.social.
June 12, 2025 at 11:26 PM
By now, we've all seen the video of Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) being forcibly removed and handcuffed for asking a question during Kristi Noem's press conference.
But what Noem said just moments before the video was taken is "classic authoritarian red-baiting," points out @davidcorn.bsky.social.
But what Noem said just moments before the video was taken is "classic authoritarian red-baiting," points out @davidcorn.bsky.social.
Israel illegally bombs Iran (as a sort of side hustle to its atrocities in Gaza), and Macron comes up with: "France reaffirms Israel’s right to defend itself and ensure its security." OK, Israel has a right to defend itself - but to attack too? It's getting too dumb now
June 13, 2025 at 7:15 PM
Israel illegally bombs Iran (as a sort of side hustle to its atrocities in Gaza), and Macron comes up with: "France reaffirms Israel’s right to defend itself and ensure its security." OK, Israel has a right to defend itself - but to attack too? It's getting too dumb now
Belated Brian Wilson thoughts for @newstatesman.com here www.newstatesman.com/culture/musi...
The genius of Brian Wilson
The music of the Beach Boys shows us a different, gentler side to America.
www.newstatesman.com
June 13, 2025 at 12:56 PM
Belated Brian Wilson thoughts for @newstatesman.com here www.newstatesman.com/culture/musi...