Zakariah Johnson 🪕
@zakariah.bsky.social
1.4K followers 1.1K following 2.3K posts
Writer. Walker. Banjo Player. Progeny of Cannibals. 1. https://zakariahjohnson.com/ 2. https://substack.com/@pteratorn731655
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zakariah.bsky.social
Fiction's advantage in illuminating current events is in getting beyond the sound bites, past the clickbait headlines, & in opting out of the looping parade Neil Postman called the “And now THIS!” syndrome where each news segue erases the previous horror.

We need fiction, because narrative lasts. 👇
rhppress.bsky.social
Some say the world will end in fire. Some say flood. In On Fire and Under Water, you get both. 15 short stories from some of the best crime fiction writers today. Guest-edited by Anthony winning author @curtisippolito.bsky.social Listen to Jordan Harper and pre-order your copy today: bit.ly/4nOVXoK
zakariah.bsky.social
Sorry for your loss. It never goes away, does it? Today's my mom's birthday as well, she died two days after it 22 years ago at only 61. Early deaths feel like robberies for all the missing memories that were never made.
Reposted by Zakariah Johnson 🪕
ofthebraveusa.bsky.social
On October 18th, millions of brave Americans will stand up and peacefully protest against the authoritarian disease metastasizing under Donald Trump.

No Thrones. No Crowns. No Kings. @gtconway.bsky.social
zakariah.bsky.social
I wrote about this in my story for the "On Fire and Under Water" anthology & talked about it with Steve Weddle, here:

"Slavery is always lurking there as a fallback solution in America, like the temptation to text our Ex when we’re lonely on a Saturday night."
open.substack.com/pub/dosomeda...
Chatting with the ON FIRE Crowd
A Climate Change Crime Fiction Anthology
open.substack.com
Reposted by Zakariah Johnson 🪕
zakariah.bsky.social
Just a reminder to local police that you don't have to be accomplices to civil rights violations & gratuitous cruelty against people who depend on you to protect them.

ICE & the TV crews will eventually move on; you'll remain behind with severed ties & a community that knows not to trust you.
caitlindeangelis.bsky.social
ICE kidnapped a 7th-grader with a pending asylum claim and spirited him out of state without notifying his parents, seemingly with the cooperation of the local police in Everett, MA.

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/12/m...
Everett 13-year-old arrested by ICE and sent to Virginia detention facility
By Marcela Rodrigues Globe Staff,Updated October 12, 2025, 44 minutes ago



31
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Everett after an interaction with members of the Everett Police Department and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia, according to his mother and immigration lawyer Andrew Lattarulo.

The boy’s mother, Josiele Berto, was called to pick her son up from the Everett Police Department on Thursday, the day he was arrested. After waiting for about an hour and a half, she was told her son was taken by ICE, Berto told the Globe in a phone interview.

“My world collapsed,” Berto said in Portuguese.

From the police department, the boy was taken to ICE’s holding facility in Burlington on Thursday evening, where he spent a night before being transferred by car to the Northwestern Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Winchester, Va., on Friday morning, his mother said. The juvenile facility is more than 500 miles away from Everett.

The boy is a 7th-grader at Albert N. Parlin School in Everett, his mother said. The teen and his family, who are Brazilian nationals, have a pending asylum case and are authorized to work legally in the United States, Lattarulo said.
zakariah.bsky.social
This goes hand-in-hand with Bondi recently floating the idea of taking guns away from transgender people. Now she wants the SAF membership list. Along with Stone's note you read, it's pretty clear what's happening: Republicans are coming for your guns. Tell me again how Trump's not a totalitarian?
zakariah.bsky.social
There was an Ellery Queen story decades ago (I forgot by whom) about a writer who cribbed the plot of King Lear to write a story & ended up losing friend after friend who thought he was commenting about their lives. 😄
zakariah.bsky.social
To anyone in your 70s or 80s considering a run for an open federal office or state governorship, I have some campaign literature for you that you really ought to read first: bookshop.org/p/books/king...
King Lear: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
bookshop.org
Reposted by Zakariah Johnson 🪕
rhppress.bsky.social
AVAILABLE NOW: Some say the world will end in fire or flood. 15 short stories from some of the best crime fiction writers today, including @prispat.bsky.social. Guest-edited by Anthony winning author @curtisippolito.bsky.social. Order your copy today: bit.ly/4nOVXoK
zakariah.bsky.social
Indeed. The federal government, let alone the president, isn't in charge of setting cultural values. Anybody who's done even a cursory search of his history knows that CC ain't anyone to celebrate, let alone put on a pedestal. The empty suits can yap all they want, the people will go our own way.
zakariah.bsky.social
The government doesn't get to tell us what to celebrate.

Happy Indigenous People’s Day!
zakariah.bsky.social
Just a reminder to local police that you don't have to be accomplices to civil rights violations & gratuitous cruelty against people who depend on you to protect them.

ICE & the TV crews will eventually move on; you'll remain behind with severed ties & a community that knows not to trust you.
caitlindeangelis.bsky.social
ICE kidnapped a 7th-grader with a pending asylum claim and spirited him out of state without notifying his parents, seemingly with the cooperation of the local police in Everett, MA.

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/12/m...
Everett 13-year-old arrested by ICE and sent to Virginia detention facility
By Marcela Rodrigues Globe Staff,Updated October 12, 2025, 44 minutes ago



31
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Everett after an interaction with members of the Everett Police Department and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia, according to his mother and immigration lawyer Andrew Lattarulo.

The boy’s mother, Josiele Berto, was called to pick her son up from the Everett Police Department on Thursday, the day he was arrested. After waiting for about an hour and a half, she was told her son was taken by ICE, Berto told the Globe in a phone interview.

“My world collapsed,” Berto said in Portuguese.

From the police department, the boy was taken to ICE’s holding facility in Burlington on Thursday evening, where he spent a night before being transferred by car to the Northwestern Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Winchester, Va., on Friday morning, his mother said. The juvenile facility is more than 500 miles away from Everett.

The boy is a 7th-grader at Albert N. Parlin School in Everett, his mother said. The teen and his family, who are Brazilian nationals, have a pending asylum case and are authorized to work legally in the United States, Lattarulo said.
Reposted by Zakariah Johnson 🪕
curtisippolito.bsky.social
What will one teen girl do when her family’s livelihood is threatened by crooked developers? A wonderful story by @prispat.bsky.social.
rhppress.bsky.social
AVAILABLE NOW: Some say the world will end in fire or flood. 15 short stories from some of the best crime fiction writers today, including @prispat.bsky.social. Guest-edited by Anthony winning author @curtisippolito.bsky.social. Order your copy today: bit.ly/4nOVXoK
zakariah.bsky.social
He's been infecting the country with his contagious hatred, narcissism, & distain of decency for a decade. Now he's infecting the country with senility & sundowning.
Reposted by Zakariah Johnson 🪕
joshtpm.bsky.social
We fired people we had no reason or budgetary need to fire and we actually screwed up and fired the wrong people and then rehired them the next day and all because of Chuck Schumer
atrupar.com
BRENNAN: CBS confirmed the Trump administration rescinded the layoffs of CDC scientists. Some were involved with the federal measles response. How does a mistake like this happen?

VANCE: The govt shutdown inevitably leads to some chaos. It happened because of Schumer

B: But this was a WH decision
zakariah.bsky.social
Prosecutors need to see the inside of jail cells for this kind of gross misconduct.
Reposted by Zakariah Johnson 🪕
curtisippolito.bsky.social
Zakariah’s story shows how the consequences of climate change are upon us. A great story filled with emotion.
rhppress.bsky.social
AVAILABLE NOW: Some say the world will end in fire or flood. 15 short stories from some of the best crime fiction writers today, including @zakariah.bsky.social. Guest-edited by Anthony winning author @curtisippolito.bsky.social. Order your copy today: bit.ly/4nOVXoK
Reposted by Zakariah Johnson 🪕
rhppress.bsky.social
AVAILABLE NOW: Some say the world will end in fire or flood. 15 short stories from some of the best crime fiction writers today, including @zakariah.bsky.social. Guest-edited by Anthony winning author @curtisippolito.bsky.social. Order your copy today: bit.ly/4nOVXoK
zakariah.bsky.social
ICE is staffed by sadists. There's no legitimate reason for traumatizing families & children like this.
longtimehistory.bsky.social
ICE secretly kidnap autistic boy during bathroom break—never notify parents.

Mother reported him missing a week ago—turns out ICE had him detained the whole time.

He was helping sell fruit and asked to go to the restroom—by the time she was done helping a customer he was gone.

Houston, Texas
zakariah.bsky.social
You're surely right, but it may as likely be both reasons. (Same way that a lot of DTJ detractors in the GOP got real quiet real quick after Russia hacked the RNC in 2016.)
zakariah.bsky.social
Unfortunately, the opposite no longer appears true: People now have fewer rights than corporations. I always wonder how much of our dystopia goes back to the gibberish of that famed suck-up to the 1%, Milton Friedman, & his nonsensical conflations of money & freedom as freedom for money alone.
zakariah.bsky.social
Remember when SCOTUS was still pretending to be so naive as to believe rulings like Citizens United wouldn't entirely undermine our democracy, & now they basically laugh about having gotten away with it.
zakariah.bsky.social
What a beautiful eulogy for the lost moment you all shared.
zakariah.bsky.social
Our country is simultaneously being governed/attacked by the grown-up children who used to pull the wings off butterflies and laugh about it.