Island of Reil
LightNews LightNews
islandofreil.bsky.social
Island of Reil
@islandofreil.bsky.social
2.9K followers 1.2K following 19K posts
Old, tired intersectional social democrat. She/her. Not actively seeking followers but you can follow if you want.
Posts Replies Media Videos
islandofreil.bsky.social
Another perfect paragraph from El Akkad.
Of course the Republicans would be worse. What the mainstream Democrat seems incapable of accepting is that, for an even remotely functioning conscience, there exists a point beyond which relative harm can no longer offset absolute evil. For a lot of people, genocide is that point. Suddenly, an otherwise very persuasive argument takes on a different meaning: “Vote for the liberal though he harms you because the conservative will harm you more” starts to sound a lot like “Vote for the liberal though he harms you because the conservative might harm me, too.”
December 6, 2025 at 6:55 PM
islandofreil.bsky.social
Reposting with alt-text.

There's an article about about the “Institute” here:
wehotimes.com/wayback-weho...
Alt-text: Los Angeles’s “red-light district,” meaning a disreputable part of town where people, mostly men, used to go to find sex workers and watch porn movies and strip shows before VCRs and then the internet rendered these areas obsolete. Most of the photo shows the “Institute of Oral Love,” a light-purple one-story building at 7722 Santa Monica Boulevard. The signs on the building with that name have red lips on them. There's another sign that says “Sexy Girls” and two other signs side-by-side that say “Sexual” and “Relief.” Its windows are painted over in the same shade of purple with diamond mesh wire over them. At right, two men stand on the sidewalk, next to a dark-green car. In the doorway is a figure wearing a loose, flowing white outfit with what looks like a bloodstain on the right shin. to the left, another man is about to cross the street, and there are several news racks and a fire hydrant behind him. In the background to the right is the Pussycat Theatre, which was a chain of adult movie theaters. Its marquee sign features it's name in curly mid-20th-century capital letters, and advertises the 1974 comic porn movie “The Private Afternoons of Pamela Mann” starring Barbara Bourbon. Over the is a large oval sign that also has the theater’s name and features the red silhouette of a catgirl leaping in the air like a ballerina.
December 6, 2025 at 6:07 PM
islandofreil.bsky.social
Finally reading Omar El Akkad's "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This."

"Banger" or even "truth bomb" feel inadequate to the lightning bolts of moral clarity in nearly every paragraph.
least go on to create them. Whatever mainstream Western liberalism is—and I have no useful definition of it beyond something at its core transactional, centered on the magnanimous, enlightened image of the self and the dissonant belief that empathizing with the plight of the faraway oppressed is compatible with benefiting from the systems that oppress them—it sub-
December 6, 2025 at 4:58 PM
islandofreil.bsky.social
Churchy LaFemme, the straw-hat-wearing turtle from the classic comic strip "Pogo"
December 5, 2025 at 11:35 PM
islandofreil.bsky.social
🙃

(Yes, I realize the boys are also children. Yes, I'm getting extremely tired of the hypothetical "restoration" of misogynist men and boys being prioritized over the actual safety of women and girls.)
“The other thing that I noticed is that there’s this real tension around how they should handle these issues. So some teachers were saying, ‘Yeah, we just get the police in right away and students are expelled’ – that kind of approach,” Horeck says. “Then other teachers were saying, ‘Well, that’s not the way to handle it. We’ve got to have more of a restorative justice approach, where we’re talking to these young people and finding out why they’re doing these things.’
December 5, 2025 at 10:09 PM
islandofreil.bsky.social
A tiny black kitten with huge yellow eyes and dilated pupils is being held in the crook of the arm of a white person wearing a light-gray shirt.
December 5, 2025 at 12:54 AM
islandofreil.bsky.social
Remaining alt-text.
This other America Martí referred to passingly in that fragment became one of the central organizing principles of his work. He came to call it not "another America," but "Our America." He gave that title to an essay he wrote in New York and published in Mexico in 1891. It eventually became his most famous, most anthologized work. The essay, which never mentioned Cuba, was an ode to Latin American unity. It was also a warning. "The hour is near when [our America] will be approached by an enterprising and forceful nation that will demand intimate relations with her, though it does not know her and disdains her.... The disdain of the formidable neighbor who does not know her," he wrote, "is our America's greatest danger, and it is urgent-for the day of the visit is near.” The formidable neighbor was, of course, the United States.
December 4, 2025 at 6:59 PM
islandofreil.bsky.social
Reskeeted with alt-text.
African Americans. In 1892, for instance, he described the public lynching of a Black man accused of offending a white woman: "The ladies waved their handkerchiefs, the men waved their hats. Mrs. Jewell [the man's accuser] reached the tree [where the man was tied], lit a match, twice touched the lit match to the [petroleum-soaked] jacket of the black man, who did not speak, and the black man went up in flames, in the presence of five thousand souls.” In an American republic whose institutions he admired, this happened—not the work of one political leader, or a single villain, but of five thousand men and women who went to church, voted for their town council members, kissed their children good night, and watched a man be burned alive. Martí's experience of living in the United States made him confront that republic. He recorded some of his initial reactions in short handwritten notes. “One lives in the United States," he wrote, “as if under a hail of blows. These people speak as if they were brandishing fists before your eyes.” In one undated fragment, he described a lecturer speaking "with pride of the American Union, alluding of course to his North America, without thinking that there might be another America." It was to him a revelation: that the place he—and, in fact, much of the world-called “the United States" was in the United States itself called instead "America." We can almost imagine Martí bristling every time people said America and meant the United States, “without thinking that there might be another America." [continued....]
December 4, 2025 at 6:59 PM
islandofreil.bsky.social
Reskeeting with alt-text.

@holz-bau.bsky.social
“This is not about providing affordable housing," said Hessie Harris, a 70-year-old homeowner. "The goal is to do away with single-family communities. They claim these are going to be in-law suites and then there goes the neighborhood! They could put in flophouses!" Ellen Paul, 59, said in-law suites were bad enough: "It's changing suburbia to allow two homes on each lot. You'll have strangers walking by your house all the time now." [quote underlined in red] Their fellow protesters were at pains to emphasize that they were less concerned about their own affluent neighborhoods than about the residents of less affluent neighborhoods. The wealthier parts of Montgomery County have demonstrated a willingness to hire expensive lawyers to fight development. But who was going to look out for people who lack the resources to use the court system to endlessly delay projects they don't like?
December 4, 2025 at 12:07 AM
islandofreil.bsky.social
A street sign buried in the ground so that all that is visible is the word "NO" at the top of the sign. It's buried on a grassy low hill. Pine trees are in the background. The sky is grey.
December 3, 2025 at 9:46 PM
islandofreil.bsky.social
A poster that says "May you have the confidence of a mediocre white man" in black all-capital letters. Above the words are several nested rainbow-like semicircles in various shades of pink and brown, one of them with white hearts and dots on it, and at the center of all the semicircles is a dusty-pink heart.
December 3, 2025 at 6:23 PM
islandofreil.bsky.social
Someone upped their fiber intake I guess
Breaking free from the butthole
December 2, 2025 at 7:47 PM
islandofreil.bsky.social
I'm feeling all this
fuck hard shit news fucking politics fucking done
December 1, 2025 at 11:43 PM
islandofreil.bsky.social
I had no idea this particular euphemism went back to the Third Reich
* Verschärfte Vernehmung ("strengthened interrogation"): torture[3]
December 1, 2025 at 11:14 PM
islandofreil.bsky.social
A room that's supposed to be labeled "HUGE WALK-IN CLOSET" but AI has mangled the second word, so there's a normal "WA", a very stretched-out "K", a backwards "N", a fuzzy stripe that could be a very blurry capital "I", a lowercase "r" that's as tall as a capital letter, and a skewed-looking capital "N."
December 1, 2025 at 11:08 PM
islandofreil.bsky.social
Conservatives threatening us with a good time again. Reposting with alt-text.
Tweet from: The Telegraph 15h 🔴 Longtime fans of the fantasy role-play game are unhappy about the Stranger Things generation invading their realm Find out more ⬇️ [URL that I'm not going to share] [Illustration of a very diverse, happy-looking town in D&D having a celebration, with medieval architecture in the background and pink rose petals floating everywhere. In the center is a man of color with a beard and mustache, dressed in red & pale pink & brown, smiling as he is being swept off his feet by a tall, muscular man with blue skin and large horns on his forehead, who is also smiling. In the foreground at left is a smallish person with pink hair strumming a lyre. In the foreground at right is a tiny orange dragon in a sparkling orange loincloth, holding up two rainbow-striped paddles as it laughs with joy. Behind the dragon is a brown bat holding up both its paws to the sky. Just behind the main couple and to their right is a woman of color in a green gown holding a crooked stick aloft with both hands, which seems to be generating all the rose petals from one end, so perhaps it's a magic wand. In the background at left, on either side of a barrel with slats painted different rainbow colors, a dark-skinned female elf with very long ears is being chatted up by a tall person with short gray hair, a belly-exposing brown shirt, a green cape tucked around their shoulders, brown pants, and fawn-colored boots, who is leaning on the barrel seductively, their other hand on their opposite hip. At top left is a semi-spherical pinkish creature with one large blue eye that has a green heart in it and nine other smaller blue eyes on the end of stalks, smiling benevolently at the scene, its two foremost eye-stalks beaming down two tankards of beer to the couple chatting across the barrel. Many other people are in the background. A huge rainbow and a small blue dragon are the sky, also something else in pale green & dark blue that might be another dragon or perhaps a kite.]
November 30, 2025 at 1:32 PM
islandofreil.bsky.social
AMURKAH!!!!
Edgar like why does a small person need a monster truck like vehicle where they can't see outside 852 likes Brian Butler105 not defending her at all. but we here in America 🇺🇸 haven't had to explain ourselves since 1776. so to answer your question of why she needs it ?.... Faw-q. 68 likes
November 29, 2025 at 7:43 PM
islandofreil.bsky.social
Movie marquee for the Riverside Twin Theater, whose name is in cool retro pink and aqua neon above the marquee. Movies listed from top to bottom. 1. Big 2. Epic 3. Pecker
November 29, 2025 at 12:29 AM
islandofreil.bsky.social
Reposted with alt-text. I recognize Gingrich - who are the other two?
[Slide on a screen behind a speaker’s table] Why do the Nazis of today love Alternate History? • Because fascism is premised on nostalgia for an idealized past, and AH is a sandbox to play with alternate pasts. [small pic of Newt Gingrich] • Many AH stories are about the second world war, and brain-rotted fascists stupidly miss the point of those stories. [small pic of a white man I don’t recognize] • Asshole losers like to imagine a world where they aren't losers. [small pic of another white man I don’t recognize]
November 28, 2025 at 10:37 PM
islandofreil.bsky.social
Reposting with alt-text.
Top, large white stencil letters on black: “KEIN BIER FÜR NAZIS!” [“No beer for Nazis!”] Bottom, small black sans-serif letters on white: “NORDDEUTSCHEN ZEIGT KLARE KANTE GEGEN RECHTS!” [“North Germans show a clear stance against the right!”] Below that, in larger black sans-serif letters: “GEGEN DEN NORDDEUTSCHEN HEIMATABEND DER FASCHISTISCHEN BURSCHENSCHAFT GERMANIA!” [“Against the North German homeland evening (i.e., cultural gathering) of the fascist brotherhood Germania!”]
November 28, 2025 at 7:58 PM
islandofreil.bsky.social
A gauge labeled "SYMPATHY METER" with the needle at far left, beyond the lowest possible reading (which is minus 20; the highest reading is +3).
November 28, 2025 at 7:47 PM
islandofreil.bsky.social
King. A great many diamonds are being prepared for our adornment, but with my cold, I shall probably look like a shat-on carrot (by your leave, by your leave).
November 28, 2025 at 7:24 PM
islandofreil.bsky.social
Hey @jay.bsky.team
November 27, 2025 at 3:30 PM
islandofreil.bsky.social
What, you don’t want some tasty COond שd’s?
The bottom of an AI-hallucinated brown fast-food takeout bag sitting on blacktop in a parking lot. It appears to say “COond שd's” (with the Hebrew letter shin, not a W). There's a white napkin on the ground at right in the foreground.
November 27, 2025 at 3:25 PM
islandofreil.bsky.social
Reposting with alt-text. This is such a massive whopping lie and Milanovic, an academic, knows it. EE has historically been *extremely* multi-ethnic, despite how much damage 20th-c. nationalism did.
Branko Milanovic @BrankoMilan What we see even today in the EU policies--unfortunately driven by East European politicians-- is a simple fact, uncomfortable to many: Eastern/Central European nations have just one ideology, that of nationalism. It is there for historical reasons, but it is there. It is therefore simply impossible to have multi-ethnic or multi-religious states there. 6:45 · 27 Nov 25 · 8.931 Views 13 Reposts · 4 Quotes · 100 Likes · 27 Bookmarks
November 27, 2025 at 11:59 AM