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symptomhaver.bsky.social
@symptomhaver.bsky.social
150 followers 650 following 0 posts
well,
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prisonculture.bsky.social
"The office will work within City Hall and across City agencies to strategize, coordinate, and execute on engagement that reaches the masses of everyday New Yorkers."
www.nyc.gov/mayors-offic...
Mayor Mamdani Establishes Office of Mass Engagement to Transform How New Yorkers Participate in City Government
www.nyc.gov
January 2, 2026 at 11:34 PM
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slkollmann.bsky.social
I keep thinking about different aspects of this story

Today's minor subplot: the detective who appointed himself the Perfect Paperwork under Poverty Patrol was disciplined by CPD for...you'll never guess what (not filing required paperwork re: his City debt)

www.documentcloud.org/documents/23...
2013 disciplinary report showing Jonathan Washkevich had a sustained "neglect of duty" report: "It is alleged that the accused member failed to provide proof of resolved debt to Human Resourses Division as required by E01-07, section IV-A-6-b"
December 31, 2025 at 6:59 PM
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benjaminschultzfig.bsky.social
Someone should write a history of the syllabus. You could learn so much about higher ed just from the changes in these documents.
phdhurtbrain.bsky.social Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 7d
In my lifetime syllabi have gone from a thing professors joked about in exasperation to a bizarre form of state surveillance equally loathed by faculty and students
January 2, 2026 at 2:10 AM
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freedom.press
Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act law allows agencies to charge reasonable fees.

So how did one journalist’s records requests end up costing six figures?

Read @seth-stern.bsky.social's article to find out:
Censorship by invoice: Public records cost $164,000 in Michigan township
A six-figure bill for public records is a good indicator that the government is hiding something
freedom.press
December 31, 2025 at 10:55 PM
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maxp94.bsky.social
Why do I have to read an Irish paper for a feature about this?
‘It’s surreal’: US sanctions lock International Criminal Court judge out of daily life
Canadian judge Kimberly Prost is unable to use credit cards, transfer money or book everyday services in what she calls an attack on the independence of the judiciary
www.irishtimes.com
January 1, 2026 at 12:24 PM
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motherjones.com
@raeoflion.bsky.social and @julialurie.bsky.social shared the story of Taylor Cadle, a woman whose story of childhood rape wasn’t believed by police until she took out her phone and hit record.

Now, Cadle is suing the county’s sheriff.
Police didn’t believe a 12-year-old who said she'd been raped. Then she hit record.
“If I didn’t find the evidence for them, I wasn’t too sure they would find it.”
www.motherjones.com
December 31, 2025 at 7:22 PM
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mulchy.bsky.social
NEW: beginning january 1, chicago will ban unhoused people on the sex offense registry from seeking shelter on public transit.

it’s the latest in a concerted effort by mayor johnson’s admin to criminalize homelessness on cta trains + buses and in public parks during the coldest months of the year.
‘An impossible situation’ - Chicago Reader
Beginning January 1, the City of Chicago will ban unhoused people on the sex offense registry from seeking shelter on public transit.
chicagoreader.com
December 26, 2025 at 2:20 PM
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kellypendergrast.bsky.social
New project alert -- me and @annapendergrast.bsky.social having fun and learning things in 2026 www.everyobject.org
Every Object an Archive
www.everyobject.org
December 16, 2025 at 12:46 AM
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tommchenry.bsky.social
Posting GARY PANTER'S SKETCHBOOK TIPS to save a life -- the site that used to host these took em down years ago, and they are as useful a list about this kind of thing as you will ever find.

They are like a favorite dogeared paperback to me.
INTRODUCTION Get a book-size (or paperback-size)d sketchbook. Write your name and date on an early page and maybe think of a name for it — and if you want, write the book’s name there at the front. Make it into your little painful pal. The pain goes away slowly page by page. Fill it up and do another one. It can be hard to get started. Don’t flunk yourself before you get the ball rolling. You might want to draw more realistically or in perspective or so it looks slick — that’s is possible and there are tricks and procedures for drawing with more realism if you desire it. But drawing very realistically with great finesse can sometimes produce dead uninteresting drawings — relative, that is, to a drawing with heart and charm and effort but no great finesse. You can make all kinds of rules for your art making, but for starting in a sketchbook, you need to jump in and get over the intimidation part — by messing up a few pages, ripping them out if need be. Waste all the pages you want by drawing a tic-tac-toe schematic or something, painting them black, just doodle. Every drawing will make you a little better. Every little attempt is a step in the direction of drawing becoming a part of your life. TIPS 1. Quickly subdivide a page into a bunch of boxes by drawing a set of generally equidistant vertical lines, then a set of horizontal lines so that you have between 6 and 12 boxes or so on the page. In each box, in turn, in the simplest way possible, name every object you can think of and draw each thing in a box, not repeating. If it is fun, keep doing this on following pages until you get tired or can’t think of more nouns. Now you see that you have some kind of ability to typify the objects in your world and that in some sense you can draw anything. 2. Choose one of the objects that came to mind that you drew and devote one page to drawing that object with your eyes closed, starting at the “nose” of the object (in outline or silhouette might be good) and following the contour you see in your mind’s eye, describing to yourself in minute detail what you know about the object. You can use your free hand to keep track of the edge of the paper and ideally your starting point so that you can work your way back to the designated nose. Don’t worry about proportion or good drawing this is all about memory and moving your hand to find the shapes you are remembering. The drawing will be a mess, but if you take your time, you will see that you know a lot more about the object than you thought. 3. Trace some drawings you like to see better what the artist’s pencil or pen is doing. Tracing helps you observe closer. Copy art you like — it can’t hurt. 4. Most people (even your favorite artists) don’t like their drawings as much as they want to. Why? Because it is easy to imagine something better. This is only ambition, which is not a bad thing — but if you can accept what you are doing, of course you will progress quicker to a more satisfying level and also accidentally make perfectly charming drawings even if they embarrass you. 4. Most people (even your favorite artists) don’t like their drawings as much as they want to. Why? Because it is easy to imagine something better. This is only ambition, which is not a bad thing — but if you can accept what you are doing, of course you will progress quicker to a more satisfying level and also accidentally make perfectly charming drawings even if they embarrass you. 5. Draw a bunch more boxes and walk down a sidewalk or two documenting where the cracks and gum and splotches and leaves and mowed grass bits are on the square. Do a bunch of those. That is how nature arranges and composes stuff. Remember these ideas — they are in your sketchbook. 6. Sit somewhere and draw fast little drawings of people who are far away enough that you can only see the big simple shapes of their coats and bags and arms and hats and feet. Draw a lot of them. People are alike yet not — reduce them to simple and achievable shapes. 7. To get better with figure drawing, get someone to pose — or use photos — and do slow drawing of hands, feet, elbows, knees, and ankles. Drawing all the bones in a skeleton is also good, because it will help you see how the bones in the arms and legs cross each other and affect the arms’ and legs’ exterior shapes. When you draw a head from the side make sure you indicate enough room behind the ears for the brain case. 8. Do line drawings looking for the big shapes, and tonal drawing observing the light situation of your subject — that is, where the light is coming from and where it makes shapes in shade on the form, and where light reflects back onto the dark areas sometimes. 9. To draw the scene in front of you, choose the middle thing in your drawing and put it in the middle of your page — then add on to the drawing from the center of the page out. 10. Don’t worry about a style. It will creep up on you and eventually you will have to undo it in order to go further. Be like a river and accept everything.
March 19, 2025 at 4:29 AM
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camrodriguez.bsky.social
IT'S TIIIIIIIIIIME!!! December is here, which means the inaugural 2025 #FOIAdvent calendar has arrived. ☃️✨

Every day this month, the calendar will update with a new records request prompt for you to file with an agency of your choosing, for a fun run of holiday FOIA requests. bit.ly/31-days-of-f...
The Very Official 2025 FOIA Advent Calendar
bit.ly
December 1, 2025 at 7:06 PM
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sarambsimon.bsky.social
i have wanted to do this for years and finally got my act together in time
bonne maman advent calendar 2025 edition, with my hand holding a tiny jar of wild blueberry maple syrup spread
December 1, 2025 at 8:47 PM
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sorenspicknall.bsky.social
Plow tracker is live:
Plow Tracker
An ArcGIS Hub site used by transportation and public works organizations to share winter weather plans, snow routes, and parking restrictions.
plow-tracker-chicago.hub.arcgis.com
November 29, 2025 at 9:01 PM
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volts.wtf
Today on Volts: for years, I've wanted to do a podcast on indoor air quality, and I finally found the perfect guest! Dr. Lagoudas & I discuss indoor air pollutants, the policies and technologies that can control them, and the growing need to frame indoor air quality as a basic human right.
What's the deal with indoor air quality?
From CO2 monitors to better building codes, Dr. Georgia Lagoudas outlines how to clean up the spaces where we spend 90% of our lives.
www.volts.wtf
November 19, 2025 at 6:30 PM
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mulchy.bsky.social
read the story bc the whole thing is nuts but this is 👀
While Chicago's gang database is gone, Illinois maintains its own. State police continue to operate a statewide gang file through what's called the Law Enforcement Agencies Data System, or LEADS. State records show DHS's Enforcement and Removal Operations directorate signed a new LEADS data-sharing agreement last year. Chicago police did not respond to questions about what role they play, if any, in the statewide system.
November 12, 2025 at 11:06 PM
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jasonkoebler.bsky.social
New: A judge in Washington has ruled images from Flock surveillance cameras are public records and that anyone can request them. Highlights the pervasiveness of this tech and just how much surveillance is being done. Very notable ruling

www.404media.co/judge-rules-...
Judge Rules Flock Surveillance Images Are Public Records That Can Be Requested By Anyone
A Washington judge said images taken by Flock cameras are "not exempt from disclosure" in public record requests.
www.404media.co
November 12, 2025 at 3:22 PM
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ihr.bsky.social
You can also explore BBIH's free online reading list 'Researching military histories' buff.ly/XwrPrf5 @brepols.net
Online reading lists from BBIH
A listing of recent publications (2010-2020) in the field of Black British History, taken from the 'Bibliography of British and Irish History' in October 2020.
buff.ly
November 11, 2025 at 1:02 PM
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incommensurati.bsky.social
I missed this a few weeks ago but grateful to revisit it today. We do have an opening to encourage opposition to deportation and borders per se, I think. While the kidnappings, detentions, and deportations are spectacles rather than hidden away in administrative bureaucracy.
Screen shot: "In my view there is a similar legalism in much opposition to Trump, and that involves serious errors of both analysis and strategy as I tried to articulate in the essay. More recently I wrote a letter to the editor at the arts paper Little Village here in Iowa where I live, arguing that we should oppose deportation as such, not oppose only deportations conducted without due process. I suggest there that we should understand the border and its enforcement as analogous to enslavement and its legal enforcement. It is, in my view, clarifying to transpose claims about the border to claims about enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Doing so underscores how insistence that the problem is due process or is the application of the law to the wrong parties rather than to people properly subjected to it misses the forest for the trees."
November 10, 2025 at 7:51 PM
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anagramdoe.bsky.social
You always have to think of the most craven and stupid financialized bullshit possible and then expect the actual Democratic cave to be at least twice as craven and stupid
November 9, 2025 at 11:35 PM
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im.giovanh.com
didn’t achieve greatness today. maybe tomorrow
November 8, 2025 at 12:48 AM
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sharrows.bsky.social
Tonight was the inaugural ride of our new home buyout program. We connect with vendors too scared to be out, and we purchase from them at home. Tonight we bought 250 tamales, divided into 3 teams to deliver all over the city to folks on the street, Love Fridges, and a youth shelter.
6 cyclists, bikes, loaded up with 250 tamales in a parking lot Container full of 250 tamales Front of a love fridge that says free food in Spanish Love fridge with tamales inside
November 7, 2025 at 2:19 AM
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rebeccawilliams.info
For @techpolicypress.bsky.social I laid out a tech agenda for Mayor-elect zohrankmamdani.bsky.social that resists surveillance and extraction while advancing his goals for affordability, dignity, and justice.
Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@zohrankmamdani.bsky.social)
Mayor-Elect of New York City
zohrankmamdani.bsky.social
November 5, 2025 at 7:01 PM
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kissphoria.bsky.social
last night gf asked me if "that weird lady" is still mayor of chicago
November 5, 2025 at 5:38 PM
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dmnd.me
THIS IS THE GOOD COPE
Post by Tim Dillon with a screenshot of the Kalshi odds on the NYC mayoral election It's 2027. I'm sitting on a free bus. Open stab wound still dripping. On my way to the grocery store to get bread. The man next to me is cooperating with the neighborhood mental health officer but he's still gripping the knife. I feel a sense of regret wash over me. Why didn't I bet on this when I had the chance? Post by Wall Street Mav It's 2027. I'm sitting on a NYC free bus. It was 2 hours late because of Free Palestine protests blocking traffic everywhere. Half the people on the bus look like they were recently released from Rikers. As I look out the window in despair, I see women mostly dressed with full burqa clothing. They look tired and defeated. There are no more dogs in NYC. They were banned because the Muslims find them offensive. But there are plenty of goats around now. I cry as I see that the line for the city owned bakery stretches nearly two blocks to receive their weekly bread rations. The last Starbucks in NYC closed 8 months ago.
November 5, 2025 at 3:24 AM
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nytpitchbot.bsky.social
Andrew Cuomo to join Harvard’s Institute of Politics
November 5, 2025 at 2:37 AM
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nelsanderson.zone
We... put out a video game? That you can play? On your computer?!?

store.steampowered.com/app/2963240?...
Save 10% on Generation Exile on Steam
You are aboard humanity’s first and final generation ship, a last-chance expedition now teetering on the rim of collapse. One step at a time you must rebuild society and the ship’s fragile ecosystems ...
store.steampowered.com
November 4, 2025 at 7:21 PM