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usewordsbetter.bsky.social
Sarah
@usewordsbetter.bsky.social
430 followers 440 following 79 posts
written-word wrangler | Houston
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Reposted by Sarah
adamserwer.bsky.social
Last week in Minnesota, I watched ordinary people risk their lives to protect their neighbors. In the process, they not only won a significant—though not final—victory against authoritarianism, they proved virtually every MAGA social theory wrong. (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
Every social theory undergirding Trumpism has been broken on the steel of Minnesotan resolve. The multiracial community in Minneapolis was supposed to shatter. It did not. It held until Bovino was forced out of the Twin Cities with his long coat between his legs. The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they’re the ones who are alone. In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesive—because of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about “Western civilization,” while armed brutes try to tear it down by force.
January 27, 2026 at 1:06 PM
Reposted by Sarah
mediumvillain.bsky.social
just gonna throw out a quick reminder that in America police kill a yearly average of 3 civilians per day, routinely in situations very similar to these ICE killings, and decades of explicit support for police impunity by US politicians is why ICE feels theyre able to get away with this right now
makora33.bsky.social Jess💙🩵🔥🌍🌈🪢🦀🐋🇺🇲wokeAF @makora33.bsky.social · 6d
Our government is murdering the citizens of this country. They are doing it without any checks on their violence
January 25, 2026 at 12:26 AM
Reposted by Sarah
noturtlesoup17.bsky.social
Today at 34 & Park in Minneapolis, a woman tried to drive down the street where a protest had broken out in front of a home ICE was raiding, saying she had a doctor apt to get to. ICE agents busted out her windows, cut off her seatbelt, and pulled her out before arresting her.
January 13, 2026 at 6:56 PM
usewordsbetter.bsky.social
One thing to know about me is dog.
A small white dog curled on a large pillow in a hazy beam of light from a large window.
January 12, 2026 at 11:55 PM
Reposted by Sarah
banalplay.bsky.social
ICE agent mid-air as he slips on ice and about to fall on his ass, nearly parallel to the ground. Two photographers enjoy the moment. The Vincent D'Onofrio pig post: Pigs can't look up. But I could pick a pig up one night and raise it into the sky and tilt this pig ever so gentle. I can make sure this pigs eyes line up with the stars. Imagine seeing the stars 4the first time.I want 2b treated that kindly and see the stars for the first time.
January 12, 2026 at 4:42 PM
Reposted by Sarah
thetattooedprof.bsky.social
Honesty, agency, community, solidarity, a refusal to abandon basic principles of decency and accountability...I see these things everywhere. We're in a possibility space, even if it may not feel like it. We don't have to live like this, and our regime knows it. That's why they're in a frenzy. /x
January 10, 2026 at 5:56 PM
Reposted by Sarah
ladyofsardines.bsky.social
This summer, I took myself to the beach for two days & wrote a letter to my fellow educators about “AI.”

My mom asked to read it; I told her, “Not yet. Let me get another draft done.”

Welp.

I should have let her read the first draft because she’s not here to read this one.
“Human Beings! Human Beings!” An Open Letter to Educators on the Dangers of AI
A high school teacher and Rethinking Schools editor denounces AI as a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
rethinkingschools.org
January 3, 2026 at 3:11 PM
Reposted by Sarah
anamariecox.bsky.social
Video essay: That OU Essay Is Supposed to Be Bad

I approached the OU essay as an editor and realized it didn’t want to be fixed.

Thoughts on craft, refusal, ugliness, and why some writing is bad on purpose.

(Weekends are the perfect time for new content, right?)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvCm...
That OU Essay Is Supposed to Be Bad | An Editor’s Note
YouTube video by Ana Marie Cox
www.youtube.com
December 20, 2025 at 11:52 PM
usewordsbetter.bsky.social
One thing that keeps me happy as an editor is I don’t get grumpy about clients’ mistakes. Bemused, sure. Time-stressed, sometimes. But there is no imposition in the thing that is the whole point of our arrangement. If I get to be the one to show you an important skill, that’s good for both of us.
December 17, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Reposted by Sarah
carlbergstrom.com
In my case, this painstaking labor in the process through which the science gets done. Science isn't measuring stuff in a lab. It's thinking deeply, extracting the heart of idea from the soup of thoughts running through my mind, molding it, and finding a way to communicate that idea to others.
December 16, 2025 at 11:46 PM
usewordsbetter.bsky.social
and the best quiche is personal size, made in a jumbo-muffin pan, with a big rumpled free-form crust.
mauraquint.bsky.social maura quint @mauraquint.bsky.social · Nov 26
fuck it, I've had a good run. the only good pie is quiche.
November 26, 2025 at 8:06 AM
usewordsbetter.bsky.social
copula

vermillion

fundament

desquamate

borborygmus

demimonde

shambolic

oubliette

blenny
ajaxsinger.bsky.social Constantine @ajaxsinger.bsky.social · Nov 19
asymptotic

schizmogenesis

parthenogenesis

exegesis

inchoate

disinter

orgiastic

eschatology
gregoryaight.bsky.social Gregory The A'ight @gregoryaight.bsky.social · Nov 19
Sanctuary.

Ephemeral.

Pedagogy.

Efficacious.

Auspicious.

Caxixi.

Birambau.

Cabasa.

Proprioception.

Interoception.

Prognostication.

Retrognostication.

Ambivalent.

Agnostic.

Gnostic.

...there's more lol.
November 19, 2025 at 11:36 PM
Reposted by Sarah
mauraquint.bsky.social
I didn't know what I was doing when I sent that text. I'm so happy I did.

Organizing seems daunting until you do it. We all need each other more than ever. Building trust and relationships and community is something to do now so it's there when you need it. Start what you need, join where you can.
November 19, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Reposted by Sarah
olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social
a helpful starter pack to find stuff you may be interested in and/or is local to you

go.bsky.app/2Fq4P6e
November 3, 2025 at 9:17 PM
Reposted by Sarah
prisonculture.bsky.social
Someone give Lex $2 million so they can launch a politics version of Teen Vogue. Do it now. No strings attached.
November 3, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Reposted by Sarah
chowleen.bsky.social
You wonder who they mean,
but then you see. Their poison hemlock? That
is you. Their brown tree snake. Their killer bee.

-Amit Majmudar, 'Invasive Species'
#everynightapoem
We flower where we flower.
AMIT MAJMUDAR Invasive Species The bees are Africanized. All elm disease is Dutch. The carp is Asian, the python of the Everglades specifically Burmese. The plague bacillus sailed from India to Europe. Europe coughed khaki back at India. Everything is alien, especially star thistle with its spurs and bursts, unearthly, mapping its home galaxy like a foundling with a fleur-de-lys foot tattoo. Though even lilies hitchhike— every ditch lily was once a tiger lily, treasured in the garden of a Mughal. Everybody thinks the Mughals Indian, but Mughal comes from Mongol. Invaders make themselves at home and home remakes them into natives. Everybody comes from someplace else where they were royal refugees. We flower where we flower, flinging roots like ropes from runaway hot air balloons to snag a city's skyline. It never feels like an invasion when you're doing it. It feels like parenting, like cooking what you've always cooked, like dancing with your grandma at a noisy wedding But then you turn to see the horrified park rangers staring at you, calling in the experts-look at this, what do we do, they're everywhere. You wonder who they mean, but then you see. Their poison hemlock? That is you. Their brown tree snake. Their killer bee.
October 19, 2025 at 10:43 PM
usewordsbetter.bsky.social
A protest sign tip: paint markers draw strong, thick lines, and fast. They’re at the art store.
October 18, 2025 at 5:14 AM
Reposted by Sarah
jeffvandermeer.bsky.social
This heartfelt and meaningful statement by Portland resident and author Cristina Breshears on another social media platform bears reposting here. I don't think the intent is to idealize Portland but to remind all of us what is important and why. (Posted here with permission.)
For nine nights now, the steady thrum of Black Hawk helicopters has circled over Portland. The sound is constant, invasive; a low mechanical beating above our homes. It’s expensive. It’s intimidating. And it’s unnecessary. Our protests have been largely peaceful. There is no insurrection here. Yet this federalized military presence makes us feel like we are living in a war zone (the very kind of chaos this administration claims to be protecting us from). The irony is painful: it is only this occupation that makes Portland feel unsafe. Each hour of helicopter flight costs taxpayers between $2,000 and $4,000, depending on crew, fuel, and maintenance. Multiply that by multiple aircraft over multiple nights, and you’re looking at hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars burned into the sky. Meanwhile, the Woodstock Food Pantry at All Saints Episcopal Church — which feeds working families, elders, and people with disabilities — has seen its federal funding slashed by 75%. How can we justify pouring public money into intimidation while cutting aid to those who simply need to eat? This is waste, fraud, and abuse in plain sight: * Waste of public resources on military theatrics. * Fraud in the name of “public safety.” * Abuse of the communities that federal agencies claim to protect. Portland is a Sanctuary City. A sanctuary city is not a fortress. It’s a promise — a living vow that a community will protect the dignity and safety of everyone who calls it home. It means that local governments and ordinary people alike will refuse to criminalize survival. That schools, clinics, churches, and shelters will remain safe spaces no matter who you are or where you were born. But the term reaches far beyond policy. It’s an ethic of belonging; a refusal to criminalize need, difference, or desperation. Sanctuary isn’t weakness. It’s courage. It takes moral strength to meet suffering with care instead of punishment, to believe that our neighbors’ safety is bound up in our own, to insist that safety is not achieved through force but through community, inclusion, and trust. It is living Matthew 25:40 out loud and in deed. It is an act of moral imagination and moral defiance. To hold sanctuary is to say: you belong here. When we hold space for the most vulnerable — refugees, the unhoused, the undocumented, the disabled, the working poor, the displaced — we become something larger than a collection of individuals. We become a moral body. We do more than offer charity. We offer witness. We declare that the measure of a nation is found not in its towers or tanks, but in its tenderness. Sanctuary cities are not lawless; they are soulful. They represent the conscience of the nation, a place where the laws of empathy still apply. To make sanctuary is to affirm that the United States is not merely a geographic territory, but a moral experiment: a republic that must constantly choose between fear and compassion, between domination and democracy. A nation’s soul is measured not by the might of its military, but by the mercy of its people. When helicopters circle our skies in the name of order, while food pantries struggle to feed the hungry, we are forced to ask: What are we defending, and from whom? The soul of a nation survives only when we make sanctuary for one another. Not through walls or weapons, but through compassion and collective will. If we allow intimidation to replace compassion, we will have traded our conscience for control. Please know that despite the hum of war machines overhead, the conscience of our city — whimsical, creative, stubbornly kind — can still be heard. Portland is not the problem. Portland is the reminder. A reminder that a city can still choose to be sanctuary. That a people can still choose to be human.
October 12, 2025 at 1:02 AM
Reposted by Sarah
chibdm.bsky.social
Robin Williams' daughter has some quality thoughts on AI slop
October 6, 2025 at 8:48 PM
Reposted by Sarah
otsumamiboy.bsky.social
Criticizing the enlightened centrist isn’t kicking them out of the so-called tent, it is presenting them with an opportunity to stop eroding the integrity of the tent by tirelessly trying to find commonality with people who want to burn the tent down.
September 25, 2025 at 12:46 AM
Reposted by Sarah
mollyrookwood.bsky.social
Ted Chiang:
"The task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and of ourselves when we write [...]. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and apprehenders of meaning."
December 17, 2024 at 11:50 AM
Reposted by Sarah
saddestrobots.bsky.social
"my kids are defective!" is the battlecry of nearly every reactionary movement
September 22, 2025 at 1:12 PM
Reposted by Sarah
harikunzru.bsky.social
I am advocating for you to be killed but I am using my inside voice you must debate me this is called democracy
September 14, 2025 at 3:11 AM
Reposted by Sarah
stevenmazie.bsky.social
SCOTUS: considering race as one factor in a college applicant's file is blatantly unconstitutional

ALSO SCOTUS: considering race as one factor in targeting whom to detain and deport is cool cool cool
September 8, 2025 at 4:43 PM