Ben Alcalá
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balcala.bsky.social
Ben Alcalá
@balcala.bsky.social
660 followers 960 following 54 posts
IT geek specializing in Linux currently looking for a new gig | BS degree in Cyber Security

Army veteran | Socialist | Polymath with ADD | No DMs

Currently looking to move to a new country | Hopefully Spain but possibly Mexico
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balcala.bsky.social
Ben Alcalá @balcala.bsky.social · Nov 12
I finally decided to make the move from "the site whose name should not be mentioned" 🤣

I was using a pseudonym there and I did not like who I became so I decided to use my real name here

I am pretty good with photography and Photoshop (read the ALT text for details on the collage below)
This is a Photoshop collage I made while in college. The background is a red to green gradient that reflects the Mexican flag. In the center there is an image of white painted graffiti from a fence that says "Juarez Zapata Chavez" which is also the name of this collage. The image is framed on the top and sides with Mayan and Aztec art and a row of skulls on the bottom based on the artwork of Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada. In the background there are some screened images: 1) an eagle sitting on a cactus which appears on the Mexican flag, 2) Our Lady of Guadalupe with Queen of Mexico over her, 3) the Aztec calendar and 4) a map of the southwest US with a protest sign from the Chicano movement in the 1960s that says "we want peace". On the right in the green area is Benito Juarez, the 26th President of Mexico, with a quote from him "I am a son of the people and I will not forget it, on the contrary I will stand up for their rights". On the bottom left in the red area is revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata holding a rifle with a golden halo around his sombrero. There is a quote from him "The land belongs to everyone like the air, the water and the light and the heat of the sun and all who work the land with their hands have a right to it". On the top in the center is Chicano labor leader Cesar Chavez colored in blue with a quote from him "We advocate militant non-violence as our means for social revolution and to achive justice for our people". The assignment was supposed to be about the environment around us but I went a different way with it and showed the environment in my head. Being Chicano means being stuck in the no man's land between two countries, the US and Mexico, which is something La Raza (my people) have to deal with day in and day out. I spent over 50 hours working on this collage and think that it came out well, it looks pretty good while putting out a powerful message about what it means to be Chicano in the US.
Reposted by Ben Alcalá
steveve.bsky.social
January 23, 2026 at 5:32 PM
Reposted by Ben Alcalá
lauren-oujiri.bsky.social
somehow it’s calming along with the drama. is something breaking through or trying to settle down. or both. Art is life is art.
🤍🕊️
.

#ArtistsOnBlueSky #BlueSkyArtShow #AbstractArt #AbstractExpressionism #Painter #Art #Artist #WomensArtBlueSky #AbstractArtist #BlueSkyArt  #OregonArtist #Oregon
Abstract painting with a deep red swirl at the center, along with multiple colors and swirls throughout.
January 24, 2026 at 3:24 PM
Reposted by Ben Alcalá
womenriseup2026.bsky.social
#Epstein

#EpsteinFiles
January 23, 2026 at 2:44 PM
Reposted by Ben Alcalá
crashryan.bsky.social
No A.i. or Photoshop. Just a pouring rain on my car windshield!

Took this in Biograd-na-Moru, Croatia

#canonphotography #shotoncanon #canonm50 #photography #streetphotography #croatia #hrvatska #biogradnamoru #dalmatia #travelphotography
January 24, 2026 at 2:23 PM
Reposted by Ben Alcalá
paulsgundlach.bsky.social
Happy Saturday! It's a winter weekend! 9° temperatures and 36 MPH winds didn't deter the sunrise pre-show today from being stunning. Even with the 0.5X ultra wide angle on the iPhone I still couldn't get it all in. Tap for full size. I hope you have a great day!
January 24, 2026 at 1:51 PM
Reposted by Ben Alcalá
cardboardfisher.bsky.social
Ladybug + Colour Study 🐞🐞🐞

#illustration #digitalpainting
January 24, 2026 at 5:24 PM
Reposted by Ben Alcalá
shadowdogdesigns.bsky.social
The Sombrero galaxy (Messier 104) is in the Virgo cluster & is 1 of the most massive objects in that group, equivalent to 800 billion suns. It's 50,000 light-years across & is 30 million light-years from Earth. Credit: NASA/ESA & The Hubble Heritage Team

More info: esahubble.org/images/opo03...
January 20, 2026 at 10:09 PM
Reposted by Ben Alcalá
ronmac11.bsky.social
Rowing into the mist.
#landscape
#photography
A thick mist over the river with a rowing boat-oars up, trees barely visible in the distance.
January 20, 2026 at 11:56 AM
Reposted by Ben Alcalá
joncooper-us.bsky.social
“My precious…”
January 20, 2026 at 4:16 PM
Reposted by Ben Alcalá
joncooper-us.bsky.social
If this doesn’t make you mad as hell, you have no heart.

Fuck Trump and everyone who supports his cruel and racist immigration policies.
January 20, 2026 at 8:09 PM
Reposted by Ben Alcalá
joelhs.bsky.social
“ICE isn’t the Gestapo. The Gestapo was…” (proceeds to describe qualities that apply to what ICE is currently doing)
From Senator Chris McDaniel: “Lately, some folks have taken to calling ICE “the Gestapo.” It sounds fierce. It feels righteous. But it isn’t true, and it isn’t harmless. The Gestapo was a secret police force. No warrants. No courts. No lawyers. And no appeals. People vanished in the night, not because they broke the law, but because the law no longer meant anything. The knock on the door was the sentence. ICE isn’t that. Not even close. ICE is a public agency enforcing laws passed by elected officials. Its agents file reports. They seek warrants. They lose cases. Judges stop them. Lawyers challenge them. Some detainees go home. That’s not tyranny. That’s bureaucracy, for better and worse. You can hate immigration policy. You can argue enforcement is too harsh, too sloppy, or too broad. You can work to have the law changed if you wish. That’s a republic doing what it’s supposed to do. But when you call ordinary law enforcement “the Gestapo,” you cheapen real evil. You turn history into a slogan and suffering into a metaphor. And once every badge is tyranny, no tyranny is left to recognize. In Mississippi, I was raised to believe words should earn their weight. This one hasn't yet. It throws around the language of dictatorship while living under a system where courts still rule, lawyers still argue, and the government still loses. That difference matters. Because the day enforcement becomes secret, unchecked, and answerable to no one, we won’t need to borrow names from history. We’ll know exactly what we’re dealing with. And we’ll wish we’d kept our words honest.”
January 20, 2026 at 5:45 PM
Reposted by Ben Alcalá
sher12.bsky.social
January 20, 2026 at 3:02 PM
Reposted by Ben Alcalá
chadbourn.bsky.social
Davos, Switzerland, the World Economic Forum.
No Kings is projected on to a mountainside above the town’s lights
January 20, 2026 at 10:16 PM
Reposted by Ben Alcalá
solidarity2025.bsky.social
January 18, 2026 at 7:33 AM
Reposted by Ben Alcalá
alanjstedman.bsky.social
Oh!
January 17, 2026 at 4:08 PM
Reposted by Ben Alcalá
garlicbuffalo.gobirds.biz
amtrak’s marketing team gets it
June 21, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Reposted by Ben Alcalá
davemeredith.bsky.social
#Narrow band of orange at sunrise for the #BlueSkyArtShow

#PhotographersOfBluesky #PhotographersUnited #EastCoastKin #PhotoHour #StormHour #photography #landscape
June 21, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Reposted by Ben Alcalá
tiffanycli.bsky.social
Depressing time to be a law professor whose entire job hinges on law existing and being meaningful in some way
June 22, 2025 at 12:46 AM
balcala.bsky.social
The Kinks are definitely underrated:

"Then another leader says
"Break their hearts and break some heads"
Is there nothin' we can say or do?"

"Father Christmas, give us some money
Don't mess around with those silly toys
But give my daddy a job 'cause he needs one
He's got lots of mouths to feed"
houseofbast777.bsky.social Susan DuBose @houseofbast777.bsky.social · Jun 21
"Money and corruption are ruining the land, crooked politicians betray the working man, pocketing the profits and treating us like sheep, and we're tired of hearing promises that we know they'll never keep."
Born on this day Ray Davies 1944
June 22, 2025 at 2:08 AM
balcala.bsky.social
@firefly-aerospace.bsky.social had a failed launch today

I saw something weird on their launch feed 👇

You would think with all those engineers around someone would know how to set the clock on the VCR! 😂
Screen capture of the Firefly Aerospace feed of their failed rocket launch with the time on the lower left of the screen that says 1969-12-31
April 30, 2025 at 6:08 AM
balcala.bsky.social
One of my favorite channels on YouTube is Jake Broe

He covers the Ruzzian war of aggression against Ukraine like no one else

He also conducts periodic fundraisers to buy trucks for the brave Ukrainian defenders

He just posted this, amazing work by Jake:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcgl...
The Greatest Speech Ever Made (2025)
YouTube video by Jake Broe
www.youtube.com
April 6, 2025 at 3:35 AM
Reposted by Ben Alcalá
kellyscaletta.bsky.social
This kitten is a black-footed cat, the smallest of the African wild cats. It's about the size of a larger house cat.

Believe it or not, this is the second-most dangerous predator in the world. It kills its prey 60% of the time.
March 23, 2025 at 3:02 PM
Reposted by Ben Alcalá
vincentledvina.bsky.social
20 minutes ago here in Venetie, Alaska, the skies erupted in a beautiful auroral substorm. Here is just one of many real-time videos I recorded during the show to give you a sense of how fast and dynamic the aurora can move.
March 23, 2025 at 8:24 AM
Reposted by Ben Alcalá
catsuka.bsky.social
Blender animation by Maxime Jouniot.
www.instagram.com/maxime_jouniot
March 23, 2025 at 2:46 PM
balcala.bsky.social
A Tesla employee nearly hit two elderly women protesting against Tesla and Enron Musk

His excuse? The brakes failed!

However he was driving a Nissan Pathfinder and not a Swasticar so his story rings false

Luckily nobody was hurt and the driver was arrested for assault and his car was towed away
teslatakedown.com #TeslaTakedown @teslatakedown.com · Mar 23
Today in West Palm Beach, a man drove his SUV into a crowd of #TeslaTakedown protesters. This is a direct result of Musk, Trump, and Bondi’s blatant efforts to stir up violence. We are a peaceful movement. We, the people, have a first amendment right to protest. www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/t...
Protesters denounce Musk, DOGE outside Tesla showroom
Just after the protest started, a man drove his SUV into the crowd, claiming his brakes had failed. Police said he will be charged with assault.
www.palmbeachpost.com
March 23, 2025 at 3:48 PM