Brian Ruh
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brianruh.bsky.social
Brian Ruh
@brianruh.bsky.social
2.4K followers 3.1K following 3K posts
Independent scholar, PhD in communication and culture, occasional writer, always looking for a new project. I wrote a book on Mamoru Oshii’s films.
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brianruh.bsky.social
“The U.S. strikes on Venezuela and seizure of the country’s president have laid bare Washington’s focus on the Western Hemisphere, a shift that could push Latin American nations closer to China while simultaneously emboldening Beijing in the Indo-Pacific and reducing American footprint there.”
As Trump focuses on U.S. backyard, Venezuela attack emboldens China
The moves could push Latin American nations closer to China while simultaneously giving Beijing more clout in the Indo-Pacific.
www.japantimes.co.jp
January 5, 2026 at 11:53 AM
brianruh.bsky.social
Any long-time Chicago Museum of Science and Industry goers on here?

This weekend we went through the coal mine for the first time since I was little. The Davy lamp demo just showed methane burning in a little box. I remember there being more of a pop / explosion to that part. Did they change it?
Object Description: Light gold-colored metal cylindrical lamp. The lamp has an arched top with a metal ring attached at the highest point. The main body of the lamp is wire mesh with three (3) thin cylindrical poles around it, supporting the lamp's top. Lamp rests on a circular base with small text engraved around the top, near where the mesh body meets the base.
January 4, 2026 at 9:14 PM
Reposted by Brian Ruh
theseaning.bsky.social
'Moonfall'

946 images by Don Pettit are repaired, remastered & retimed to create this film with music by Chris Zabriskie.

You can watch the 4k UHD real time video here...

youtu.be/_llSxc_08Lo
January 4, 2026 at 3:55 PM
Reposted by Brian Ruh
markgarlick.com
Stylised and far-fetched animation of an orbital ring around the Earth. Such structures, if we ever build them, will in reality be invisible from such a distance.

#SciArt #blender #spaceart
January 4, 2026 at 10:31 AM
Reposted by Brian Ruh
catsuka.bsky.social
Happy 85th birthday to Hayao Miyazaki ♡
January 4, 2026 at 4:16 PM
brianruh.bsky.social
Reminder
brianruh.bsky.social Brian Ruh @brianruh.bsky.social · Feb 12
You always have a choice to not do the bad thing.
January 4, 2026 at 2:45 PM
brianruh.bsky.social
Should I watch The Orville? I keep hearing good things about it but I don’t really trust a Seth MacFarlane show to be good SF.
January 4, 2026 at 2:33 PM
Reposted by Brian Ruh
technihilism.bsky.social
it's weird how growing up you're ambiently & explicitly taught how important it is to overcome moral cowardice and then you have to be governed by those completely consumed by it
January 4, 2026 at 3:05 AM
Reposted by Brian Ruh
older.bsky.social
*banging together two trash-can-lid-shaped copies of the Melian dialogues during every press conference*
January 3, 2026 at 6:09 PM
Reposted by Brian Ruh
yenpress.com
Awajima Opera School—where countless girls from across the country flock in hopes of one day standing on the big stage. Their time at Awajima is filled with as much friendship and admiration as competition and jealousy...

Scenes from Awajima, Vol. 1 is available January 20th buff.ly/iyZHO8M
January 3, 2026 at 5:22 PM
Reposted by Brian Ruh
get-ugly.jp
しまりん 「乗りたい？綾乃には…ピーキーすぎて無理かも…」

Shimarin "Wanna ride it, Ayano? It's too peaky for you"
#ゆるキャン #yurucamp #AKIRA
January 3, 2026 at 1:50 PM
Reposted by Brian Ruh
cristianfarias.com
Best thing I’ve read this morning, from a human rights lawyer in Mexico. Translation is in the ALT-text.
Twitter thread in Spanish by José Mario de la Garza, a human rights lawyer in Mexico, translated using Google Translate: 1. Overthrowing a dictator sounds morally right. No one mourns a tyrant. But international law wasn't built to protect the good, but to restrain the powerful. That's why it prohibits force almost without exception: not because it ignores injustice, but because it knows that if each country decides whom to "liberate" by force, the world reverts to the law of the strongest. 2. The problem is not Maduro. The problem is the precedent. When military force is used to change governments without clear rules, sovereignty ceases to be a limit and becomes an obstacle. Today it is “overthrowing a dictator”; tomorrow it will be “correcting an election,” “protecting interests,” “restoring order.” The law does not absolve dictatorships, but neither does it legitimize unilateral crusades. Cont’d: 3. The uncomfortable question is not whether a tyrant deserves to fall, but who decides when and how. Because history teaches something brutal: removing a dictator is easy; building justice afterward is not. And when legality is broken in the name of good, what almost always follows is not freedom, but chaos, violence, and new victims. The law exists to remind us of this, even when it makes us uncomfortable. Maduro isn't the problem: he's the face of the problem. Removing him from power would be merely opening the door. Behind him is the machine: Rodríguez, Cabello, the military command, the operators of repression and plunder. If you only change the person at the top and leave the system intact, what follows isn't democracy: it's a reshuffling. And there's something even more difficult: Chavismo didn't just capture institutions, it captured daily life. Economy, media, bureaucracy, employment, fear, favors, blackmail. A country can't be "de-Chavistaized" by decree or by an electoral miracle. The real transition begins when that network is broken without setting the country ablaze. The challenge is enormous, and it's also a moral one: to unite without vengeance, but without impunity. Targeted justice for those most responsible, truth for the victims, guarantees that the rest will dismantle the system, and a plan for people to live again—not just survive. Because freedom doesn't come with a new president: it comes when the state ceases to be a threat.
January 3, 2026 at 2:16 PM
brianruh.bsky.social
I wasn’t expecting a 35th anniversary commemoration of Jello Biafra’s “Die for Oil, Sucker” quite like this.
Collage cover of Jello Biafra’s “Die for Oil, Sucker”
January 3, 2026 at 4:27 PM
Reposted by Brian Ruh
michaelgkagan.bsky.social
I feel like I haven’t even been properly lied to about the purposes of this war
January 3, 2026 at 9:13 AM
Reposted by Brian Ruh
animenewsnetwork.com
[Review] This OVA almost feels like a bit of a monkey's paw where I was given more of what I wanted, but not in the way that I wanted it.
Kaguya-sama: Love is War -Stairway to Adulthood- OVA
www.animenewsnetwork.com
January 3, 2026 at 1:30 PM
Reposted by Brian Ruh
soranews24.bsky.social
New Year's message from Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli will warm your heart with its depth of meaning.
Hayao Miyazaki says Happy New Year to Studio Ghibli fans with new art for Year of the Horse
2026 nengajo drawing comes with a never-before-seen photo of the legendary anime director.
soranews24.com
January 2, 2026 at 4:03 PM
brianruh.bsky.social
Dramatic lighting selfies in blue today at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.
Me, in blue, with mirrors and lights behind me Me in blue again, with plastic containers behind me
January 2, 2026 at 11:52 PM
brianruh.bsky.social
Neutral good - but door / window / floor vent positioning constrains our choices
ayeyoworm.blacksky.app 👑 AyeYoWorm ➡️ Blerdron✊🏾(🐻 11-5) 🎅🏾🎄 @ayeyoworm.blacksky.app · 3d
How do yall have your beds set up???

I’m true neutral.
January 2, 2026 at 3:40 AM
brianruh.bsky.social
The new year reminded me that Theres this this two page spread in my copy of the Spahn / Hadamitzky Kanji Dictionary.
The Ten Calendar Signs, the Twelve Horary Signs, and the Sixty-Year Cycle ＋千・十二支・千支 The ten calendar signs are a series of ten kanji that originally were used to desig-aste the different days of the ten-day fi jun periods into which a month is divided. Today this series of kanji, known as the + T jikkan, is used for distinguishing the di ferent members of any series. For example, in the text of a three-party contract the three parties will typically be referred to as ff ko ("A"), Z otsu ("B), and if hei (*C"). The ten kanji of the jikkan are divided into two groups of five members each. One group, called Ste, is associated with the yang (positive) principle, and the other group, called 9l to, is associated with the yin (negative) principle. Each member of these groups is further associated with one of the basic elements wood, fire, earth, metal, water, as presented in the following table. In addition to its on reading listed in this table, each kanji has another reading given by its row and column. Thus, # is also referred to as ki-no-e, Z as ki-no-to, PS as hi-no-e,.... and as mizu-no-to. (Indeed, this row-and-column nomenclature is needed to avoid confusion between symbols that otherwise have the same pronuncia-tion, KO or Kl.) The twelve horary signs are a series of twelve kanji that were originally used in ancient China to distinguish the twelve months of the year but were later applied to compass directions and times of dav (hence "horary" signs), the mid noit kani * GO being associated with noon. But the most widespread use of these signs, which are known as the += jünishi, is in associating successive years with different animals, as in "the year of the rat," "the year of the cow," and so forth. The following list gives the on reading, kun reading, and animal associated with each kanji of the junishi, which perhaps should be called the "animal signs." When the ten-element + T jikkan series is aligned with the twelve-element +=* jünishi series and each series is repeated, we obtain a series of two-kanji combinations known as the f kanshi or eto (the sixty-year cycle). When this combined kanshi series is associated with successive years, it repeats every sixty years (as it must, because 60 is the least common multiple of 10 and 12). This sixty-year kanshi is outlined in the following chart, which shows which calendar sign and which horary sign and animal correspond to a given year. Thus, 1984 is a F7 ki-no-e ne year of the rat, and the year 2001, in the 18th year of the sixty-year cycle, is a #E. ka-no-to mi year of the serpent.
January 2, 2026 at 1:14 AM
Reposted by Brian Ruh
brianruh.bsky.social
Book cover GARY SNYDER Turtle Island with "FOUR CHANGES" PULITZER PRIZE for POETRY 1975
December 10, 2025 at 10:57 PM
brianruh.bsky.social
Ok, I don’t watch a lot of tv so I don’t see a lot of commercials, but there was just a Final Fantasy VII-themed ad for mental health during a big US football game. Intriguing.
January 1, 2026 at 9:46 PM
brianruh.bsky.social
Our last movie of 2025 / first movie of 2026 (midnight came about halfway through) was The Death of Stalin. It was fine. It definitely didn’t live up to the great reviews, but that’s not the fault of the film itself.
January 1, 2026 at 5:36 PM
Reposted by Brian Ruh
jowolff.bsky.social
Reviving Heinrich Heine’s New Year’s Greeting that I posted last year. Hope it’s more effective this year.
January 1, 2026 at 7:03 AM
brianruh.bsky.social
I love that they kept the Shirogane-as-Tora-san bit in the new "Kaguya-sama" anime.
In anime style, a young man in an old fashioned hat and suit looks off to the right, as a young woman clasps her hands and gazes after him. A fence stretches into the distance while an airplane flies in the sky above.
January 1, 2026 at 4:21 PM
Reposted by Brian Ruh
thedailytism.com
Ffiona Maw, 36, considered learning Spanish or joining the gym next year, but decided instead to quit suppressing her authentic self in a bid to make people like her.
New year, new me! Autistic woman decides this is the year she’s going to be a massive liability on purpose
An autistic woman has made just one resolution for 2026 – to be as much of a menace as possible, sources have revealed. Ffiona Maw, 36, considered learning Spanish or joining the gym next year, but…
thedailytism.com
January 1, 2026 at 2:30 PM