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NE Ohio Regional Sewer District

@neorsd.org

worth noting: back in August, we hosted local artists celebrating sewers and treatment plants with a literary reading of their own work—*within* a tunnel of ours, thx to @literarycleveland.bsky.social.

a group of writers convene in a tunnel of a sewage treatment plant to share their creative work. all wearing orange hard hats, two artists stand at a microphone while a crowd sits listening to them recite their work.

November 12, 2025 at 3:57 PM

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ianVisits

@ianvisits.co.uk

An exhibition of fantasy maps all drawn by the fantasy author, Ursula K. Le Guin, has opened in central London.

www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/map...

Mapping Earthsea: Ursula K. Le Guin's maps go on display at the Architectural Association

An exhibition of fantasy maps all drawn by the fantasy author, Ursula K. Le Guin, has opened in central London.

www.ianvisits.co.uk

October 14, 2025 at 11:25 AM

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Jeff VanderMeer

@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

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𝕃𝕦𝕔𝕒𝕧𝕚 𓅰 🐱

@lucavi.bsky.social

October 11, 2025 at 10:48 PM

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Prisonculture

@prisonculture.bsky.social

I enjoyed this paean to research - I am also someone who loves going down research rabbit holes. open.substack.com/pub/sarahsch...

How to Start Researching as a Hobby

Trust me, I'm an alcoholic. I really am just doing this for fun.

open.substack.com

August 5, 2025 at 5:38 PM

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Orc Girl Boss 🐇

@orc.bsky.social

you have been visited by the sleepy sea turtle

June 29, 2025 at 3:31 PM

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Internet Archive

@archive.org

The scanners may be off for the long weekend, but the livestream rolls on.

Enjoy a chill loop of lofi music, public domain films, and stunning images from the Internet Archive's collections.

Perfect background vibes until scanning resumes Tuesday morning. ➡️ www.youtube.com/live/aPg2V5R...

lofi Archive radio 🎞️ beats to scan/read microfiche to

YouTube video by Internet Archive

www.youtube.com

May 26, 2025 at 12:03 AM

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uesp.net

@uesp.net

"The temporal myth is man. Reach heaven by violence. This magic I give to you: the world you will rule is only an intermittent hope and you must be the letter written in uncertainty."

--Vivec

January 23, 2025 at 9:52 PM

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Gillian Branstetter

@gbbranstetter.bsky.social

Naomi Shihab Nye

No Explosions

To enjoy
Fireworks
You would have
To have lived
A different kind
Of life

January 1, 2024 at 2:24 AM

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Jesse Locker

@jessemlocker.bsky.social

Lorenzo Lippi, Allegory of Simulation, Oil on Canvas, 73 x 89 cm, c. 1640 (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Angers)

December 20, 2023 at 5:40 PM

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Shannon Mattern

@shannonmattern.bsky.social

“Coral Dictionary [calls] attention to the notion that language, while at times functioning as a medium of universality, is also a deeply grounded phenomenon that weaves together shape and sound, place and meaning.” Such a lovely book lareviewofbooks.org/article/cora...