Greenmantled
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greenmantled.bsky.social
Greenmantled
@greenmantled.bsky.social
150 followers 950 following 11 posts
NE USA. Books, art, coffee, trees. Hylozoist at heart. Tired person.

“All the history of human life has been a struggle between wisdom and stupidity.”

— Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Greenmantled
brittlundgren.bsky.social
"When Musk & Hegseth argue that a racially diverse nation is inherently weak, they're not returning us to some long-established American tradition from which we've recently strayed. They are, instead, parroting the exact same propaganda that Nazi Germany promoted against America during World War II"
February 15, 2026 at 8:44 PM
Reposted by Greenmantled
mu-peter.bsky.social
#Darwinday
Sir David Attenborough talks to Brian Cox about his admiration for the achievements of Charles Darwin, and how On the Origin of Species inspires him in his work in the natural world.

Sir David Attenborough on Charles Darwin 🧪
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yEX...
People of Science with Brian Cox - Sir David Attenborough on Charles Darwin
YouTube video by The Royal Society
www.youtube.com
February 12, 2026 at 3:00 PM
Reposted by Greenmantled
lesbrains.bsky.social
I agree that concentration camp is the correct term for sites that imprison immigrants. I also find it interesting that the term concentration camp fell into disuse during Biden’s presidency while the camps themselves remained…
February 7, 2026 at 3:40 PM
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sethabramson.bsky.social
February 7, 2026 at 7:20 AM
Reposted by Greenmantled
lalahaenzy.com
Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again.
#Pinks #ProudBlue
February 5, 2026 at 11:50 AM
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clarajeffery.bsky.social
There are 3,800 kids in ICE custody.
January 30, 2026 at 3:44 AM
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neilshooter.bsky.social
Trump’s Republicans are doing everything they told us the Democrats would do.

Every accusation is a confession.
January 30, 2026 at 3:42 PM
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rbreich.bsky.social
“Imagine how they lie when there’s no evidence to contradict them.”

Watch this powerful message from Jon Stewart.
January 27, 2026 at 7:59 PM
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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 Greenmantled
maxkennerly.bsky.social
The Trump admin is scrambling because the secret police it sends out for kidnappings and rioting has been killing people on video then brazenly lying about it, but Schumer's instinct is to whip his caucus into taking a position *more conservative* than that held by the median voter.

He's got to go.
murshedz.bsky.social Murshed Zaheed @murshedz.bsky.social · 24d
Majority of the country now wants to abolish and/or dismantle ICE and yet Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. told the caucus the message had to be to “restrain, reform and restrict ICE.”

Once again it looks like Schumer is about to choke after getting a massive opportunity.

So pathetic and weak.
Senate Democrats plot strategy as DHS standoff deepens heading into shutdown week
Two sources who were on a Democratic caucus strategy call Sunday said Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told the group the message must be to “restrain, reform and restrict ICE.”
www.nbcnews.com
January 27, 2026 at 2:48 AM
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kenwhite.bsky.social
If I sent a letter saying I would continue to inflict violence and murder on a community unless that community made legal concessions to me, I would go to prison.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Read Bondi’s Letter to Minnesota’s Governor
Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota on Saturday that blamed him and other Democratic officials for allowing “lawlessness” in the state. It was not immediately clear ...
www.nytimes.com
January 26, 2026 at 5:13 PM
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metaresistance.bsky.social
Rest in Peace Alex Jeffrey Pretti🙏🏾 The VA ICU Nurses send him off right 💔
January 26, 2026 at 5:04 AM
Reposted by Greenmantled
lloydalter.bsky.social
There is a line in the book “Is Paris Burning?” where General Dietrich von Choltitz, who disobeyed the order to destroy the city, says, “Hitler is mad. Are you blind? Didn’t you see him at Berchtesgaden?” I think you could write a modern version: “Didn’t you see him at Davos?”
January 21, 2026 at 3:10 PM
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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
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poetguygabe.bsky.social
"The disordered society is full of loyal patriots."

Tao Te Ching, Ursula K. Le Guin translation
Tao Te Ching, Ursula K. Le Guin translation Tao Te Ching, Stephen Mitchell translation
January 18, 2026 at 9:17 PM
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genevievecogman.bsky.social
As Pratchett said:
“They avoided one another's faces, for fear of what they might see mirrored there. Each man thought: one of the others is bound to say something soon, some protest, and then I'll murmur agreement, not actually say anything, I'm not stupid as that, but definitely murmur very firmly, so that the others will be in no doubt that I thoroughly disapprove, because at a time like this it behooves all decent men to nearly stand up and be almost heard... No one said anything. The cowards, thought each man.” ― Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!
January 17, 2026 at 7:43 PM
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bencollins.bsky.social
He really is doing all of it.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
January 15, 2026 at 4:36 AM
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ursulakleguin.com
A screenshot from the website Meduza reads: Last year was arguably the worst one yet for Russia’s publishing industry. Bookstores were raided; independent publishing houses were shuttered; publishers pulled beloved novels from sale; and an increasing number of books came out in censored form. While the book business has long been one of the riskiest in the country, the degree of pressure on the industry was still striking — and it’s only growing more intense. At Meduza’s request, literary critic Alex Mesropov takes stock of how the Kremlin reshaped the Russian book industry in 2025: On December 18, Russian police raided bookstores in at least three cities. This time, the target was Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel The Left Hand of Darkness, published by the company Azbuka. Following the raids, the book was pulled from sale. First published in 1969, The Left Hand of Darkness was met with international acclaim and was even translated into Russian during the Soviet era. It explores themes of androgyny, interrogating gender and sexual stereotypes — which, by all appearances, is precisely what Russian security forces found objectionable. "When art shows only how and what, it is trivial entertainment, whether optimistic or despairing. When it asks why, it rises from mere emotional response to real statement, and to intelligent ethical choice. It becomes, not a passive reflection, but an act. And that is when all the censors, of the governments and of the marketplace, become afraid of it." From "The Stalin in the Soul" by Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in 1973
January 14, 2026 at 5:01 PM
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andycraig.bsky.social
Common Sense, published 250 years ago today.
Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.
January 10, 2026 at 9:09 PM
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mluckovich.bsky.social
January 8, 2026 at 8:30 PM
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rufus-hickok.bsky.social
It's striking that progressives like Tim Walz and Zohran Mamdani evoke the middle American attitude that, "Yes, we can fix these social problems because we're Americans and it's the right thing to do!" While the "America first" right only emulates failed and failing nation-states elsewhere.
January 1, 2026 at 10:52 PM
Reposted by Greenmantled
angelt.bsky.social
I still recommend this dramatisation every year since its launch. The sound design is magnificent so worth listening on headphones. Interested in discovering any other winter listening rituals that others have.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
The Dark Is Rising - 1. Midwinter Eve - BBC Sounds
This night will be bad. Tomorrow will be beyond all imagining
www.bbc.co.uk
December 20, 2025 at 9:54 AM
greenmantled.bsky.social
Just finished this and it’s one of my favorite books on Tolkien ever. Deeply insightful and a little heartbreaking.
jtauber.com James Tauber @jtauber.com · Dec 4
Book acquisition #2 this week…
MICHAEL D.C. DROUT THE TOWER AND THE RUIN J.R.R. TOLKIEN'S CREATION
December 29, 2025 at 6:09 PM
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kirkman.bsky.social
This piece by Michael Drout is outstanding. I have felt the "great black wave of anguish" of losing a child he describes; the disappointment that there was no eucatastrophe, no miracle that awful morning. Yet we still find hope amid sorrow.
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/o...

#tolkien #lotr
Opinion | Why I Keep Returning to Middle-Earth
www.nytimes.com
December 23, 2025 at 3:05 AM
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marynmck.bsky.social
In America, where irony is dead, a hotel chain uses a policy denying shelter to local people, for fear of accidentally housing homeless persons…

To deny a reservation to the author of a much-lauded book on how American economic unfairness forces working people into homelessness.
brian-goldstone.bsky.social Brian Goldstone @brian-goldstone.bsky.social · Dec 28
A Hampton Inn in Asheville just canceled my family's reservation because our address (incorrectly) showed Asheville—and the hotel bars locals within 50 miles.

When I asked why, they said, "because of our homeless population," adding that most hotels here have similar policies.

This is outrageous.
December 29, 2025 at 2:46 AM