Scott Gordon
@scottgordonwi.bsky.social
Journalist/co-founder at @tonemadison.bsky.social. Playing guitar and going on the computer. Free Palestine and Fuck ICE
Signal: scottgordonwi.34
scottgordonwi@protonmail.com
📍Madison, Wisconsin
Signal: scottgordonwi.34
scottgordonwi@protonmail.com
📍Madison, Wisconsin
Pinned
So Loud, It Makes Me So Sad, by Threadmaker
3 track album
threadmaker.bandcamp.com
Threadmaker, the all-improv band I play in, has a new album out today. Title courtesy of a woman who saw us play at Mickey’s Tavern last year and told us, through drunken sobs, “YOUR BAND IS SO LOUD! IT MAKES ME SO SAD!” (She was OK and had a friend to get her home safe)
The claim that another country “stole” its own natural resources from the US is perhaps the most American thing imaginable
January 4, 2026 at 6:54 PM
The claim that another country “stole” its own natural resources from the US is perhaps the most American thing imaginable
This year I took a big step back from the day-to-day at @tonemadison.bsky.social, but my colleagues there have kept up the fight. They’re still publishing adventurous and adversarial journalism. And still, no one else in Madison media is doing anything like it. Please help them meet today’s goal!
We're in the final stretch of our make-or-break fundraiser. If 22 people donate for the first time, we'll also receive a $1,000 bonus.
Help us reach our goal during NewsMatch so our small-but-mighty publication can keep publishing the perspectives you really care about.
tonemadison.com/donate/
Help us reach our goal during NewsMatch so our small-but-mighty publication can keep publishing the perspectives you really care about.
tonemadison.com/donate/
December 31, 2025 at 4:34 PM
This year I took a big step back from the day-to-day at @tonemadison.bsky.social, but my colleagues there have kept up the fight. They’re still publishing adventurous and adversarial journalism. And still, no one else in Madison media is doing anything like it. Please help them meet today’s goal!
Reposted by Scott Gordon
I’m from Whoville, and I say kill the Grinch!
December 25, 2025 at 10:29 PM
I’m from Whoville, and I say kill the Grinch!
My one-point plan to improve the discourse: Every time someone breaks out the smarmy “we teach students *how* to think, not *what* to think” line, we trap them inside some sort of cursed forcefield for eight thousand years
A graduate teaching assistant who gave a University of Oklahoma student a failing grade on a psychology essay will no longer be teaching at the university
Graduate instructor who gave failing grade to Samantha Fulnecky no longer teaching at OU
A graduate teaching assistant who gave a University of Oklahoma student a failing grade on a psychology essay will no longer be teaching at the university.
www.koco.com
December 23, 2025 at 4:11 PM
My one-point plan to improve the discourse: Every time someone breaks out the smarmy “we teach students *how* to think, not *what* to think” line, we trap them inside some sort of cursed forcefield for eight thousand years
Madison’s Live Nation subsidiary is the sole bidder on a contract to revamp the coliseum at the Dane County-owned Alliant Energy Center. Can we please find a better way than subsidizing Live Nation?
"I implore community members, our elected officials, and those participating in the confidential RFP review process to be critical of any deal that does not return proper value to taxpayers," writes Nick Pjevach, Madison Arts Commission chair, in a guest column.
Coliseum renovations should proceed with caution
Dane County should apply strict scrutiny of its partnership proposal with FPC Live, even if it's the only bidder.
tonemadison.com
December 23, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Madison’s Live Nation subsidiary is the sole bidder on a contract to revamp the coliseum at the Dane County-owned Alliant Energy Center. Can we please find a better way than subsidizing Live Nation?
Reposted by Scott Gordon
lifting this up. everything aside, "this story is old/the public already knows" is often used to kill pitches or stories when, in truth, the public *doesn't actually* know. one or two stories in an elite paper does not a public consciousness make. it's a constant winnowing of collective knowledge.
The most heart breaking part is this kind of "journalism" high up editor logic is NOT unique to Weiss. I wish you could've heard what I heard when my work was killed, silenced, suppressed and silenced (or at best, just criticized).
It's eerily familiar. In some ways identical.
It's eerily familiar. In some ways identical.
Bari Weiss, cont'd: "I held that story because it wasn't ready. The story presented very powerful testimony of abuse in CECOT, but that testimony has already been reported... The public knows that Venezuelans have been subjected to horrific treatment in this prison... we simply need to do more."
December 22, 2025 at 5:01 PM
lifting this up. everything aside, "this story is old/the public already knows" is often used to kill pitches or stories when, in truth, the public *doesn't actually* know. one or two stories in an elite paper does not a public consciousness make. it's a constant winnowing of collective knowledge.
Reposted by Scott Gordon
"The question of honest work in colonial systems and fine arts institutions raises the specter of censorship, particularly of art that is deemed 'political.' But what makes a work of art political or apolitical?" asks Managing Editor @stinadale.bsky.social after a visit to the Trout Museum of Art.
Could an exhibition like Guiding Ethos find a home in Madison?
A group show at Appleton's Trout Museum stands up for "political" art in an era of cowardice and compliance.
tonemadison.com
December 22, 2025 at 2:36 PM
"The question of honest work in colonial systems and fine arts institutions raises the specter of censorship, particularly of art that is deemed 'political.' But what makes a work of art political or apolitical?" asks Managing Editor @stinadale.bsky.social after a visit to the Trout Museum of Art.
Reposted by Scott Gordon
Woman comes to US at age 6. Graduates nursing school. Work permit. No criminal record. Snatched and imprisoned by ICE for 6 months now. About to be forced back to Honduras. A life destroyed and one less nurse. Merry Christmas.
www.nola.com/news/educati...
www.nola.com/news/educati...
December 20, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Woman comes to US at age 6. Graduates nursing school. Work permit. No criminal record. Snatched and imprisoned by ICE for 6 months now. About to be forced back to Honduras. A life destroyed and one less nurse. Merry Christmas.
www.nola.com/news/educati...
www.nola.com/news/educati...
I am going to lose my fucking mind
Introducing OpenAI Academy for News Organizations
Working with the American Journalism Project and The Lenfest Institute to launch a new learning hub for journalists and publishers using AI.
openai.com
December 18, 2025 at 6:52 PM
I am going to lose my fucking mind
All of these resources should go toward a massive expansion of public transit. The Beltline usually isn’t even the best way to get somewhere. Lot of gas wasted on that thing. Navigationally it makes about as much sense as growing a second taint
Despite public hesitancy, @wisdot.bsky.social wants an additional lane to stem congestion on 20 miles of the Beltline between West and South Madison. News and Politics Editor Juan Carlos Garcia Martinez reports.
Beltline expansion proposals suggest dead-end logic
"Another lane will fix it" still reigns at WisDOT, but the public is pushing back.
tonemadison.com
December 18, 2025 at 2:09 PM
All of these resources should go toward a massive expansion of public transit. The Beltline usually isn’t even the best way to get somewhere. Lot of gas wasted on that thing. Navigationally it makes about as much sense as growing a second taint
Honestly fair. Everyone deserves some grace in computer hell. And that grace is finite
December 17, 2025 at 9:58 PM
Honestly fair. Everyone deserves some grace in computer hell. And that grace is finite
Keep honking I am listening to Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd’s music from the film MYSTERIOUS SKIN
Mysterious Skin : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
archive.org
December 13, 2025 at 7:53 PM
Keep honking I am listening to Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd’s music from the film MYSTERIOUS SKIN
Played this game recently and really appreciated this conversation cause I’m glad I’m not the only one with mixed feelings
NEW EPISODE! this one's about Felvidek (2024). Kerry and Tess talk about the history of Slovakia, the Christian god who is real and wants you to have a big sword, and whether Adam Friedland is hot. Links in reply ⬇️
December 11, 2025 at 12:47 AM
Played this game recently and really appreciated this conversation cause I’m glad I’m not the only one with mixed feelings
Reposted by Scott Gordon
"...Campus administrations are more comfortable with simply arresting people out of sight and mind than confronting the reminders that their system is built to fail students and marginalized people," writes new contributor Roman Fritz.
UWPD's careless assault on student protest
Police records from the encampment crackdown in May 2024 show enforcement inconsistency and the "obstructing or resisting" trap.
tonemadison.com
December 8, 2025 at 1:36 PM
"...Campus administrations are more comfortable with simply arresting people out of sight and mind than confronting the reminders that their system is built to fail students and marginalized people," writes new contributor Roman Fritz.
The new @tonemadison.bsky.social fundraiser comp ends with a track I made. Been chopping up some guitar stuff and doing weird stuff to it in reaper and ableton and this is the result I feel best about so far 🦐
All proceeds support Tone Madison’s journalism and help unlock matching funds!
All proceeds support Tone Madison’s journalism and help unlock matching funds!
Resolution, by Tone Madison
30 track album
tonemadison.bandcamp.com
December 5, 2025 at 3:39 PM
The new @tonemadison.bsky.social fundraiser comp ends with a track I made. Been chopping up some guitar stuff and doing weird stuff to it in reaper and ableton and this is the result I feel best about so far 🦐
All proceeds support Tone Madison’s journalism and help unlock matching funds!
All proceeds support Tone Madison’s journalism and help unlock matching funds!
The teachers here are giving the student the very things people go to college for, and not unkindly either. It is the political right itself that is doing a disservice to students from more conservative backgrounds by convincing them that this sort of thing is persecution
idk not to mention how very nuanced and normal the actual response here was
December 2, 2025 at 11:39 PM
The teachers here are giving the student the very things people go to college for, and not unkindly either. It is the political right itself that is doing a disservice to students from more conservative backgrounds by convincing them that this sort of thing is persecution
Reposted by Scott Gordon
The news has entirely failed to grasp the unprecedented scope of the ICE and DHS budgets. Nothing like it in modern history. A galaxy of public/private surveillance and caging institutions for $100,000,000,000s unleashed on a public that will be forever changed. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...
ICE Wants to Go After Dissenters as well as Immigrants
The Trump administration is being open about its plans to violate Americans’ First and Fourth Amendment rights.
www.brennancenter.org
December 1, 2025 at 12:33 PM
The news has entirely failed to grasp the unprecedented scope of the ICE and DHS budgets. Nothing like it in modern history. A galaxy of public/private surveillance and caging institutions for $100,000,000,000s unleashed on a public that will be forever changed. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...
brb figuring out where my diploma is so I can burn it
BREAKING: Northwestern University has agreed to pay the U.S. Treasury $75 million, over the course of three years as part of an agreement with the federal government to restore funding and end investigations into the university
Full statement from NU below:
Full statement from NU below:
November 29, 2025 at 2:41 AM
brb figuring out where my diploma is so I can burn it
Keeping my annual appointment with Dr. Glenn Pierce
November 28, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Keeping my annual appointment with Dr. Glenn Pierce
Madison-area friends: If you get healthcare through GHC, that generally means you’re a member of the cooperative and can raise your voice against union-busting
"What does it mean to be a co-op if the Group Health Cooperative Board is now going to disregard the unanimous votes at a well-attended and well-noticed meeting of its own membership?" ask Adam Chern and Rebecca Kemble in a joint guest column.
Is Group Health still a Cooperative?
Instead of union-busting, the Board should see union organizing as a gift of collective problem-solving.
tonemadison.com
November 20, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Madison-area friends: If you get healthcare through GHC, that generally means you’re a member of the cooperative and can raise your voice against union-busting
Tbh it’s scandalous that media folks talk so much about *how* to use AI and less about “why would we trust this shit and the goons pushing it in the first place”
Suncoast Searchlight's reporters told their board their editor-in-chief was secretly using AI tools and adding hallucinated quotes to drafts. The next day, one of those reporters was fired. www.niemanlab.org/2025/11/flor...
Florida nonprofit news reporters ask board to investigate their editor’s AI use
Suncoast Searchlight’s four reporters told the board their editor-in-chief was using AI editing tools and inserting hallucinations into drafts. The next day, one of the reporters was fired.
www.niemanlab.org
November 20, 2025 at 12:10 PM
Tbh it’s scandalous that media folks talk so much about *how* to use AI and less about “why would we trust this shit and the goons pushing it in the first place”
From all I can tell, Youngblood Brass Band’s EU tour has continued without a hitch and wraps up tomorrow with an educational workshop
"The women interviewed for this story all pointed out that accountability and making amends are crucial concepts in the world of recovery, and yet they’ve seen little in the way of [that]."
Four years after grooming allegations, David Henzie-Skogen has reemerged. @scottgordonwi.bsky.social reports.
Four years after grooming allegations, David Henzie-Skogen has reemerged. @scottgordonwi.bsky.social reports.
As a musician stages his comeback, his accusers ask where the accountability is
Four years after allegations of grooming and sexual misconduct, David Henzie-Skogen is back on the road with Youngblood Brass Band.
tonemadison.com
November 20, 2025 at 3:04 AM
From all I can tell, Youngblood Brass Band’s EU tour has continued without a hitch and wraps up tomorrow with an educational workshop
The grating irony is that we already have so much music software that, for all its flaws, can actually help people tap into their creativity. The AI freaks envision something very different: making every person into a bored king calling for his sickly jester to prance
Exclusive: Suno, an AI music platform in which users can generate songs based on text prompts, has raised $250 million at a valuation of $2.45 billion.
AI Music Platform Suno Valued at $2.45 Billion
The startup has raised $250 million and says annual revenue has reached $200 million.
on.wsj.com
November 19, 2025 at 3:51 PM
The grating irony is that we already have so much music software that, for all its flaws, can actually help people tap into their creativity. The AI freaks envision something very different: making every person into a bored king calling for his sickly jester to prance