Austin Wu
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austwu.bsky.social
Austin Wu
@austwu.bsky.social
(vague lyrics about history or economics) 🚰
https://linktr.ee/austwu
bears resemblence to a pepperball gun of some sort (fires irritants like pepper spray) -- note AR-15-style stock, reflex sight, top-mounted magazine/hopper

comparison doesn't seem to be a 100% match; just for reference: pepperball.com/launchers/ta...
November 18, 2025 at 5:10 PM
November 18, 2025 at 4:10 AM
growing up in iowa, learning about valley forge in school almost felt like an ancient fable. but for the civil war - IA was on the underground railroad, contributed troops to the front, and in turn the capitol is adorned with the Gettysburg Address and the emblem of the Grand Army of the Republic
November 18, 2025 at 3:31 AM
re: --
November 17, 2025 at 8:19 PM
retro-futurism (what if the mid-century centennial hopium never died out)
November 17, 2025 at 7:42 PM
November 17, 2025 at 7:04 PM
it's the Southernization of the US, many are saying (at least in the midwest, I think this is at least correlated with the decline of comparatively institutionalized, urban mainline churches and their displacement by southern baptist-inflected suburban evangelical megachurches)
November 17, 2025 at 7:02 PM
tbh I kinda get some of the trad sympathies (who wouldn't want respite from the contemporary world of AI slop and microplastics), but ig my version of 'trad' is like ... the utility furniture catalogue from the attlee-era UK (and associated labour values)? not mythical notions pre-pasteurisation --
November 17, 2025 at 6:39 PM
intriguing article in @thebaffler.com about this household -- including, incredibly enough, another set-piece video of her making bread in denim and an unstained white t-shirt (sans apron) -- thebaffler.com/salvos/land-...
November 17, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Not about to hand it to railroad tycoon James J. Hill, but at least he had his tastefully-designed residence built in a walkable neighbourhood, had a tangible business (trains), and appeared to fear for his immortal soul enough to apply his name towards a variety of educational and civic matters
November 17, 2025 at 6:22 PM
In a similar vein, I've always appreciated Sufjan Stevens' recording of "The Friendly Beasts" for its instruction of aid to all, regardless of (appeared) station in life sufjanstevens.bandcamp.com/track/the-fr...
November 17, 2025 at 6:14 PM
(about a year off, but ehh, close enough --)
November 17, 2025 at 5:35 AM
miss you much

you would've hated generative AI
November 14, 2025 at 5:53 AM
not-dissimilar themes in @iwriteok.bsky.social's "after the revolution" -- (cw: language)
November 14, 2025 at 1:21 AM
stg woke 2 is also going to have to involve turning back the clock on all of this tacticool nonsense and retvrning to cartridge belts and suspenders (here cribbed from a canadian army manual from 1982)
November 14, 2025 at 12:35 AM
I've long enjoyed this comment on @askhistorians.bsky.social, on the revolutionary aspects of fascism as a right-wing reaction to alienation under industrial capitalism (presuming this to be society's contemporary status quo), contrasting with the left-response to capitalism (socialism)
November 12, 2025 at 9:17 PM
James C. Scott's "Seeing Like a State" --
November 12, 2025 at 8:51 PM
cf. the chinese train station to 'nowhere' en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caojiaw...
November 12, 2025 at 8:48 PM
the song in question, "We Have Nothing to Envy in This World", is the basis for the (ironic) title of a book, depicting how much indeed people in North Korea have to envy about their stations in life and the world
November 11, 2025 at 4:47 AM
I don't really know enough North Korean inside baseball to make any real assessments as to any significance to this, but perhaps this (and the pins) are suggestive of the larger Kim, simply trying to eat the smaller Kims www.nknews.org/2024/07/nort...
November 11, 2025 at 4:42 AM
Probably not the most pressing news, but seeing just now that at a performance celebrating the 80th anniversary of the Worker's Party of Korea, that the lyrics of a song were slightly changed -- "Our father, Marshal Kim Jong-un ..." (the song previously referenced his grandfather, Kim Il-sung)
November 11, 2025 at 4:39 AM
it's american maoism, folks (workers and farmers united as one/base areas established in the countryside)
November 11, 2025 at 1:29 AM
interestingly, the same act is played during a PLA musical commemorating its 90th anniversary in 2017 (presumably for the rule of cool as well, which *does* work for the most part ...)
November 11, 2025 at 12:28 AM
I think there's something to be said about the potential for 'urbanism' in small towns, which even with just a few thousand people, are still more than capable enough of letting their walkable main streets decay in favour of tract home sprawl and big box stores along the highway
November 11, 2025 at 12:04 AM
if anything, what's tantalizing about notions of masculinity in ww2 is that heroism through soldiery could be achieved by anyone in mass society - randos pulled into service, in part through relaxed physical standards for conscription - as opposed to the more indimidating 'operator' aesthetic today
November 10, 2025 at 11:55 PM