Brigid Alverson
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brigidalverson.bsky.social
Brigid Alverson
@brigidalverson.bsky.social
4.7K followers 8.3K following 1.5K posts
Comics journalist, library fan, ally. I vote. Support trans youth! Pronouns: She/her.
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brigidalverson.bsky.social
I blame the lead-laced protein powder.

www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
Michael Hendricks, a professor of neurobiology at McGill, said: “Rich people who are fascinated with these dumb transhumanist ideas” are muddying public understanding of the potential of neurotechnology. “Neuralink is doing legitimate technology development for neuroscience, and then Elon Musk comes along and starts talking about telepathy and stuff.”
November 10, 2025 at 12:15 PM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
Here's what I wrote to ABMC. Feel free to reuse it.
To Whom It May Concern, Please restore the plaques honoring African American soldiers at Margraten Cemetery. I was saddened to learn of their removal at the request of the Heritage Foundation. Like my own father, these men were willing to sacrifice their lives for their country. Unlike my father, they did so while enduring discrimination and hatred. Many of them were assigned to one of the most harrowing and traumatizing jobs in the military, burying their fellow soldiers. These were honorable men who put their country first despite its long history of discrimination against them. The Heritage Foundation has, to its everlasting dishonor, decided to bring back the racist attitudes of an earlier era, and I am disappointed that you conceded to their odious request. The provincial government of Limbourg is looking into putting up new plaques outside the cemetery grounds. Are you going to allow a foreign government to shame us by paying tribute to soldiers you refuse to honor? Please restore the plaques and pledge to never again accommodate a request to diminish our history, from the Heritage Foundation or anyone else.
November 9, 2025 at 1:45 PM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
Douthat is a fool, but who was the @nytimes.com editor who commissioned or approved this and why are they working there? Did they lose their job at the Anti-Suffrage Gazette? Were there layoffs at the buggy whip factory? Or is it a refugee from Project 2025's campaign to take away our checkbooks?
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat Did Women Ruin the Workplace? [With a photo of Ross Douthat, a plump, bald, smirking middle-aged man, in front of a microphone. You can't see it in this shot, but there are women on either side of him.]
November 6, 2025 at 1:04 PM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
Every other sports page: Notre Dame beats Boston College 8-1.

The Boston Globe:
Headline: Even at 1-8, Boston College football shows signs of life, even in loss to nationally-ranked Notre Dame Subhead: While the Eagles deserve criticism for their overall level of execution, they aldo deserve praise for how they have stayed unified during a brutal stretch.
November 3, 2025 at 11:48 AM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
This is such a great column that I can't really pull out a nut graf, but this discussion of Senators Chris Murphy and Bernie Sanders' hand-waving at Graham Platner's tattoo comes close.
These senators are demonstrating a willful blindness that has become endemic in the Democratic Party. Their rhetoric — and the conventional wisdom that flows from it — suggests that we cannot talk about economic solutions without abandoning our commitment to the Black, Latino, gay, transgender and female poor that are the lifeblood of the Democratic Party’s base. The conceit at the heart of that belief is that poor white people are too racist, and too uniquely ignorant of their racism, to vote in their best interests. Therefore, Democrats have to accept a little racism to win the working class.
October 29, 2025 at 12:19 PM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
The fact that this "expert" is arguing on @pbsnews.org that it's OK for Trump to blow up innocent fishermen under the guise of "the war on drugs" with a set of Imperial Storm Trooper armor in his office is too on the nose, even for these absurd times in which we live.
A guy with a very assistant professor look (glasses, beard, bright blue jacket, white shirt with no tie) in a Zoom interview, sitting in an attic office with a life-size set of Imperial Stormtrooper armor in the corner.
October 24, 2025 at 10:19 PM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
Unfortunately there's still plenty of pandering going on.
Asked by the BBC if he would support such legislation, Miliband said “the royal family will have to make its own decisions about what other steps can be taken” but that they had suggested “they didn’t want to take up parliamentary time with this”.
October 20, 2025 at 11:45 AM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
These two MPs are not afraid to speak truth to (perceived) power. It's not my country, but my view from afar is that either of them would be a far better Prime Minister than the current guy, or most of the previous ones for that matter.

And it's long past time for the royals to go.
Rachael Maskell, the Labour MP for York Central, said she was writing to ministers this week to back her bill giving the king or a parliamentary committee the power to formally remove Andrew’s titles. “Every time this comes up, it clearly must be really traumatising for the victims and survivors, so it’s really important that this matter is dealt with once and for all,” Maskell said. “There are mechanisms which need to be put in place in order to remove a title.” Nadia Whittome, the Labour MP for Nottingham East, said: “It should be a given that the state removes Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s titles, rather than allowing him to hide behind voluntarily renouncing them and mealy-mouthed statements blaming his accusers.”
October 20, 2025 at 11:40 AM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
Lots of creativity on display at my local #NoKings rally!
A woman dressed as Lady Liberty holding a sign that depicts Donald Trump with a Hitler moustache, like the iconic Banksy Obama image, with the word "Nope." Next to her is a person holding a sign that says "Morons Are Governing America," arranged as an acrostic of MAGA. A group of people holding signs on a street corner. The signs say "Hands Off Free Press," "Rule of Law/Due Process/Free Speech/No Kings," "No Kings/No Tyrants/No Dicktators/No Ice," "No Faux King Way," and "Trans Lives Matter." A person dressed as a banana, holding a sign that says "Quit Peelin' Away Democracy" and a person dressed as Pikachu with a sign that says "This Admin Is Cartoonishly Evil." A person holding a sign that says "No Kings." The words are white on a black background, and the "i" in "Kings" is a long red necktie.
October 18, 2025 at 6:18 PM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
Here's the other side of my sign, with an awesome @laloalcaraz.bsky.social cartoon!
Photo of a grey-haired woman wearing sunglasses and carrying a sign with Lalo Alcarez's "No Kings" cartoon of a crown that is also KKK hoods with a red bar through it.
October 18, 2025 at 6:10 PM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
Beautiful day for a #NoKings standout in Wakefield, MA. Thanks to @gregpak.net for letting me use his awesome art on my sign!
Photo of a grey-haired woman and man standing outside at a No Kings rally. Her sign has a graphic of an eagle taking a crown with the banner "No King" and another saying "No Dictators." His sign says "No Kings, No Tyrants, No Trump." They are standing on the sidewalk in a small-town downtown, next to a store with plate-glass windows. The sky is blue, and the sun is shining through the trees.
October 18, 2025 at 6:04 PM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
Peter Thiel needs help.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Thiel later finds biblical meaning in the manga One Piece, discussing how he believes it represents a future where an antichrist-like one-world government has repressed science. He believes that the hero, Monkey D Luffy, represents a Christlike figure. In One Piece, you are set in a fantasy world, again sort of an alternate earth, but it’s 800 years into the reign of this one-world state. Which, as the story unfolds, gradually gets darker and darker. You sort of realize, in my interpretation, who runs the world and it’s something like the antichrist. There’s Luffy, a pirate who wears a red straw hat, sort of like Christ’s crown of thorns. And then towards the end of the story, transforms into a figure who resembles Christ in Revelation.
October 12, 2025 at 7:12 PM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
OMG they even sent a reporter to investigate!!!
A visit by the Guardian to downtown Portland on Saturday morning confirmed that the city is placid, the farmers’ market was packed and the protest against immigration enforcement in an outlying residential neighborhood remained small. There were just four protesters on the sidewalk near the Ice field office Trump claimed was “under siege”. One, wearing a chicken costume and draped in an American flag, held up a sign that read: “Portland Will Outlive Him.” Passing motorists honked in appreciation.
September 28, 2025 at 11:46 AM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
And again in the lede:
Donald Trump said on Saturday he is deploying troops to Portland, Oregon, “authorizing Full Force, if necessary”, ignoring pleas from local officials and the state’s congressional delegation, who suggested that the president was misinformed or lying about the nature and scale of a single, small protest outside one federal immigration enforcement office.
September 28, 2025 at 11:42 AM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
Accurate reporting at The Guardian: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Newspaper headline: Donald Trump says he is deploying troops to Portland, Oregon. Subhed: Apparently misled by hyperbolic reporting from conservative outlets on a single small protest, president described peaceful city as 'war ravaged'
September 28, 2025 at 11:40 AM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
Last fall, I invited my neighbors to leave their leftover Halloween pumpkins/gourds/squash on my stoop. I tossed them into my compost pile and today I set this out for them to choose from.

The most beautiful pumpkin had a nick on the bottom & won't last till Halloween, but I'll make it into a pie.
Photograph of a blue crate with pumpkins of various sizes, some white and some orange, plus little warty orange gourds.
September 6, 2025 at 4:05 PM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
Spelling Bee says... never mind
The New York Times Spelling Bee puzzle rejecting the word "bollocks" as "Not in word list"
September 2, 2025 at 11:49 AM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
Reposting with alt text...

Why not both?
A supermarket display of Original Flavor Dietz Nuts Meat Bites. Contains No Actual Nuts.
August 31, 2025 at 2:05 AM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
Today's task is freezing peaches. I got 20 lbs for $50 from a local farm. Freezing is easy: Line a cookie sheet with wax paper, slice the peaches and arrange them, and put them in the freezer. The next day, break them apart and put them in a freezer bag. We'll be eating them all winter.
Sliced peaches arranged in rows on a wax paper-lined cookie sheet.
August 9, 2025 at 12:03 AM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
For someone who purports to love pierogis, Captain Underpants here doesn't even know they are Polish.
“There was the pierogi place,” he said. “They’re Ukrainian, Russian delicacies. And I had gone there a few times before, and I bought the pierogi. They were ok. They were not my grandmother’s pierogi, but they were ok.”
July 31, 2025 at 11:28 PM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
Here's my haul from the garden - this is two days' worth. I came back from San Diego to find one of my tomato plants looking sickly, so I yanked it, hence all the green tomatoes. I'll probably try to pickle them - suggestions welcome!
Photo of a pint container (half full) of yellow pear tomatoes, a pint container (3/4 full) of blackberries, a plate of green and yellow tomatoes, mostly pear tomatoes, four red san marzano tomatos, and a long cucumber.
July 30, 2025 at 1:08 PM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
Morning mood
An old woman is standing and leaning over, raising her fist as she talks to two girls sitting on a couch. One of the girls is taking notes. The old woman says "Those men walk a road made of the bones of people who would not stand up. I will stand up" Wide-eyed, the girls respond "Wow" in unison.
July 12, 2025 at 12:28 PM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
The spokeswoman who didn't want her name revealed was outright lying, and the timeline shows that Noem's inaction was the direct cause of the unanswered calls.
Asked for comment, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security who declined to be identified wrote in an email, “When a natural disaster strikes, phone calls surge, and wait times can subsequently increase. Despite this expected influx, FEMA’s disaster call center responded to every caller swiftly and efficiently, ensuring no one was left without assistance.” On July 5, as floodwaters were starting to recede, FEMA received 3,027 calls from disaster survivors and answered 3,018, or roughly 99.7 percent, the documents show. Contractors with four call center companies answered the vast majority of the calls. That evening, however, Ms. Noem did not renew the contracts with the four companies and hundreds of contractors were fired, according to the documents and the person briefed on the matter. The next day, July 6, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered 846, or roughly 35.8 percent, according to the documents. And on Monday, July 7, the agency fielded 16,419 calls and answered 2,613, or around 15.9 percent, the documents show.
July 12, 2025 at 1:22 AM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
Barro thinks he knows who all African Americans are and what they look like. That's lazy, ignorant, and incredibly arrogant.

Here's MA Senator Jason Lewis. His family left South Africa when he was 12. He is African American.
malegislature.gov/Legislators/...
Photograph of Jason Lewis, a white man, wearing glasses and smiling.
July 5, 2025 at 9:48 PM
brigidalverson.bsky.social
“Librarians are the pillars of our democracy. Right now we have a Klingon in the White House—egocentric, power-hungry.”—George Takei #ALA
June 28, 2025 at 3:18 PM