Cormac Culkeen
@cormacculkeen.bsky.social
Poet, writer, devourer of books. Amused/ bemused at the state of modern life. Fond of collecting malapropisms. Founding Editor of Ragaire literary magazine. Chipping away at a novel and second poetry collection. Prizes kindness.
Reposted by Cormac Culkeen
“Forget the myths the media has created about the White House. The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.”
1972/2025
1972/2025
November 12, 2025 at 11:19 PM
“Forget the myths the media has created about the White House. The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.”
1972/2025
1972/2025
Reposted by Cormac Culkeen
🎉🎉🎉🎉
ChatGPT violated copyright law by harvesting musicians’ lyrics, German court rules
ChatGPT violated copyright law by harvesting musicians’ lyrics, German court rules
OpenAI ordered to pay undisclosed damages for training its language models on popular songs without permission
A court in Munich has ruled that OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT violated German copyright laws by using hits from top-selling musicians to train its language models in what creative industry advocates described as a landmark European ruling.
The Munich regional court sided in favour of Germany’s music rights society GEMA, which said ChatGPT had harvested protected lyrics by popular artists to “learn” from them. Continue reading...
www.theguardian.com
November 11, 2025 at 5:17 PM
🎉🎉🎉🎉
Reposted by Cormac Culkeen
Carl Sagan, writing in 1995, warned that soon America would be ruled by illiterate elites wielding “awesome technological powers,” and that most people, their brains broken by screens, would be unable to resist. We are living in the nightmare that Sagan foresaw.
November 8, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Carl Sagan, writing in 1995, warned that soon America would be ruled by illiterate elites wielding “awesome technological powers,” and that most people, their brains broken by screens, would be unable to resist. We are living in the nightmare that Sagan foresaw.
The diarrhoea is real.
incredible photo that's definitely worth at least 1,000 words from Andrew Harnik of Getty
November 6, 2025 at 7:58 PM
The diarrhoea is real.
What a day. Two poems in the latest splendid edition of Causeway, and then three poems in the equally splendid Autumn issue of Southlight that I was completely unaware had been accepted. I might put them up in due course. Grab copies, they're great publications.
#poetrymagazines
#poetrymagazines
November 6, 2025 at 7:57 PM
What a day. Two poems in the latest splendid edition of Causeway, and then three poems in the equally splendid Autumn issue of Southlight that I was completely unaware had been accepted. I might put them up in due course. Grab copies, they're great publications.
#poetrymagazines
#poetrymagazines
Reposted by Cormac Culkeen
For those asking for background - I was in Sudan twice this year and wrote about it
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...
November 2, 2025 at 12:07 PM
For those asking for background - I was in Sudan twice this year and wrote about it
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...
I'll tell you something. You can tell a lot about a person if they're left alone with a sheet of bubble wrap.
November 1, 2025 at 11:11 PM
I'll tell you something. You can tell a lot about a person if they're left alone with a sheet of bubble wrap.
Reposted by Cormac Culkeen
Now Spinning: Dead Kennedys, California Uber Alles.
California Uber Alles
Dead Kennedys
open.spotify.com
October 29, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Now Spinning: Dead Kennedys, California Uber Alles.
Reposted by Cormac Culkeen
‘That ballroom looks pretty cool though, eh dad?’
‘Shut up, son’
‘Shut up, son’
October 23, 2025 at 11:36 PM
‘That ballroom looks pretty cool though, eh dad?’
‘Shut up, son’
‘Shut up, son’
Having not watched anything in TV land for the longest time, I gotta say Task, with Mark Ruffalo, is fab. It's like a Russell Banks or Larry Brown novel. Tense and violent and often unexpectedly moving.
October 14, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Having not watched anything in TV land for the longest time, I gotta say Task, with Mark Ruffalo, is fab. It's like a Russell Banks or Larry Brown novel. Tense and violent and often unexpectedly moving.
Tired but buzzing. I won second prize in the Frances Browne Poetry Competition 2025 for my poem, Meteor. I'm a happy chappie!
October 11, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Tired but buzzing. I won second prize in the Frances Browne Poetry Competition 2025 for my poem, Meteor. I'm a happy chappie!
Reposted by Cormac Culkeen
Well, it's official. After our paper last year (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....), the Slender-billed Curlew is officially declared Extinct today.
Scientists dream of describing new species, not writing their obituary and epitaph, knowing that they are gone forever #ornithology
Scientists dream of describing new species, not writing their obituary and epitaph, knowing that they are gone forever #ornithology
October 10, 2025 at 8:54 AM
Well, it's official. After our paper last year (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....), the Slender-billed Curlew is officially declared Extinct today.
Scientists dream of describing new species, not writing their obituary and epitaph, knowing that they are gone forever #ornithology
Scientists dream of describing new species, not writing their obituary and epitaph, knowing that they are gone forever #ornithology
Reposted by Cormac Culkeen
What's clever about the old Irish carved turnip heads is they capture perfectly the makers' disgust at the commercialisation of Halloween.
October 7, 2025 at 7:27 AM
What's clever about the old Irish carved turnip heads is they capture perfectly the makers' disgust at the commercialisation of Halloween.
Very, very sad to learn of Brian Patten's death today. Gargling With Jelly changed my life when I was 11, and his poems always got to me at various points in life. Thank you.
September 30, 2025 at 5:23 PM
Very, very sad to learn of Brian Patten's death today. Gargling With Jelly changed my life when I was 11, and his poems always got to me at various points in life. Thank you.
This joint press conference makes me want to take a baseball bat to the television. Absolutely sickening.
September 29, 2025 at 7:09 PM
This joint press conference makes me want to take a baseball bat to the television. Absolutely sickening.
Reposted by Cormac Culkeen
“Poets are the ones who can describe the guts of life. We have to use the language so demandingly, just to minimally preserve what makes us human. And you have to practice.”
-- C.D. Wright
-- C.D. Wright
September 24, 2025 at 1:05 PM
“Poets are the ones who can describe the guts of life. We have to use the language so demandingly, just to minimally preserve what makes us human. And you have to practice.”
-- C.D. Wright
-- C.D. Wright
Reposted by Cormac Culkeen
Reposted by Cormac Culkeen
Reposted by Cormac Culkeen
Obscurity is not profundity.
-- Mona Van Duyn
-- Mona Van Duyn
September 2, 2025 at 1:05 PM
Obscurity is not profundity.
-- Mona Van Duyn
-- Mona Van Duyn
Reposted by Cormac Culkeen
Sickening footage from Nuneaton tonight, where a Sky News interview with a local businessman was disrupted by racists hurling abuse.
Another local said, "Warwickshire Council Council has gone to Reform... It's given certain people a licence to be aggressive and racist."
Another local said, "Warwickshire Council Council has gone to Reform... It's given certain people a licence to be aggressive and racist."
September 1, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Sickening footage from Nuneaton tonight, where a Sky News interview with a local businessman was disrupted by racists hurling abuse.
Another local said, "Warwickshire Council Council has gone to Reform... It's given certain people a licence to be aggressive and racist."
Another local said, "Warwickshire Council Council has gone to Reform... It's given certain people a licence to be aggressive and racist."
Reposted by Cormac Culkeen
Why, you might ask, do the BBC and Sky News, casting their editorial guidelines to the wind, keep giving massive airtime to the far right, while shutting out leftwing voices? Don't their bosses understand the likely consequences?
Only one explanation now remains.
They do.
And it is what they want.
Only one explanation now remains.
They do.
And it is what they want.
August 28, 2025 at 5:55 AM
Why, you might ask, do the BBC and Sky News, casting their editorial guidelines to the wind, keep giving massive airtime to the far right, while shutting out leftwing voices? Don't their bosses understand the likely consequences?
Only one explanation now remains.
They do.
And it is what they want.
Only one explanation now remains.
They do.
And it is what they want.
Reposted by Cormac Culkeen
Reposted by Cormac Culkeen
Chris & Cosey -- The Gates Of Ancient Cities [Ambient/Synth] (1982)
https://redd.it/7xduq0
https://youtu.be/l6p_0TfQMgg
https://redd.it/7xduq0
https://youtu.be/l6p_0TfQMgg
Chris & Cosey -- The Gates Of Ancient Cities [Ambient/Synth] (1982)
youtu.be
August 27, 2025 at 1:53 PM
Chris & Cosey -- The Gates Of Ancient Cities [Ambient/Synth] (1982)
https://redd.it/7xduq0
https://youtu.be/l6p_0TfQMgg
https://redd.it/7xduq0
https://youtu.be/l6p_0TfQMgg
Reposted by Cormac Culkeen
‘Are we, as Richard Seymour suggests, “in the early days of a new fascism”? In 𝘋𝘪𝘴𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘮, Seymour argues that in trying to understand the new far right, we have been looking in the wrong places.’
@trillingual.bsky.social on far-right populism:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
@trillingual.bsky.social on far-right populism:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Daniel Trilling · Is this fascism?
Are we, as Richard Seymour suggests, ‘in the early days of a new fascism’? In Disaster Nationalism, Seymour...
www.lrb.co.uk
August 25, 2025 at 11:19 AM
‘Are we, as Richard Seymour suggests, “in the early days of a new fascism”? In 𝘋𝘪𝘴𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘮, Seymour argues that in trying to understand the new far right, we have been looking in the wrong places.’
@trillingual.bsky.social on far-right populism:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
@trillingual.bsky.social on far-right populism:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Reposted by Cormac Culkeen
Here's the problem - the right make up a story and the media plaster it everywhere.
The left tell a true story and the media ignore it.
The right hasn't actually 'hijacked' anything. The right have been given an open door while the left - the majority - are barricaded away.
The left tell a true story and the media ignore it.
The right hasn't actually 'hijacked' anything. The right have been given an open door while the left - the majority - are barricaded away.
Spot on @johnharris1969.bsky.social. The Right are hijacking Englishness with narratives of exclusion, exceptionalism & imperial nostalgia,& progressives haven’t even got onto the bloody pitch. We urgently need to tell more compelling stories of who we are #AnotherEngland👇
Flags as symbols of prejudice, not pride – and a distinct air of menace. Welcome to England 2025 | John Harris
The rapid spread of these banners is unsettling – and shows how the hard right is reaching people and places the left cannot, says Guardian columnist John Harris
www.theguardian.com
August 25, 2025 at 9:58 AM
Here's the problem - the right make up a story and the media plaster it everywhere.
The left tell a true story and the media ignore it.
The right hasn't actually 'hijacked' anything. The right have been given an open door while the left - the majority - are barricaded away.
The left tell a true story and the media ignore it.
The right hasn't actually 'hijacked' anything. The right have been given an open door while the left - the majority - are barricaded away.