Pat Kane
@patkane.bsky.social
An insight into Pictish society reported from Orkney this week - they weren’t just violently obliterated by the Vikings, but adapted to their presence, innovating with their new context. Some lessons for the indy-minded today. My @scotnational column www.thenational.scot/politics/256...
November 15, 2025 at 8:15 AM
An insight into Pictish society reported from Orkney this week - they weren’t just violently obliterated by the Vikings, but adapted to their presence, innovating with their new context. Some lessons for the indy-minded today. My @scotnational column www.thenational.scot/politics/256...
Alternative Weekly newsletter out now! Editorial on the two Zeds (Mamdani & Polanski); Grand Theft Autonomy (gamers on strike); Scots land reform; the frontier of coordination is in the East; & much more. Posts from spring.site. Share, enjoy! mailchi.mp/3900e2d98515...
November 11, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Alternative Weekly newsletter out now! Editorial on the two Zeds (Mamdani & Polanski); Grand Theft Autonomy (gamers on strike); Scots land reform; the frontier of coordination is in the East; & much more. Posts from spring.site. Share, enjoy! mailchi.mp/3900e2d98515...
There’s a new @NTSonline play coming of Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, with the promise of “knives sharpened”. In these dark times, I hope the adaptation highlights its deep anti-fascism, with many lessons for today. My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/culture/2560...
November 8, 2025 at 9:58 AM
There’s a new @NTSonline play coming of Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, with the promise of “knives sharpened”. In these dark times, I hope the adaptation highlights its deep anti-fascism, with many lessons for today. My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/culture/2560...
Latest Alternative Weekly is out now. Editorial on how culture will remove nukes; the rise of cooperative AI; let women do the peace talks; the music video of the year; democratic tech (including karaoke)—and much more. Enjoy, share, support! mailchi.mp/dc7f81f5b17f...
November 5, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Latest Alternative Weekly is out now. Editorial on how culture will remove nukes; the rise of cooperative AI; let women do the peace talks; the music video of the year; democratic tech (including karaoke)—and much more. Enjoy, share, support! mailchi.mp/dc7f81f5b17f...
Happy interview on STV news, celebrating our (@hueandcry) Outstanding Achievement awards at the SMAs this Saturday. Also: big full-band tour in 2026! With @roachfordmusic & @JHJ_Official! Tickets here: hueandcry.co.uk/hue-and-cry-...
November 5, 2025 at 3:32 AM
Happy interview on STV news, celebrating our (@hueandcry) Outstanding Achievement awards at the SMAs this Saturday. Also: big full-band tour in 2026! With @roachfordmusic & @JHJ_Official! Tickets here: hueandcry.co.uk/hue-and-cry-...
Watching the magnificent Catherine Connolly, and considering her radical predecessors as Irish Presidents, makes you dream fondly of a Scottish President in a Scottish republic. But can we unplug from the Windsors as Head of State? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/politics/255...
November 1, 2025 at 10:37 AM
Watching the magnificent Catherine Connolly, and considering her radical predecessors as Irish Presidents, makes you dream fondly of a Scottish President in a Scottish republic. But can we unplug from the Windsors as Head of State? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/politics/255...
No doubt SNP happy(ish) about this poll. But as for the overall health of the Scottish polity… *that* many Scots embracing an anti-immigration, anti-net-zero politics? Despite its gurning leader? We need to ask deeper questions about disempowerment… archive.is/oveK4 archive.is/oveK4
October 26, 2025 at 1:03 PM
No doubt SNP happy(ish) about this poll. But as for the overall health of the Scottish polity… *that* many Scots embracing an anti-immigration, anti-net-zero politics? Despite its gurning leader? We need to ask deeper questions about disempowerment… archive.is/oveK4 archive.is/oveK4
Couch-bingeing on deep state tv thrillers like #thediplomat and #slowhorses is its own kind of citizens’ passivity. But the geopolitics of Indy are at the heart of the former—& it certainly focuses the mind on our maritime defence. My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/politics/255...
October 25, 2025 at 1:37 PM
Couch-bingeing on deep state tv thrillers like #thediplomat and #slowhorses is its own kind of citizens’ passivity. But the geopolitics of Indy are at the heart of the former—& it certainly focuses the mind on our maritime defence. My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/politics/255...
New edition of @AlterGlobal21’s Alternative Weekly out mailchi.mp/9589dff6bf23... - editorial on a vision for our current wave of protest; “groupcore” for creatives; energy from Heaven; bringing offshore wind home to Scotland; events and more. News also from spring.site
October 21, 2025 at 3:15 PM
New edition of @AlterGlobal21’s Alternative Weekly out mailchi.mp/9589dff6bf23... - editorial on a vision for our current wave of protest; “groupcore” for creatives; energy from Heaven; bringing offshore wind home to Scotland; events and more. News also from spring.site
So many China-related stories this week—their Scottish locus pretty prominent. But the rough beast that stalks the discourse of security chiefs & challenged competitors—is that the whole story? Some different voices heard, in my @ScotNational column today www.thenational.scot/politics/255...
October 18, 2025 at 9:09 AM
So many China-related stories this week—their Scottish locus pretty prominent. But the rough beast that stalks the discourse of security chiefs & challenged competitors—is that the whole story? Some different voices heard, in my @ScotNational column today www.thenational.scot/politics/255...
Radiation leaks in Scotland—from collapsing old reactors, decrepit nuclear sub bases…We need Indy, just 2 clean up the place. But can we also make a virtue out of decentralised renewable power, as a positive alternative energy system? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/politics/255...
October 11, 2025 at 12:23 PM
Radiation leaks in Scotland—from collapsing old reactors, decrepit nuclear sub bases…We need Indy, just 2 clean up the place. But can we also make a virtue out of decentralised renewable power, as a positive alternative energy system? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/politics/255...
New Alternative Weekly out from @AlterGlobal21 mailchi.mp/93f31dc80583.... Editorial on how to beat hopelessness—posts on @audreyt, @KateRaworth, Tim Jackson, Jane Goodall, engaging w/ Reform, the digital “Eurostack”. As well as stories from spring.site. Enjoy, support!
October 7, 2025 at 12:58 PM
New Alternative Weekly out from @AlterGlobal21 mailchi.mp/93f31dc80583.... Editorial on how to beat hopelessness—posts on @audreyt, @KateRaworth, Tim Jackson, Jane Goodall, engaging w/ Reform, the digital “Eurostack”. As well as stories from spring.site. Enjoy, support!
Modernity is a dark joke. A 112 min movie that examines the 20 mins response time to a rogue nuke fired from Asian landmass. “Nice interview, Ms Bigelow! Next, the Booker Prize!”🤯Remains basis of my support 4 Indy: it’s 1 small step away from annihilation www.metacritic.com/movie/a-hous...
October 7, 2025 at 8:07 AM
Modernity is a dark joke. A 112 min movie that examines the 20 mins response time to a rogue nuke fired from Asian landmass. “Nice interview, Ms Bigelow! Next, the Booker Prize!”🤯Remains basis of my support 4 Indy: it’s 1 small step away from annihilation www.metacritic.com/movie/a-hous...
As one myself, I enjoyed #TheHack’s story of heroic journalists revealing their own profession’s phone hacking. But what of the widespread resentment & powerlessness that produces the appetite/demand for these star-toppling stories? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/comment/2551...
October 4, 2025 at 9:02 AM
As one myself, I enjoyed #TheHack’s story of heroic journalists revealing their own profession’s phone hacking. But what of the widespread resentment & powerlessness that produces the appetite/demand for these star-toppling stories? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/comment/2551...
Super upload of my open-access @ScotNational Saturday columns. Richard Holloway’s Last Words, handling the Nomad Century, technology both motherly & surveillant, Indy strategy, & cosmology for the soul… Enjoy, support! patkane.substack.com/s/pk-in-the-...
October 2, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Super upload of my open-access @ScotNational Saturday columns. Richard Holloway’s Last Words, handling the Nomad Century, technology both motherly & surveillant, Indy strategy, & cosmology for the soul… Enjoy, support! patkane.substack.com/s/pk-in-the-...
New edition of Alternative Weekly out mailchi.mp/4818b7814af8... - crossing a 7th planetary boundary, drones and the sky, soul-enhancing video, the mirrorball of Glasgow’s poets—& an editorial on the clash of youth uprisings. See www.spring.site also. Enjoy, share, support!
October 1, 2025 at 3:08 PM
New edition of Alternative Weekly out mailchi.mp/4818b7814af8... - crossing a 7th planetary boundary, drones and the sky, soul-enhancing video, the mirrorball of Glasgow’s poets—& an editorial on the clash of youth uprisings. See www.spring.site also. Enjoy, share, support!
“Papers, please!” It’s the opening line from Casablanca—& it captures the fears that an national iD system is a tool for coming tyranny (and/or Starmer’s anti-immigration pandering). Can Indy be an opp to build systems a lot better? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/politics/254...
September 27, 2025 at 9:33 AM
“Papers, please!” It’s the opening line from Casablanca—& it captures the fears that an national iD system is a tool for coming tyranny (and/or Starmer’s anti-immigration pandering). Can Indy be an opp to build systems a lot better? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/politics/254...
Latest @AlterGlobal21 newsletter - Editorial gets clear on techno-futures, 16-17 year olds curious about new parties (political ones…), renewable energy’s Scottish power plays, hard imagination & new biology, and more. See also www.spring.site
mailchi.mp/b6e90dd98158...
mailchi.mp/b6e90dd98158...
September 23, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Latest @AlterGlobal21 newsletter - Editorial gets clear on techno-futures, 16-17 year olds curious about new parties (political ones…), renewable energy’s Scottish power plays, hard imagination & new biology, and more. See also www.spring.site
mailchi.mp/b6e90dd98158...
mailchi.mp/b6e90dd98158...
The US-UK Tech Prosperity deal—and its scores of billions—is an intimidating display. But there’s an Indy-minded version of these investments in data-centres. We can use nation-state sovereignty to model a “healthy computation”. My @scotnational column www.thenational.scot/politics/254...
September 20, 2025 at 1:27 PM
The US-UK Tech Prosperity deal—and its scores of billions—is an intimidating display. But there’s an Indy-minded version of these investments in data-centres. We can use nation-state sovereignty to model a “healthy computation”. My @scotnational column www.thenational.scot/politics/254...
This week’s @AlterGlobal21 newsletter features an Editorial on the “woke right”, and blogs on: grief as THE political emotion; using citizens media to save the Amazon; a new map of the regenerative paradigm; & more. & latest spring.site news mailchi.mp/11620970432e...
September 16, 2025 at 2:03 PM
This week’s @AlterGlobal21 newsletter features an Editorial on the “woke right”, and blogs on: grief as THE political emotion; using citizens media to save the Amazon; a new map of the regenerative paradigm; & more. & latest spring.site news mailchi.mp/11620970432e...
It was the grimmest newsday—Charlie Kirk, Gaza, Mandelson, Putin in Poland…& then, possible life on Mars! Even the slightest move in that cosmic direction generates headlines. Can we turn this yearning into a politics? I think so. My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/politics/254...
September 13, 2025 at 8:35 AM
It was the grimmest newsday—Charlie Kirk, Gaza, Mandelson, Putin in Poland…& then, possible life on Mars! Even the slightest move in that cosmic direction generates headlines. Can we turn this yearning into a politics? I think so. My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/politics/254...
Some front page. If Mars shows the ubiquity of organic life in the universe, then Fermi’s Paradox sharpens. Where *are* all these alien civilisations? Or do they blow themselves up/tear themselves apart b4 they get off-planet?
& Do we *look* like we’ll get past The Great Filter?
& Do we *look* like we’ll get past The Great Filter?
September 11, 2025 at 9:41 AM
Some front page. If Mars shows the ubiquity of organic life in the universe, then Fermi’s Paradox sharpens. Where *are* all these alien civilisations? Or do they blow themselves up/tear themselves apart b4 they get off-planet?
& Do we *look* like we’ll get past The Great Filter?
& Do we *look* like we’ll get past The Great Filter?
My column this week dwells on the @ScotNational’s series, “Refugees Welcome”. Even the UN acknowledges how deeply Scotland has prepared for the age of mass migration, & the good stories that generates. How do “climate refugees” fit into this picture? www.thenational.scot/politics/254...
August 30, 2025 at 8:29 AM
My column this week dwells on the @ScotNational’s series, “Refugees Welcome”. Even the UN acknowledges how deeply Scotland has prepared for the age of mass migration, & the good stories that generates. How do “climate refugees” fit into this picture? www.thenational.scot/politics/254...
Been engaging with Richard Holloway’s tumultuous work for 30 years, so I don’t quite believe these are his “Last Words”. It’s a beautiful working-class memoir—& he’s still wrestling with the God-idea, in a world “saturated with pain”. My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/culture/2541...
August 23, 2025 at 10:41 AM
Been engaging with Richard Holloway’s tumultuous work for 30 years, so I don’t quite believe these are his “Last Words”. It’s a beautiful working-class memoir—& he’s still wrestling with the God-idea, in a world “saturated with pain”. My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/culture/2541...