Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Sarah Woolley

@sarahwoolley.bsky.social

I would love to read tributes to the late Kaleb Horton in Vanity Fair….so many comedians, musicians, and artists admired his work, and Graydon Carter knew he had a diamond on his hands.

Instagram screenshot from Horton’s account shows a message on beautiful stationery. The text reads “Dear Kaleb, Many thanks for reconsidering Vacation. Far more dystopian in your reckoning than I recall, but as you point out, it's become a heavily edited and endlessly quoted part of 80s culture. Thanks for revisiting it all with fresh eyes and your full attention.
As ever, Graydon Carter.”

Horton’s caption reads: “Thinking about how crazy it was that Graydon Carter thanked me for my first real article at Vanity Fair (I never wrote anywhere normies read before that), then at the same publication I warned people that the bad man was going to do the bad thing, then the bad man, *as president* , started beet with
Graydon. That was profoundly surreal and I hope nothing like it happens to me again.”

October 22, 2025 at 9:20 PM

Sarah Woolley

@sarahwoolley.bsky.social

An underrated Drew Struzan poster that I spent ages looking at in Seattle’s museum of pop culture.

Said post features Kermit and Miss Piggy on a boat as Kermit plays the banjo and famous faces look on above a rainbow.

October 15, 2025 at 3:43 AM

Sarah Woolley

@sarahwoolley.bsky.social

Right, boffins, what is this mysterious stone slab please? This was part of a wall in the cupboard under the stairs of a friend’s 1930s house.

Smooth stone slab in cream with red and light blue paint - letter S visible under what looks like “w w & n”

September 25, 2025 at 11:33 AM

Sarah Woolley

@sarahwoolley.bsky.social

An genuinely helpful habit: thinking about intrusive thoughts as public information films - from @robinince.bsky.social at Bradford Literature Festival. Might start repeating mine in the Charlie Says voice. vm.tiktok.com/ZNdph55fB/

September 19, 2025 at 12:41 PM

Sarah Woolley

@sarahwoolley.bsky.social

The BBC are a little light on the details of what Charlie Kirk explicitly said about his beliefs including wanting to “cleanse” the world of certain Jews who he believed controlled politics and culture. A deeply racist fanatic.

POLITICAL VIEWS
An advocate of conservative values and gun rights, Kirk spread anti-transgender views and scepticism over the Covid-19 pandemic.
He also publicly promoted the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
The mission of Turning Point USA is to organise students to "promote the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government".

September 13, 2025 at 6:33 AM

Sarah Woolley

@sarahwoolley.bsky.social

Today would have been Dawn’s 39th birthday. I miss her.

Dawn Foster Forever.

Dawn in an Irish Rugby Football Union jacket in a pub

A Dawn Foster Forever sticker in front of the solidarity wall in Belfast

September 12, 2025 at 7:48 PM

Sarah Woolley

@sarahwoolley.bsky.social

Good morning.

September 7, 2025 at 7:14 AM

Sarah Woolley

@sarahwoolley.bsky.social

📚Forgotten Children’s Books📚 if you’re ever trying to remember a forgotten book, film, or anything else from the past; drop it below and I will try to find it for you.

(Prompted by the arrival of a book I hunted for aaages that is now being enjoyed in my family)

A children’s book from 1976 titled Jane Jones Goes Shopping by John Kershaw featuring a little girl in a toy department

August 29, 2025 at 3:56 PM

Sarah Woolley

@sarahwoolley.bsky.social

LOOK AT THIS!! 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️

More than £13k raised in a month giving £1,388 to 10 trans femme causes. More than 100k since Five for Five launched!

This is reality. When you see transphobia in the news or the timeline try sharing and giving to Five for Five.

Donate here www.fiveforfive.co.uk?fbclid=PAQ0x...

June and July totals
Hello lovelies!
Apologies as always for the delay in doing FiveforFive right - I was being made redundant and since taking myself on a holiday all is good again and I'm ready to make payments
June and July total is: £13,895
Which means a frankly shocking £1,388 each to 10 people!
Also means we've somehow made it to raising £106,888 for trans women, trans girls and transfem people since starting. I'm so eternally grateful to each and every one of you and I'm thrilled that so many people think, correctly!, that this is a worthy and good thing to give to.

August 6, 2025 at 9:26 AM

Sarah Woolley

@sarahwoolley.bsky.social

📚BOOK APPEAL📚

Got some spare books? Donate them to my favourite bookshop and you will keep @tslbooksellers.bsky.social open so their incredible team can share more stories by marginalised voices 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

📚contact them if you have books

💵hardship fund here www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/support-th...

THE PEOPLE'S LETTERS
NEEDS YOU ...to donate your old books
DM us on Instagram
@uvwbooksellersts to arrange a drop-off at The People's Letters
If you are in a position to donate money, please donate to our hardship fund:
https://tinyurl.com/TPLcrowdfunder
140 Cambridge Heath Rd,
Bethnal Green
E1 5QJ

THE PEOPLE'S LETTERS
(Formerly The Scarlett Letters)
What's been going on?
The director of The Scarlett Letters decided to close shop as a consequence of unionising.
In our final demand, we asked her to hand over the Scarlett Letters stock, as it is bound to serve the community due to being assets of a CIC, so we could continue to run the bookshop as a workers' cooperative.
She refused. We then announced our occupation to her at 10:30 am on Monday 30th June, and peacefully and legally occupied the space.
On Tuesday 15t July at 4 am, the director along with 20 hired people illegally drilled into the store and ripped the entire contents of the store out. Three workers were sleeping in the store at this time, including one who is 27 weeks pregnant.
Despite this, we will not give up. The workers want to continue this community bookstore, as The People's Letters.
To bring us through until our intended opening in August, we need donations to our hardship fund to help the workers survive:
https://tinyurl.com/TPLcrowdfunder
We are also accepting donations of secondhand books (that align with our values), and equipment like computers that are essential to help us run the bookshop, especially if you aren't in a financial position to donate money. (DM us for more info)
Follow our social media for more information and updates:
auvwbooksellerstsl (Instagram)
atslbooksellers X/Bluesky)

August 5, 2025 at 7:27 PM

Sarah Woolley

@sarahwoolley.bsky.social

Disgusting on multiple levels. Photographers stalking funerals should not be normal, nor should a murder by the UDA be called an “IRA shooting”

“Patrick Kielty's family tragedy:
Irish comedian was just 16 when he lost his father in a horrific IRA shooting - as star announces split from wife Cat Deeley just months after her noticeable absence from his mother's funeral” - daily mail headline

July 30, 2025 at 9:41 AM

Sarah Woolley

@sarahwoolley.bsky.social

Where’s that tweet that said “you can’t all be this bad at dating”

Screenshot of an Atlantic article reads “Romance on-screen has never been colder. Maybe that’s just truthful”

July 28, 2025 at 6:08 PM

Sarah Woolley

@sarahwoolley.bsky.social

For your consideration: a very close-by Jarvis Cocker thinking about wasps 🐝

July 18, 2025 at 10:35 AM

Sarah Woolley

@sarahwoolley.bsky.social

From the tapestry website: Faris O’deh, Standing Alone, 8 Nov 2000 [59 x 74cm]

Source of image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faris_Odeh
Embroidery: Nawal Ibrahim al Ahmed [Tabariyeh], Ain al-Hilweh, Lebanon

On 29 October 2000, during the second month of the Second Intifada, a French photojournalist photographed 15-year-old Faris Odeh from the Zeitoun quarter in Gaza City confronting an Israeli tank with a stone at the Karni crossing into the Gaza Strip. Ten days later, on 8 November, Odeh was again throwing stones at the Karni crossing when he was fatally wounded by Israeli troops. The boy and the image subsequently assumed iconic status as a symbol of opposition to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land.

Era: Sumud - Steadfastness (1948 onwards) t

July 18, 2025 at 9:28 AM

Sarah Woolley

@sarahwoolley.bsky.social

Whenever I miss her and want to discuss something topical I just type it into the search bar and there’s always a gem. #DawnFosterForever

Dawn Foster’s tweet from 18/11/2010 reads “A slew of old flames/flings have started emailing me this week. Weird. Just because Pulp have reformed, doesn't mean we have to.”

July 16, 2025 at 6:04 PM

Sarah Woolley

@sarahwoolley.bsky.social

Car scene from A Star is Born (Cooper’s adoring face) superimposed above modern-day Jarvis Cocker waving into a car and looking like a dad at a book festival

July 6, 2025 at 3:33 PM

Sarah Woolley

@sarahwoolley.bsky.social

Beth Rigby tweet reads “This interview with @TomBaldwin66 draws out the private Starmer that those of us who follow him about and see when the camera isn't rolling & he's not in public view.
He is, of all the PMs I have covered the most
'ordinary' and down-to-earth & yet the public perception of him is often that he's posh, lofty, out of touch.
I think one of the most revealing segments about Starmer is that he delayed his family holiday - his first in a year after that mad election period & early days of govt - to go to to Leeds clean out his brother Nick's home after he died from cancer, throwing away the rotting food from the fridge, picking up dirty clothes and cleaning out the bath & loo. Why didn't he get a cleaner in? "I didn't want anyone else there. He was my brother - I didn't want to let him down."

Dawn Foster tweet from 2017 reads “Reminder that 'the kinder, gentler politics' is about ending social murder & inequality, not saying please and thank you on Twitter dot com.”

July 2, 2025 at 8:51 AM

Sarah Woolley

@sarahwoolley.bsky.social

Listen to any lobby journalist today and then listen to this. Dawn Foster Forever.

June 28, 2025 at 2:37 PM

Sarah Woolley

@sarahwoolley.bsky.social

Ian McEwan superimposed over the band: The Saturdays

May 28, 2025 at 12:12 PM

Sarah Woolley

@sarahwoolley.bsky.social

One born every minute in my illustrious and glittering profession.

BBC News screenshot reads: “Paul Adams: Starmer and Lammy sound genuinely angry at Israel” - Paul Adams is diplomatic correspondent

May 21, 2025 at 6:58 AM

Sarah Woolley

@sarahwoolley.bsky.social

Say the line, Bella

Screenshot text “He started the meal with a glass of Château Canteerle, a Bordeaux that doesn't usually come by the glass and was one of the "Weekly Specials Pours By Glass" - so that was nice.”

That Fast Fast show character by Mark Williams who says “so that was nice”

April 20, 2025 at 9:20 AM

Sarah Woolley

@sarahwoolley.bsky.social

Social workers are juggling 25+ kids on their books with 50p and a Freddo to go around, but Starmer thinks they should upload case work notes to private A.I. companies. 👍🏻
www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...