JOHNSTONE

The dolphins are getting Alzheimer's from algae blooms

caused by warming waters and toxic runoff

and you could see the bloodstains in Sudan 

from space.

The cobalt is mined by children

and the music is made by robots

and the grownups are wondering

where the fireflies went.

It is an elephant with an eyepatch and a prosthetic leg.

It's a freshly emptied bed in the nursing home.

A hand offers you pills to numb the dissonance,

but you swat it away and howl naked in the thorns.

Somewhere there's an ibis on a piano 

in a junkyard in the rain.

Somewhere else there's a small boy

who has just learned the word "treasure".

"Look! Buried treasure!" he tells his dad.

"No. That's just glass worn smooth by the sea."

"Is that treasure?"

"No, that's just a shiny candy wrapper 

shimmering in the sun."

"Ooh! THIS is treasure!"

"No that's garbage. Put it down."

And the boy's vision changes

and he no longer sees the treasure in things.

He runs to join his dad 

and they walk together down the shore

through a dying world

of fading wonder

full of worthless beach trash.

"He is wrong," you whisper 

as the blood leaves your body.

"There is treasure everywhere."

Reading by Tim Foley.

Saying “If those low-wage workers want better wages they should stop being low-wage workers” is telling a man to stop drowning while you are holding him underwater by standing on his head.

Reading by Tim Foley

I keep thinking about the interaction I had with a guy who angrily told me that "AI minds are actually minds" and relationships with them "can absolutely be real relationships," saying that I "need to start accepting that this is a new class of being and they are intelligent and do have thoughts of their own."

Reading by Tim Foley.

You fight them because what the hell else are you going to do? Even if the treads of the machine are going to roll over us all in the end, at least you’ll go down knowing you left it all in the ring.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Just as things cool down a bit in the middle east, the US has relocated the USS Gerald Ford from the Mediterranean Sea to the Caribbean while the Trump administration discusses plans to bomb Venezuela.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Actor Calum Worthy has gone viral for posting an ad on Twitter for the 2wai app he co-founded which promises users the ability upload footage of a loved one which will be converted to an AI avatar that they can continue having a relationship with, years after their loved one has died.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The way the press have been covering Jeffrey Epstein's ties to Trump while completely ignoring far more significant revelations of Epstein's ties to Israeli intelligence is such a perfect example of how western media ignore anything that doesn't fit neatly into the two-party worldview.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The difference between people who supported the British Empire and people who support the US empire is that those who supported the British Empire knew they were supporting an empire.

Reading by Tim Foley.

One of the craziest things happening right now is how there's been report after report confirming that Jeffrey Epstein really was an Israeli intelligence operative, based on publicly available documents, and yet it's had no measurable impact on mainstream media or politics.

Reading by Tim Foley.

This is all the ruling class has to offer you. Fake love. Fake connection. Worthless technological parlor tricks at the expense of our dying biosphere.

Reading by Tim Foley.

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