Tony Elias

Monolith was an incredible studio 🥲

There should be a military draft for high net worth individuals.

I will never get used to the disdain our country holds for brown and Black children.

From Palestine to Iran to Sudan, we normalize the destruction of schools and hospitals and daycares. We reduce children to death tolls and their futures to rubble with no consequence or second thought.

I wonder if the people of prehistory ever felt life was unchaotic and “in balance.”

My 13yo is trying to convince me that all Seattle schools are definitely closed tomorrow.

I always believed in you.

In awe and appreciation of this deep cut. 🙌

neolithic guys get pissed if you tell them their cultures are organized by the type of pots and jewelry they made. "we called ourselves the blood hunters" "we conquered villages far beyond this horizon" sorry bud you're the western linear pottery culture now

Instant hall of fame here, along with Portland frog, and the Hong Kong protestors who used leaf blowers to redirect tear gas.

The “prosecute the former regime at every level” candidate has my vote in 2028.

School has been cancelled tomorrow and Friday across the city of Minneapolis, because our federal government has made it unsafe for children here.

still haven't seen it, but really want to! Was curious if Joachim was related to Lars von Trier -- he isn't

Love this biographical detail about Joachim Trier...

"For too long those fluent in the good grammar of civility have deployed decorum to mask agendas of cruelty."
- Mayor Mamdani.

The defining meme of our era is born…

“Like prime, but with human beings”

I wonder how many discussions there were in the Pluribus writing room about whether they should let the automated message play 500 more times.

The Making of Disco Elysium - Part One: Foundations YouTube video by /noclip

Wonderful noclip documentary on the early years of making Disco Elysium... www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH6m...

Unfortunately, in US journalism it is considered neutral to spread a lie, but it is considered "biased" to call out a lie. So, there is a structural asymmetry that rewards colorful lies with virality.

Israel continues to starve Gaza, bomb Lebanon, and pay for US politicians.

Or maybe just don't follow the directive. The speed at which people fold is remarkable.

“Tell your children who the cowards were.”

masterful

For nine nights now, the steady thrum of Black Hawk helicopters has circled over Portland. The sound is constant, invasive; a low mechanical beating above our homes. It’s expensive. It’s intimidating. And it’s unnecessary. Our protests have been largely peaceful. There is no insurrection here. Yet this federalized military presence makes us feel like we are living in a war zone (the very kind of chaos this administration claims to be protecting us from). The irony is painful: it is only this occupation that makes Portland feel unsafe. Each hour of helicopter flight costs taxpayers between $2,000 and $4,000, depending on crew, fuel, and maintenance. Multiply that by multiple aircraft over multiple nights, and you’re looking at hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars burned into the sky.

Meanwhile, the Woodstock Food Pantry at All Saints Episcopal Church — which feeds working families, elders, and people with disabilities — has seen its federal funding slashed by 75%. How can we justify pouring public money into intimidation while cutting aid to those who simply need to eat? This is waste, fraud, and abuse in plain sight: * Waste of public resources on military theatrics. * Fraud in the name of “public safety.” * Abuse of the communities that federal agencies claim to protect. Portland is a Sanctuary City. A sanctuary city is not a fortress. It’s a promise — a living vow that a community will protect the dignity and safety of everyone who calls it home. It means that local governments and ordinary people alike will refuse to criminalize survival. That schools, clinics, churches, and shelters will remain safe spaces no matter who you are or where you were born. But the term reaches far beyond policy. It’s an ethic of belonging; a refusal to criminalize need, difference, or desperation.

Sanctuary isn’t weakness. It’s courage. It takes moral strength to meet suffering with care instead of punishment, to believe that our neighbors’ safety is bound up in our own, to insist that safety is not achieved through force but through community, inclusion, and trust. It is living Matthew 25:40 out loud and in deed. It is an act of moral imagination and moral defiance. To hold sanctuary is to say: you belong here. When we hold space for the most vulnerable — refugees, the unhoused, the undocumented, the disabled, the working poor, the displaced — we become something larger than a collection of individuals. We become a moral body. We do more than offer charity. We offer witness. We declare that the measure of a nation is found not in its towers or tanks, but in its tenderness. Sanctuary cities are not lawless; they are soulful. They represent the conscience of the nation, a place where the laws of empathy still apply. To make sanctuary is to affirm that the United States is not merely a geographic territory, but a moral experiment: a republic that must constantly choose between fear and compassion, between domination and democracy.

A nation’s soul is measured not by the might of its military, but by the mercy of its people. When helicopters circle our skies in the name of order, while food pantries struggle to feed the hungry, we are forced to ask: What are we defending, and from whom? The soul of a nation survives only when we make sanctuary for one another. Not through walls or weapons, but through compassion and collective will. If we allow intimidation to replace compassion, we will have traded our conscience for control. Please know that despite the hum of war machines overhead, the conscience of our city — whimsical, creative, stubbornly kind — can still be heard. Portland is not the problem. Portland is the reminder. A reminder that a city can still choose to be sanctuary. That a people can still choose to be human.

This heartfelt and meaningful statement by Portland resident and author Cristina Breshears on another social media platform bears reposting here. I don't think the intent is to idealize Portland but to remind all of us what is important and why. (Posted here with permission.)

Ah death, the great equalizer.

I’ve never met a person who thought Johnny Cash was uncool let alone deeply uncool. Amazing.

Agree with your points, but I think many people push for the two-state solution because they don't believe Israel would ever accept Palestinians as equal citizens in their society (and we're much closer to genocide and forced relocation).

Never underestimate the power of a clown.

I have a short story in the fall issue of Copper Nickel based on a memory my father shared about strangers who came to his mountain village in Lebanon when he was a child and excavated something enormous from the dirt (though no one ever knew how they did it, or what it was).

"IT ABSOLUTELY WILL STOP!!!"