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henrybean.bsky.social
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124 posts 66 followers 99 following
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Somewhere, deep in Mar-a-Lago, Trump is surely calculating if he want to get his hands on Ukraine’s rare earths the most direct way is to side with Putin and join the invasion…

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Was Nixon elected because he bore an uncanny resemblance to Ed Sullivan - and everybody loved the Ed Sullivan show?

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

Based on past experience, the chance of AI ducking everything up seem… high.

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

Is this US administration the first instance of a “Trollocracy”?

submitted 30 days ago • 0 comments

When planning for any event or occasion all organisational efforts will eventually reach, then pass, the “F.I.” inflexion point. Once passed, all plans, schemes and intentions are superseded by the exclamation “Fuck It!” - which absolves the exclaimer of all further responsibilities. Doesn’t it?

submitted 62 days ago • 0 comments

When you see it you realise how many people are motivated by something external - social pressure, social currency - and how many people are motivated by something internal - integrity, or sheer bloody-mindedness.

submitted 66 days ago • 0 comments

One (I’m sure coincidental) effect of @andrewhickey.500songs.com releasing episodes periodically is the weird sense of living in a double timeline. I’m living through 2024 - but in a parallel existence I’m living through the summer of 1968 (and in a parallel parallel existence, the South in 1930).

submitted 66 days ago • 1 comment

So - it is the case that the much celebrated US Constitution, foundation of “the last best hope of Earth”, puts their leader/monarch above the law - is that right?

submitted 93 days ago • 0 comments

What’s the word for when you arrange to do something you want to do - then immediately resent the obligation to do it? Anticipatory regret? Premorse…?

submitted 94 days ago • 0 comments

Once again we should thank fuck we have a Public Service Healthcare system that doesn’t carry with it the suspicion it’s trying to make money from your illness, your treatment, your vaccination. The alternative is disastrous.

submitted 101 days ago • 0 comments

The idea that the media you consume defines/is defined by your politics is at least 300 yrs old. What was unusual was the idea that something like the BBC could be a neutral, public service resource. We’re just reverting to the ability to tell what someone’s politics are by the platform they’re on.

submitted 101 days ago • 0 comments

Killing your darlings is so 20th Century. Recycling them is much more modern.

submitted 102 days ago • 0 comments

Not heard any good insight into what seems like a significant divergence between US and UK electorates’ choices (when so many people have been so keen to draw parallels). Yes, there is the reaction against incumbents - but it’s like we’ve chosen two very different solutions to our problems.

submitted 103 days ago • 0 comments

If you’re relatively wealthy it’s easy to think politics is about ‘issues’. If you’re relatively poor, politics is always about economics.

submitted 107 days ago • 0 comments

Can’t help feeling that people who like politics tend towards optimism - the power of hope and all that - while people who like power tend towards pessimism - and the power of… power.

submitted 110 days ago • 0 comments

Is there a book open somewhere on what the final song of 500Songs will be - and therefore who gets the (dubious) honour of being the final song in the History of Rock and Roll?

submitted 126 days ago • 1 comment

Never let the truth get in the way of a true story.

submitted 149 days ago • 0 comments

Niche but topical (in a somewhat limited way admittedly): The question of whether Blake and Shelley were correct to say Milton made Satan the hero of Paradise Lost is not the whole question. What they (surely) recognised was that creating a protagonist, just by the mechanics of storytelling…

submitted 151 days ago • 1 comment

Deep into @andrewhickey.500songs.com ‘s latest episode and it’s starting to seem like if he’d been mad enough to do “A History of Rock and Roll in 1 Song” - this would be the one… This is cultural, historical, political, poetical, musical - and it’s mind-blowing.

submitted 152 days ago • 1 comment

Refusing to confirm, or extend, someone’s employment on the basis of insufficient awareness of co-workers sounds like indirect discrimination for neurodivergence, if you ask me… I’m no expert though.

submitted 153 days ago • 0 comments

So, here’s what I want to know… Do extremists know they are “extremists”? Do all puritans think they are “puritan” - or just that their set of moral beliefs are self evidently the “right” ones - or the only ones that have validity?

submitted 154 days ago • 1 comment

This is a masterclass in subtext. The fact that no one quite knows what exactly the subtext is makes it even creepier.

submitted 159 days ago • 0 comments

The idea of ‘the real story’, the hidden truth exclusively revealed, is obviously a hugely compelling one for humans. For good and for ill.

submitted 160 days ago • 2 comments