Frank Podmore 🌹 @frankpodmore@social.coop

Please enjoy this daft poem I wrote:

https://frankpodmore.wordpress.com/2021/04/20/ted-gets-ready-a-slam-poem-for-mike/

This is interesting on contemporary trade unionism: https://gizmodo.com/the-case-for-virtual-picket-lines-1846654139

Gotta say, I can't see the point of #Unite cutting funding to #Labour. It will diminish trade union influence, not increase it

Just jawdropping how racist the #media is sometimes. Lewis Hamilton's team makes a sponsorship decision. He's not involved in the decision. Articles on the topic acknowledge that it's nothing to do to him. And yet, the papers (incl. The Guardian!) run headlines and photos singling him out! Which white sportspeople get this treatment?

Birdsite is full of people doing free advertising for a certain evil music streaming company, so it's a great day to instead check out resonate.io, an innovative #platformCoop that fairly rewards artists #resonate

We should have a global jubilee (i.e., debt forgiveness) for all debt accrued during the pandemic

2/2 is appointed to appease the divinity. Military victory and restitution of lost land follow
4. False prophets and misinterpreted oracles likewise appear in both
5. There's a clear teleology to both, in that the relevant people or nation is shown to have been favoured by the divinity many centuries earlier, and both use this idea to explain the state of the affairs as the author saw them.
Anyway, some fascinating correspondences. I wonder if all ancient peoples saw themselves in the same way?

I'm currently reading Livy's History of Rome and the KJV, and it's striking how similar some of the themes are given the different purposes and genres of the texts:

1. A divine force intervenes directly in human affairs, manifesting its views through miracles
2. When the people ignore the divine, they are punished, almost always by military defeat and conquest - the Romans are even briefly exiled by the Gauls
3. An individual (a dictator in Livy, a Judge, prophet or 'good' king in the KJV 1/2

Hey, if anyone wants to keep fit but struggles to stay motivated with just doing boring press-ups at home/running around your own neighbourhood, I really recommend taking up #climbing. It's fun, challenging, close to a whole-body workout and caters to various ability levels. There are different kinds, so you can do it solo or with a buddy. It also automatically makes you cool, so there's that🧗‍♂️ 🧗‍♀️

'Always remember that Boris Johnson promised 3 million miles of bike lanes and has only delivered 2.5 million'

'Never forget that Keir Starmer once milked a cow while singing "I'm a milky boy, yes I am" to the tune of "Living on a Prayer"'

IDK why, but the latest tweet format I've learned to distrust is anything that begins 'Never forget that' OR 'Always remember that', because the next bit is always *at best* a gross exaggeration or oversimplification, but most commonly something that simply Did Not Happen

A further thought on this: strategically it's unwise to raise the salience of an issue where voters to your right don't trust you and voters to your left are strongly against any rightward movement. Currently this issue is damaging the Tories, so just let it damage them! No good can come of trying to get involved.

Immigration is good for everyone

I mean, obviously nobody wants MORE dangerous Channel crossings, but Labour's framing plays into the migrants=bad ideology, which is racist

No disrespect to 'I hate poor people more' and 'no, I'm more of a transphobe' but it's always 'Why aren't you drowning more refugees?' that gets the biggest cheers

I see UK politics has returned to the ground on which its most comfortable: both major parties claiming they're more racist than the other

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/16/reconstruction-after-covid-votes-for-children-age-six-david-runciman

Like, I'm pretty radical in some ways, but there is a big part of my politics that is just 👉 See that thing, that is, objectively, good? Can we just... do that?