Former hack, author, "actor" and grad school dropout. I'm reading Dos Passos, Upton Sinclair and trying to sort out where Eugene Debs got it wrong.

Joined September 2008
thenation.com/podcast/politi… 1. A string on a trenchant conversation between @TADurkin, @JoeFergChicago, @HeerJeet and me (not so trenchant) on the decidedly disturbing civil liberties implications of the lately (un)reformed section 2 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
4
5
1
30
22,248
Say what you like about Melenchon; he quotes Democritus, indicates zero contrition faced with a lapdog Macronist press and *celebrates* the spirit of'68. No one died in these riots and the disquiet was rooted in perfectly legitimate political demands. This might be the end of Insoumise and if it is; Allez-y! youtube.com/watch?v=c9oy1l8w…
2
2
65
bellye66 (Douglas Bell) retweeted
Mélenchon, Glucksmann, Villepin chantent de concert avec Emmanuel Macron. Ils pleurent et dénoncent les vitres cassées. Merci à cette jeunesse magnifique, courageuse et indépendante pour cette extraordinaire journée.
569
239
44
1,507
87,805
bellye66 (Douglas Bell) retweeted
Pour finir, le préfet de police a oublié de sécuriser l’Élysée... Bravooo. Face à ce genre d'amateur facilitant le désordre, l’immense majorité du peuple venu massivement dans la rue pour crier ses revendications est restée pacifique et déterminée. Les gens : rétablissez notre image. Partagez vos photos, pancartes, foules, chants ! Les réseaux sont plus forts que les médias. Ils veulent nous montrer en voyous, montrez que ce sont des manipulateurs !
1,185
1,614
109
6,688
278,142
Trite and typical haute bourgeois babble from the ventriloquist and ardent fantasist @porterthereport Her prevarications are contradicted even in the curated comments section. For the bigger picture try @JLMelenchon given predictably short shrift by tedious ms porter. nytimes.com/2026/10/17/world…
36
bellye66 (Douglas Bell) retweeted
While Dana Bash, Jake Tapper, et al get paid millions of dollars to sit in a studio and parrot IDF press releases, @infinite_jaz—a self-funded journalist of conscience—risks life and limb to report on the settler terrorism ravaging the West Bank. An essential account to follow.
Replying to @infinite_jaz
Severe settler + soldier attack on olive harvesters in Abu Falah. American WaPo journalist Heidi Levine badly wounded. Machine gunfire—at least one Palestinian shot. Tear gas. Soldiers assaulting journalists.
1
39
196
2,283
bellye66 (Douglas Bell) retweeted
Many of the people who complain about Trump's authoritarianism are notably silent about his vendetta against Ilhan Omar. What's up with that? thenation.com/article/politi…
55
336
12
1,596
32,088
bellye66 (Douglas Bell) retweeted
"Digital sovereignty is as real as real can be. It just has nothing to do with AI. AI isn't load-bearing." -- @doctorow #AI #LLMs
I've left Twitter, but I'm still writing a daily blog. You can read today's post ("Load-bearing") at pluralistic.net/2026/10/16/s… It's also available on Mastodon at: mamot.fr/@pluralistic/117449… And on Bluesky at: bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pl…
1
2
27
bellye66 (Douglas Bell) retweeted
Comme prévu, le parc des moutons de Macron bêle en cadence contre notre projet de budget, caricature, se donne des titres « d'économistes » et utilise leurs grands mots. Ces gens ont soutenu une politique qui a conduit à 1200 milliards de dette et ils viennent nous donner des leçons. Lamentables. Mais qui les croit encore ? Qui les lit ? Qui les écoute ? De BFM qui ne cite que des économistes hostiles à « L'Opinion », journalistes libéraux qui vivent de subventions publiques, le carnaval marche au pas de la défense de la finance et crache son mépris pour les besoins populaires pris en compte par notre budget. Prêts à quitter la France comme le patron du Medef, après avoir ri à la proposition d'augmenter les salaires, tout ce monde de l'argent étale son ignorance. Pendant ce temps, la concurrence étrangère se frotte les mains de voir de tels incapables dominer la scène médiatique.
361
1,407
37
5,142
95,059
"*has no responsibility to account for herself on this level*" The Mitfords likely shared the same thought about their sister Unity. It's codswallop and the sort of dull normal saanctimony that passes far too often for discourse in Canada.
Joni Mitchell is a great artist and has no responsibility to account for herself on this level
2
84
bellye66 (Douglas Bell) retweeted
And some of y’all won’t even refuse invites to speak at the 92nd Street Y
Sally Rooney's books can no longer be sold in Britain due to her support for Palestine Action. She refused to withdraw her support for the direct action group which targeted the Israeli arms industry, costing her the royalties from all of her UK sales. theguardian.com/uk-news/2026…
2
65
2
607
21,476
bellye66 (Douglas Bell) retweeted
"INTERVIEWER: You seem to work by linking things that nobody else in the world would really link or even think of linking." Amen. And brava, Anne Carson. #Nobel
Replying to @jarvis_best
Beautiful interview in Paris Review in 2004 that touches briefly on that one poem you philistines are mocking today theparisreview.org/interview…
1
1
94
Have you given consideration to your authentic calling: prison guard or hall monitor?
I don’t know if it’s only me who thinks so, but I don’t believe any professor in charge of an MFA programme in poetry today would allow any student to write like this.
2
69
bellye66 (Douglas Bell) retweeted
Replying to @tonyannett
He converted to what he thought was the Church of the Inquisition and got Francis and Leo’s
1
1
30
1,177
As opposed to what -- hedge fund managers more interested in ensuring the integrity of the market than making money at society's ultimate expense? Could you be any more vacuous?
Where we see evidence that mathematicians are more interested in the welfare of mathematicians than the improvement of scientific knowledge.
1
5
226
bellye66 (Douglas Bell) retweeted
A mathematician who could have been an English major with a killer verb here: “We should embrace the power that the machines offer, but we should not be indentured to follow their lead.” nytimes.com/2026/10/08/scien… via @NYTimes
3
16
2,690
The breakthroughs furnished by A.I. this week is to the history of mathematics as Archimedes shouting "Eureka!" in the bathtub is to the history of Science writ large. @sioroberts lays it out in three articles in @nytimes. As always she demonstrates a gift for the telling metaphor in this instance drawn from Truffaut's magnificent The 400 Blows. nytimes.com/2026/10/06/scien… nytimes.com/2026/10/08/scien… nytimes.com/2026/10/08/scien…
1
2
1
2,334
bellye66 (Douglas Bell) retweeted
French Presidential Candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon: They keep talking about "native French people." Native to what? Christian roots? What exactly are these roots? Half of people no longer live in the department they come from. A process of creolization has already taken place among us French people, simply because we change places and adopt one another's jokes, tastes, cuisine and music. All those dreaming of a static world are dreaming of something that no longer exists and will never exist again.
748
2,483
755
24,764
3,906,638