alright I've got to do some quick math to explain attitudes towards AI to my boss.
we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)
please rb for larger sample size!
Question 1/3
What is your age, and do you feel AI is a net positive or net negative in our lives today?
I'm just saying, if you're going to worldbuild magic being a "raw, primal force, akin to and interweaving with nature itself" you gotta explain to me why animals don't use it
I know the normal answer is "they just aren't smart enough for it" but idk I've seen enough media where a character uses a spell in a moment of brain-off panic ilI feel like animals could probably stumble into a spell or two like, accidentally
group of wizards who ask this in-universe, and after extensive study learn to their surprise that animals are casting spells all the time, just that their magic is so fundamental as to be unrecognizable to humans. turns out the only reason acorns grow on trees is because squirrels keep wishing for them.
Sleep well Marjane Satrapi. You were a huge influence on me and my work in a way that cannot be understated. You will be missed but your work will carry on for generations to come
Leen Hijaz, a Palestinian Muslim valedictorian at Clayton High, tried to end her graduation speech with a call for humanity. Instead, she wa
Holler and Hammer:
Principal Melissa Hubbard got up and crossed the stage when Leen Hijaz, Palestinian, Muslim, early graduate, valedictorian, tried to finish her speech by naming Palestine, Sudan, Congo, Afghanistan, and families ripped apart by ICE. Leen tried to say every person deserves dignity, safety, and the chance to dream.
That was the line that made Hubbard stomp across the stage and shut her down in front of the whole crowd at Nixon-Fowler Stadium for Clayton High School’s graduation on Thursday, May 28, 2026.
The ceremony did not stop there. Less than five minutes later, Senior Class Vice President Cecelia Trader stepped up, asked the audience to bow their heads, and opened with a Christian prayer: “Dear Heavenly Father.” Hubbard stayed seated. A few minutes after that, Student Body Vice President, Mallory Kuykendall introduced senior class president Gates Hale through his church work and mission trips, then Gates quoted Proverbs 3:5-6 and told the graduating class the Lord had a purpose and path for each of them. Hubbard stayed seated. At the end of the ceremony, Allison Lowery, Student Body Historian, closed the night with a prayer and a Bible verse. Hubbard stayed seated for that, too.
The approved part of Leen’s speech was the kind of graduation talk schools love, because it doesn’t ask anyone anything risky. She welcomed students, staff, families, honored guests, and the whole Class of 2026. She talked about hard work, growth, memories, sacrifice, perseverance, parents, guardians, teachers, coaches, loved ones. She told her classmates to be proud. She said they will always be Comets. She gave the school the safe version, warm enough for the program, broad enough for the bleachers, careful enough to slip past whatever adult hands were holding the gate.
Then she said, “Before I leave the stage, I have one last thing to say.”
That was the part she left out of the official draft, because she already knew exactly how this place works and who gets to speak.
“Every single person here has a voice,” her written speech says, “and we are privileged to have the freedom to use it when so many people around the world are suffering and struggling to be heard.” She named “the millions suffering in Palestine, Sudan, Congo, Afghanistan, and so many other countries around the world,” and “the families being torn apart by ICE.”
Then came the line she was trying to finish.
“My point is, we were not given a voice so we could stay silent in the face of suffering. Every person deserves dignity, safety, and the chance to dream for their future just like we do. As we all move forward, I hope we choose to speak up against oppression, support one another, and use our voices to bring compassion and humanity into the world.”
That’s all she tried to say.
Dignity, safety, compassion, and humanity. That is what Principal Melissa Hubbard could not let finish. Not a threat, not a disruption, just the wrong truth from the wrong mouth in the wrong county.
Leen Hijaz is Palestinian. She is Muslim. She graduated early, a junior with the highest GPA at the school, and was valedictorian of the Class of 2026 at Clayton High. She did not walk onto that stage as a prop in somebody else’s culture war. She walked up there carrying a life that most of the room had never had to understand.
Leen did not keep the final lines separate because she misunderstood the rules. She kept them separate because she understood the rules too well.
In our interview, she explained that the approved part of the speech was written to do what graduation speeches are usually expected to do. She wanted “to make a good impression.” She wanted it to be “a reflection of everything that we’ve gone through the past couple of years.” She kept it “very simple” and “something that everyone could relate to.” That was the safe speech. The warm welcome speech that thanks everybody, offends nobody, and lets the ceremony keep moving.
The second part came from somewhere else.
“I wanted something to be spread about the awareness about everything that’s going on in the world,” Leen told me, “because I knew that they weren’t going to bring it up, especially because I am Palestinian.” Then she said the part that should embarrass every adult pretending she is just some kid who doesn’t know what she is talking about.
That is why she wrote it. She did not write it because it was a political talking point she learned from a TikTok clip. That was a student explaining why the final part of her speech mattered to her, why she wanted to name suffering beyond Clayton, beyond Johnston County, beyond the comfortable little ceremony adults wanted.
That is also why she knew it would not survive approval.
Her senior quote for the yearbook had been “From the river to the sea,” and Clayton High made her change it. Leen said it was “apparently too political” and “too offensive.” She did not describe it as a threat. She described it as “just a simple phrase that a lot of Palestinians say because of our ethnic cleansing.” That experience told her what the school would do if she submitted the final part of her speech. Nobody had to spell it out. The lesson had already been taught.
That lesson did not stop with the yearbook.
Clayton High has student groups like Turning Point USA and First Priority Christian Club, and Leen was blunt about how that looked from where she stood.
Clayton High School in Clayton, NC has a graduation speech that is going viral worldwide, and it's because valedictorian Leen Hijaz-- a Palestinian Muslim-- used her valedictorian speech to call out ICE's atrocities and suffering worldwide in Congo, Sudan, and Palestine.
As Hijaz was about to close her speech, Melissa Hubbard-- the school's principal-- rudely snatched the mic from her. On top of that, her diploma was unjustly withheld.
🇵🇸🇵🇸
See Also:
USA Today: Valedictorian's speech cut after unscripted immigration comment
HUGE Paprika news from Dracula: The Postcolonial Edition:
One of Stoker's known sources, EC Johnson's On the Track of the Crescent: Erratic Notes from Piraeus to Pesth, wrote of the "paprikas:"
This is a dish to dream of, though at first dreaming is out of the question, for the 'griff,' after his first taste of the delicious condiment, is usually kept awake by a throat compared with which a lime-kiln in full blast would be coolness itself."
Griff was Victorian slang for newcomer.
Since we know that this was one of Stoker's sources, the phrase "a lime-kiln in full blast would be coolness itself" seems to answer the debate as to whether Stoker meant the dish was spicy or salty when he described it as "thirsty."
@shashanotsasha Sorry I didn't have this book when you were making your paprika video
Misogyny genuinely ruins media discussions (and everything else
The new God of War was announced at PlayStation’s State of Play and will be the first game not centred around Kratos.
The coolest thing about the trailer that was shown was two gods who appear to be the antagonists. Sekmet from Egypt and Begtse from Mongolia.
After two games with Norse gods, and wider current culture being obsessed with all things Norse mythology, it’s pretty refreshing.
There was a part of the gameplay I didn’t care much for, and that was two(?) companion characters - The first being the Sword.
The sword seems to talk in the trailer, and I genuinely hate the trope of ‘weapon protagonist uses having a personality’. It existing as a character will no doubt push the writing into Marvel territory with insufferable quips. I’ve never seen this done well.
The second is…a cube…called Frank Phranque. Voiced by the Jack Quaid who plays Hughie in the Boys.
It’s a choice. I’m not sure if it’s a good one, but we’ll see how it plays out. Unfortunately from the gameplay shown, it’s another quippy character. I’m maybe just a bit tired of that style of writing.
But my criticism is completely offset by the unfortunately expected misogynistic ramble from fucking ‘Gamers’ who have never known the touch of a woman.
We’re already seeing shit memes flood the internet and they’ll continue long after the game’s released.
From a broad sense, it’s now more difficult to criticise the game earnestly because any initial impressions about talking weapons and…cubes…will get co-opted by people producing this shit.
And now you can apply how this happens to every other topic on the planet. It’s genuinely annoying.
This is a perfect time to read the brilliant and unforgettable graphic novel(s) Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, about growing up in Iran during and after the Iranian Revolution, and the rise of the oppressive theocracy that persists to this day.
Both graphic novels are available free online (Persepolis vol. 1, Persepolis vol. 2)
It also was adapted to a wonderful film (co-directed and co-written by the author) which is available to watch for free on Sundance Now (sign up for the free trial)
There’s actually a few things here that majorly dropped childhood mortality. In no particular order these include…
Vaccines (yay!)
Pasteurization
Implementing and enforcing food quality and sanitation standards. Did you know White Castle was called as such because their gimmic was that they continually cleaned and bleached their stores inside and out to prevent food poisoning.
The invention of antibiotics! The first sulfa drugs dropped in the 1930s-40s
Widespread access and distribution of enriched food products! Enriched flour did a lot to prevent malnutrition, and it’s how Wonderbread got its name!
We got a hell of a lot better with medical care for sick and premature infants. The first incubators for premature babies were actually used as something of a sideshow attraction at Coney Island! It was the only way the doctor who invented them could get funding to keep them running because no one thought it would work. It showed a lot of people that really premature babies could survive with the right treatment and eventually was adopted by hospitals.
The green revolution in agriculture that prevented around a billion people from starving to death
More recently it’s been widespread access to mosquito nets and medication to poorer and rural areas
