Sam Mansoor

Writer. Misfit. Drunkard.

[Sam Mansoor @SamMansoor]

Like smoke ascending from a cigarette, time flies and you become more intimate—and at ease—with your mortality; the sea of gratitude gradually overwhelms you – because when the seconds turn precious, women do, too.

[SportsCenter @SportsCenter]

Edward Norton talking to himself at the USA-Türkiye game 😅

[Steven Pinker @sapinker]

Parisian monument to L'Abee de L'Epee, the Enlightenment-era priest who observed deaf children signing, invented his own sign language, and founded the first free school for the deaf (still standing, and the site of the memorial). His language was too cumbersome to catch on outside the school (the community evolved its own French Sign Language), but he deserves credit for the recognition, formal education and enfranchisement of the deaf in France and from there, around the world.

[Brivael Le Pogam @brivael]

Je veux présenter mes excuses, au nom des Français, pour avoir enfanté la French Theory (qui a enfanté la pire des merdes idéologiques : le wokisme).

Nous avons donné au monde Descartes, Pascal, Tocqueville. Et puis, dans les ruines intellectuelles de l'après-68, nous avons donné Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze. Trois hommes brillants qui ont fabriqué, dans l'élégance de notre langue, l'arme idéologique qui paralyse aujourd'hui l'Occident.

Il faut comprendre ce qu'ils ont fait. Foucault a enseigné que la vérité n'existe pas, qu'il n'y a que des rapports de pouvoir déguisés en savoir. Que la science, la raison, la justice, l'institution médicale, l'école, la prison, la sexualité, tout n'est qu'une mise en scène de la domination. Derrida a enseigné que les textes n'ont pas de sens stable, que tout signifiant glisse, que toute lecture est une trahison, que l'auteur est mort et que le lecteur règne. Deleuze a enseigné qu'il fallait préférer le rhizome à l'arbre, le nomade au sédentaire, le désir à la loi, le devenir à l'être, la différence à l'identité.

Pris isolément, ce sont des thèses discutables. Combinées, exportées, vulgarisées, elles forment un système. Et ce système est un poison.

Car voici ce qui s'est passé. Ces textes, illisibles en France, ont traversé l'Atlantique. Les départements de Yale, de Berkeley, de Columbia les ont absorbés dans les années 80. Ils y ont trouvé un terreau qui n'existait pas chez nous : le puritanisme américain, sa culpabilité raciale, son obsession identitaire. La French Theory s'est mariée à ce substrat, et l'enfant de ce mariage s'appelle le wokisme.

Judith Butler lit Foucault et invente le genre performatif. Edward Said lit Foucault et invente le post-colonialisme académique. Kimberlé Crenshaw hérite du cadre et invente l'intersectionnalité. À chaque étape, la matrice est française : il n'y a pas de vérité, il n'y a que du pouvoir, donc toute hiérarchie est suspecte, toute institution est oppressive, toute norme est violence, toute identité est construite donc négociable, toute majorité est coupable.

Voilà comment trois philosophes parisiens, qui n'ont probablement jamais imaginé leurs conséquences pratiques, ont fourni le logiciel d'exploitation à une génération entière d'activistes, de bureaucrates universitaires, de DRH, de journalistes, de législateurs. Voilà comment on a obtenu une civilisation qui ne sait plus dire si une femme est une femme, si sa propre histoire mérite d'être défendue, si le mérite existe, si la vérité se distingue de l'opinion.

C'est de la merde pour une raison simple, et il faut la dire calmement. Une civilisation se tient debout sur trois piliers : la croyance qu'il existe une vérité accessible à la raison, la croyance qu'il existe un bien distinct du mal, la croyance qu'il existe un héritage à transmettre. La French Theory a entrepris de dynamiter les trois. Pas par méchanceté. Par jeu intellectuel, par fascination du soupçon, par haine de la bourgeoisie qui les avait nourris. Mais le résultat est là. Une génération entière a appris à déconstruire et n'a jamais appris à construire. Une génération entière sait soupçonner et ne sait plus admirer. Une génération entière voit le pouvoir partout et la beauté nulle part.

Je m'excuse parce que nous, Français, avons une responsabilité particulière. C'est notre langue, nos universités, nos éditeurs, notre prestige qui ont donné à ce nihilisme son emballage chic. Sans la légitimité de la Sorbonne et de Vincennes, ces idées n'auraient jamais traversé l'océan. Nous avons exporté le doute comme d'autres exportent des armes.

Ce qui se construit maintenant, en silicon valley, dans les labos d'IA, dans les startups, dans les ateliers, dans tous les lieux où des gens fabriquent encore des choses au lieu de les déconstruire, c'est la réponse. Une civilisation se reconstruit par les bâtisseurs, pas par les commentateurs. Par ceux qui croient que la vérité existe et qu'elle vaut qu'on s'y consacre. Par ceux qui assument une hiérarchie du beau, du vrai, du bon, et qui n'ont pas honte de la transmettre.

Alors pardon. Et au travail.

[Bahar Akhavan @AkhavanBahar]

This week was tough. I had dinner with my intelligent friends from European countries, people who have spent half their lives working within the United Nations. We were having a good time until the conversation turned to Donald Trump and Iran. Everyone, without exception, spoke badly of Trump: that he causes problems for everyone, that war is terrible, that it is illegal, and so on.

I stayed silent. When everyone finally became quiet, I asked only one question: who is actually going to collect and remove those more than 400 kilograms of uranium?

My French friend said: Trump is no better than the regime. On top of that, he has started an illegal war, and many countries have nuclear power plants why shouldn’t Iran have them too?

I exploded inside, but I remained silent at first. When I finally broke my silence, I said: was it illegal when the United States helped the French during the Second World War? Was it unnecessary?

Then silence returned.

I kept thinking about how to express everything happening inside me; how to explain the regime to a European-someone surrounded by left-wing ideology, enclosed within indirect forms of censorship, and always ready to say that war is terrible, yet surprised when I say many Iranians wanted it.

How do you explain to people who live in safety that some nations sometimes see outside pressure as the only remaining path when every internal path has been closed? How do you explain that they do not even speak in geopolitical terms, but judge only from a position of moral comfort, while others are speaking about survival?

Europeans who, despite democracy and free internet, still do not know what happened in Iran on January 8–9. Europeans who believe every conflict can be understood through the same moral template. Europeans who condemn all violence in theory, but have never had to live under a Islamic system where violence is part of everyday life.

And I sat there with the feeling that the distance between our realities was greater than the table around which we were sitting…

[ijbol adjani @onbeinganangel]

man

[Sam Mansoor @SamMansoor]

@Y2John84 Still waiting for that Terminator/Gremlins crossover film

[Sam Mansoor @SamMansoor]

@salltweets Sing all the one hit wonders you want. It’s not going to make men one hit women.

[Jon Gabriel @exjon]

In the 1950s, an average working class man could buy this house, support motel guests and a stay-at-home mom.

[ebba @mulholdovers]

holy fuck this is so pure

[Sam Mansoor @SamMansoor]

Russia’s new AI-robot — sponsored by Smirnoff Vodka

[Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en]

Russia presented its human-like AI robot. It fell down as it walked onto the stage.

[Steven Pinker @sapinker]

After hearing the umpteenth perfectly functioning Harvard student tell me she's "autistic," and also teenagers who shriek uncontrollably, self-mutilate, and never look at another person, I've seen firsthand how the ever-expanding "autism spectrum" diagnosis is worse than useless, particularly with RFKJ and Trump claiming there's an explosion of cases. It also corrupts research by lumping heterogeneous people, foiling the search for a cause. https://t.co/yPQYyuUsPl

[Ahmed Al-Khalidi @khalidi79397]

It was still dark, November 20, 2013 when the ambulance left Gaza through the Erez Crossing.
Inside was a baby girl, barely one year old, her chest rising in fragile rhythm under the oxygen mask. Her mother sat beside her, silent, clutching a small blanket. The driver said the destination softly, almost apologetically: Schneider Children’s Medical Center, Petach Tikva - inside Israel.

The Israeli doctors didn’t ask who she was. They simply began to work - tubes, machines, monitors. The baby’s infection had spread too far. For a few days, they tried everything. Then she was sent back home, still breathing, but fading fast. She died not long after.

Seven months later, June 3, 2014, another ambulance crossed that same checkpoint - this time carrying an elderly woman, weak and pale, headed for a Jerusalem oncology ward.

Four months after that, October 19, 2014, yet another woman was taken in through Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, rushed into intensive care after a surgical complication.
Each case, quiet, discreet - handled by Israeli doctors, coordinated through Israeli channels, and permitted despite the risks.

Three medical rescues. Three acts of mercy.

And every one of those patients belonged to the same family: the family of Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas.

Yes - the same man whose organization was firing rockets at those very cities while his loved ones were being treated in their hospitals.

We all know stories like this in Gaza - whispered, denied, but never forgotten. The same people who condemn Israel in speeches will secretly call Israeli coordinators when their relatives fall sick. And the same society that depends on that help will mock anyone who admits gratitude.
It’s not just hypocrisy. It’s identity confusion - a culture that fears honesty more than hunger.

From childhood, we’re taught that aid from Israel is humiliation, and that violence redeems it.
So when we receive medicine or electricity, we must repay it with anger to prove we haven’t betrayed “the cause.”
Our leaders understand this perfectly: guilt keeps the people obedient. As long as we’re torn between needing Israel and hating it, they stay in power.

The West calls these stories “exceptions.” They’re not.
They are the rule - a system built on contradiction, where the same movement that sends its daughters to Tel Aviv for treatment sends rockets to destroy Tel Aviv the next day. We have normalized madness.

Our freedom won’t begin with revenge. It will begin with truth.
When we can finally say, without fear, that an Israeli doctor tried to save a Palestinian child, and that this does not make us weak or ashamed, we’ll start to heal.

Because dignity is not found in death or denial - it’s in the courage to face our own reflection.

[Emily Schrader - אמילי שריידר امیلی شریدر @emilykschrader]

This also echoes my experience with Palestinians. I interviewed countless Palestinians across the West Bank in 2016 to get a deeper understanding of what their goals are, how they hope to achieve them, and what possible areas of overlap there are in the pursuit of peace. What I found in Ramallah, Hebron, Bethlehem, and Nablus left me more certain than ever that Israel was in the right, with little hope for a change.

Palestinians of all ages, genders, and both religious and secular, were fundamentally extremist, pathological liars about everything under the sun, blamed everyone but themselves for their problems, and religiously adhered to bizarre conspiracy theories to justify their radicalism. The society is drenched in delusional antisemitism from cradle to grave.

Surprising fact however is that the only group they hated more than the Jews was LGBT.

And no, none of those I interviewed knew I was Jewish.

[The Persian Jewess @persianjewess]

Few people realize Hannah Einbinder attended public school in Beverly Hills—alongside the largest community of Persian Jewish refugees in America.

Nearly 40% of Hannah’s classmates were either Persian Jewish refugees or the children of refugees who fled the Islamic Regime.

Unlike Hannah, who grew up in the nepo baby bubble of her mother’s SNL career, her Persian classmates didn’t come from privilege. Their parents, like mine, lost everything — homes, businesses, careers, even family members — all for the chance to live free as Jews.

These families had to rebuild their lives from nothing after fleeing religious persecution in Iran.

But instead of recognizing the lived experience of the refugee kids she grew up with — kids who welcomed her into their homes, shared birthdays, sat beside her in English class and laughed at her jokes at the lunch table — Hannah erased their history from the narrative altogether.

And that is what makes Hannah Einbinder such a performative fraud. To posture at the Emmys as a self-proclaimed “savior of the oppressed,” while dismissing the trauma and oppression experienced by her Persian Jewish friends — this isn’t ignorance. It’s opportunism from a morally bankrupt sellout desperate for accolades.

Because the truth is this: without Israel, most Jewish refugees, like my family, have nowhere to go. This was true in 1948, it was true when my parents fled Iran, and it remains true today. For Persian Jews, Israel is not an abstract idea — it’s the insurance policy of our continued survival.

My parents settled in America, yes. But it took years for most of my family to obtain a visa and find their way here. In fact, the vast majority of Jewish refugees fleeing Iran had nowhere to go but Israel — the same Jewish state Hannah wants to sever from Judaism itself.

And if America had closed its doors, as it did during the Holocaust? If Israel had not existed? Over 100,000 Persian Jews would still be trapped in Iran — prisoners of the Islamic Regime — with no rights, no future, and none of the freedoms Hannah so easily takes for granted.

Hannah knows this truth.

When she condemned Israel at the Emmys, she wasn’t just another misguided celebrity with a platform. She was someone who grew up in a community full of marginalized Persian Jewish refugees and chose to render them invisible. Someone who knew—firsthand—that the exile and displacement of Jewish people didn’t end with the Holocaust, yet still pushed the lie that Israel’s existence and Jewish survival are mutually exclusive.

And with that, Hannah Einbinder revealed herself as just another Hack: erasing Jewish suffering, spitting on it, cashing it in, and selling her betrayal as activism.

[Sam Mansoor @SamMansoor]

Når en Backstreet Boy stemme synger “Am I sexual?” i æteren for at blive mødt med et bekræftende “Yeah, yeah” fra sit kaukasiske, syngende bagtæppe er det et vidnesbyrd om den ubetingede støtte 90’er drenge omgav hinanden med.

[Gad Saad @GadSaad]

Dear @StephenKing, while it is laudable that you have apologized for your post, I would urge you to do the following: Examine why you had the impulse to post such a reaction when a young man had been assassinated. That you succumbed to your dark impulses speaks to your having been parasitized by ideological capture. Your hate for Republicans was greater than your empathy for a wife and two young children who had lost their anchor. Charlie was a lovely human being that did not deserve your nastiness. Never let your humanity be overridden by your orgiastic tribalism.

[Sam Mansoor @SamMansoor]

MAGA voters are a certain breed of communists without even knowing it

[Melodies & Masterpieces @SVG__Collection]

66 years ago today, Miles Davis released “Kind of Blue”

Kind of Blue is regarded by many as a true masterpiece, the greatest jazz album ever recorded, and one of the best albums of all time…

But what made the album so extraordinary?

A thread 🧵

[Joshua L. Zarka @yzarka]

Je me suis rendu ce matin devant les bureaux d’El Al à Paris, qui ont été vandalisés cette nuit par des criminels antisémites, cherchant à faire passer des messages violents à la population israélienne hors de son pays, pour lui signifier qu’elle n’est pas la bienvenue.

Le ministère des Affaires étrangères et l’État d’Israël se tiennent aux côtés de la compagnie El Al et des Israéliens, ainsi qu’au service des entreprises israéliennes partout où elles se trouvent.

Nous ferons tout, en collaboration avec les autorités françaises, pour identifier les coupables et les traduire en justice.

Je n’ai aucun doute que le ministère français de l’Intérieur, qui dirige la police et les services de sécurité intérieure, fera tout pour que les responsables soient traduits en justice.

[Eden Yadegar @edenyadegar]

You.
Guys.
Appointed.
Iran.
UN Human Rights Council.
Chair.