H Bradley

Basset owner, baker, urban gardener, singer,

[Josh Matlow @JoshMatlow]

The Science Centre’s roof has survived heavy winter snow storms and now a violent rain and hail storm. This roof continues to have more integrity than the Ford government.

A team of us are working on ways to reopen this architectural masterpiece to the public again.

[Scott Robertson @sarobertson_]

David Cochrane: "We're about 20 days away from the 25th anniversary of 9/11, and Donald Trump has imposed a 50% tariff on the country that gave refuge to thousands of its citizens on the day of the worst terrorist attack in American history."

[Envidreamz @envidreamz]

After the participants left the launch workout, my coworker announced to the room:
“Yeah, I really think I had Covid 2 weeks ago. My poor son coughed for so long afterward. I lost my voice. There was no way I could teach like that.”

Then the tone shifted, and I could feel the dark, deceptive energy moving in. As the conversation slithered into shadows, a coworker slipped in seamlessly,
“Yeah I now have to take allergy medicine every day. It’s good to switch them up every day and keep them on rotation.”

Relief washed over their faces. They had chosen a safer fear. A smaller monster. One they could name without consequence.

Another voice joined almost eagerly, “Yeah I actually take Benadryl in the mornings now. Doesn’t even make me sleepy.”

Relief continued to spread, reassured and collective.

The original coworker slipped in, voice suddenly sharpened.
“Oh no!! Not that Benadryl. I remember reading articles saying it’s causing early onset dementia!!”

I felt it boiling inside me. Something dark and intelligent was threading through the conversation, nudging it off course from what we had all just heard. The denial, the coordinated pivot, and the unspoken agreement to bury it.

And then,
the words escaped from me like a scream into the void.

“NO IT IS NOT BENADRYL CAUSING EARLY ONSET DEMENTIA. IT IS COVID!!”

Everything stopped, as if time was frozen. Jaws dropped in slow motion. Eyes widened into black, glassy voids. Every head turned toward me at once, bodies locked in perfect unison. For one frozen second the room became a hive mind staring back, rabid and starving, ready to tear the truth apart with teeth and silence.

And layered into that split second, something else briefly showed through.
A quiet, collective terror.
Not of the illness itself, but of dragging it fully into the light where it could no longer be softened into something smaller, safer, or more manageable.
Because once spoken truthfully,
awareness spreads.
And that very awareness starts to crumble the fragile architectures people have built to keep functioning.

Their eyes stayed on me too long. Wide and unmoving. As if I had broken a rule no one admits exists.
Then, just as quickly, everyone sealed back over.
A laugh, and a shrug. Someone changed the subject.
The room collectively rebooted.

But I knew it was not relief.
It was suppression.
Because the truth is not misunderstood.
It is recognized and buried alive.

And Covid is not just a passing illness. It is the thing no one is allowed to call upon even as it reshapes everything we are and everything we will become.

[Emmett Voss @Emmett_Voss]

Bertrand Russell was born in 1872.

He remembered his grandfather (who had met Napoleon, introduced the Reform Bill of 1832, and served as Prime Minister) "quite well."

In a remarkable interview, he reflected on the world of his youth:

"The world where I was young was a solid world. A world where all kinds of things that have now disappeared were thought to be going to last forever."

The British took naval supremacy not as a political reality but as a fact of nature. Germany wasn't feared — Bismarck was dismissed as "a rascal" and "a sort of uneducated farmer." The assumption was that Goethe and Schiller would eventually bring Germany back to civilisation.

Bismarck himself compared Germany and England to an elephant and a whale — each formidable in its own element, no danger to each other.

That was exactly how they felt.

There was also a shared political assumption: that the entire world was gradually, inevitably moving toward parliamentary democracy. His grandmother once said cheerfully to the Russian ambassador:

"Perhaps someday you will have a parliament in Russia."

He replied: "God forbid."

Russell notes, dryly, that a Russian ambassador today might give the same answer — "except for the first word."

At home, life was shaped by Puritanical austerity. Family prayers at 8am. Half an hour of piano practice beforehand — which Russell hated. Eight servants, yet food of "the utmost simplicity." If apple tart appeared alongside rice pudding, the adults had the apple tart.

Russell had the rice pudding.

What Russell describes isn't just personal memoir. It's a civilisation that had mistaken its own moment for a permanent condition — that looked at the arrangements of the late 19th century and concluded: this is how things are, and how they will remain.

They were wrong about almost everything.

[Usain St. Leo Bolt @usainbolt]

2016

[Rolling Stone @RollingStone]

Bob Weir, the singer, songwriter, guitarist and co-founder of the Grateful Dead who for decades was one of the driving forces behind the revered band and their legacy, has died at age 78 https://t.co/L5KscguzMd

[Scott Simon @nprscottsimon]

I keep this on my desktop: “Words are innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across the incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they’re no good anymore.
“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little or make a poem which children will speak for you when you’re dead.”
Tom Stoppard

[India Walton @Indiawaltonbflo]

Beloved, I’m so emotional. This time tomorrow I will be heading to wait for the results of the election with Zohran. But first, gotta rest up for one more canvass.

[H Bradley @clivia_gardens]

@TinyDancer500 Love him!

[Cake or Death @Johngcole]

I saw a tiktok that said that "Tim Walz is so dad coded he is going to New balance the budget" and that "Tim Walz is so dad when they put the budget bill on his desk he asked 'What's the damage?'"

I had forgotten politics could be fun and doesn't have to feel like death row.

[Pod Save America @PodSaveAmerica]

“[Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is] fueled entirely by DGAF energy. He does not give a f*ck about anyone, anything... The president can’t stop him. The chief justice can’t stop him. No one can stop him.” —@StrictScrutiny_’s @ProfMMurray

New pod: https://t.co/tQ0BIcsBOP

[Asif Hossain @asifintoronto]

So at Pierre Poilievre's Conservative Party of Canada convention, nearly 7 out of 10 party delegates in a carefully worded fashion essentially voted to say that being trans is a mental disorder - a US far right anti-LGBTQ talking point that's gone mainstream in the last decade.

[Peter Tabuns @petertabuns.bsky.social @Peter_Tabuns]

Ford ignores low cost options like renewable energy and we all pay higher bills because of him.

https://t.co/vmOm6ceCn2

[audie cornish @AudieCornish]

There it is…

[Jon Cooper 🇺🇸 @joncoopertweets]

BREAKING: Justice Elena Kagan just SLAMMED her own Supreme Court for their move to gut the Clean Water Act.

Kagan said SCOTUS cannot just “rewrite Congress’s plain instructions because they go further” than right-wing justices want.

EXACTLY. They've gone rogue.👇

Worse, she labeled their move "the court's appointment of itself as the national decision-maker on environmental policy.”

Yes. The "radical court" that conservatives say they're so worried about is now here — by their own doing.

But WAIT: Even Brett Kavanaugh is saying the radical majority's vote is a DISASTER.

More on that in the thread.

[Roddy 🇨🇦 @RodKahx]

The CBC is majority Canadian owned.

The photo below is media that is majority US owned.

And you self proclaimed Canadian flag waving patriots want to defund The CBC?

[Victor Shi @Victorshi2020]

Beautiful. Justin Jones and Joan Baez singing “We Shall Overcome” at the airport together. Two legends & inspirations uniting & sending a strong & powerful message. Tennessee Republicans truly messed with the wrong person.

[Pocho.com @PochoDotCom]

Artist’s rendition by @laloalcaraz

[..ღ..Midtown Toronto 🇨🇦..ღ.. @TorontoViewer]

@UnionSt @theJagmeetSingh basically saying....