D.S.LeveyWrites

Wannabe Writer/ Lots of stuff not published/
Lifelong Oakland A's fan/ Irish history buff

[D.S.LeveyWrites @leveywrites]

Got my first rejection letter the other day so I guess that makes me an official wannabe writer. 😃
Figured I'd give this Twitter thing a go and connect with other writers.

[D.S.LeveyWrites @leveywrites]

Grosse Pointe Blank
And if you really go back a ways, The Court Jester

[Noirchick In Old Hollywood @Noirchick1]

What film is a favorite of yours that no one else seems to have ever heard of?

[D.S.LeveyWrites @leveywrites]

@BigLeagueDigest @MLB Oakland colliseum

[D.S.LeveyWrites @leveywrites]

@DrAllyLouks Yes, we missed you. You bring a dose of sanity to an increasingly crazy world.
We appreciate you.

[D.S.LeveyWrites @leveywrites]

@chasinstars22 @RetroMoviesDB Greedy was an underrated movie of his as well.

[Sal the Agorist @SallyMayweather]

The best thing you can do for fallen soldiers on Memorial Day is to stop voting for politicians who make more of them.

[Emily 🪽 @virtualpigeons]

I am so beyond tired of the shilling of AI. I don't want an AI assistant on my phone, I don't want to generate AI photos/videos, I don't need ChatGPT to summarize everything for me or write something for me. I have zero use for AI in my day to day life, fuck off

[Natali Simmonds @NJSimmondsbooks]

I wanted to run the London Marathon but training takes too long and is too hard as a pudgy 47yo woman, so I got an Uber to the finish line. It's not fair that athletic people get to gatekeep long-distance running. I'm still a Marathon runner!

This is what AI 'writers' sound like

[Irish Republican Archives @Irish1867]

Remembering Óglach Bobby Sands, 1st Battalion Belfast Brigade, Óglaigh na hÉireann (IRA) who died on the 5th of May 1981 in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh after 66 Days on hunger strike.
(45th Anniversary)
Fuair sé bás ar son saoirse na hÉireann

[BUCHANAN: Dublin Time Machine @RobLooseCannon]

44 years ago today, Bobby Sands died in the Maze Prison hospital, 66 days into a hunger strike that had gripped Ireland and caught the attention of the world. He was 27 years old.

Sands had begun refusing food on 1 March 1981, marking the fifth anniversary of the removal of Special Category Status from republican prisoners. Unlike the first hunger strike, he devised a staggered approach, with prisoners joining at intervals to ensure public pressure was sustained and renewed every fortnight. It was an instrument of political destabilisation without historical comparison.

Their five demands were the right to wear civilian clothing, free association with other prisoners, no requirement to do prison work, the right to organise educational and recreational activities, and full restoration of remission lost during the protest. The British government under Margaret Thatcher refused them all.

Starving yourself to death is an ancient form of protest against injustice in Ireland. Its origins are rooted long before the Christian connotations of fasting for purity and penance or the Plantations. In ancient Brehon Law, a political or social statement could be made by using starvation to draw attention to unjust rulers or decisions, sometimes physically laying down outside the home of the object of protest.

In the weeks before his death, Sands' condition became increasingly desperate. His skin grew so thin he was placed on a water bed to prevent his bones breaking through. He lost all feeling in his mouth and gums. A visit from the Pope's personal envoy left him exhausted and barely able to speak.

On 1 May, British Labour opposition spokesperson Don Concannon arrived at the prison hospital and told the dying man that neither he nor his party supported the hunger strikers' demands. On 3 May, Sands lost consciousness and his family gathered together.

In the midst of all this, in one of the most extraordinary moments in modern Irish political history, Sands had been elected to the British Parliament. When Frank Maguire, the Independent Republican MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, died suddenly, his seat fell vacant.

Sands stood on the Anti H-Block label with future Sinn Féin MP Owen Carron as his election agent, and on 9 April won the seat with 30,493 votes to Harry West's 29,046. The British government's response was to rush through legislation barring any prisoner from repeating the feat.

On the morning of 4 May, Sands' mother appeared outside the Maze. "My son is dying," she told reporters. "I want to appeal to the people to remain calm and have no fighting or deaths. My son has offered his life to improve prison conditions and not for death and destruction."

He died in the early hours of 5 May. Riots erupted across the north. In the New Lodge area of Belfast, milkman Eric Guiney and his 14-year-old son Desmond were struck by stones while on their round, lost control of their float and crashed. Eric died the following day, Desmond a week later.

Thatcher's response was unsparing. "Mr Sands was a convicted criminal. He chose to take his own life. It was a choice that his organisation did not allow to many of its victims." The prisoners responded: "You have got your pound of flesh, now give us our rights. There are more Bobby Sands in these Blocks and we will continue to die if need be to safeguard these principles."

9 more men died before the strike was called off on 3 October. The British government quietly conceded on most practical demands while never officially granting political status. The hunger strike had already transformed the republican movement, driving IRA recruitment and pushing Sinn Féin toward mainstream electoral politics.

It is a dark irony that for significant periods during Irelands eras of tyranny, those same colonial occupiers who Sands and the other Hunger Strikers protested against were only too glad to utilise famine themselves as a weapon against the native Irish.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a n-anamacha

[Harrison Ford @HarrisonFordLA]

May the fourth be with you

[D.S.LeveyWrites @leveywrites]

It seems like every time I start to get a bit depressed at the world news and other things going on, @DrAllyLouks shows up on my timeline to provide a bit of much needed hope and sanity. I am truly grateful she came into all our lives. Thank you Doc! From the bottom of my heart.

[Kassie ❤️‍🔥 @yoyokassie]

If you have to use ChatGPT to order your coffee, you’re a fucking idiot and I hope your drink is awful🥰

[D.S.LeveyWrites @leveywrites]

@notgaetti My first thought at random was Damon Berryhill actually. 😀

[Assal Rad @AssalRad]

Why are you framing it like a public service announcement, instead of a threat to commit a major war crime?

[Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature]

The banana peel you tossed on the trail is going to get a bear killed.

Every single apple core and orange peel left on a trail teaches a nearby bear that human hiking trails are a food source.

In bears, it is almost always fatal.

Wildlife managers have a phrase for it: "A fed bear is a dead bear."

Once a bear associates humans with food it keeps coming back. It gets bolder. It approaches campsites. It gets too close to people.

At that point there is no rehabilitation, no relocation that reliably works. The bear gets euthanized.

The bear didn't do anything wrong. It learned exactly what we taught it.

Leave no trace means leave no trace.

Pack it in. Pack it out. Every time.

[The Goddamned Penguin @who_shot_jgr]

writing an e-mail and getting a prompt from AI "this sentence could be more concise"

no. i am verbose. i am loquacious. i am long-winded and often redundant even. you machine, do not tell me how to form my words

[Boze Herrington, Library Owl 😴🧙‍♀️ @SketchesbyBoze]

Ray Bradbury told aspiring authors that we are the sum of everything we’ve experienced, all our loves & hates. “All of this is in your mind as a fabulous mulch and you have to bring it out.” To let AI brainstorm for you is to surrender the most personal part of writing.

[𐌁𐌉Ᏽ 𐌕𐌉𐌌𐌉 @OrevaZSN]

The only problem I have with eBooks is that after I’ve finished reading them, I can’t put them on my trophy shelf like a serial killer.

[Tim Sharp 🍊 🍊 🇺🇸 @realtimsharp]

Exactly how does Israel bombing residential villages in Lebanon prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons?

Explain it to me like I am 5.

[D.S.LeveyWrites @leveywrites]

@DanClarkSports Absolute trash from an absolute trash franchise.
#FJF
#SellTheTeam