Briony Kidd

@brionykidd.bsky.social

3808 Followers 3160 Following

Film & theatre maker, PhD candidate, film programmer. Against: fascism, corporate rule, unethical AI, cynicism. For: old movies, ideas for the future & pretzels. Tasmanian & citizen of the world.

"We will likely use Tas Irrigation, but we do not want to highlight this yet, as they are yet to agree to supply us, as we fall outside their normal customer base [agriculture] and they need legal approval to supply us.
No organized boycott has called for targeting writers solely because they are Jewish. But in writers' groups and online forums, Jewish authors outside of Israel have described losing agents, publishers, and book events since Oct. 7, because they are Jewish, they identify as Zionist, or they are sympathetic to Israel.
Screenshot of a retweet by Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt @FranceskAlbs: Scandalous. 18 months in arbitrary detention. No charge. No evidence. Torture attested by his lawyer, marks visible on his body. And instead of covering this, @BBC amplifies Israel's unproven claims casting doubt on a hostage doctor. >BBC's journalism in the time of genocide. The tweet under that is by Saul Staniforth @SaulStaniforth 6 Jul 'Israel says' isn't journalism. As Israel slowly murders Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, this is shameful from the BBC Image shows the video attached to the tweet of a BBC anchor giving a news report.
Scene in THE WICKERMAN (1973) in which nude young ladies dance enthusiastically around a fire next to a kind of a stonehenge thing.
Under the direction of the state's arts minister, John-Paul Langbroek, eight Indigenous directors have disappeared from the boards of the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC), the State Library of Queensland, the Queensland Museum and the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), with two replacements. Four of them were sacked midway through their appointed terms with no reason supplied for their removal.
Then, of course, there are billionaires and their heirs. D'Souza believes that "many journalists are more powerful than billionaires., explaining, "I can't tell you how many billionaires and CEOs have called me in absolute tears about their lives being destroyed by one article." He notes that most of them "have no media skill whatsoever" and have "never sought the spotlight," so he contends that "there's a massive power asymmetry."
Today’s Mercury front page with a story about Dark Mofo at the top and a massive headline saying: LOCKED OUT OF HOMES (and underneath that is a United Australia Party ad about smashing the Labor and Liberal “una party”).
Image 1: little Abagail Breslin sitting in bed is on the verge of tears. Text says, “Grandpa, am I pretty?” Image 2: her grandpa (Alan Arkin) looks at her very seriously and says,”You are the most beautiful girl in the whole world.”
Participants thought they saw something interesting. “The page is poorly coded, badly designed and yet weirdly transparent about some things the administration hasn’t been transparent about before,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the council, told me. It appeared that the map was based on raw data of ICE arrests — information that the government had mostly kept secret since the beginning of President Trump’s current term. The map is possibly the best document to date of the scale of the ICE campaign, which, it shows, has raged not only in big cities but in small towns, where it’s sometimes less visible.
“And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there's always soma to give you a holiday from the facts. And there's always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears–that's what soma is.” ― Huxley, Aldous, Brave New World
Conference logo, which is a creepy house that's also a skull.
Post by Michael Warburton showing an image that he claims is Harrison Ford working as a carpenter in 1970. But each of the other guys in the photo has Ford's face so it's an obviously fake photo.
Frame where a child is half turning to look at the massive dragon thing behind her.
Social media poster. Text reads: Socialist Discussion Group. Join Tasmanian Socialists for a series of discussions on socialist politics and how we can build a fighting party. Week One: What do socialist say about the housing crisis in Australia? Tackling racist myths and fighting for a socialist solution. Thu 14 May 6 pm Upstairs, New Sydney Hotel, 87 Bathurst St, Hobart. Tasmanian Socialist. The picture shows a few people drinking beer and chatting.
A still from the 1925 film showing Dorothy on the farm with her farmhand friends.
International poster Michael Man's THIEF.
On behalf of the Hon Bridget Archer MP, thank you for your email. Your correspondence has been referred to the Hon Kerry Vincent MLC, Minister for Housing and Planning as the responsible portfolio Minister for this matter. The Office of the Hon Kerry Vincent MLC can be contacted via Minister. Vincent@dpac.tas.gov.au Thank you again for contacting our office on this important matter. Kind regards Departmental Liaison Officer Office of the Hon Bridget Archer MP Minister for Health, Mental Health and Wellbeing
The Guardian has reached out to Google for comment. In December, when MacIsaac began speaking to the press, a spokesperson for the company said: "AI Overviews frequently improve to show the most helpful information, and we invest significantly in the quality of responses. When issues arise - like if our features misinterpret web content or miss some context - we use those examples to improve our systems and may take action under our policies."
Sister Ruth in BLACK NARCISSUS (1947), coming through a door and looking very intense and pale and sweaty. She's extremely pissed off.
Christopher Lee wearing a dress and long black wig to lead a parade of eccentricity dressed villagers in THE WICKERMAN.
Snippet from print article. Text reads: Health Minister Bridget Archer said the government was investing in social and affordable housing but there was "always more to do". The meaningless and condescending phrase “always more to do" is highlighted in yellow.
Small article on the front page of today’s Mercury. Heading reads: Rent is right out of reach Byline: Rob Inglis Text reads: The median rent for a room in a Tasmanian sharehouse is now unaffordable for singles earning the full-time minimum wage as Hobart's vacancy rate languishes at an all-time low of 0.2 per cent, an alarming new report has found. Anglicare Tasmania's Rental Affordability Snapshot measures whether people on low incomes can afford a rental in the private market by examining all rental properties listed on realestate.com.au and Flatmates.com.au ona specific weekend in March every year. Released on Thursday, the 2026 snapshot showed there were just 770 properties available during the period in question. FULL STORY, PAGE 4
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That said, I do have some sympathy for the more anodyne acknowledgments and it can get overworked, I get it. So then it becomes a question for us of how we're going to review this process and make it more relevant. And I think there’s a real opportunity for the RSL to lead and provide a better expression that is more tailored and appropriate for the commemorative day that it is.
Screenshot from article. Subheading: Opportunity for change Paragraph text: Mr Tinley said those who took issue with Welcome to Country addresses onAnzac Day appeared to be in the minority. "My 20-year-old son, who is a third-year student at the defence academy in the army, his generation don't have a problem with it," he said. Pull quote: "It can get overworked ... so then it becomes a question of how are we going to review this process and make it more relevant? Paragraph text: "I think there's a real opportunity for the RSL to lead and provide a better expression that is more tailored and appropriate for the commemorative day that it is."
Wikipedia text: Rowe met Michael Jackson while working as an assistant in Arnold Klein's dermatology office, where Jackson was being treated for vitiligo. 171[6] She recalled that after Jackson's divorce from Lisa Marie Presley in 1996, he was upset that he might never become a father. Rowe, a longtime Jackson fan, proposed to bear his children. 8) In an interview with Playboy, Lisa Marie said that during her marriage to Jackson, he knew that Rowe wanted to have his children and that Rowe had "a crush on him". [9]
The best answer was given by Tolkien. Yes, he said, fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape? The moneylenders, the know-nothings, the authoritarians have us all in prison; if we value the freedom of the mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can.
Banner for Stranger Cinema Club, with B&W images from NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, CARNIVAL OF SOULS, THE SEVENTH VICTIM, FRANKENSTEIN and WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? The subtitle on the banner is: Foundations of American Horror.
Bette Davis concentrating on her crochet in a scene from THE LETTER (1940). The character wears glasses and a pearl necklace and is a very respectable-looking middle-class lady of the 1940s. But, spoiler alert, she has been up to no good!
Screenshotted excerpt. The image is a middle-aged guy with greying curly hair. He’s wearing a bright orange snow suit or similar. The text from the article reads: A lifelong bachelor, Karp maintains concurrent long-term relationships with two Nomen. (A colleague describes him as "geographically monogamous.") He has never learned to drive but skis 12 to 15 miles daily and owns multiple homes chosen for proximity to cross-country trails. At Palantir's headquarters in Denver, which Karp calls the "schmattes factory" — Yiddish for cheap clothing — he regularly wears gear from an elite Norwegian ski team he has no connection to. At home, he puts his phone in a Faraday cage to block signals. "The Chinese would be crazy not to try to listen to my calls," he told Steinberger of Palantir's intelligence work.
4 stills from the iconic Kate Bush video “Cloudbursting” where Donald Sutherland plays her dad who’s a crazy cool inventor of a rain machine.
Trump responded with his own shots at Meloni: "I thought she had courage. I was wrong," he said.
The Cycle ofAbuse diagram showing the phases of abuse as described under the heading “phases” here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_of_abuse The image is credited to Domestic Shelters.org and the theory is credited to psychologist Lenore E Walker.
You might also have to confront what psychologists call " learned helplessness," whereby you don't believe that there's anything you can do to make a difference, so you don't try, but this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. What I believe is needed instead is " learned resourcefulness." whereby one expands one's repertoire of behaviour to reassert control over one's environment.
Following our petition, the Australian government asked the Parliament to launch an inquiry into what Australia could do in the worldwide campaign against the death penalty. In May 2016, the Parliamentary Committee released its report, A world without the death penalty – Australian’s Advocacy for the Abolition of the Death Penalty, containing a number of recommendations to the Australian government – many of which Amnesty has been calling for. Importantly, the report called for changes to the way the Australian Federal Police (AFP) shares information with its international counterparts. The Committee recommends that for drug-related crimes, the AFP should never share information unless they’ve received a commitment that the death penalty won’t be pursued. Screenshot is taken from here: https://www.amnesty.org.au/campaigns/end-the-death-penalty/ (click on "read more" where it says "in brief" and scroll down to the bottom section re Australia's role)
The world's top executioners in 2023. 1. China: 1000's of people executed 2. Iran: 853 people executed 3. Saudi Arabia: 172 people executed 4. Somalia: 38 people executed 5. USA: 24 people executed This is a screenshot taken from Amnesty Australia's "end the death penalty" page: https://www.amnesty.org.au/campaigns/end-the-death-penalty/
Mia Ballard has consistently denied using Al to write the book. She has acknowledged that a friend who helped edit the original self-published version may have used Al in the editing process. That is a meaningful distinction, and it is one that a competent journalist or publisher should have explored carefully before taking any action.
The current media coverage is not entirely wrong. But it is incomplete. It describes the symptoms of a system under strain, while overlooking the structures that produce that strain. It highlights success, but without explaining the conditions that make it possible. It reports failure, but without acknowledging how that failure is distributed.
World responds slowly as US, Israeli attack on Iran unfolds The exception was Australia's prime minister, while the X accounts of British, French, Italian, and German leaders had not been updated for hours by the time of publication.
'Victims denied a voice' "Too often, the story of Jack the Ripper focuses on the killer rather than the women whose lives were taken. In doing so, the victims are denied their own voice and identity, remembered only through the man who murdered them.
Karp thinks he is destroying bureaucracy. He is encoding it. The contempt for meetings and weekly reports and presentations to senior leaders; he treats these as the bureaucratic process itself. They were not. They were where people interpreted the procedure, the place where someone could notice that the categories no longer fit the case. The targeting doctrine is still there. The rules of engagement are still there. They are the columns on the Kanban board. What Karp eliminated was the discretion the institution could never admit it depended on, and what he got was a bureaucracy that runs exactly as written. Encoded bureaucracy does not bend. It shatters.
Harry Braverman argued in Labor and Monopoly Capital (1974) that managers gain control of a process not by making the worker faster but by separating conception from execution. The worker who holds both can exercise judgment the institution cannot govern. Move conception into the system and the worker becomes an operator, executing decisions that arrive from somewhere else.
Post on Sarah Michelle Gellar’s instagram memorialising her friend Nicholas Brendon. The AI search suggestion at the top says “Nicholas Parsons death cause.”
C Care Facebook post 9 March. One pic shows a group of smiling young women and the other plates of food. Text reads: It was an absolute honour to host such an inspiring group in our corporate kitchen. In partnership with Brothers for Life, we welcomed 12 incredible Chayalot veterans from the IDF for a special MasterChef-style challenge. All the way from Israel, these incredible women brought passion, teamwork, and heart to the experience. We are truly grateful they chose to spend part of their time in Australia volunteering with us and making such a meaningful impact. Thank you for your service, your spirit, and for allowing us to share this unforgettable experience together. It was a pleasure to host you, and we look forward to welcoming you back again soon!
During their stay in Melbourne, the women enjoyed puppy yoga, a Master Chef challenge at C Care, a visit to schools, and day trips to Mornington Peninsula hot springs and winery, surfing and Phillip Island.
Start of para: The letter that was sent to politicians about Mosques mourning the Ayotallah sent an amazing 1800 letters. Highlighted sentence: We had help from overseas groups to which we really appreciate your support. Rest of para: Just to finish in another positive we are going to lodge topics into the Royal Commission. That will be a challenge but it will happen in the next week or so.
Suyuan: That bad crab, only you tried to take it. Everybody else want best quality. You, your thinking different. Waverly took best-quality crab. You took worst, because you have best-quality heart. You have style no one can teach. Must be born this way. I see you.
Still from SALAAM BOMBAY showing a little boy on the street looking in the window at a car and staring into the face of a young woman in a red sari with gold jewellery.
In the beginning of their careers, the siblings occasionally overlapped, with Megan financially backing the Coen brothers’ True Grit, also backed by David’s Skydance. In 2011, Annapurna Pictures acquired the rights to the Terminator franchise and partnered with Skydance, but later divested from the property. By and large, the siblings’ Hollywood sensibilities — David’s explosions, spectacle and big budgets to Megan’s auteurs, festivals and awards — have been seen as antithetical.
Police Minister Dan Purdie told parliament on Thursday the laws were necessary and powerful. "Jewish Queenslanders simply don't feel safe. They don't feel protected," he said. "This government is committed to ensuring all Queenslanders can live free from hate and violence." Mr Purdie said the government was taking "decisive action" by enshrining the phrases into legislation.
Post from the AEU Tas branch on FB. Text reads: AEU members are escalating further industrial action, starting with work bans, in response to the Rockliff Government's shameful refusal to negotiate a fair deal for Tasmanian educators. Bans currently in place: X No administering or supporting NAPLAN assessments X No NAPLAN practice X No identifying, recording or reporting staff participation in industrial action X Principals not to monitor, record, or report on industrial activity X No assisting in creation/distribution of DECYP promotional activities X Union members may wear/display union materials, distribute union materials to school and broader community, and speak to media
Hand drawn cartoon/meme showing a child sleeping happily in bed. The text above them reads: Innocent children. Above them a soldier dressed in camouflage gear is floating in the air, holding his arms wide and raining down daggers, grenades and bombs. This figure is labelled: US military.
Still of Lola and Daddy from THE LOVED ONES. They are looking into the camera and laughing sadistically.
A still showing the making of the film SALAAM BOMBAY! There's a big crowd of Indian people, some standing and some on a platform. Cinematographer Sandi Sissel is a blonde woman with a large camera on her shoulder filming alongside the platform. She is on a man's shoulders and a few other men are holding her up so she can film without falling back. She is very focused on the people on the platform, including women with saris on and two little boys who are looking back at her.
Air Canada's defence was striking. It argued the chatbot was a separate legal entity, responsible for its own actions and therefore beyond the airline's liability. The tribunal rejected this outright. It ruled that a chatbot is part of a company's website, and that the company owns its outputs.
He added: "Iran directed at least two attacks on Australian soil in 2024. These appalling acts targeting Australia's Jewish community were intended to create fear, divide our society, and challenge our sovereignty."
Commenter: Entitled spoilt immature brat. Me: yes, I agree he is.
Australian discourse is wilfully slow on the uptake, our local authoritarians having been described as “centre-left” by the dumbest class of ahistorical TV pundits on the fucking planet for years now.
Ingrid Bergman in GASLIGHT, looking very concerned and, you know, gaslit. She’s holding a glass of milk and an open book and giving side-eye.