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Harry Smart

@munross.bsky.social

@Munross@mastodon.scot no X, no FB Poetry (Faber, Drunk Muse) Fiction (Dedalus). Social theory (Routledge) #Istanbul, Photos. Drums. Greens, Kirk, #LUFC.

created December 12, 2024

989 followers 3,073 following 405 posts

view profile on Bluesky

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Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

I don't understand why you can't take the logical next step and become a Leeds fan. Post-Revie we have come to understand that crushing disappointment, the perennial heartbreak that is hope, is our true destiny.

31/8/2025, 11:49:47 PM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

Love this

31/8/2025, 11:08:08 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

is that an İnsta account, or bsky .. can't seem to find it

29/8/2025, 12:12:18 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

Lisa Fonssagrives on the Eiffel Tower with Erwin Blumenfeld in May 1939. The reckless joy and the huge skirt billowing in the sunlight. Life and optimism and knowing what was about to break across Europe in a few months. Post a non-religious picture you think of as holy.

21/8/2025, 10:45:07 PM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

Melissa #nude #fineartnude

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21/8/2025, 12:58:48 PM | 4 1 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

one last one for tonight from the 2018 shoot with Ariel

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20/8/2025, 10:31:29 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

#Newsnight .. bit of a pointless squabble tonight

20/8/2025, 9:49:37 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

another from that 2018 shoot with @arielanderssen.bsky.social

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20/8/2025, 8:24:23 PM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

looking through old cards .. 2018 with @arielanderssen.bsky.social

a woman, naked, sitting with knees drawn up towards her chin, hands clasped at her feet. a black and white image
20/8/2025, 7:49:37 PM | 9 2 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

+1 for plain grey walls and confident women. Wonderful image.

20/8/2025, 6:05:28 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

top right of image is bottom right of film gate / camera body (apologies if that's already obvious).

20/8/2025, 2:27:58 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

looking at your photos, from that white streak top left of frame, my first guess would be back closure, but it might also be consistent with the winder.

20/8/2025, 2:26:41 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

just to encourage you further, I don't think I managed to fix it, given the thing has to be free to turn. A simpler one was the back closure. I did play with the Bessa once, and my issue there was the lens wouldn't stay properly locked out into the shooting position so focus would be off.

20/8/2025, 2:24:51 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

I once spent a while running 120 across old 3A format folders. I recall having a leak hunt very like yours. I tracked mine down to where the winder or take up spool (think it was winder, can't remember exactly) came through the casing. FWIW, they're always somewhere you'd think was impossible!

20/8/2025, 2:22:44 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

I doubt if any of them are as old as Sandwich in Kent, which has been around since at least 851. No, that number is not missing a 1 at the start.

20/8/2025, 2:21:40 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

have mercy on those of us with vivid imaginations

20/8/2025, 2:19:11 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

half of these are barely on anyone's radar in the US and Europe. disclaimer: figures via ChatGPT, all unavoidably imprecise. Most casualties of war literally don't count.

A list of ongoing major conflicts with estimates of casualties. Sudan, 150,000+, Yemen, 150,000+ and hundreds of thousands more indirect (famine and disease), UKraine, 1 million+, Tigray 62,000 perhaps up to 380,000, Mexican Drug War 350,000+, Gaza 90,000+, Myanmar Civil War 50,000+, Rohingya conflict in Myanmar 24,000, Democratic Republic of the Congo 30,000 deaths & 7 million displaced.
19/8/2025, 2:51:22 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

as a survivor of CSA, it never ceases to amaze me that so many people commenting on sexual violence fail to mention children as victims. Careful analysis, data, passionate political commitment and yet, literally, children don't count. Thank you for that "should've". It's rare.

18/8/2025, 11:10:54 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

questions being asked about Everton's new boot sponsor #LUFC

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18/8/2025, 8:31:40 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

how are the ads on #LUTV so consistently shit? there's not much else to whinge about, so that's a plus #LUFC

18/8/2025, 7:58:57 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

is he on bluesky? didn't see him when I looked

18/8/2025, 6:53:22 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

thanks for the repost

18/8/2025, 3:17:15 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

if we assume population of Israel = 10 million. Chenoweth et. al. suggest 3.5% of population on streets in protest is sufficient to bring regime change. 300,000 = 3% www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJSe...

17/8/2025, 7:48:56 PM | 7 1 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

applies to UK churches too

17/8/2025, 2:58:24 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

The thing that haunts me is Moltke's description of the late-stage Reich with 'guillotines working round the clock' in cities across Germany. Or Harald Poelchau in Berlin, prison chaplain, who went with over 1000 people, including many friends, to their execution.

17/8/2025, 2:02:18 AM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

Ireland isn't much of a parallel here. Rwanda, I'm afraid .. except AR15s are colossally more lethal than machetes and kitchen knives. Germany is probably the closest parallel. But the tens of thousands of German resisters and dissidents killed by the Reich are a largely untold story.

17/8/2025, 1:59:50 AM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

hi .. I'd be interested to know your travel plans within the UK. I'm in Scotland. I'm on Purpleport, if you use that, as Gairm.

15/8/2025, 11:53:33 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

Going a bit Rembrandt with Valentina #portrait

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11/8/2025, 11:55:30 PM | 7 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

When fascism's become the winning ticket ..

10/8/2025, 9:49:49 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

we do increasingly in the UK. There are places I've shot nudes in the past where I wouldn't chance it now, having seen what's happened to models / photographers I know.

10/8/2025, 4:46:28 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

I can confirm that this is not a US-only problem.

10/8/2025, 4:42:39 PM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

one of the reasons I like this is that it has something of the bodyscape genre, which I really enjoy and obviously it's part of the great tradition of photographing the figure .. but there's also a sense of Valentina as a person .. it keeps an element of portrait. that's quite enough ones for today.

9/8/2025, 3:48:09 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

Valentina #fineartnude one proceeds very slowly through the editing process. one wishes one could go quicker.

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9/8/2025, 3:30:10 PM | 7 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

they're grown in traditional English watercress beds and exported around the globe

8/8/2025, 3:29:41 AM | 6 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

I agree. Someone once asked what's the most important thing for a model. I think it's simple .. someone who's comfortable in their own skin. I like this shot because it shows that Valentina is.

7/8/2025, 1:08:16 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

please, please, bluesky, don't compress photos QUIte as much as you do. It's grievous to upload a clean photo and then see it spattered with compression artefacts. I get you have to reduce the file size but .. can't you find better algorithms?

6/8/2025, 12:46:32 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

Valentina again #fineartnude #portrait puts me in mind of a brief exchange a couple of weeks ago with @mariesgallery.bsky.social about smiling / laughing photos and why we sometimes instinctively pass them over when picking what to edit as 'art'.

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6/8/2025, 12:11:42 AM | 95 3 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

another of Valentina last year

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4/8/2025, 5:12:53 PM | 38 4 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

beautiful .. not least because of that rare thing in fine art nude, the sense of encountering a real person.

4/8/2025, 2:38:15 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture News Eye (@newseye.bsky.social) reposted

🧵NEW: This is an unprecedented intervention. Almost every single living, former head of the IDF, Mossad (Israeli foreign intelligence), Shin Bet (domestic intelligence) & Police Commissioner urges an end to Israel’s war in Gaza. “This is an extremist government. It has taken us all hostage.” 1/

4/8/2025, 11:52:16 AM | 1091 535 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

with Valentina last year .. these are late edits .. I get phobic about editing sometimes. A bit like writer's block.

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4/8/2025, 4:14:21 AM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

Today is my first Sunday deliberately not going to church (as opposed to missing services for health reasons or whatever). #ChurchofScotland .. 40 years an elder, several as Session Clerk. Gone. I love the #CofS but it has broken me. This by ‪@johnpavlovitz.bsky.social: bsky.app/profile/john...

3/8/2025, 2:39:25 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

For me it turned from a short period of solace among friends to a burdensome thing. I had a mounting sense of dread through Saturday which it took me a while to recognise as such. Today is my first Sunday deliberately not at church and it feels very weird. And sad. But right for my health's sake.

3/8/2025, 2:26:21 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

another with @arielanderssen.bsky.social a few years ago

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2/8/2025, 5:08:51 PM | 21 2 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture John Pavlovitz (@johnpavlovitz.bsky.social) reposted

At this point, the only reason left to support a man like this is that he reflects your hateful heart: he shares your contempt of people of color, your hostility toward outsiders, your toxic misogyny, your ignorant bigotry, and your feelings of supremacy. johnpavlovitz.substack.com/p/no-good-pe...

2/8/2025, 11:45:09 AM | 2385 926 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

overview of Windrush scandal www.praxis.org.uk/learn/explai...

1/8/2025, 12:57:49 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

This is going to be like the UK Windrush scandal but on a colossal scale. Same key issue, loads of people had been here for decades, had working careers, paid taxes, raised families, but no papers to prove citizenship. Denied right to work, to receive medical care, deportations ..

1/8/2025, 12:51:02 PM | 0 1 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

I hadn't come across this writer before. Do you know which of her books this poem is published in?

1/8/2025, 3:23:04 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

will it have its own mausoleum?

1/8/2025, 2:05:05 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

thanks. I can never do it simply with a bw layer; the conversion is always a group of layers, bw, curves, often also levels. And always a recolour to warm it, which can have a surprising impact on perceived tonality.

31/7/2025, 4:18:46 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

I'm prone to #misprision, misreadings and mishearings. It can be fun, like when I found owl fat yoghurt in the fridge. But this headline almost gave me a conniption. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

31/7/2025, 4:05:42 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

it absolutely is, though I'm increasingly drawn to bw .. but always shooting in colour so I retain as much info as possible for the conversion. I'm an inveterate tweaker of bw conversion, which has its own pathology.

31/7/2025, 3:59:44 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

'but we didn't have to pay' .. a Monty Python sketch has Dinsdale Piranha as a mob boss. Here's one appreciative regular victim on having his head nailed to the floor: www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_kR...

31/7/2025, 12:52:03 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

"As part of the deal, Brown has agreed to not discriminate racially in its admissions practices or University programming" Not often you see 'not' doing so much work. www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025...

31/7/2025, 12:10:04 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

not knowing and not remembering are core leadership skills in most institutions. Although 'leadership' is doing some heavy lifting there.

30/7/2025, 12:41:42 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

this is an absolute masterclass of pose, composition and lighting .. just beautiful. This doesn't happen by accident .. so much patient working at the craft by both the model and the photographer has gone into this.

29/7/2025, 5:05:27 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg (@theradr.bsky.social) reposted

Zichro L'MAAPACHA May his memory be for the revolution ❤️‍🔥 The activist & writer Awdah Hathaleen-- who worked on the film NO OTHER LAND, & brought so many Jews, Israelis & others to Umm Al-Khair to teach abt the realities of settler violence, was murdered by a West Bank settler w/terrorist record. +

Awdah Hathaleen in front of Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem
28/7/2025, 9:06:27 PM | 1042 481 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

There's a follow up, putting some of the Aberdeen story against the 2020 election. Looks like the full follow-up film is on YT www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9Rw...

27/7/2025, 6:47:49 PM | 2 1 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

let's not forget the pioneering work of the much-missed Janey Godley, with her solo protest at one of his Scottish courses in 2016.

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27/7/2025, 6:29:30 PM | 7 1 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

Balancing freedom and control is half the battle, for composition and posing. I used to over-direct terribly, and still sometimes fall into it. The other half is lighting and camera control. The other half is making the model feel safe. Other other halves are available. Humour helps.

25/7/2025, 1:55:29 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

I'm with you on shooting 3/4 or closer, but I do like to let models move their arms. It means often having to give feedback about how much space they have, but it can be expressive. If they have control. I love models who, when you say, Move half an inch to the right, can move exactly half an inch,

25/7/2025, 1:50:13 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Kim Lane Scheppele (@kimlanelaw.bsky.social) reposted reply parent

"I cannot, of course, deny that these men are surprised that this is the law; they really are surprised that there is any such thing as law. These defendants did not rely on any law at all. Their program ignored and defied all law. That this is so will appear from many acts and statements. . ." /2

24/7/2025, 9:40:27 PM | 20 8 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

carefully painted in with black? not an attempt to hide it. Loss of light will be infinitesimal.

23/7/2025, 7:40:57 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

with @arielanderssen.bsky.social channeling Horst P Horst and Lisa Fonssagrives. Ariel, obviously, is Lisa, and I'm Horst. Just to be clear. #portrait

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23/7/2025, 7:13:29 PM | 15 2 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

#Gaza and #Biafra: parallels: 1960s, oil-rich Biafra (largely Igbo) tried to secede from Nigeria; the national govt starved the region. #Genocide? recognised as such by neutrals - not the UK, which armed the Nigerian govt. theendofhistory.net/biafra-genoc...

23/7/2025, 12:52:17 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

with Scarlot Rose a few years ago #portrait #fineartnude .. well, nude enough

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22/7/2025, 2:16:49 AM | 38 1 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

thanks. sounds like a good reason to visit Berlin again

20/7/2025, 8:39:24 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

Where is it? A museum specifically for Newton's work?

20/7/2025, 12:09:11 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

I half-expected Greece or Turkey .. it has a Byzantine feel.

19/7/2025, 10:00:44 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

sometimes you don't need to tell people everything great image .. I'm curious to know where the location is

19/7/2025, 1:18:44 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

these are something special .. such a strong sense of connecting with a real person

18/7/2025, 4:16:17 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

hate it when photographers can't decide which is the best version, colour or bw. More Victoriah #fineartnude #nude #portrait

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18/7/2025, 2:51:09 AM | 16 1 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Dr. Mar 💙 (@boldnewme.bsky.social) reposted

Aviva Dautch reminds us: genocide doesn’t begin with one moment, it escalates through deniable, gradual steps. This isn’t “how it starts.” It’s already underway. The task now isn’t prevention, it’s intervention.👇

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3/7/2025, 2:08:40 PM | 115 61 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

the great thing about shooting like that is when you just can't get the shot, you only have to fall over sideways and you're in the foetal position ready to weep.

14/7/2025, 10:44:05 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

I was shooting with a model who was doing a fine art degree. My elegant shot of her beside a window is countered by her shot of me squeezing myself under a wash hand basin to get the angle I wanted.

14/7/2025, 9:43:04 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

thanks .. that makes more sense than a phone! The shots are great. I'm going to pinch the idea.

14/7/2025, 3:05:32 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

look at post-Thatcher UK. Thames water a prime example. Take over infrastructure. Don't maintain it, don't invest in it. Massively increase charges to public. Take massive profits for shareholders. Inflate CEO salary. As system fails, pump shit into rivers. Get bailed out by govt / taxpayers.

13/7/2025, 10:03:16 PM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

curious to know .. were you wide open at f1.2? What ISO? It looks like a phone light and I'd have thought you'd be pushing it to get a good exposure.

13/7/2025, 8:24:15 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

It's a lovely image .. I often wonder why shots of a model laughing tend not to be thought of as art. They're often the moments that most catch the person, which is surely what #portrait is all about.

13/7/2025, 2:53:48 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

Victoriah #nude #fineartnude

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13/7/2025, 2:11:19 AM | 19 1 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

Gleichshaltung

12/7/2025, 5:29:26 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

definitely up for this secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/...

12/7/2025, 11:05:58 AM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

nay to the mesh thingy for me .. it might be a striking image when you use it but it ceases to be a portrait. But then that isn't everyone's priority.

11/7/2025, 11:23:12 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

This is Gleichshaltung, the process whereby institutions and agencies not originally tasked with implementing racial politics 'synchronised' their policies to mesh with the authoritarian and racist priorities of the regime's core constituency.

11/7/2025, 11:58:37 AM | 3 3 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

born in 50s UK, I grew up frequently hearing 'It [Holocaust] could never happen here.' I know it took folk in the UK a long time to realise what was happening in 1930s Germany, still .. Unsettling now to hear 'it could never happen here' again. From white people, inevitably. #Windrush

11/7/2025, 11:53:28 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture LOLGOP (@thefarce.org) reposted reply parent

This episode features one of my favorite Pitzer lines ever, and I'm going to steal it to be the first sentence of my Russian novel.

10/7/2025, 2:10:02 PM | 157 31 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

will it be livestreamed?

7/7/2025, 11:18:52 AM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture This Is NOT Business As Usual (@jemartisby.bsky.social) reposted

There’s a difference between appreciating your country and idolizing it. Patriotism invites accountability. Nationalism shuts it down.

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4/7/2025, 10:15:03 PM | 63 27 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

Trying one of these AI language-learning apps. You get to converse with historical characters, such as Osiris, for example. Had a chat with him tonight. Told him I'd seen him in the supermarket in Istanbul. He denied it, of course. But he's unmistakable.

4/7/2025, 1:51:10 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

stepwise acquiescence to dictatorship generally involves a lot of violence: the dictator's war against his own people means a steady increase in disappearances and executions. German resistance leader Helmuth James von Moltke wrote of guillotines 'working round the clock' in cities across Germany.

4/7/2025, 12:35:56 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Satan’s Niece (@krissychula.bsky.social) reposted

This is high art

6/4/2025, 9:37:14 PM | 26602 7633 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

that, and mass surveillance technology like nothing National Socialism could draw on .. CCTV, face recognition, phone tracking, web use trackers, homes full of smart devices, data-scraping companies with colossal processing power, companies like Palantir already embedded in the state.

3/7/2025, 12:28:08 AM | 7 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

the most sobering thing is that by the 30s .. Jan 1933 for the Enabling Act .. the decisive shift had already happened. The process started in early 1919 and by the 30s National Socialism was already an established force, electorally and in thuggery. If you're 1930s Germany, it's already too late.

3/7/2025, 12:21:37 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

The word isn't 'shafted', it's 'culled'. Behind Trump stand eugenicists.

1/7/2025, 9:20:22 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

I agree. But on the other hand, it does kind of reveal what he's been aiming for all along.

1/7/2025, 4:42:27 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

did someone say Time Lord?

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1/7/2025, 12:30:02 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social)

Seen this @arielanderssen.bsky.social?

30/6/2025, 3:44:19 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

part of which is not assuming because we heard a particular word that we know exactly what the speaker meant by it; we listen carefully, as we read texts carefully, with context.

30/6/2025, 9:09:42 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

watch any German football programme and you'll hear both kaempfen and siegen, with not the faintest hint of National Socialist connotation.

30/6/2025, 9:07:22 AM | 4 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Harry Smart (@munross.bsky.social) reply parent

a better analogy might be Kampf .. which is the ordinary German word for fight / struggle. You can't take it out of the German language because of the title of one book. 'Mein Kampf', the phrase, is different, just as 'Sieg Heil' the phrase is different.

30/6/2025, 9:06:03 AM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view