Shannon Mattern
director of creative research @ the metro ny library council; resigned full professor of media studies, art history + anthropology
architecture, archives, 🎨, cities, 🐕, infrastructure, libraries, 🗺️, sound++
nyc + upstate
wordsinspace.net
- Reposted by Shannon Matternthey don't have enough guys, and if the response in Minnesota shows anything it is that trying something like this is going to drive a much larger backlash than anything they hope to gain out of it "oh well I guess we'll just stay home" is not how this is going to go
- 🚨BREAKING: Steve Bannon said Tuesday that the federal government is planning to send Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to patrol polling stations during this year’s midterm elections. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
- Reposted by Shannon MatternA reminder! George Lakoff came up with the 'truth sandwich' concept during Trump's first term. It's not magic but it's good basic information hygiene and should be the default when fighting against bullshit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_s...
- Reposted by Shannon MatternTortoise, "In Sarah, Mencken, Christ And Beethoven There Were Women And Men". This version is sublime. youtu.be/EwJf5fw57Yo?...
- This is a split-flap, and it’s a charismatic artifact of media history :) wordsinspace.net/2020/12/03/f... wordsinspace.net/fluttering-c...
- Reposted by Shannon MatternOur hot new MJ cover story on all the idiotic things Trump is doing to control America's 250 anniversary celebrations and ictate the presentation of US history and culture is online. Read it before the First Amendment gets canceled. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
- Reposted by Shannon MatternINBOX: Robert McCartney, who worked for 39 years at The Washington Post, including as a Metro columnist and editor, before retiring in 2021, claims on X that he has heard the Post has laid off *all* its photojournalists.
- Reposted by Shannon MatternI fear, like our deeply wounded democracy, we will not understand what we’ve lost until it’s gone and it will be hard if not impossible to get it back. I am open to meeting with or convening with anyone trying to work to preserve the free press that we have.
- Reposted by Shannon MatternFor the latest issue of The Magazine Antiques I wrote about Ethan Allen catalogs, the Eamses, Venturi & Scott Brown, and the fraught effort to celebrate the 200th birthday of the United States at a moment when the country was a hot mess. Sound familiar? 🦅 www.themagazineantiques.com/article/1976...
- Reposted by Shannon MatternHeads are going to explode 💥 Cato Institute just nuked the lie. Immigrants have cut U.S. deficits by $14.5 TRILLION since 1994, slashing the national debt by a third. All that “immigrants are bleeding us dry” noise? Absolute bullshit. 1/3
- Reposted by Shannon Mattern6/ The Post has lost over 375,000 subscribers in just over a year. If 10% of those readers subscribed to The 51st instead, we could hire 10 reporters and five editors, dramatically scaling our coverage of the city at this critical time. 51st.news/signup
- Reposted by Shannon MatternMy story on Elon Musk cutting safeguards at xAI is on the front page of today's @washingtonpost.com. I’m also among 100’s of reporters laid off. I absolutely loved my job my brilliant coworkers & the thrill of reporting @ the center of forces upending the world: AI & Silicon Valley’s political power
- Reposted by Shannon MatternI learned the extent of this while reporting on the art industry too
- I realize we have to care about this stuff because our gullible, opportunistic, and/or fatalistic “leaders” have bought into it, and they’re damaging our institutions, environment, and democracy – but my god, is it all ever mind-numbingly stupid 😜
- Reposted by Shannon MatternIncredible. They destroyed a great newspaper because they hated the people who actually paid for it and read it so much that they'd rather scrap the paper if they couldn't get Tucker Carlson's audience bsky.app/profile/maxt...
- Reposted by Shannon Mattern"We’re witnessing a murder," writes @ashleyrparker.bsky.social. "Jeff Bezos ... and Will Lewis, the publisher he appointed at the end of 2023, are embarking on the latest step of their plan to kill everything that makes the paper special." www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
- Reposted by Shannon MatternThe DNC is launching a "local listeners" project, which would have been nice in 2022–23, ahead of 2024! Might have quantified the disaffected base and low turnout by Dem voters. But the Biden-Harris White House was led by corporate consultant Anita Dunn, with no interest in listening to grassroots.
- Reposted by Shannon MatternVisualization and design has changed so much in 25+ years. I don’t think we talk enough about professional development and continuing courses for higher ed faculty. Time to learn suffers when the need to produce is all that matters.
- Reposted by Shannon MatternI talked to a woman who quit an AUSA job recently. She was asked by main DOJ to dismiss a Medicare fraud prosecution because the defendant was the daughter of a girlfriend of a MAGA figure.
- Reposted by Shannon MatternBREAKING: 8 more U.S. Attorneys in MN resign from Trump’s DOJ in protest as backlash grows. This isn’t normal; isn’t routine reshuffling. It’s a rebellion. Last month, 6 veteran prosecutors quit in protest. Normal staffing for the MN DOJ’s office is around 50 attorneys. They’re down to just 9.
- Reposted by Shannon MatternI wrote about Minnesota and ICE and how average Americans are reclaiming the power that the administration is abusing. www.pbump.net/o/this-is-wh...
- Reposted by Shannon MatternThe US immigrant population generated more in taxes than they received in benefits from all levels of government every year from 1994 to 2023. The Cato study provides the first-ever 30-year analysis of the fiscal effects of immigration on government budgets. ow.ly/jy8a50Y8kM3
- Reposted by Shannon Matternahahahahaha lakeoswegoreview.com/2026/02/02/l...
- Reposted by Shannon MatternLove how all these academics try to excuse their Epstein associations as owing to genuine intellectual stimulation and meanwhile his big thought-provoking questions are like "why do women live past menopause?"
- Reposted by Shannon MatternAmong the millions of Epstein documents released Friday by the DOJ, several involve Brad Karp, the chairman of the mega law firm Paul Weiss, which was the very first firm to bend the knee to Felon Trump. I analyze the documents & the relationship between Epstein and Karp. youtu.be/K3jJASJ1pLA?...
- Reposted by Shannon MatternFloored by this story. A man wrote a pollite email to a federal prosecutor objecting to the deportation of an Afghan seeking asylum. DHS responded with an administrative warrant to get the man's info from Google, then visited his home to intimidate him.
- Reposted by Shannon Mattern“.. Not a single Republican member of Congress showed up to the public forum .. on the violence inflicted by federal immigration agents, featuring testimony from the brothers of Renee Good ..” @newrepublic.com newrepublic.com/post/206100/...
- Reposted by Shannon Matterni was actually shocked to see the numbers on new research from Global Energy Monitor on new gas projects in the US: nearly 100 gigawatts of power—enough to power tens of millions of homes—are currently in development explicitly to power data centers. At the end of 2023 that number was 4 gigawatts
- Reposted by Shannon MatternOne by one, Europeans mentioned in the Epstein files who still hold political office are beginning to resign or are being forced out of office. Meanwhile, ruled by an administration almost entirely made up of Epstein associates, the US carries on as if nothing really happened.
- Reposted by Shannon MatternThere's a lot of reporting, not only this story, that this guy is the acting president. Gift link.
- Reposted by Shannon MatternIt’s hard to put into perspective how truly massive the warehouse is that was recently sold by the Rockefeller Group to the Department of Homeland Security for $70 million to build a concentration camp in Surprise, AZ. Across the street is a huge neighborhood and a school. It’s 400,000-square-feet.
- Reposted by Shannon MatternBREAKING -- New York and New Jersey both jointly sued the Trump administration tonight over the regime's refusal to restore funds for the Gateway Project's Hudson River Tunnel. The tunnel is expected to run out of money Friday if the funds stay frozen. Story TK w/ @mollycranenewman.bsky.social
- Reposted by Shannon MatternFederal Agents Left Behind “Death Cards” After Capturing Immigrants ICE agents dropped customized ace of spades playing cards, recalling a macabre practice by U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War. theintercept.com/2026/02/03/i...
- Reposted by Shannon Matternfirst of all, New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) established a high standard for public officials who wanna sue for defamation, so jot that down second of all, baybee the discovery in such a lawsuit?? you really want to hand over to Trevor any evidence relating to the truthfulness of the claim?? lol
- Reposted by Shannon MatternNothing even remotely like the modern system of tightly restricted international borders existed in biblical times.
- Reposted by Shannon Mattern74% of Democrats support abolishing ICE, with 53% *strongly* supporting it, according to YouGov polling from last month. Weak calls for "reform" are coming from *elected* Democrats like Chuck, not the average Democratic voter.
- Reposted by Shannon MatternAlready seated, listening to Garcia and now Sen. Blumenthal, are two of Renee Nicole Good's brothers, Luke and Brent Ganger. Blumenthal says Good and Alex Pretti, while here in spirit, "should be here in person, but they were murdered. They were murdered by their own government, in cold blood."
- Reposted by Shannon MatternI guess if you’re Josh Hawley and you’re the kind of person who flees in terror from a riot you started the courage of ordinary people must seem befuddling
- Reposted by Shannon MatternTruly Stasi-like. What would you say if you saw it in another country?
- Reposted by Shannon MatternMy office and a group of AGs secured over $17 million from drug companies Bausch and Lannett for inflating the prices of medication for diabetes, cancer, ADHD, and more. New Yorkers who may have been cheated can claim the money they're owed.
- Reposted by Shannon MatternIncredible accounting of all the ways that Trump is trying to rewrite, abolish, bulldoze, destroy America's history and gaslight the public by @dfriedman.bsky.social and @noturtlesoup17.bsky.social www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
- Reposted by Shannon MatternThis is a great example of what Marx called "the vampire thirst for the living blood of labour."
- Reposted by Shannon MatternWorth reading:
- Reposted by Shannon MatternFolks, please retweet this. Trump, Noem, and the rest are lying everywhere about what ICE is doing in MN. We have to do everything we can to make sure the country has a clear picture of what is going on.
- “Anything—and it seems everything—can be ‘made great again’… I have been wondering if there is something we might call againism that is related to, but distinct from, nostalgia… It wants to repeat. Even when what againism seeks to repeat might be—and most often is—a fantasy.”
- “Againism, in this sense, is a structure of feeling. Those invited to participate in it are asked to detach from any sense of responsibility toward history and justice. Asked, in fact, to detach from knowing anything that might produce discomfort.”
- "In the 🇺🇸, artists who fight for [their] art might have better chances doing so cloaked as businesses. The artists in Andersen v. Stability AI went from making their case as persons w/ identities that had been stolen by businesses to becoming businesses w/ brands fighting against unfair competition"
- Reposted by Shannon Mattern"So it turns out Trump was involved with a pedophile human trafficking ring masquerading as a modeling agency where the perpetrator died under mysterious circumstances in prison" "Oh yeah, Jeffrey Epstein right?" "No, I mean the OTHER time that happened" bsky.app/profile/meid...
- Our Misfits class is now working on our spring publication. A small grp is wrkg w/ me to learn about peer review + to design a collaborative review process that fits our ethos + vibe :) W/ their input, I created an agenda for our first wrkshp this wknd 📝🎉 crossreference.wordsinspace.net/fall2025/
- Reposted by Shannon MatternDHS said that the woman CBP shot in the chest in Portland was “involved” in a gang shooting. Her ~involvement~ was that suspected gang members sexually assaulted and robbed her.
- Reposted by Shannon MatternThe phrase "professional activist" is functionally meaningless. It's a term that politicians and corporate targets have used for generations to discredit anyone who's effectively challenged them. Anyone who deploys it in earnest to discredit deeply committed people is broadcasting their ignorance.
- Today's @hammerandhope.bsky.social nwsltr (not archived online 🥺) is from their editorial art director, Alexandra Zsigmond, who describes the power + poetry of what an art director *does* — part of which is "supporting artists as political thinkers... Editorial art is a form of public art."
- Reposted by Shannon MatternIt’s your city, from the sidewalk to the skyline. The David Dinkins Municipal Building’s rooftop is open & free to everyone, starting this June.
- Reposted by Shannon MatternBulk sales of tickets to Melania are being promoted through emails from WH Faith Office advisor Paula White-Cain using her National Faith Advisory Board list. People are encouraged to purchase 30 tickets at a time to “support our First Lady.” meidasnews.com/news/exclusi...
- Reposted by Shannon Mattern[This post could not be retrieved]
- Reposted by Shannon MatternAvailable for pre-order from @uminnpress.bsky.social: Broken Worlds, Disabled Kin: Strategies for Collective Survival, co-authored with @anneemcguire.bsky.social www.upress.umn.edu/978151791973...
- Round One of the Insurance Fight: Andy’s insurance co informed us today that they’ve generously agreed to cover a full ⭐️$0 ⭐️ of the scans and treatments that detected and saved him from a massive tumor. Bring it on, bitches 🥊
- "I don’t know what school was like before all of these tools, but I don’t necessarily feel like any of them really help me learn... [I like to do 🎨 assgnmts by hand, yet] these analog methods are completely ignored in favor of modern, technological approaches... It almost feels 'over-engineered.'"
- Reposted by Shannon MatternOf course the Institute of Museum and Library Services' $14M Freedom Truck mobile exhibitions feature "unbelievable content" designed by PragerU and Hillsdale! Unbelievable indeed!
- Reposted by Shannon MatternThe IMLS propaganda machine is in full swing, and $14 million in tax dollars just went to PragerU to do the work that libraries and museums are actually experts in. buttondown.com/wellsourced/...
