Tootfinder

I shared insights from research on AI's impact on undergrad creators by my collaborators Greg Nelson and Troy Schotter in an interview with Devin Daigneault for FoxABC Maine about the upcoming #MaineAIconf Friday 13 June.

Calamus 26 We two boys together clinging
This is one of the gayest of the Calamus poems, a fantasy of two men against the world, full of life and ardor. I should be all over this in my gay reading!
Instead I see a darker form of Americanism here. "Power enjoying ... Armed and fearless ... No law less than ourselves". It's classic American individualism fantasy, a repudiation of community and law. Armed, at that.
On top of that I trip over the "North and South" part every time I read this. In 1860 when this was published we were just steps away from a Civil War after 10 years of enormous tension. I don't blame Whitman for wanting unity, his whole program in Leaves of Grass is American unity. All I can think is how there's no moral equivalence between the North and South. But Whitman wasn't an abolitionist and this poem reflects that.
Sorry for not reveling in the gay, maybe it's the ICE and California National Guard news affecting my reading today.

What is this nonsense?

Sie gehören zum Besten, was der deutsche Schachnachwuchs zu bieten hat! 🔥
Auch 2025 sind wieder zahlreiche Kaderspieler:innen des Deutschen Schachbundes bei der #dem25 am Start – und unter ihnen auch Titelverteidiger:innen:
Tamila Trunz, Michelle Trunz, Vadim Petrovskiy, Johannes von Mettenheim und Mykhaylo Nezhyvenko haben 2024 jeweils ihre Altersklasse gewonnen und wollen auch dieses Jah…

Oettle berichtet über einen Hundeangriff mit Schusswaffengebrauch in #Ulm – und zeigt nebenbei die Parallelen zwischen seiner persönlichen Hundeaversion und den Befindlichkeiten des deutschen Michels auf. #Satire #UlmDonau

Schusswaffengebrauch und Hundeführerschein: Hunde in den Zoo!
Die Mainstreammedien schweigen das Thema Tod – Cornelius W. M. traut sich: Lesen Sie hier die Wahrheit über Hundekriminalität.

Ich bin an dem Punkt, wo ich einfach gern eine halbwegs funktionierende freiheitlich-demokratische, rechtsstaatliche Regierung hätte. Wo diese mit meinen persönlichen Überzeugungen und Vorstellungen übereinstimmt, ist mir inzwischen (beinahe) egal.
(Kann ich die Bonner Republik nochmal sehen?)
#Merz

The dedication from the first edition of The Joy of Gay Sex, by Charles Silverstein and Edmund White. Love the contrast here: Charles dedicates it to his partner, White "to all my tricks"

I appreciate the idea that you can respond to tickets really fast, but when it is obvious some sort of LLM is being used to respond and not answering the question asked, it is worse.
I'm looking at you https://clicks.tech

Calamus 25 The prairie-grass dividing
Whitman's celebration of simple men, of men from "inland America", of those who are unimpressed by Presidents and Governors. It's a romantic sentiment but in 2025 also feels a little naïve or condescending.
But as always I'm here for the gay stuff. Which starts explicitly enough
[I] Demand the most copious and close companionship of men
Well OK then! Me too. Maybe you could read that in a non-sexual way but then Whitman gets lusty
[I demand] Those with a never-quell'd audacity—those with sweet and lusty flesh, clear of taint, choice and chary of its love-power
My goodness, is that hot! At least to start, it's a shame he tames it seeking out men "chary of love-power". At least he recognizes their love power! I'll take the taint, thank you.