It is a widespread misconception that going to grad school in philosophy is "easy money." Thousands of undergrads apply to PhD programs every year, thinking they'll be in Dave Chalmers's penthouse making a cool mil in just a few years. Articles like this are so useful in combating that delusion

Truly amazing how basically of the fights that took place during Reconstruction are still live issues today.

A person who detests badness but is afraid or unwilling to criticize it publicly may not be the worst person. But they’re not really good people.

I’m unclear what’s supposed to be the effect of online predation of libs. Winning hearts and minds? Convincing libs they’re wrong? Making them afraid to say lib things?

Robert E. Lee got his ass beat at Gettysburg by a professor of rhetoric and oratory from Bowdoin College and generations of reactionary fantasists have died mad about it.

Robert E Lee: traitor, slaver, loser.

Today my students discussed whether and to what extent Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism play a similar structural role in Europe to the role antisemitism played in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Then the Israeli Foreign Ministry just goes and tweets out an Islamophobic octopus.

I thought the snorting heroin off a toilet seat, hiding a bear murder victim in Central Park, tying a whale carcass to the roof of his car, having not-sex with an obsessed Olivia Nuzzi were going to be the weirdest things I heard about our secretary of health and human services.

A smart, sophisticated commentary in @time.com on how the SAVE America Act would harm voters with disabilities. By @northeasternu.bsky.social Media Advocacy student @nihess17.bsky.social. time.com/article/2026...

I want to go back and relive the few seconds that I believed this person was in discussion to join another football organization.

The recent arson attack on Hatzola ambulances is a gut-wrenching reminder that hate does not operate in a vacuum. Whether it is a medical service, businesses or a mosque, these attacks share a common DNA. From today, the responses of many will miss some fundamental things 🧵 1/6

This might actually be my room 101.

Hang on a minute, you’re telling me “wrought” is not the past tense of “wreak”? Why did you all let me go around thinking that for decades?!

You guys. Liz Lemon outright says she’s probably going to vote Republican and lie about it.

The Dem leaders and podcasters supporting him are all unwilling to say that what they want is a white man who has a “politically incorrect” background. Not even because they’re racist and sexist, but because they think everyone else is.

Gotta say, if you asked me if each of these were important, I’d say yes. Just because I don’t think they’re all jointly achievable doesn’t mean I don’t think they’re important. We simply can’t have all the important things.

I’ve got the They Changed the Recipe on a Favorite Childhood Junk Food That I Wanted to Eat Nostalgically for the First Time in Years Blues.

Thought I might set up a little thread for stories I see about ordinary people saying no.

First time as tragedy, second time as giant data centers with anti-aircraft lasers on the roof

Despite the accusations that we were ghouls, the vast majority of Bluesky anons and randos didn’t even say this much about Charlie Kirk. Just that they weren’t going to pretend he was a good person.

Y’all. KFC Jellybeans. @sharky.bsky.social and I tried them so you don’t have to…

Only the most whip-smart, alpha, freethinking, symmetrical-skulled, and whitest kids would ask for kid-friendly foods at a fancy restaurant. Definitely not a thing that literally every kid ever (other than the most inveterate adult-pleasers) does in this situation.

Role Models: What Were They?

A novel observation: Trump is an unabashedly horrible person

The thing I sadly remember Robert Mueller for is that meaning well and trying to do the right thing was simply not enough.

The Dow has lost like 10% since Pam Bondi complained that we shouldn’t care about the Epstein files because of how the Dow was doing.

Extremely Offline Husband did not know what a tankie was.

This feels like the split between Bluesky libs and Twitter libs.

Do you know how much money the military is losing?

MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS

Ok I’m going to guess without looking that the Dow went down today.

Old man yells at Claude

Name your favorite movie score or soundtrack. Not the best one, but a sentimental fave

Happy spring, everyone! 🌱 The Picciuto Garden begins!

Speaking of decent people, it’s been unironically affirming to see non-Jews criticize antisemitism because they are well-meaning normal people, as opposed to a bunch of philosemite (derogatory) Christian nationalist accelerationist weirdos.

I don’t speak German. The what-what-problem?

Naomi Watts as Jackie O in the JFK jr/Carolyn Bessette tv show suffers from the Truman Capote problem: if the real life person you’re portraying has a bizarre voice or accent, it’s better to slightly underplay it. If you err even a little on the side of overplaying, you sound like a parody.

It’s amazing how quickly Black women have been targeted by these laws and doubly so how little this factors into the analysis around the sexual and gender politics of this movement.

I have a cloudy head cold, and I just spent far far too long agog at the “fact” that Booker T Jones is Willie Nelson’s son.

In an act of civil disobedience in 1978, disabled protesters blocked Denver buses to demand wheelchair lifts. But before they could build a civil rights movement--they needed to go to court to win the right to be arrested. My story. @npr.org stephrwolf.bsky.social www.npr.org/2026/03/19/n...

We youngest siblings know exactly what this means

I just saw the ICE episode of the Pitt. I’d heard a lot of people saying they both-sides-ed it and, at least so far, that did not happen.

I might have asked this before but I forgot what everyone said, so I want your nominations for the best American accent by a non-American in a movie or TV show.

smh the women really should have thought of this before sharing their stories

out now in Science: @loganjames.bsky.social collected pairs of sounds in 16 species where we *know* which sound is more attractive (to that species) he played them to ppl on themusiclab.org, asking, in each pair, which was nicer. humans agreed w other animals doi.org/10.1126/science.aea1202

He is becoming more disinhibited, no doubt. But sometimes when I consider whether something like this is an example of it, I have to remember that this is the same guy who said about John McCain: “I like people who weren’t captured.”

mill's dedication: this is a jointly authored work a century & a half of male editors: mill exaggerated out of a sentimental fondness for his wife mill's letters: no, really, most of "my" work was partly by her, i really could not be clearer on this

Fellow New Yorkers: I do not know what a garbage plate even is. A garbage pie? Yes. Is it the same thing?