Got my copy of the new book from @sarahgoodyear.bsky.social and @brooklynspoke.bsky.social. I’ve been looking forward to reading it. One of the worst effects on human life around the world this century was demolishing our towns and cities that had been built so we could walk and see each other.

nothing chatgpt has done is as impressive as akinator, the mind-reading internet genie from 2007

Required reading! Thank you @adriannefblack.bsky.social for sharing your personal story/history. Goes a long way towards putting where we're at in this country into context and how we found ourselves here at this particular junction. I believe people can change. This book is proof

Those modern brick paving stones in dc get sooooo slippery. It’s enough to make you think concrete was better

I think most people can imagine where in the timeline of fascist events you’d put the history book line about America declaring itself a refuge for threatened global white elites

Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves From the Tyranny of the Automobile. “From the hosts of The War on Cars podcast, a searing indictment of how cars ruin everything, and what we can do to fight back.” [lifeaftercars.com]

I think it feels weird for people now to remember that something as horrible and era defining as the Indian Removal Act was decided by a razor-thin, polarizing vote in Congress

Florida politics has been a nightmare since the beginning, but every now and then it’s nice to think on how incredibly effective @marchforourlives.bsky.social was and still is there, against all odds.

Someone once commented to me that you can always tell medievalists because they look at the ceilings when they enter a space and I haven’t forgotten it

You know when someone steps in a puddle accidentally and then looks up suddenly to see if anyone saw? And then they make eye contact with you? I wish there were a socially appropriate way to reassure them that I hold no judgment

Rufo is such a boring interview to listen to

Deeply unexpected that one of the best exhibits of extraterrestrial gems and minerals is in the terminal of the Portland, Maine airport??

@adriannefblack.bsky.social just went to your book talk and WOW! Incredible talk. Thank you so much.

What are the random opinions I hold that surprise people? One that comes to mind is that the idea of consistent spelling is random and fake. Idk what it is about modern society that has this impulse to enforce rigid standards on things that are obviously flexible.

This is what the “visibility” means in 2025

Maryland @govwesmoore.bsky.social hosted a ceremony for International Transgender Day of Visibility this morning -- and in a remarkable turn of events, he got called out for not sufficiently supporting trans Marylanders. Here's what happened: www.thebaltimorebanner.com/politics-pow...

That took so much courage

“I never expected to face such a distressing experience after escaping persecution from the CCP in China, only to encounter a somewhat similar situation” at New College in the United States. Read more at: www.miamiherald.com/news/politic...

Seems like an odd omission that the Don’t Say Gay methods “resemble” not only Putin but also DeSantis.

This was the Parliament in Hungary in response to the passage of a bill banning pride events. If only democrats had a spine like this. www.pbs.org/newshour/wor...

In reaction to the Trump executive order declaring “race is a biological reality” and demanding that that be taught in the Smithsonian: I think the understanding of what it means that race is a legal category, not an inherent one, is weakly understood even by progressives.

👀

"A new survey of over 100,000 German respondents by T-Online about Tesla shows that a staggering 94% of its citizens say they would never purchase a Tesla car."

Just finished The Klansmans Son by @adriannefblack.bsky.social and it was absolutely phenomenal. I’ve been raving about it to EVERYONE! And I think it’s an integral way to see how the WN world works and how it has always been apart of everyday life, everywhere.

The annoying static sound that covers up the MC’s deadname in @emilystjams.bsky.social’s audiobook is so painful, so distressing, and so effective. You just want Erica to get on with it and stop subjecting us to it lol

If you're thinking to yourself: huh, I actually do have too much money, don't I-- here's a sleepaway camp for queer and trans youth that could not be more lifesaving now-- and they're committed to making sure nobody is turned away for lack of funds. It's run by @ravbogard.bsky.social, mensch.

when you look at actual salience, people don't really want to actually do anything about it. and i bet if you say "okay should this kid be forced to not play like middle school sports because they're trans" or "we should do genital inspections on female athletes" that's probably not an 80-20 issue!

Interracial marriage did not cross 50% approval in the US until 1996, when I was 30 years old. Good political messaging drives opinion, it doesn't follow it.

Sometimes I miss when I was masc presenting how low-effort nail polish elicited compliments from women right and left. Now I have to actually do cool nail art to get praised

Man my heart goes out to anyone who writes a trans memoir. I specifically did NOT write a trans memoir and yet people are often WILD in what they’ll say at book talks

Proposal: instead of saying cops have to follow the laws, a code that enforces a reverse Kantian imperative where anything cops do is automatically legal for everyone else too

It is mind-boggling to me that people say "but I had to comply with the fascists because otherwise there would be some cost—" NO FUCKING KIDDING. Did you think you'd never have to make a hard choice in Fascist America? That you wouldn't be asked to sacrifice someone and be rewarded for it?? JFC

So, like, “gender ideology” only makes sense as a term if you mean this kinda censorship stuff they are enforcing. I feel like they’re kinda walking into a rhetorical rake with this stuff

February: The Klanman’s Son @adriannefblack.bsky.social is truly an inspiration, embodying strength, intelligence, and bravery. Her story touched my heart, and I highly recommend this book. It's scary to see how current events have been unfolding for years; this is what “they” always wanted. 📖

I love Ada Palmer's posts about Renaissance in general but the LGBTQIA+ history is what I live for 🌈💙

Baltimore’s a city where you say good morning to the dude who runs a restaurant as he’s on his knees personally redoing the city sidewalk in front of his store

It makes a lot of sense strategically for Trump to have Musk be his proxy to proclaim the more explicit white power and nazi slogans and rally that constituency with plausible deniability

I WISH everybody knew about Florida goddam

Zuck: “When we say that someone can say something on our services, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we agree with that thing. It just means that we want to be a platform where people can discuss things.” I can think of quite a few things he doesn’t allow to be discussed.

It does limit one’s options for a podcast to play in the background when your daily feed randomly includes an interview with yourself

Such a delight and an honor to get to talk with the wonderful @adriannefblack.bsky.social ! And what she has to say more important now than ever-- have a listen.

This was a really good conversation with @theradr.bsky.social www.chicagohumanities.org/media/podcas...

Put I-95 underground for a stretch in the new South Baltimore Peninsula development. The highway is a huge barrier between the new neighborhood they’re spending so much to build and Fed Hill north of it. That would fix it, no?

I'm not teaching my grad course 'Civil Resistance: How It Works' this semester. But here is an abridged version of the course schedule, readings, and films I used the last time I taught it (in 2022). Just in case it's useful. drive.google.com/file/d/14RRJ...

It feels like Stephen Miller got really lucky that white power people were so antisemitic they wouldn’t accept him. That path might have kept him out of the White House, but then again who knows

Read Dave, who helped build Facebook’s first content policies, on why this week represents such a big step backwards: “The specific examples I called out above have been prohibited on the site since I wrote the first set of hate speech standards in 2009.”

“‘People should know there are steps they can take to uphold democracy’ said Erica Chenoweth. This is a core tenet of civil-resistance theory, also known as people power—that citizens, working in concert, have more agency than they are led to believe.” www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Deeply amazing that Musk would go so far this week to confirm how explicit his nazi ideology is

🚨 PSA: If you are trans, do NOT mail in your passport to attempt to change your gender marker. The State Department is currently collecting them unchanged and will not give a public timeline for returning them. You could be without a passport indefinitely.

There should be discounts on Waymos proportionate to the number of street scene captchas you’ve done over the years