if all you look for in the past is yourself, you'll never see a thing that's actually there - because you're out here, not in there.

my favorite episode of Babylon 5 was whe Marduk and Mušḫuššu delivered toys to all the good children of the Fertile Crescent on Enlil's Harvest Night.

networks.h-net.org/node/73374/a... was about to send an abstract here but whoops, they mean something other than what Americanists mean by it.

People who understand gay jokes are bad in general seem to make an exception if it's Trump or Putin, and that always feels a little bit gross.

On Saturday morning, June 19, 1954, Wyoming Senator Lester C. Hunt walked into his Senate office and shot himself with a .22 rifle he'd brought from home. He died a few hours later at Casualty Hospital, now the rehab facility Specialty Hospital. thehillishome.com/2010/09/lost...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_R.... two men who ran for President in 1976 lived to vote for Kamala Harris. One of course was Jimmy Carter, the other was former Oklahoma Senator Fred Harris (1930-2024.)

The new (Canadian) Anglican liturgies for the blessing of a gender transition/name change explicitly link it to the taking on of new names in the Bible, as part of the sanctifying of new covenants, in a way that's really beautiful and moving.

yes I read this all the time as a kid. yes I described it to people excitedly. yes I was a little weird.

John Gunther's INSIDE USA and the one-volume edition of Baring-Gould's ANNOTATED SHERLOCK HOLMES

This is why I am decidedly bearish on the scientific and industrial potential of an independent Confederate States of America, by the by.

I wound up not having anything to add to @tranquilitypress.bsky.social's forthcoming Dominion War analogy - but I have to admit, I had never heard of John Ellis's ONE DAY IN A VERY LONG WAR before reading their prompt. My copy of the book recently arrived and I really like it!

Was sent this by a friend and thought of @carloshasanax.bsky.social on account of being about the cursed, tragic town of Cairo, IL. Going to have to try the sauce, which sounds the very thing for a fatty cut of pork. substack.com/@midwesterne...

the local used bookstore has a giant rack of Neil Gaiman books in its SF/fantasy section. I think I know what happened there! Also Zola books. Less sure about that one.

that horrible ad everyone is sharing makes me miss my mom.

Today is the birthday of Frank Lausche (1895-1990), who I would call the Joe Lieberman of the 1950s if that wasn't a very harsh take on Lausche. True, Lausche was probably the most conservative member of the Dem caucus from the North in the 1950s and 1960s. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_L...

Hurrah! My article on the Twilight 2000 RPG in the Journal of American Studies is now open access (OA), so anyone who wants to can have a read. OA is important to me, as I want my work on RPG history to go beyond the academy and reach the gaming public. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

I wonder if Fillmore might have been electable to a second term in 1856 had the election gone to the House - the era was partisan enough that maybe Republicans and Democrats alike in the House would have preferred anything other than a member of the other party. wouldn't bet money it though.

the US was in bad shape by 1852. the leading Dem nominee who could have avoided Kansas-Nebraska most effectively (Marcy) wanted a war with Cuba instead! That's bad!

Conference on „STAR TREK, DYNAMICS OF A WORLD-BUILDING FACTORY“ to celebrate 60 Years of Star Trek, next September 17-19, 2026, in Paris. CfP: startrekparis2026.wordpress.com/appel-a-comm...

Happy #pubday to "The Star-Spangled Republic: Political Astronomy and the Rise of the American Constellation" by Eran Shalev! Examining the cosmic conceit at the heart of early American political rhetoric www.upress.virginia.edu/title/10148/ #skystorians #booksky

Just 5 weeks to go. Pre-order Making Michigan Home - 30% off Examines how Mexican Americans made their home in the Midwest Timely given how current admin wants mass deportations ignoring their history in the region #Latinx #History #USHistory #EduSky #SkyStorians #MAS #MexicanAmerican #Chicanx 🗃

🚨We’re looking for editors to join our team at The International Journal of the History of Sport @ijhs.bsky.social - if you work on sport history in Latin America or Asia (any countries) please apply for these 2 roles by Dec 3 #sporthistory #skystorians 🗃️ think.taylorandfrancis.com/editor_recru...

here's one - Reagan's primary loss in 1976.

oh hey, a ghost story by Russell Kirk. yes he made it political.

if something peculiar happens in American succession and Chuck Grassley becomes POTUS, we would finally have a President born in the 1930s. (we never have, and probably never will.) I've seen people make all sorts of generational truths out of this - but I don't know.

I could not talk my son into writing "None! Long live the Mamluke Sultanate!" in his history question about the benefits of the Mongol Empire but by god he knows why that's funny. or why I claim it is, anyway.

THOMAS MORE AND THE GARDEN OF PAIN yes, good, this is why you read history.

www.smh-hq.org/conf/cfp.html oh no

okay. 1. doughface. a sad case. a drunk who fell off the wagon after a horrific family tragedy, completely unable to apply whatever firmness he might have had to the Presidency at a time when _some_ kind of leadership was necessary. friend of Hawthorne, if you know what I mean. Kansas-Nebraska.

but seriously, NIGHT OF CAMP DAVID has been a subject of some recent discussion because of how accidentally on-the-nose it is. SEVEN DAYS IN MAY, woof. obviously if someone was threatening American democracy, it would have to be a universally beloved war hero. who else could do it?

the career of Sarah McBride makes me badly want a remake of the 1972 film THE MAN with an LGBT (probably trans) lead actress and character. (probably need to change the title, obviously). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man...

watched INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS with my son last night: 1. the brainiac male scientists are the ones who get suckered, it's the women and kids who can spot the imposters 2. having to explain what a trip to Reno meant to a film audience in the late 50s

Soon

I inherited a house in the semi-rural South from my parents and I am as liberal I ever was. (of course, so were they.)

perhaps the most famous person to share my birthday (November 10) was Winston Churchill. "But wait," I see you saying, "wasn't he born November 30?" GUESS AGAIN. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston...

so anyway, tomorrow's my birthday! there will be cake, and breakfast in bed, and new books. big fun!

made curry pork fried rice; wound up with what was essentially curry carnitas in rice and cauliflower, would make again.

an elderly lady working at the Tractor Supply Company in exurban North Carolina blamed the shutdown on Trump.

I don't know about that and neither do you.

enjoyed the way everyone looked up when I started my talk. some people read from papers, some people invite you to the exciting and only somewhat more radioactive world of 1960, where the giant craters in Russia's cities have been plowed over and turned into gardens, everything's fine.

Pete Buttigieg is still, by far, the most successful Presidential candidate of 2020 who did not become POTUS or VPOTUS. (no your favorite Senator becoming a chair of something is not the same.)

This got an audible “oh my God” at the conference, which delighted me to no end

www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/... while it's now out of date (and has some inaccuracies) this is an incredibly valuable resource for historians of Presidential politics.

romegeorgia.org/attraction/a... this was fun. he has a little fleet of aircraft carrier benches!

liked seeing a big Hate Has No Home Here shopfront here in Rome. one of those areas where you have a liberal arts college town and then a very deep red county around it.

lots of fun at the Peace History Conference, everyone loves "people get mad when you say nuclear war is winnable, circa 1951", and I had a fine old time taking pictures of the (much smaller than I expected) Rome, GA Capitoline Wolf. (it's about as big as an actual wolf with actual babies)

this looks great and I want more biopics of First and Second Great Awakening figures.

I don't really care for those jokes about Nancy Reagan. You know the ones.

a guilty pleasure - the radio adaptation of I WAS A COMMUNIST FOR THE FBI.

here's a fun scenario a late friend of mine came up with: 1978 - A youthful George W. Bush wins election to the US House of Representatives, defeating Democrat Kent Hance. He is re-elected in 1980 (when his father is elected VP) and again in 1982 from the Lubbock-centric district. /1