visited a 12th century norman church in brindisi today. the doorjambs were so very fine.

pre-primary GE polls in Michigan are meaningless. None of them polls brilliantly against Rogers right now, but Florida man is going down.

The more I watch the primaries unfold, the more I realize that smart progressives make their policy points attacking MAGA, stupid progressives make them attacking liberals. right now, there seem to be more of the second kind around, and it's driving me around the bend

@umich.edu student government weighs in with a passionate defense of Derek Peterson's commencement address.

UM, what are we waiting for? It's past time.

My god, the new season of "Beef" is relentless. Flaubertian cruelty towards every single character. Absolutely brutally brilliant.

The Catholic soccer team arrives in Manduria

ok but how about some further instructions?

on the way home from one of the best meals i’ve had in years; walking by what’s left of the roman amphitheater which at its heyday seated 25,000 people. they told us it was animals in the morning, executions at noon, gladiators in the afternoon.

nobody does it like catholicism (chapel of the martyrs of otranto)

Two Eurasian Kestrels nesting up high on the walls of Lecce 🪶

deeply satisfying

like buying wine in Apulia. 2.80/liter. 3.50 for the fancy stuff. good, too.

best video you'll see today

Monk having fun. In Lecce, Puglia.

Made it to Lecce. The view from our roof terrace is such balm for my US-battered soul.

Derek Peterson sets the record straight. Time for UM to apologize for slandering him. facultysenate.umich.edu/statement-fr...

I made the College Fix (again)! Buy me a drink. www.thecollegefix.com/umich-facult...

Very nice, Michigan. michiganadvance.com/2026/05/05/g...

I think @umich.edu is finding this out the hard way right now -- Derek Peterson's commencement remarks are wildly popular, and the mendacious narrative that smeared anybody even mildly critical of Israel as an antisemite has lost its purchase. They're losing this one badly.

Pub day! though it should be panned for not mentioning me in the acknowledgments. I suffered for this edition!

The national AAUP is out with a statement in support of Derek Peterson. Very grateful, and proud to be a member. A bit shocking that we have not heard from UM's own faculty governance. Colleagues on SACUA, cowering will not save your research funding. www.aaup.org/news/aaup-af...

In the 1930s, Avery "Slavery" Brundage was dispatched to Berlin to ascertain whether the US should boycott Hitler's Olympics. His pro-Nazi pamphlet is in the IOC archive in Lausanne. Parallels to contemporary objections to "causes" at @umich.edu come to mind.

@umich.edu alums: let your voice ring docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Go, Derek! www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news...

good commentary on the Grasso scandal www.qasimrashid.com/p/universiti...

a DoJ official threatens a @umich.edu faculty member. But rather than denouncing Terrell, President Grasso denounces the chair of the faculty senate ladies and gentlemen, institutional neutrality

is there a greater honor than “stopantisemitism” calling for your firing? Proud of my colleague Derek Peterson today. wish i’d been there to cheer him on.

Loo in Lausanne. Nice to see a familiar face in unexpected places.

The faculty senate of the University of Michigan passed seven motions with what a friend called "overwhelming but non-Soviet margins." I'm particularly fond of the one poking Pete Hegseth in the eye (77% yes!) (1/7)

Othello says "that's silly, she'd never get with that fugly creep" and they have seven babies.

I had a lot of discussions about the reliability of AI checkers lately, particularly false positives. So I got curious and fed the last article I wrote into five different ones -- every single one concluded that it was 100% human-written. Nicest thing machines have ever said to me.

Such heinous people.

whatever else this place is, it's good at planting flowers

hm. i wonder what’s in the meatballs that made a review call them “oddly gamey”

Has anyone here been to Lecce, in Puglia, and wants to give me restaurant recommendations? Not going to Bros', I guess (this is a very funny read) www.everywhereist.com/2021/12/bros...

worth noting that a motion to reject this partnership will come up for a vote at monday’s senate meeting. please attend and/or vote if you’re a senate member (all faculty and instructors, librarians, curators, research faculty)

My modest contribution to Makled/Acker discourse. www.chronicle.com/article/no-t...

I'm having a piece come out soon on the UM regents race, featuring Jordan Acker, Amir Makled, and, in a cameo role, Lena Epstein.

Had a quick glance at twitter and it turns out the entire country is an expert in University of Michigan regent races now, it's quite remarkable. Turns out we want to be governed by Hezbollah.

i usually bake cookies for my students at the end of term. this time, i have a class of 152. it’s an assembly line in here

SACUA calls for Jordan Acker’s resignation should the Guardian reporting be substantiated facultysenate.umich.edu/statement-ac...

biscotti so my coffee won’t be lonely

The mood shift at the Michigan Democratic Convention was the result of relentless organizing by the People’s Coalition. Big shoutout to them. i was skeptical it would work, I was wrong, work works.

Someday, with luck and hard work, she will have a name too.

HOLY SHIT

Sunday morning amaryllis joy

Re-upping in light of recent developments.

I remember watching men trying to do this, and I blame their mothers for not teaching them how.

You know this trick dogs have when they lie down on your bed, and then they access some extra portion of gravity which makes them impossible to move? How do they do that?