I’m taking a break from socials in Q1. Email is the best way to contact me. Take care of yourselves and each other.

The site, now underwater, was once home to Japanese Americans seeking safety during World War II.

@zohrankmamdani.bsky.social is officially Mayor of New York City! 🎉🗽 We spoke to attendees at the new mayor's block party what they hope he accomplishes in his first term. ⬇️

There is no state in this country where you can live a comfortable life on $15 an hour.

Lawn darts, Four Loko, and Panera death lemonade had a lower body count combined and were banned faster.

And disproportionately affects Black people with uteruses — I’ve seen reporting that 50-80% have the condition. This from the Mayo Clinic says 90% by age 50, it’s outrageous mcpress.mayoclinic.org/women-health...

Please become a weekly supporter or a monthly supporter. Or an occasional supporter.

We are not living the same reality because we are dying a faster death. Premature death. Black New Yorkers, who are not also Latinx, have the lowest life expectancy.

Carmen de Lavallade, Dancer Whose Career Spanned the Arts, Dies at 94 Over six decades she worked in theater, opera, film and television alongside luminaries like Alvin Ailey, Lena Horne, Agnes de Mille and Harry Belafonte www.nytimes.com/2025/12/30/a...

The Academic Work Tracker spreadsheet is now updated with 2026 dates! If you don't already, 2026 is a great time to start treating your academic work like the wage job where you are paid to work a certain amount of hours that it actually is: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

A year later, Altadena fire survivors confront hard choices about housing Sell, rebuild or just wait? The residents of West Las Flores Drive embody the many different ways people say they are recovering from the catastrophe. wapo.st/3MZF7pQ

A suite of pro-EV federal policies have been reversed. Well-known vehicles have been discontinued. Sales plummeted. But interest is holding steady.

There is a water main break every 2 minutes in the US. www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...

There is no more “state of the humanities” as such. There is no condition in which the humanities are under attack in which the whole university is not under attack...We are all humanists now. /1

Having lost my grandmother 7 years ago to this terrible disease, I am so happy for this advancement. At the end she didn’t know who I was—I never want others to experience that loss.

Now is not the time for subtlety, nostalgia or neutrality on screen. n.pr/4jBeRP3

All of the top-10 books borrowed through the public library app Libby were written by women. And Kristin Hannah's The Women was the top check-out in many library system around the country. n.pr/49tGkyq

The Detroit Chamber polled MI in 2024. 58% of voters believe avg student debt is about $50K. Consequently, only 8% of voters thought that a BA/BS was the "minimum to be successful in MI" and only 27% said *any college* was important to getting a good job (1/X) www.detroitchamber.com/survey-paren...

Photographic print of a young girl https://nmaahc.si.edu/object/nmaahc_2013.46.29.55

Comedian Mo Amer is gaining attention for his show “Mo,” which explores the journey of a Palestinian refugee family seeking asylum in the U.S. The series is part of a wave of TV shows by Arab or Muslim American creators that aim to tell authentic stories without relying on stereotypes.

“It found that 22% of families with children said they had to reduce portion sizes for their kids' meals. Additionally, 14% were forced to "deprive children of some meals," apple.news/A109vtvqHQne...

Amazingly, reaction times using screens while driving are worse than being drunk or high—no wonder 90 percent of drivers hate using touchscreens in cars. Finally the auto industry is coming to its senses.

"While sociologists were debating "the marriage gap" and declining rates of marriage for Black women, McMillan's characters were commiserating, exploring their options, cracking jokes, and braving the messy realities of life..." www.npr.org/2025/12/24/n...

An academic system run by pensioners? I, uh, I wonder what that would be like. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

goals.

In case you need a positive reminder: How effective is protesting? According to historians and political scientists: very www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Yes, everything is shittier, more expensive, and more and more stuff requires you to pay a subscription shakedown fee to operate it, but hey, the sloplords are richer!

this is a form of theft. the program "boosts literacy" by writing stories for students (?), with a veneer of social justice added to make the whole thing more grotesque. notably this is PG county, not Montgomery: it's always the poor kids who get AI fixes instead of actual investment in teaching

Saving this for later. youtu.be/YTb_B43q1-4?...

HIRING: We're looking for a statewide editor at Free Press Indiana! Job posting here: www.freepressindiana.org/jobs/statewi...

I'm available for developmental edits on full and partial manuscripts for a limited time! Full details here: open.substack.com/pub/danieljo...

As someone who spent a lot of brain power and ink writing about Nicki from 2007-2017, lemme say that this arc is odd but not completely without precedent. If someone paid, I would write it out for yall. But If we consider her and her label fam Drake, this is about where they both would be.

In the 19th c the object of governance was actual populations - masses of people - regulated with statistical norms. These 'synthetic publics' are not about controlling masses of people as a mass, but about continuing existing biases into the future regardless of what actual populations r doing

Russia has been accused of making false promises to recruit young women from across Africa to work in drone-assembling factories. The women were coerced into assembling Shahed-136 kamikaze drones in a dangerous area that has been repeatedly bombed by Ukraine f24.my/BUdI

I met Melissa Hortman in October of 2024. She was smart and kind. I heard about her murder in a LA hotel room and it dropped me to my knees. So I went to Minnesota and talked to her kids, parents, and friends. This is not true crime, this is Melissa in real life. www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Wealthy ppl doing unscrupulous things want always want to be "patrons to the arts" to appear "cultured." So it should be no surprise Trump slapped his name on the Kennedy Center. He's legitimately wealthy this go around. I was trying to recall where I saw this before: news.artnet.com/art-world/sa...

Just a reminder that we can change social behavior. It doesn't have to be "is always been like this."

British children's author and comedian David Walliams has denied allegations of inappropriate behavior after HarperCollins decided not to publish his future books.

Merry Christmas; from my photos of Bethlehem when I had the privelege of visiting in 2017 - Bethlehem is a real place where real Palestinians live and are being persecuted - look at the apartheid wall!

I am especially overjoyed for my friend Malinda Lowery, who has given so much of her creativity and intellect to telling the Lumbee story with the rigor of a historian and the soul of an artist. You should read her book.

The literal war machine

Yes. They are not firing us. They are hopeful we disappear via attrition.

When I'm feeling particularly hopeless about the future of professoring as a profession, I try to remind myself: That's what they want. They want us to not want to be professors anymore.

Anyone remember that US institutions used to offer fellowships for researchers whose work was subject to political censorship in their home countries? US-based researchers are now being *offered* those fellowships in free countries.

Segregation is exactly what some of us predicted would happen. When you gut the policies that created (imperfect) integration, segregation is the intended result. I wrote this in January in @theemancipator.org.

You know what it is— If Taylor wrote it, YOU NEED TO READ IT!

I wrote about the never-ending reign of "All I Want for Christmas Is You", everyone's desire to make the next holiday classic, and how nostalgia prevents us for opening up to new Christmas songs for @time.com time.com/7341203/chri...

Just donated $25 instead of buying myself another holiday coping present--I dare you, yes YOU! To match me! *gently sets a book down in front of you instead of throwing down a gauntlet*