2025 was a shitshow but at least we got gay hockey.

I’m coming to the cottage 😭❤️

There is not nearly enough Heated Rivalry discourse in my feed.

Between the tamales, posole, breakfast tacos, and atole, I think my holiday body is 90% corn 🌽

Nobody can say I didn’t accomplish anything in 2025.

If you’re cold, they’re cold. Let them in. (Photo credit to kid heading to swim practice.)

If you’re wondering why your friends in academia are a little on edge right now, it’s because an eighteen-year-old who hasn’t done the reading, doesn’t look at the assignment, and has does no critical thinking skills more complex than “because I think it’s in the Bible” can literally end your career

Happy Vince Guaraldi season to all who celebrate.

Here’s a fun game! Let’s guess - is the following image: A) The latest post from Homeland Security B) Beta testing for David McCullough’s next book cover C) Cover story of the OAH magazine D) Elon Musk’s fever dream of his Mars colony

🚨 JOB JOB JOB!!! 🚨 Late-breaking job! Indigenous history at University of Colorado Boulder. Assistant or eatly associate. Been trying to get this line for forever. It’s finally happening 🙏 Great place to live and work. Fabulous colleagues (ask me how I know!) networks.h-net.org/jobs/69637/u...

Professor's pro-tip for anyone with college-age kids: Tell your kids go to class. It's really that simple. If you show up, you'll do okay. You don't have to be smart, you just have to be there. Maybe stay off your phones for 50 minutes. Just listen. You'll absorb something. I have data to prove it.

Okay, I'm going to stand up and take a teacher bow for this one: "In this class I stopped seeing the past as a series of events and started seeing it instead as this long history of conversations.”

Omg these students and their creative finals! They've got me all in my feels.

Looks like it’s time for somebody to get another MRI.

Okay. I'm back to grading finals. These days, I don't often make connections between past and present explicit. I try to present the material within historical context and let the students make their own connections. But holy shit, are they ever making connections.

When Scalia rewrote the Second Amendment in Heller, I warned that he would have “blood on his hands” from the carnage he was enabling. The Second Amendment protects a “militia” right, which was the understanding of the courts for 200 years. The “individual right” rewrite is a suicide pact.

“Tell your children who the cowards were.”

I have started graded final projects in my US survey course, so we have now entered the moment when I will be posted delighted posts about the creative projects my students have produced! Consider yourselves warned.

HELP! I need suggestions for readings in an intro-level US Legal History course. I'm increasingly stumped about what to assign, as students seem less and less inclined to read anything at all. Anything you've assigned that students can't put down? Any time period, founding to present.

We talk a lot about the creep of fascism and oligarchy, but I think it’s time that kleptocracy entered the chat.

Honestly, Glenn Beck’s AI George Washington looks exactly like what an incel might imagine a man looks like.

<refills anxiety meds>

Christmas "sounds like fun", says plump, succulent turkey

“Purported” being the most chilling word here. We don’t even know who these people are. That these grossly incompetent people have reduced foreign policy to “because I said so” is literally criminal. Every congressional republican who supports this is responsible.

Whoever thought it made sense to send students home for Thanksgiving then bring them back for one more week of classes and a week of finals . . . was a real fucking genius 🙄

Where did I land?

There’s a dude on my plane furiously texting with ChatGPT.

Totally normal things at the Denver airport.

After slogging through Ken Burns, Death By Lightening really hits the spot.

Holy crap you guys, this book is 🔥

Do you ever not think about the B-52s for a while and then remember to think about them again and be like, damn.

My dishwasher broke so I’m shopping for a newer model. Now we have to deal with bullshit like this. WTF is “AI Intelligent Wash” doing in my dishwasher. How about we just concentrate on making shit work instead of making it dumber and shittier with useless robot shit.

Hey, tech bros: You know what would be really helpful? Instead of asking us if we’d like to enable AI on every platform, perhaps add a feature so we can disable AI for incoming messages. I long for the days of typos and half-baked thoughts.

I’m sorry if I owe you an email.

That Ken Burns is two thirds through this series and only in 1777 feels very much like the pace I teach my survey.

Would like to thank whoever first tossed a scrap of food to a wolf. Really can’t imagine how I’d be getting by if you hadn’t taken that first step.

If you haven’t noticed, we have our hands full at home at the moment.

Still thinking about Ken Burn first episode. Certainly seemed like hasty coverage to get to the war part. Lexington and Concord took up a lot of time. He clearly likes the fighting. Kind of confirms what I've been mulling over about this particular 250: It's going to be an especially macho one.

That was such an unfair quoting of Patrick Henry. Like Patrick Henry on a liter of NyQuil PM 😴

Ken Burns should have let me narrate. I’d do it just like I teach my classes: Gimme four shots of espresso and let’s goooooo!

I just find Peter Coyote’s narration so boring.

Damn. My American Revolution class next semester is already full with a wait list. Is, like, something going on in 2026?

Normally, I don't offer extra credit. But this year, I told the students they could make up one missed class by visiting a historic site, museum, monument, or public space with some connection to the class. They have to write up their reactions and send a selfie to prove they were really there.

I honestly don’t know how anyone could survive this politically unless they were irredeemably corrupt, calloused beyond redemption, ethically degenerate, surrounded by slathering, craven enablers who lack any moral compass, and blindly propped up by mouth-breathing dipshits. Oh wait…

Same vibes.

I used to judge when undergrads would show up to class in pajamas. Now I’m just jealous.

“Here, taking care of one another through public programs isn’t radical socialism. It’s Tuesday.”

Looks like somebody did a little retail therapy at HomeGoods…