“It’s only natural that our brains struggle to find logic in what we are seeing. There is a logic, and this logic has a name. It’s called state terror.” www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/o...

“The best thing you can do is to build cities that work, and love those streets and those citizens above any ideology.” —Jacob Frey www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/o...

“In one ICE recruiting ad, an agent mans a mounted gun atop some sort of militarized vehicle, with the words, ‘Destroy the flood.’ It was a reference to the video game Halo, where players must kill hostile space aliens.” www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/o...

CONTESTING THE CLIMATE UNTHINKABLE, edited by Azucena Castro, Gianfranco Selgas, and Ken Benson, examines Latin American cultural works that rethink environmental change and natural catastrophes. #UFPress

“I suspect the question the administration cares about is not ‘is this legal,’ ‘is this a war crime,’ ‘is this murder’ or even ‘is this good for America,’ but rather, ‘isn’t this violence delightful?’” www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/o...

My story “No More Beautiful Day,” set in WWII Berlin. theberlinliteraryreview.com/november-2025/

“The postsecondary office grants to be moved include TRIO, which supports programs that are designed to support low-income and first-generation college students and students with disabilities.” www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/u...

Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. O, O, O!

"Smaller discretionary grants, awarded without scholarly review, have so far gone to scholars with ties to conservative or religious institutions... including $30,000 for a project called 'Meritocracy vs. Equity: The Declaration of Independence in Tension With Critical Race Theory and D.E.I.'"

"When an off-camera female reporter... began to ask if there was anything 'incriminating' in the Epstein emails, Trump pointed a finger in her face. 'Quiet. Quiet, Piggy,' he said menacingly." Tell me again how it's women who are ruining the workplace? people.com/donald-trump...

Ugh: “seeking romantic advice” from a known sex trafficker. Why would he get to continue teaching? “I dint [sic] want to be…the friend without benefits,” he whined to Epstein. Perhaps Harvard’s students will boycott his classes… #highered #gender #sex www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/u...

“…its endowment had swelled to nearly $57 billion during the fiscal year that ended in June, an increase of about $3.7 billion. The university also said it had pulled in a record amount of donations it can use immediately.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/u...

In April 2009, the Washington Post asked 10 writers to make the case for something that deserves to be tossed out as part of "spring cleaning." I chose Larry Summers. Better late than never. Unlocked version of my 16-year-old article below. naomiklein.org/why-we-shoul...

So Harvard is keeping this guy, but Claudine Gay had to step down over ginned up plagiarism accusations and bad-faith accusations of anti-Semitism. Got it.

Ugh: “seeking romantic advice” from a known sex trafficker. Why would he get to continue teaching? “I dint [sic] want to be…the friend without benefits,” he whined to Epstein. Perhaps Harvard’s students will boycott his classes… #highered #gender #sex www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/u...

“…I tap into my memories of injustice. I remind myself of why I am doing what I am doing and this sustains me. Anger transforms into a battery charger that gives me a boost when it’s sorely needed.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Excited to have my new Berlin story featured! theberlinliteraryreview.com/november-2025/

Yes. Terrific.

And think of everything that’s happened since May. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/o...

trump is demolishing our national symbols and selling the country for scrap to his corrupt donors

The East Wing was where Eleanor Roosevelt welcomed all visitors to the White House. That must have kept this administration up nights until they could knock it down. To build a ballroom we can't afford, during a shutdown, for a president who just posted himself dropping shit on the country.

This season on The East Wing...

“…its endowment had swelled to nearly $57 billion during the fiscal year that ended in June, an increase of about $3.7 billion. The university also said it had pulled in a record amount of donations it can use immediately.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/u...

Picking up steam… #highered #academicfreedom www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/u...

A poet & his politics: Harlem Renaissance author Claude McKay www.theguardian.com/news/2025/oc...

“…we proudly take the side of muckraking journalists, constitutional lawyers, and undaunted jurists, of the artists and actors who are fighting for their creative freedom, and above all, of the Constitution-­defending citizens who will not yield…” www.thenation.com/article/soci...

“In other words, that ‘war’ she declared on her own body is but a microcosm — and a descendant — of the actual wars that, historically, have determined who gets to be considered beautiful. (Hint: It’s always the victors, the powerful and the rich.)”

“Ms. Hilal argues that personal aesthetic judgments are neither personal nor ‘aesthetic.’ Instead, our perceptions of human beauty (or its lack) derive from politics, & are determined by wide-ranging, international factors such as war, imperialism, colonial conquest, power hierarchies & economics.”

“…we proudly take the side of muckraking journalists, constitutional lawyers, and undaunted jurists, of the artists and actors who are fighting for their creative freedom, and above all, of the Constitution-­defending citizens who will not yield…” www.thenation.com/article/soci...

“It wanted to signal strength. Instead, it’s revealing its weakness. The administration’s need to break the academy is forcing it to make a desperately risky gamble.” #highered www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/o...

“Kimmel responded by saying: ‘And by “statistical fact”, he means “complete bullshit”.’ Kimmel went on to cite a study that found far-right groups were the greatest source of domestic terrorism and extremist violence in the US. The Department of Justice has removed the study from its website.”

Tsai Ming Liang’s Abiding Nowhere, the 10th of his Walker series, following the slow walking of a monk across modern settings, this time in Washington DC with a new intriguing counterpoint of a second character, featuring the Smithsonian, which co-financed the film. In theaters

My department @uwmadison.bsky.social is hiring an assistant professor with expertise in environmental politics. Send us your application. jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/assista...

“The Professor Watchlist is a straightforward intimidation campaign, and you can draw a line directly from Kirk’s work attacking academics to the Trump administration’s all-out war on American higher education…” — @jamellebouie.net www.nytimes.com/2025/09/13/o...

The Gaza Famine is the world’s famine. A preventable, predictable famine. Enough. Ceasefire. Open all crossings, north and south. Let us get food in, unimpeded and at massive scale.

Call out the collaborators. This regime is propped up by those who have surrendered to them willingly.

In case my recommendation wasn’t enough, the Northern California Book Award committee agrees you should read Grace’s book! @ohiostatepress.bsky.social @joy-castro.bsky.social

“The literacy level in the US is estimated to be about 79% which ranks as 36th globally.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

In #LNK right now

Kiva-step vase, 1993, by Jean Bad Moccasin, artist of the Lakota Sioux Nation #WomensArt

Lizzie Magie (1866-1948) a US game designer who invented 'The Landlord's Game', the precursor to the globally famous 'Monopoly', which demonstrated the evils of capitalism #WomensArt

"Seed Corn Must Not Be Ground" final lithograph of Käthe Kollwitz, 1942. The death of her son in battle in 1914 profoundly affected the artist, who expressed her grief by creating many prints on the theme of mothers protecting their children from the horrors of war #WomensArt

www.theguardian.com/education/20... “…the special issue was just about ready – all articles had been edited, contracts with most authors had been finalized, and the issue had been advertised at academic conferences and on the back cover of the previous one. But late in the process…”

In #LNK right now

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025... “Festivals and fairs are a mainstay of small-town American life. But now from rural Indiana to a tiny village in Washington state to cornerstone Appalachian towns such as Harrisonburg, #Latino and other international festivals are being cancelled this summer…”

“This post-literate world favors demagogues skilled at code-switching between the elite language of policy and the populist one of meme-slop.…It does not favor those with little money, little political power and no one to speak up for them.” www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/o...