Hydrology Paper of the Day @lireactivewater.bsky.social on finding meaning as scientists in an uncertain and changing world: choosing our own appropriate career pathways; how scientists have chosen to share knowledge despite opposition; and the need for persistence and supportive communities.

The OG was berlusconi and trump is just a less polished and articulate (lol but it's true) though - alas - way more powerful version.

One of the most meaningful interviews of my life was with Alex for @thexylom.com, in 2019, about the experience of being an immigrant to the US. I am equal parts sad and horrified of what is happening to him. Please support his excellent and fearless work if you can.

So we heard from a neighbor there was a rabid raccoon in the area but zero information on the city website. It's not really my research jam but good timely information is critical for healthy and safe human-wildlife interactions, really hoping we can do better here. Will call the city tomorrow.

Climate delay tactics are the bread 🥖 and butter 🧈 of big ag - alas, this shows it’s not JUST big ag. “We need another study” when the evidence is clear and the benefits of delayed action accrue to a powerful climate lobby should get labeled as unscientific and biased in favor of polluters.

Every week or so I think about the fact that the cops/government shot a white man, Alex Pretti, in cold blood and nothing has happened to his murderers. The murderers still have their jobs and the unarmed white man is a cautionary tale for white people to not challenge the white supremacist state.

Smith economics full professor - Chicago PhD & Stanford JD. Puts on his bio that he “has appeared on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor and Stossel”. Argues on x that it’s unreasonable to expect for authors to check every citations they use. I wish I lived in a world with fewer pathetic stereotypes.

Unsurprisingly, the NYT has an uncritical piece on Frida Kahlo's "Visual Dictionary" b/c of a new MoMA exhibition. This is a more nuanced perspective: her "aesthetic reflects the vogue of her time:, the mythologizing of a homogenized Indigenous past afforded by her proximity to whiteness & wealth".

She is so excited I’m home!

At the Shaw museum at the Missouri Botanical Garden - the Jessica Palmer exhibition on the left then the two story gallery with the literary garden exhibit.

Last day at the Missouri Botanical Garden- saying goodbye to the ducks that seem to have nested by the entrance.

The Missouri Botanical garden at night - full of light music and people for the Art of HYBYCOZO exhibition.

At the Japanese gardens at the Missouri Botanical Gardens and my brain - surprise surprise - can’t help but notice all the green scum. Very Midwestern vibes.

At the Shaw library in the santa sanctorum of the rare books collection. A terrific visit full of joy and beauty with exceptional gracious hosts.

Tour of the herbarium at the Missouri Botanical Gardens. The second photo is the oldest specimen in the collection, Anemone Vernalis from 1692. The third is a specimen collected and signed by one C. Darwin. Kinda of like going to church really

It's just too bad that white settlers in North American have not been taking this very advice for centuries.

The arid house at the Missouri Botanical Gardens. Always the place in the gardens that felt the most like home.

This week will bring back many memories of when the kids were little and we lived in Carbondale - we used to come here a lot.

Quite the place where to have a week long work meeting

There are a lot more dramatic ways in which the trump administration has broken the social contract, but the SNAP/food stamp one matters b/c 1) SNAP benefits farmers too by creating demand for their products and 2) SNAP is critical in urban AND rural communities where it helps consumers.

Giddily starving people

Dry Cleaning by Eugenia Loli #worldcollageday

Your regular reminder that when David Duke ran for statewide office in the early 1990s, the MAJORITY of white Louisiana voters pulled the lever for him. This was AFTER they’d seen the pictures of Duke in a Klan outfit and a Nazi uniform.

Sharing for no reason www.nasonline.org/directory-en...

My book is very very quickly turning into a treatise on how the targeting of immigrants is a vehicle for fascism. It’s happening before our eyes and every day it’s getting worse.

Prepping to make pasta alla Norma for 18 people tomorrow and here’s the reason why I don’t like to eat aubergine when we go out: it’s way too often undercooked

This website shows you what your browser is leaking about you. sinceyouarrived.world/taken

This picture was taken in Kodiak AK!

personally I think it's a very big deal that the Canada bureau chief for the @nytimes.com — certainly one of the highest-paid journalists in the country — asked an unspecified "AI tool" what Poilievre said & published its AI-hallucinated quotes in her reporting.

Also all these agronomists, ag engineers whatever STEM people w/ zero policy expertise pooh-poohing social scientists doing critical work (their useless land grant buddies they’re OK with) then they just go yessir and give me the money sir in exchange for supporting the most ludicrous policies.

That's right. Do not let an oligopolist's marketing fool you. We have lots of evidence that clean water 💦🌊 💧matters way more than diamonds 💎💎 💎.

I have never used generative AI and I intend it to keep it that way. It does not help with the kind of work I do at all, and it is unskilling students in multiple awful ways.

One of the difficulties of working in the administrative side of academia right now is that the funding incentives at the federal level (e.g., the manic focus on generative AI) are directly opposed to literally everything else research/higher education does

Many of us have agued against the corporate LMS for decades (e.g. "Against Learning Management Systems" [2009] blog.mkgold.net/2009/03/30/a... ) And we've built alternatives, such as the CUNY Academic Commons (commons.gc.cuny.edu) and Commons In A Box (commonsinabox.org). Check them out!

An absolute must read from @theswinerepublic.bsky.social. The third person on the photo is - as Chris notes - ISU Prof. Castellano. I really want to emphasize how our "free speech" travesty protects and rewards people like him (and his employer) while punishing those who speak up - like Chris.

Update on the update - two days after the injection, he managed to jump the gate of the basement bathroom where he spends the night because he is ... let's say prone to accidents... I found him wondering around the basement, he had peed on the futon twice and I was not even a bit upset.

Working pretty hard at making it through the last day of the semester without crying but students are making it difficult for me. Particularly sad I won’t be teaching intro to sustainability for a while - a gen ed large flipped class I designed from scratch. On to some changes, more to come on that.

happy Tom Holland stormwater management day to all who celebrate.

The Routledge Handbook of Values and Science, edited by Kevin Elliot and Ted Richards is now available as open access: www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edi... In includes a chapter on the limits of diversity in science by @acfischer.bsky.social, @abigailnd.bsky.social and our group leader Jan Baedke.

Canvas, the Strait of Hormuz for American education

Just reminding everyone that Black political representation has material effects on policy. It’s so effective that the last time Black politicians were run out of office (Reconstruction), it was with violent force. They paid with their lives for their success. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

You can find the unpaywalled working paper here. It's worth noting IMO that the benefits are: structures saved, carbon not emitted, lives saved, productivity retained. The trump administration is creating a framework where at least 2 out of these 4 benefits will not be considered in env'l policy.

Rep. Justin Jones burning a Confederate flag during the special session on Tennessee redistricting Jones: “It’s a form of Jim Crow terror — this is about race. This is about power. This is about silencing communities that have historically been excluded”

LOL, re the Canvas outage:

You can tell how panicked the IT people are by how many times the message on the site has been updated even though there has been nothing new to report.

Of course the instructure hack has to happen the day I'm making a big push to get my grading done.

One reason Republicans are banning books and classes on race is because reading even one book about Jim Crow or Reconstruction makes it clear that they are hoping to reinstate segregation.

Extractivism in the US has meant that as many swamps (or tidal marshes) had to be drained to enforce a certain type of farming - largely by white people. It's important for people to know that the devastating impacts this would have on the landscape were known by many white people at the time.

A river runs through it - now freely - thanks to the Stillaguamish Tribe. My news to me good news for May 6 #EarthOptimism www.npr.org/2026/05/03/n...

Here is a Pippo update - I got him a heated bed and put it under the grow light where he had a regular bed, so he can get some heat top and bottom, and today he had his first Solensia injection for the arthritis pain. He seems to quite like the heated bed. 🤞🐈🤞🐕🤞🐈‍⬛🤞