While the news is promising that airports will be dire places for the foreseeable future, Southwest Airlines would like to know if, by any chance, I’d like to take a trip somewhere, pretty please?

Heros for heroes.

Heros for heroes.

Just wanted to report that the Declaration of Independence is a banger, actually. Like, it totally slaps, or whatever the kids say these days. 6-7. 10/10. Highly recommend.

I will grant that 18 innings followed by another game the next day *might* qualify as an athletic endeavor.

There will be fewer PhD students admitted to Harvard over the next couple of years...

Me as Grad: It is insider exclusionary bs when senior people don't cite Me as Full Prof: I can't be bothered to cite as everyone already knows who I'm talking about.

Rest now, bitch face. We have much work yet to do

Going to open up logic and linguistics-themed coffee shop called Ampersand & Conjunction.

Humanities majors in free fall in the US: Since 2008, English has declined from 3.8% to 1.7% of Bachelor's degrees awarded, history from 2.5% to 1.2%, foreign lang/lit from 1.9% to 0.9%, and philosophy from 0.6% to 0.4%. 22% of philosophy BAs are awarded by just 20 universities.

The great thing about air travel these days is that you never know what to expect

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson calls Sunday's naked bike ride in protest of the Portland ICE facility and and Trump troop deployment "the most threatening thing I’ve seen yet" www.oregonlive.com/portland/202...

First cold weather in a while, complete with rain. Suddenly, dark beer seems like an overwhelmingly good idea on a Tuesday.

Third message this week from my employer expressing a strong preference that we not espouse political views when we can be recognized as employees of this institution. Not sure if that means that I can still say that I'm for democracy, broadly construed.

Dog next door sounds like he has a smoker's bark.

Very cool event here at UCSD Philosophy: inaugural chair lectures from Brink, Shields, and Callender, celebrating their ascension to endowed chairs. Format is shorter, accessible talks that have an overview-y vibe of a body of work or a current project.

First day of fall quarter at UCSD is always a spectacle: the requisite skateboarder eating pavement in the middle of pedestrian traffic; the fall fits designed for colder climes than humid 70s weather; and faculty complaining about needing 2-3 more weeks of summer.

“Syracuse University paused admission to 20 majors in the College of Arts and Sciences without faculty input” dailyorange.com/2025/09/coll...

Getting to the stage in my career where when I see a well-argued paper in a good journal on free will, my inevitable reaction is some version of “Nice enough, but wild that no referee noted that this is just the view of X in 1963, Y in 1988, Z in 2002.” #philsky

Under the moonlight, you see a sight that almost stops your heart

Bad sign that I’m ready to go to bed at 2pm. Letters of rec take a lot out of me, apparently.

Someday I won't be surprised about this fact: when I'm offline for two days because of a conference, I inevitably have to spend most of day three just replying to emails I neglected while conferencing.

We must imagine Sisyphus... baking apple crumble

Collegiate kid just observed that one of the lead actors of Life with the Walter Boys "looks old enough to be a grad student who's running out of funding."

This is a good heuristic for when you should and shouldn’t take academics seriously when they try to intervene in debates outside their specialty. Do they have respect for the problem?

If I ever become a dean (and let's hope this never comes to pass), I'm going to insist on issuing Decanal Bulls, just to annoy everyone. Also, thusly will I speed my retirement from any and all future administrative positions.

Papal bulls sound way more impressive than papal memos.

Shout-out to fellow academics with unhealthy work-life balance. May your labor day be super productive with no one else at the office.

Scholarship is spending all day working through material to find exactly what you were looking for, making a note of it, and the deciding that you probably won't use that thought anyway.

Doing some research on the 19th C, and sheesh, that century was pretty much peak facial hair stylings.

Bring back marcona almonds.

Where is my Katabasis already?

This is a thing that exists

Dreamt I had a pet anteater.

This ain’t my area but interesting article. #philsky newrepublic.com/article/1992...

AI is like a super efficient but delusional colleague.

Every time the temperature gets above 71 F, our dog (a husky mix) just turns off and becomes a very thick rug on the coldest spot in the house.

From substack

San Diego friends: Nicholas Kristof talk @ UCSD on Sept 15. Free tickets here: www.eventbrite.com/e/burke-lect...

Interesting ep in decay of cultural significance: None of my undergrads this summer knew who the Lone Ranger was. “Aragorn?” one asked.

I love this thread so much.

I…worked on that book for five years…and…they just…they TikTok bro’d it out

Millions of tons of plastic in the ocean aren't floating in plain sight—they're invisible. These particles are everywhere: in rain, rivers, and even the air. They may already be infiltrating entire ecosystems, including the human brain. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...

SD peeps: get thee to Izola if you haven’t. Terrific bakery. I’m a big Wayfarer fan, but Izola is definitely worth the visit, too. (Plus, they open earlier than Wayfarer.)

Not the point of this fascinating article, but it remains darkly ironic to me that the Humanities have fallen backwards into being the safe financial bet of degrees

“Academic Philosophy Data and Analysis (philosophydata.org), a long running project that collects and analyzes data on graduate experience and employment outcomes for philosophy PhDs, is seeking to expand its leadership…from 1 to 3 directors” Please share! #philsky apda.ghost.io/call-for-dir...

Shout-out to the referee who said no to my paper but gave reasonable and useful feedback. I appreciate you, anonymous hero.

NORMALIZE THE MICHELADA

So F1 isn’t about the Francis papacy?