It's the time of year to geek out over my collection of Thanksgiving history books! 🤓🦃🍂 A thread.

I will leave it to others to explain why this vote to bring an end to the shutdown of the federal government is right or wrong. For now, I am relieved that many of my friends will soon receive a pay check to pay for basic necessities.

This comic strip from 1933 got shockingly dark.

I like to fill my Thanksgiving cornucopia with my produce-themed Beanie Baby knockoffs from 1998.

Some good news: genuinely honored for AMERICAN ZION to be named Utah Historical Society’s Finalist for Best Book in Utah History. (The best book went to Paul Reeve, Chris Rich, and Lajean Carruth’s wonderful THIS ABOMINABLE SLAVERY.)

Oh, Ethelinda. December 5, 1909.

I was amused and delighted to discover a Halloween-themed typo on Halloween. I was looking forward to learning what a "witch engine" was, but it was supposed to be "switch engine."🧙‍♀️🎃📰 (BTW, I just want to say what an amazing, fantastic resource Utah Digital Newspapers is.)

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has long emphasized the importance of having children. Now the church says it's worried about the declining birth rate. n.pr/4qAyN7D

As a connoisseur of holiday novelty songs, I present the best Halloween song ever made. www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGnr...

Replace "parties" with "holidays," and this is literally me.

Two weeks ago, I went to the Western History Association conference, and many people's point of reference for Utah was "The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives" and "Real Housewives of Salt Lake City." 🙄 So I am *thrilled* this season's winner of "Halloween Baking Championship" is a Utahn!

Nehw I saw ni driht edarg, I thguat flesym ot kaeps sdrawkcab. I saw yrev tneulf ta ti! Tub won m'I tuo fo ecitcarp, dna I evah a reggib yralubacov.

I'm glad most of these tributes are downplaying June Lockhart's role on Petticoat Junction. That was not a good TV show.

I have often wondered if this background character from "Mad Monster Party" (1967) was a BYU fan or a Yale fan.

This ought to be common sense. We should all be more critically minded.

For a while, I illustrated my nightly dreams with AI, so I've gotten pretty good at spotting the signs of AI. Here are the problems in this image: - Overly perfect at first glance - Crooked flagpole - Three-eyed frog - Nonsensical posters ("Dance Change," "Der Wine") - flag not aligned with pole

Singing in the church choir, and I'm totally baffled by the tone-deaf guy complaining that the notes are too high, when he never gets remotely close to the right notes anyway.

I'm in Albuquerque for the Western History Association, and I can't get away from my nemesis, the goathead plant. 🐐

I fully support changing Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day, but we've got to come up with a less clunky name for it.

Happy to see this database of quotes by Latter-day Saint women in general conference! h/t By Common Consent exponentii.org/lds-womens-q...

PSA about purple lights for Halloween: Orange and purple lights next to each other just look pink from a distance. And purple and green lights don't look spooky; they just look like Easter. You can absolutely use purple lights in your decor. Just be strategic about it. 🟣🎃💡

The fall was inevitable. #cat #catday #bluesky

The Fate of Ophelia

seven-year-old: “who’s voice is that” me: “Bob Dylan” 7yo: “is that yr friend” me: “no a singer” 7yo: “not a very good singer”

This cartoon would be especially fitting if they were semicolons.

On National Poetry Day, the greatest poem I have ever read

I'm really enjoying Bradley Thomas Turner's instrumental, atmospheric album "Haunted House Party" for Spooky Season. ("Spooky Season" is even the name of my favorite track!) bradleythomasturner.bandcamp.com/album/haunte...

For my birthday, my friend @sandypsyche.bsky.social sent me a Nancy comic book. Then separately, my colleagues gave me a birthday card with a Nancy panel! I guess my Nancy reposts, along with the Nancy and Sluggo enamel pins I used to wear on my lanyard, have given me a reputation.

(solemnly) You've had mail.

If I was accidentally weird to you once just know I will be thinking about it every night for the next 30 years

Funny how introverts are always told to ‘speak up’ and ‘get out of their shell’… but no one ever tells extroverts to lower their volume and maybe read the room

I'm happy to see an official announcement about the publication of William Clayton's journal! I helped with many of the footnotes in 2022 and 2023, so it will be exciting to see the final version. www.churchhistorianspress.org/article/news...

I'm looking at a school journal for incarcerated Japanese American third-graders during WWII, and I was surprised to see them say they were saving spiders for the war effort. This led me to find out, superficially, that spider silk was farmed during the war so they could use it in gunsights! 🕷️🕸️

Hey, I ghostwrote this quote!

I wanted to get a video of this ghost crab but every time I got close to their hole they scuttled back in, so I tried getting clever with it. I made a little sandcastle and shoved my phone into it, hit record, and walked away. Crab was VERY suspicious of this addition to their environment.

I just realized "take on" has opposite meanings: "I can take you on! 😠"=I'm going to fight you "I can take you on! 🙂"=I'm going to hire you A-ha!

Charlie Kirk's shooting is horrible. Just like the assassination of Melissa Hortman was horrible, less than three months ago.

Political violence is bad. It usually begets more political violence. Celebrating political violence is bad. It usually encourages more political violence, against various targets. Campus shootings are bad. They make everyone on campus less safe. It's bad that what I wrote here is controversial.

Reading an account of Christmas at Ellis Island in 1904, and I have a couple of thoughts: (1) If only we still provided Christmas dinners for immigrants (2) The women and children got treated better than the men, because who would want tobacco products for Christmas?

I get a lot of free books, and I wasn't looking forward to reading the memoir "A Million Miles: My Peace Corps Journey" by Jody Olsen. But it was an unexpected treat! The author writes in such an engaging style, almost like a novel. Both her professional life and her family life are fascinating.

September is the best month. It's summer and fall at the same time.

discrete = separate discreet = unobtrusive The 'e's' are SEPARATED by the 't' in "discrete."

This is Thanos. He has figured out how to rest and babysit at the same time. Very impressive, very Montessori. 13/10 (TT: thanosthesaint)

The 4th digit on the hand is known as the ‘ring finger.’ This may come from earlier notions that this finger is directly connected to the heart via an artery. It was believed that wearing a gold ring on this finger would cure ailments. But we don't like a gold rush, gold rush.

Excuse me, I was trying to read that.