Dealing with US federal funding for #research, #education, or anything else worth doing now feels like dealing with Darth Vadar.

Happy Easter

If we make it through this dark period with democracy intact, it may be because the administration's incompetence was greater than its depravity.

I went to El Salvador hoping to meet with Kilmar and check on his well-being, and I had the chance to do that last night. Our courts have been clear: this was an ILLEGAL abduction. I’m speaking now about my meeting with Kilmar and our work to bring him home:

Van Hollen: And it's also important that people understand this case is not just about one man. It's about protecting the constitutional rights of everybody who resides in the United States of America.

"Last week we learned that six of our active NEH awards—totaling $789k in unspent funds—were immediately “terminated” by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Below you can read about the projects that were affected." -- Mullen

I think this is amazing, full stop. I do worry that backfilling cuts at the federal level will lead to *disingenuous* arguments that this demonstrates the we don’t need fed funding after all (& I know funders know this is a danger). We most be prepared to dismantle such arguments immediately.

We were at our local theatre last night & cheered when they announced the production was supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. NEA, NEH, IMLS & so many other sources of positive government support permeate our lives. The loss of these agencies is a travesty.

We just received a heartbreaking email from a colleague at a Federal granting agency. It was full of professionalism, dignity, and devotion to mission despite the cruelty and illegality of the regime's destruction of their agency. Their patriotism and service must be recognized. We're going to […]

More important reporting. And thanks to Steve Kidd and the entire @humanitiesall.bsky.social team for their vocal advocacy.

Can I just say (acknowledging I’m being petty here), the NEH termination letter reads exactly like some dipshit DOGE bro used a chatbot to finish an assignment they didn’t understand. I know the quality of our federal colleagues, and they sure as hell didn’t write it.

Given this rate of collapse, when do reach the era of spray-painting our mouths with chrome and throwing ourselves onto post-apocalyptic traffic in the name of Immortan Joe? 2 months?

A few tips for NEH grantees: 1) if you've spent money on an awarded grant but have not yet drawn down the funds, make sure to submit the paperwork to drawn down funds ASAP. 2) the NYTimes article suggests that "DOGE" might cancel awards. If you receive an email from DOGE cancelling your NEH award,

Breaking Thurmond's record while talking about the Civil Rights leaders being called home is an incredible moment in America. This is one for the history books.

Cory Booker. That’s the post. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

I'm relieved the respected #journalist #JeffreyGoldberg handled this craziness with such professionalism. But I'm disappointed that #Buffy Summers wasn't invited into the #NationalSecurity #groupchat. She made it pretty clear that she expects to be in the loop about this kind of thing.

The TESLA (a/k/a "TESLER") TAKEDOWN is working... WORLDWIDE! Turns out people really resent an unelected weirdo running our Government & creating economic chaos. Hit Elmo where it really hurts: in his big, fat wallet. If we #TankTesla, It's Ex-X! (a/k/a Twitter) #WinWin Visit www.takedowntesla.com

Elon Musk is a terrible president.

this was successful “resistance” — the thing we’re being repeatedly told is done, over, can’t work, never to return

The White House says: - 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada What Americans feel: - Fewer options at the store - Higher prices for all of us, especially on food He promised to cut costs. Now he's implementing a Trump Tax on our families. The chaos continues.

We traded liberty for cheap eggs, and now we have neither.

Since conspiratorial tropes seem so important in effective propaganda, how about some counter-propaganda? "What's Trump trying to hide by muzzling the #CDC? Is he trying to cover-up the #H5N1 situation?"

Just making sure we have updated a full copy of the data we publish. Internationally. Just in case. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14728229 #OpenData #archaeology

Now with the #archaeology, #opendata, #research tags truncated from the original #Mastodon post.

Feeling more and more like December of 2019, though the pace and severity of things will no doubt differ. History never exactly repeats. #h5n1

California seems to be the epicenter of #H5N1 evolution in mammals. Yikes. I hope the state commits to vaccine development ASAP, since I bet the incoming federal administration won't be too helpful.

PLEASE do not feed raw milk to your cats. Or your kids. Or yourself. #H5N1

hcommons.social/@paregorios/... #archaeology

I attended the Digital Ancient Near Eastern Studies Conference online today! Great initiative! Thanks for organizing. digitalpasts.github.io/DANES2024/ Lots of stuff you guys would like probably: @ekansa.bsky.social @paregorios.bsky.social #digitalhumanities #openaccess #ANE

Well let's see, 500+ cattle herds in California have #h5n1, we just had a major #earthquake, and there's a #tsunami warning. And it isn't even noon yet.

Here's an example of one of those figurines from Tall al-Umaryri: https://opencontext.org/media/4cf7a39a-d360-4c22-9225-2e1c1b9e7f4e #archaeology

It's mind boggling to consider that every archaeological site has such complexity. And we rarely have this level of access to the detailed documentation that describes these sites. It will be a huge long-term challenge to effectively make (re)use of this detailed documentation too. #archaeology

We just finished uploading scans of the forms used to document stratigraphic units (called "loci" at this site). Each stratigraphic unit links to other stratigraphic units. All together, this adds up to a vast and complex history of deposition at this "tell" site […]

We're busy working on publishing data documenting decades of excavations at Tall al-Umayri (Jordan). It's a multi-period site with most excavated contexts documenting Late Bronze Age through Islamic periods. This link shows figurines […]

Or in a non-scammy, truly non-profit repository like KC Works! works.hcommons.org

Watching #H5N1 news like it's late December of 2019. If you know what I mean.

Made a small update, publishing excavation data and associated documentation from the 2024 field season at Poggio Civitate (south of Siena, Italy). Here's a map of the new records (and click on the "Item Records" tab to see individual excavation contexts and artifacts) […]

A quick test of this "bridge" to BlueSky set up. Does this #Etruscan ivory (or bone) plaque show up over on that other social media platform? https://opencontext.org/media/6eed2231-a6c1-447e-75b4-2ae2e10452b6 #archaeology

A new Arches demo experience is now available! Built on Arches v7.5, this demo is based on the Arches for HERs application, with sample data from Historic England's GLHER Online database, and includes an example of Arches customizable step-by-step Workflows for all to explore.

OK. Open Context is now also on BlueSky thanks to the Bridgy Fed for BlueSky. https://bsky.app/profile/opencontext.hcommons.social.ap.brid.gy #archaeology #OpenData #scholarlycoms

Hey yinz, @opencontext.hcommons.social.ap.brid.gy has bridged its social media account in the Fediverse into Bluesky. Let the #FollowFrenzy begin.

I'm talking with a colleague who gave the usual reasons for staying on #x / #twitter while I gave the usual reasons for moving to #mastodon. I found myself making this argument too: I want #socialmedia to live on #openinfrastructure, just as I want research to live on open infrastructure […]

We seem to be living in the timeline of William Gibson's novel "The Peripheral".

Is there any downside in having a public resource like Open Context register data to the NSF's "National AI Research Resource" (NAIRR) program? I know from our server logs we're already massively crawled by commercial bots (including bots explicitly for AI). We also get referring links from […]

Sarah Whitcher Kansa (my spouse!) helped put together this issue focusing on #accessible #fieldschools in #archaeology https://mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=835963&p=20&view=issueViewer