The Uninhabitable United States

This is my last and longest of three aurora threads, for the final substorm I saw from Columbus Ohio USA. It was by far the most brilliant and the strongest (at one point visible *south* of us)! It started ~11:30PM local time and lasted a full half-hour. Just unbelievably stunning! 1/10

Congrats to Omar El Akkad & Leanne Betasamosake Simpson both shortlisted for the 2025 Writers' Trust Hilary Weston Prize for Nonfiction ICYMI here are my 2025 conversations with each Omar: tinhouse.com/podcast/omar... Leanne: tinhouse.com/podcast/lean... @biidaasamose.bsky.social @haymarketbooks.org

When downy woodpeckers pound wood with their beaks they hold themselves rigid like hammers & grunt like tennis stars to stabilise their core muscles at the moment of impact @nickantonson.bsky.social journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

Sound ON!!

Spent part of today working with the Washtenaw Bird and Nature Alliance at our Searles Preserve, making plans for future restoration of this diverse nature area, and removing invasive shrubs. Late fall in Michigan forests, amidst our first snow, is lovely.

The first snow of the season makes for the perfect cozy backdrop to A2 Community Bookfest! Browse local authors and discover new reads right here at the Downtown Library. Join us today from 10AM–5PM for Bookfest fun! aadl.org/bookfest

A charming essay by the former chair of Africana studies at Bowdoin College about the New York Times crafting elitist propaganda.

Hero jury saves hoagie hurler from legal grinder www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/u...

November yellows. ❤️

When a chatbot gets something wrong, it’s not because it made an error. It’s because on that roll of the dice, it happened to string together a group of words that, when read by a human, represents something false. But it was working entirely as designed. It was supposed to make a sentence & it did.

Dancing in the moonlight 🌊🌊

🎟️ Special Premiere of "A Savage Art: The Life and Cartoons of Pat Oliphant" at Michigan Theater! Post-film conversation with film director Bill Banowsky, journalist Charles Eisendrath, and political cartoonist Mike Thompson, moderated by Lynette Clemetson. Tickets 👉 https://bit.ly/3L7CX6P

As a professor of African American Studies, I endorse this message ✊🏾🤭✊🏾

Mamdani says in his victory speech, “we will hire thousands of teachers.” This, and not the proprietary chatbot classroom, is the future of education.

New national climate plans have barely moved the needle on limiting global warming. Yet there is hope. According to UNEP's latest #EmissionsGap Report, accelerated adoption of renewable energy and falling costs mean we have the tools to cut emissions now: www.unep.org/news-and-sto...

Here's another bit of conventional wisdom Zohran completely blew away: His speech was at well above a 10th-grade level. It was complex, erudite, punctuated by deep and fluent references. You don't have to condescend to voters with baby talk! Part of re-establishing norms is speaking like an adult.

Thanks to @jackiefmogensen.bsky.social and @motherjones.com for a fun interview!

Global Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions rise again in 2024, up 2.3%. This is our collective progress, 10 years after the Paris Agreement. www.unep.org/resources/em... 1/

Detroit City Council President Mary Sheffield has won the mayor’s race, according to the Associated Press. She becomes the city’s first woman mayor, a Black woman, with housing for single-mother-led households as a major part of her legacy and platform. 19thnews.org/2025/11/mary...

Milkweed in a classic fall pose.

For more on the harms, definitely read @karenhao.bsky.social 's Empire of AI and for more on the bonkers ideology of Silicon Valley, @adambecker.bsky.social 's More Everything Forever.

"Cleveland’s dreams for a connected, vibrant lakefront could get a powerful dose of inspiration from Detroit." Remember #AtLeastWereNotDetroit? 😊 www.cleveland.com/news/2025/11...

“We are told that AI is inevitable, that we must adapt or be left behind. But universities are not tech companies. Our role is to foster critical thinking, not to follow industry trends uncritically.”

Made it through Halloween. Sleeping it off on #Caturday.

proudly working for you 24 hours a day. except tomorrow when we will work 25.

Moby Dick, or, the Whale Illustrated by Rockwell Kent

Spent yesterday at UMich talking to law students and undergrads about what the economy looks like to them, what kind of lives they want to lead, and what barriers they see to creating that life. What I heard was both heartbreaking and hopeful. 1/

A fungus photo a day: Dancing Chrysomphalinas taken yesterday in the rain, another view below. #fungifriends #fungi #mycology #naturephotography

A Trumpeter Swan's breath from a honk is visible in the brisk Fall air.

The Red-Breasted Nuthatches *love* pine nuts. Their beaks are perfectly designed for extracting them from cones. If you zoom in on the third pic you can see he’s extracting a prize #birds 🌿

As noted in Audubon Magazine Summer 2025, "many people have carried forward the work of saving Great Lakes Piping Plovers, but it all started with Francie Cuthbert." 2/6 www.audubon.org/magazine/aft...

The Spaces In Between This past Thursday evening, Sharing Our Shore-Waukegan and Waukegan History Museum hosted a lecture by Dr. Francie Cuthbert. 1/6

Publishers Weekly has named my novel DEATH OF THE AUTHOR a Best Book of the Year, 😃🇳🇬🇺🇸🤖🦿🐬. Full list here: best-books.publishersweekly.com/pw/best-book...

Beautiful fall afternoon for a long ride on the Border-to-Border trail near Dexter MI with our young friends Karl and Emily. The big maples are just spectacular right now.

When standards are lowered, it is easier to say your drinking water meets them. Hey EPA doesn’t the P stand for PROTECTION? 🌊🌊 environmentamerica.org/articles/epa...

A year of #GoodMorningFromSaskatoon. A photo almost every* work day from Oct ’24 to Oct ‘25. Blue sky and clouds, sunlight and street lights, sea smoke and fire smoke, advance and retreat of the ice, sunrise at 4:45AM to sunrise at 9:15AM… so many things to see from this one spot (*210 pics) 😁📷

Even if you don't already have a green thumb, your library can help you get started growing flowers, herbs, fruits, and veggies.

Signs of foot traffic on the Lake Michigan shoreline Monday morning.

Did a new one

Canvas has been down alllll day. Maybe monopolies ARE bad!

Fantastic list of resources, and I'm not just saying that because Bad Indians Book Club is one of them. Political education is critical in this moment. Reading intentionally and collectively can change the world.

Friends, the climate at the University of Texas is the most hostile I have experienced in my entire career, and the hostility is directed at the most vulnerable students, faculty, staff and departments/programs. UT has become the test case for the implementation of Project 2025 in Higher Education

Mushrooms and lichens in a late fall maple forest near Northport, MI. Some mossy rocks too. They all love this rainy fall weather.

Michigan's Leelanau Peninsula is blustery and gorgeous this fall weekend.

My 11-year-old made her own #NoKings sign and marched the whole way to the Capitol in Madison for today's rally.

#NoKings in Traverse City Michigan. Three or four thousand rally and march to oppose kings and save democracy.

If I could offer students one bit of…advice: be brutally traditional about what is printed on your degree. If you are first-gen or in any way non traditional, this goes double. Let rich kids get degrees in AI. You get something called “English”.

A terrific piece about where we stand, and why tomorrow's No Kings protests are so important, by @jfallows.bsky.social Stand Up, Stand Together. open.substack.com/pub/fallows/...

Congratulations to Holly Miowak Guise whose book ALASKA NATIVE RESILIENCE won three book awards from the Western History Association! #WHA2025 @hollyguise.bsky.social