Getting ready for some hardcore code switching!

One would think this does not need to be said, but it sure does.

Playing my bass flute in a concert yesterday.

So, Labour will fiddle around with how to spend 0.4% of the budget in 2027 (futures fund) and then get cracking on a capital gains tax that will increase revenue by around 0.6% by 2030. We could get maybe 20km of new road for that. 'The tranquilising drug of gradualism'.

Folks, I would like our research knowledge to get better, not worse. Our publications to become more intentionally structured and phrased, not less. And our experiences and perspectives to find more echoes in the academic language we use, not fewer. AI slop is the opposite of all that.

In early Christian literature and art, the turtle was a symbol of heresy and evil. Why? Because of its lowness to the ground and its tendency to wallow in mud and filth. Oh, shell yeah.

I wish people would stop posting old analyses of what's going on Washington. I don't need and most assuredly don't want an op ed from March presented as though it is current. Say it's old but it's relevant cuz x or y. Otherwise don't do it.

Heading into a concert.

Our book is released today. It's edited following the "grand elementary principle of pleasure". I love all the poems and critical essays we've gathered together, found much insight & delight in my co-editors' insights as poets, & hope youse can too. aucklanduniversitypress.co.nz/te-whariki/

@analocking.bsky.social I hope you will post here, as I have long since left that other place.

FINALLY OMG

We're all dunking on this post, but we really need to ask ourselves if we would do any better in his position. Would any of us do better? Would we? Yes. Yes, we would. We would *all* do better than this. My GOD

Challenge to commentators: don't dismiss transphobia and landlordism as 'side' issues in the implosion of Your Party. It's central. Same as Galloway: you can't build a progressive party on petit bourgeois prejudice and hatred masquerading as "community values". That's what we are seeing play out.

That feeling when an American honours student with whom you helped a little via email submits an honours thesis that more or less plagiarizes your book. No really: great big swathes, pages. (AND RELATEDLY: And students who have little or no Greek and scholars likewise, how about some respect?)

I for one am tired of Humanities academics pushing their elitist agenda of basic literacy, independent thinking and an elementary knowledge of human history

good work here

Decided to test google images on this bit of flute repertoire (orchestral) that was excerpted and played on a reel on Facebook. I know this piece of music and it will come to me eventually (so this was a sincere query). Big fail by google. Suggested Beethoven Symphony 7 and Mahler 6. Please.

Walking in to town

Hannah Maipi-Clarke: “...it was disorderly to bring in a bill like the Treaty Principles Bill. The problem is not our response to the problem. The problem here is that there is no obligation and no responsibility for MPs in the house to uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi. That is the problem.” Hear! Hear!

I never heard of the man until he died himself, but this poem is beautiful.

Why shouldn't I just give away pdfs of my 2022 book since my publisher fed it to AI?

Morning hiking

Just found out that a translation by yours truly of the complete letters of Nikephoros Ouranos (10th century important person in the reign of Basil II) will shortly be under contract with Liverpool University Press (in the Translated Texts for Byzantinists series)!

@dreddieclark.bsky.social !

really well said about the wrong headedness of the state wading in to define sex

We're excited to announce the next MJC BSANA workshop: An Introduction to Network Analysis for Byzantinists with Alexander Brey, Zachary Chitwood, Ryan Horne, Christian Raffensperger, and Katerina Ragkou. May 12–16 on Zoom. Registration closes May 1. More info: maryjahariscenter.org/events/intro...

I have been a subscriber for years and you should be too. Now that all the major media outlets appear to be compromised, there's never been a better time to subscribe, if you have not already done so.

J O L T ! (in Wellington)

See this thread on the disastrous Marsden decision. While we knew it was ideological, confirmation is good to have for the purpose of argument.

Thanks to Eddie for this thread!

More hiking

Mas de hiking

Hiking

For new followers: I am scholar of the medieval Roman empire. American in origin but live in New Zealand now. I research sex & desire between men in the medieval times: www.routledge.com/Between-Byza... Soon to retire from academia. Planning translations and work on my flute playing going forward.

Law is one method for structuring, enhancing, or limiting political power. A few too many lawschool brained profs/lawyers think it is much more; it is not. A few too many political scientists and very online folks think it is meaningless; it is not. Use tools to the extent they've useful.

@dougalmcneill.bsky.social @nikkihessell.bsky.social

Meet one of my favorite Renaissance friends: Galeazzo Sanseverino, a mercenary whom contemporary sources describe as the sexiest thing in pants in Italy, part of the badass polycule threesome that ruled Milan in the early 1490s. Thread 1/? (#HistoryPix Countdown to "Inventing the Renaissance" day 3)

I hope Merrick Garland is happy with how his strategy to deal with January 6 has turned out. Actually, I don't hope that. I hope he is miserable and questioning everything.

experiment... to see how to post a gif as a video (and it appears to work)

This looks very cool, I must say.

All set up at AIA/SCS, come say hi 👋

Getting for new year's eve party!

Really am quite agreeing with the below. I also sigh as I remember the "leadership" I have been working on under at national and very local levels.

Review of Ancient Women Philosophers: Recovered Ideas and New Perspectives

yup

Imagine having all the money, power and opportunity in the world and using it to buy a presidency for an incoherent, incontinent, rapey knobhead. What a legacy. History books will not be kind.

A podcast with Anthony Kaldellis about the masculinity of scholars and clerics in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the challenges and deficits that it faced, and the masculine capital that men in those occupations tried to amass and then spend. www.podbean.com/ew/pb-ttbmu-... #Byzantium