47-53, Democrats' short-term funding bill fails (again) in the Senate. It breaks fully along party lines.

I was just thinking about him yesterday and wondering what he was doing and how he is.

I just logged out of fb, maybe permanently, because too many of my smart friends who should know better were liking and sharing this crap. It was sapping my will to live. Seriously, it feels like lessons in being stupider. And it’s not just the right. It’s everywhere.

One of the people in this video is a productive member of society performing a useful service for pay. The rest are leeches on the government tit, creating disorder and havoc and wasting tax payer money.

I just noticed that my first novel, about the medieval pilgrimage to Compostela, is on sale 45% off at Amazon. ⏳📚💙 #BookSky #historicalfiction www.amazon.com/Pilgrimage-L...

Where’s the David Matthew’s Band bus when we really need it?

Eleanor comes from Aenor, Eleanor of Aquitaine’s mother. When Aenor gave birth to a daughter, they called her “alia Aenor — the other Aenor -- Eleanor.”

All they will call you will be deportees.

Congress can stop this any time they want

Listen, I pride myself on usually knowing everything about everything, but THIS just now was legitimately news to me. lizplank.substack.com/p/tylenol-is...

Tylenol does not cause autism but *not* taking Tylenol can cause women to be truly miserable during pregnancy so you can see why the GOP is so gung-ho about this line of argument.

Medievalist colleagues: I just deleted my academia account. I’m on Researchgate and might later turn up on knowledge commons too.

Earlier this year, ProPublica found that the sepsis rate in second-trimester pregnancy loss hospitalizations increased by more than 50% under Texas’ abortion ban. Here’s how we did our analysis. (Published Feb. 2025)

Democracy, more than anything is a practice. I always think that the Civil Rights Movement succeeded because from the Civil War black Americans built institutions: universities, fraternities and sororities, churches, that engaged them in democratic practice.

'sickos' vocitantur, de eo quod per fenestram ridentes, 'ha ha ha... sic!' clamant -Isidorus Hispalensis

Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO): “What is an American? It is a white person. America is a white homeland that organically binds together white people of the past, present and future." This is sickening, and needs to be condemned in the STRONGEST terms. EVERY Republican should be made to answer for it.

I’m doing some genealogical work and one thing I notice in the pre-vaccine era is that parents typically have at least one or two children die before age six. These are comfortable, well-nourished people. Measles etc doesn’t care.

Common theme of people I've interviewed recently. At universities, in research centers, in diplomacy, in the legal system, dealing with refugees or immigrants: The reality inside is much worse than you would think from the outside.

WELKER: Trump said tariffs were gonna spark a manufacturing renaissance but since he announced them the US has lost 42k manufacturing jobs. Is that proof tariffs are failing? BESSENT: We can't snap our fingers & have factories built W: The economy added nearly 500k manufacturing jobs under Biden

Yes! For Americans passing by the thread who want to understand more about universal low-fee childcare: www.tamarackcommunity.ca/articles/que...

"In Quebec between 1997 and 2007 (the first ten years of $5 a day universal child care), the low-income rate for single-parent families headed by women fell from 60.3% to 20.4%."

Nightswimming, and there’s no contest at all m.youtube.com/watch?v=ahJ6...

Is this a joke? He’s on 100% disability with a TBI and running for senate? Does he think being a senator is not work? This just screams another Fetterman to me.

“ the Trump administration is now asking foreign mail carriers to act as import tax collectors on behalf of the U.S. government — something they aren't set up to do or may be refusing to do.” Normally, this is done by the postal service of the receiver, not the sender.

Worth reading.

Honestly I find the shiny rosy Middle Ages people, and the well actually Middle Ages people just as tiresome as the dark ages mud and disease Middle Ages people.

There will be many casualties from UChicago ending ('pausing') PhD admissions in Humantities, but one which I am keenly aware of: this is close to a death sentence for teaching cuneiform in the United States (esp. Sumerian, Hittite, Elamite, Eblaite, Luwian) and it will affect the whole world.

It’s the farandolae after all.

Requiem for a once-great university.

I agree with this. And the “concession” that not just a few (as originally announced) but all Humanities departments at UChicago would forego admitting a PhD class next year is worse news for the division not better.

Oh not much, just a quick peek at a few diagrams in a 13th c. copy of Joannes de Sacro Bosco's influential pre-Copernican astronomical text Tractatus de sphaera (On the Sphere of the World) (UPenn LJS 26) #medievalsky 🔗: https://bit.ly/41EAKFa

OMG! I missed this announcement! Congrats, Lucy! Ordering today! #medievalsky #historicalfiction

Who rules the world?

📚⚔️✨🍄 Let's sell some books! Need action? Got you covered! Need action and a touch of romance? Right here! Need something with a touch of fantasy, the smell of the desert and the song of djinn? I am here for you! 1/2

U Chicago AAUP fights back docs.google.com/document/d/1...

This is true. What’s happening at UChicago is not primarily about Trump.

This is also terrible. Lots of UChicago PhD students get funded by FLAS. So shortsighted.

UChicago Humanities is forcing those few departments allowed to admit a 2026-27 PhD class to admit fewer students. That’s a decrease from an already lower level. At some point the degree programs become completely unviable.

As the tweet says, this isn’t a cash strapped regional school that needs to focus on career oriented majors to attract dollars and students. It’s one of the premier universities in the country.

One more... Apropos of not much, see below for the language requirement for the PhD program where the UChicago Dean of Humanities got her degree. Her work has engaged French & German writers, suggesting the value of language competence. Does she think her training was surplus to requirements?

Devastating is right. Decades of mismanagement and now capitulation. Some of the University of Chicago’s finest programs, places where their strength is unique. Basically gone.

This seems bad.

This would be a good historical novel.

This would be an exciting discovery from a time when we don’t have a lot of physical evidence of the presence of Jews in Spain. (though the quotes from the researchers tell me they know almost zero about Jewish history)

Such a tragedy.

I just noticed that my first novel, about the medieval pilgrimage to Compostela, is on sale 45% off at Amazon. ⏳📚💙 #BookSky #historicalfiction www.amazon.com/Pilgrimage-L...

the author calling Ghislaine “madam maxwell” makes clear how widely understood all of this was