This is a basic and crucial point for any discussion of LLMs’ use in teaching research or writing. Whether it can ape us, fool us, or get facts right or wrong is, in the end, irrelevant. The LLM is not the thinker we are trying to encourage; the LLM is not the writer that we are trying to improve.

I think often of this one Baldwin paragraph, not specifically because of Jewish contexts but because of the assumptions that are often made about what oppression does to anyone archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes....

anti-trans Dems ate shit last night

This story, from @natezuke.bsky.social, is absolutely wild. A trans woman who never changed her gender marker was issued a letter invalidating her license. At the DMV they cut up her license, which had an "M" marker. www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...

IVIG (Intravenous Immunoglobulin) saved my son's life & kept this man's cancer in remission for 20yrs. For those unfamiliar, treatment involves transfusion of part of the blood donations of strangers--the part with the antibodies created by their immune systems--to reset recipients' immune response.

[guy who sang baby beluga] the festering belly is splitting, each half digested soul fumbling for a knife

I heard recently that some students are using chatgpt to feed them ideas for class DISCUSSION and my soul actually left my body

Why do I have to pretend that I'm going to print something in order to save it as a PDF. Why do I have to engage in a little ruse.

I don't think the "Einstein" or other AI replacing the important steps of learning, esp in higher ed, would be posing quite the challenge it is right now if students hadn't been sent the message their entire lives that the point of college is to get good grades and a high paying job, not to learn.

Someone a decade+ younger than I asked me if I saw the Matrix in theaters and how cool that must have been

Disability and the Gothic has now been published and is available online FOR FREE for the next 2 weeks. www.cambridge.org/core/element...

Heads up, Goths: Essaka Joshua’s splendid volume on Disability and the Gothic in the nineteenth century has just been published in my and @angelawright1794.bsky.social Elements in the Gothic series. Open access for the next 2 weeks! www.cambridge.org/core/element...

My Valentine's day tradition for the last decade (regardless of relationship status) has been a date with myself where I watch something I should've already seen but haven't. So I am FINALLY watching Sinners.

Now this is a movie plot!!! Someone understands grad school.

The cats are high. I repeat, the cats are high.

It is bad that people have to do this to survive. Also, I receive an infusion every 4 weeks derived from donated plasma. It gives me an immune system, since my body doesn't produce certain antibodies on its own. So, if you are donating, I do appreciate it.

one thing that's great about Bluesky is when there's new Chotiner piece we all meet up like fans of a band for a surprise listening party

Last month, Secretary Kennedy had a press conference where he claimed that the original intent of the ADA was to exclude trans people. So I asked a bunch of experts and someone who was actually there.

Fun bluesky fact is that no matter what else is going on, someone is always reading Moby Dick

Part of the issue is that those most actively protesting and leading mutual aid are women and gender non-conforming people. Both groups are illegible to many as protesters. This helps explain the invisibilization of current protests and resistance.

So all colleges and universities will bring back the DEI stuff they cut when obeying in advance right...............................................................................................................................................right?

Re the February Dear Colleagues letter that threatened funding for schools & universities over DEI-related efforts: ‘[Ed Dept]…moved to dismiss its appeal. It leaves in place a federal judge’s August decision finding that the anti-DEI effort violated the First Amendment & federal procedural rules.’

When my cats weren't getting along, the internet suggested I praise grumpy Fudge whenever she *wasn't* beating up himbo Gus so she would learn that peace came with rewards. Good to know our president openly acknowledges he operates under the same logic when it comes to [checks notes] war.

Happy MLK Day!

They don't have capacity to terrorize more than 2-3 cities at a time. Which means they rotate teams to new cities without relief. Which means consistent resistance by fresh activists in each new city will break them over time. Which means if you're city's not occupied, rest up and get ready.

At least 3 solidarity vigils are scheduled tonight in the Chicago area. The one The TRiiBE notes here, at 26th & Troy in Chicago's La Villita neighborhood, at 7:30 pm. Another at Winnemac Park in Chicago's Ravenswood neighborhood, at 6 pm. A third at Fountain Square in Evanston, IL, at 7:30 pm.

I will be speaking at this tonight.

My cat was yowling in the living room and I walked in to find her sitting disgruntledly in a small sun-spot. She ran up to me, then back to the sun-spot, looking expectant as though to say "hello, house-wench, this sun is not satisfactory. I would like more sun. I trust you will sort this out."

there should be a "good morning" feed on bluesky where you're not immediately thrown headfirst into the worst news imaginable while you're still half asleep

My two cats, a paws with claws

“oh, i wish there were some kind of punctuation to chain these two sentences together” the humble semicolon:

One of the most important pieces I've read this year. A lot of journalists tried to capture what it was like on the ground, as Chicagoans resisted an onslaught of federal agents attacking our neighbors, and @melissagiragrant.com pulled it off.

I'm so brave, I spent several hours writing even though there are no snacks in the house. Going to get snacks now.

Hey, guess what you can buy now? #clarissa2025 allgrimprints.shop/products/i-f...

Letting myself write a paragraph-long screed against an article that has lived rent-free in my head for a decade, which will eventually be edited down to a calm, reasonable "my approach differs from [this fuckin guy],..."

Times are tough, and some of my paid subscribers have had to cancel lately due to financial hardships. I get it, and I wish for better times for us all. Unfortunately, paid subscriptions are now dipping into unsustainable territory. I am hoping to get eight new paid subscribers before the new year.

Did indeed spill half a bowl of chili on my pants watching Heated Rivalry. Not a metaphor.

A broken-down Tesla blocking the bus stop feels like a metaphor

Ok I made my chapter so much worse and then pulled it back on track and I think it might (just might) make sense--and only a day overdue!

Ok playing constant weird Christmas song remixes at urgent care (I'm fine) is surely a violation of the patients bill of rights

Latkes for my ex-catholic partner on the mmmth day of Chanukah (I was in the hospital at the beginning [I'm fine] so I have entirely lost track)

Folks need to examine philosophically why it is that—in the span of just a couple of years—the leaders of the American Democratic, Canadian Liberal & British Labour Parties have all gone all in on assisred suicide (while making healthcsre harder to attain) www.cityandstateny.com/policy/2025/...

A large CBP presence is back in Chicago this morning, with sightings and arrests reported across the southwest side and Cicero. Bovino is also here.

The ACA isn't just "health care for people who don't have a conventional employer." It also disallows something that was incredibly common 20 years ago, which I fear is getting lost to generational memory: insurance companies could deny you health care for essentially any previous health problem.

Ready to start a movement that argues universities should spend money on their core functions, rather than flashy nonsense. Such as teaching and research for example.

My modest goal for #acadecawriteathon has been revising 2 pages/day of my Ill Femininities chapter. I also need to be writing a couple hundred words of another piece due this month, but I have a verrrrry wide turning radius when switching tasks. Like an eighteen-wheeler on a city street. Chaos.

Today I offered myself chocolate at 9:28 a.m. because thinking remains difficult plus I had to do arithmetic to figure out if a student has room for another major even though I have 0 phds in arithmetic

Most played song: rheumatology

I have to think REALLY HARD about this paragraph I'm trying to revise, which apparently means I must turn off all the lights in my office and offer myself chocolate at [checks watch] 10:11 a.m. #acadecawriteathon

starting Dec 1st! ie tomorrow! for structure to eke out pages at a bonkers time of year (that is also a precious writing-est time): you can do 250 words a day! books get written that way! if more, amazing! if not when grading or festive-ing, that's ok! check in daily at #acadecawriteathon