JK Rowling’s support of transphobia has been absolutely catastrophic for the entire world. She funded a far right movement, tested, weaponized it—and it is a cancer eating away at multiple societies. She normalized a lying narrative about people that will plague future generations. She is a curse.

*Palantir execs trying to explain their glorious vision so we’ll invite them inside*

my book is expensive because it’s an academic book, so while I’m so thankful to those of you who’ve pre-ordered it, requesting that your library order it is just as good. it’s also going to be open access so any one can read it online. save your money! www.routledge.com/Queer-Pregna...

An important thing to note when discussing this topic is that NASA has a MANDATE to do outreach and education and messaging about its science. It’s a core principle for them. And as such that outreach is FUNDED. What we need is for more agencies to be rewritten to add mandates like this!

I would buy the book-length version of this thread on the brilliance of the English ""translation"" of the Les Miz lyrics

Really important piece in the Guardian, on Harvard’s slow-walking and stone-walling of its historical complicity with the slave trade, featuring testimony from amazing scholars @caitlindeangelis.bsky.social and @carladmartin.bsky.social 🗃️

Cis people who did some thinking before coming out to themselves as cis tend to be some of the most reliable, honourable and secure people I’ve ever known.

They are refunding tickets and you have to rebuy with absolutely no guarantee you’ll get new tickets or as good of seats. And Ticketmaster is being super unclear about when or how. The show is in one week, we’ve had tickets since October 😭

Well my least favorite thing about Philadelphia, sports, is officially ruining my favorite thing, access to concerts and theatre. The fucking Flyers are in the playoffs so the Florence +The Machine show is being moved to a smaller venue in AC. I’m incandescent with rage.

I don't recall any previous transformative technologies that had to be sold to the public so hard. No one in 1999 was going, "Guys. Cell phone? It's coming, whether we like it or not. I think it's important, FOR WOMEN ESPECIALLY, to learn about cell phone. So that we're not left behind!!"

It shocks me how many businesses still don’t seem to get that Trump’s cultural revolution did not actually happen

Reese & Sandra both coming out w their let's lean into AI is not a coincidence. It's self interest. It's cynical and it's deeply disappointing that other creatives are willing to throw their fellow artists under the bus.

Dream positions: 3 (!!) PhD placements at the Prize Papers with emphasis on finding students with the following language skills: French, Spanish, Dutch, and Scandinavian languages. (Of course, I emphasize the Dutch language!) www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/professional...

Three people you don't want to get into a public beef with are Kendrick, Isaac Chotiner, and The Pope

Tomorrow I am going to the Grand Canyon and am planning on staying on the paved Rim Trail and not doing tons of walking. I wonder if I could wear my Birkenstock clogs and be okay. My hiking boots are pinching my big toes so much.

See, this is the sort of thing TikTok is for, not keeping up with news: hearing a baritone use the acoustics of a sewer to deliver Phantom of the Opera.

Instead of asking chatgpt, why not ask a librarian? You'll get real answers and they won't tell you to kill yourself.

This is hell. These are Victorian factory work conditions.

I think about this a lot — I often ask my students “what would you try if it was ok for it not to work out? If failure was also an acceptable outcome of the project?”

NEW: WebinarTV, a site that scrapes Zoom webinars without permission, has downloaded and posted Zoom Webinars for anonymous addiction recovery meetings, support groups for caregivers and people who suffer from chronic illness, and a meeting of nudists. They then get turned into AI podcasts.

The point of the university as a concept is that it's been here for a thousand years and meant to be here another thousand. Turning education over to producing what the market needed five years ago is never going to work well.

W/alt

Making tenure count, for MSNOW I wrote about my employer, The University of Iowa, creating a center for intellectual freedom. It's a reactionary project built on decades of conservative propaganda about higher ed.

I'm one of those trans women. I worked ground ops for Artemis I. I am torn between celebrating the success of my friends and peers and grieving how my dream of working for NASA was shattered by hateful assholes in Tallahassee

they're pretty sure he's connected to the moon

READ THE ROOM, WHITE HOUSE

I had missed Hegseth's revolting war-prayer. Quite apart from the erotic attraction to violence, it is pretty fundamental to Christianity that "mercy" is not restricted to those who "deserve" it. Or as Shakespeare put it, "Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?"

"self-defeating toxic masculinity prevents men from seeking important jobs in growth fields" FIFY

I love this little old lady very much. If she was in fact two when we adopted her, then she is now 17 years old. She has kidney disease and no teeth, but she’s still playful and very demanding of attention. Living her best life bossing everyone around.

Why I don't trust anyone a little too obsessed about falling fertility rates

Today, House Democrats tried to bring another War Powers Resolution to the floor. Republicans blocked us. As gas prices soar and troops are put in harm’s way, the GOP continues to be complicit in this reckless war.

The Mamdani administration today announced its own click to cancel rule, to make sure that every subscription transaction in the city is as easy to end as it is to start. The FTC did this in 2023, it was challenged in court & Trump's FTC wouldn't defend it. NYC is doing it themselves.

these idiot adult converts are going to drive me back into the extremely questionable arms of the church

All of these No Kings demonstrations and now this May 1 strike are accustoming millions of people to taking action and helping build the organizing capability and community support and networks to sustain a much bigger effort when the time comes. Essential steps. Get with it, friends!

I just feel like Americans authentically just don't want to people teaching what the crusades were because it would de-romanticize them. Anyway. Blah blah blah, medieval! *jazz hands*

As an atheist working for a Catholic university this thread is EXACTLY the Catholic Tea I came here looking for after I saw this news!

"we need kids to get an early start operating machines that are routinely wrong and may try to coax them into suicide and/or psychosis" is a fun education perspective i disagree with actually

We can’t unring the bell of an American president threatening to do genocide

We can’t keep going on like this. Impeach and remove him immediately.

I'm the daughter of an Army paratrooper who refused orders during our illegal invasion of Vietnam back in the day. He went to LBJ military jail. Dad taught his girls this: "Just following orders" is NEVER any excuse for anyone who's complicit in war crimes. You MUST refuse heinous orders.

Everything is terrible and scary so here is nearly a full minute of Babou doing an epic blep.

Script.

Statement from House Democratic Leadership on Donald Trump's threat to kill a whole civilization.

for me impeachment isn't what we should be after. this president and most of his cabinet and staff should be prosecuted for corruption, fraud, war crimes, obstruction, and all the various crimes they have committed. i will only vote for a presidential candidate in 2028 who commits to this.

“HE’S TURNED”

So, thing that is apparently better understood inside academia than outside of it: International students pay sticker price. Most domestic students do not. International students are subsidizing the education costs for domestic students, as per student governmental funding drops.

Early modern musicology friends: is there a convenient guide, published or otherwise, to pre-modern musical notation? It’d be of enormous help. TIA #skystorians #earlymodern #musichistory

As we approach America's 250th birthday, now is a good time for this reminder: One of our Founders, Thomas Paine, suggested we have a universal basic income for all people 21 and over, funded by a tax on landed wealth and property. Sounds like a hell of a birthday gift, don't you think?

perfect warm going-out weather in DC all weekend and the metropolitan police department has just announced a number of zones in the city where teenagers have an official, city-imposed curfew of 8pm. in case anyone was wondering how the exponentially increased police presence there has been going

Why is @libbyapp.com asking me via chatbot if I want recommendations? I don't, I want the recs from librarians and booksellers and my friends, I don't want agentic ai's, thanks.