Video message from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KckG... www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/s...

What's the scarier prospect? That chatbots are analyzing people's data? Or that this practice is seen as unremarkable? www.civicsoftechnology.org/blog/when-co...

Over the years, many people have encountered Merton’s letter but usually without the context for how it came to be. I wanted to share both today. The part of the letter that is often quoted is this:

Jim Forest sent a letter to Thomas Merton in 1966. He did not know Merton but Merton wrote back to him what has become known “Letter to a young activist.” jimandnancyforest.com/2014/10/mert...

IES is the federal agency with the second largest reduction in staff this year, narrowly behind USAID

This song has been rolling through my head since Wednesday. Know Your Rights, The Clash youtu.be/7yeZrctpAGc?...

Five years ago.

Thank you, Merriam-Webster. You knew just what I needed. Hopeful.

“Hundreds of thousands of Ohioans rely on voting by mail. This new law is going to be especially hard on seniors, Ohioans with disabilities, rural Ohioans and students. Voters should not be punished because of slow mail delivery days.” -Jen Miller, @lwvohio.bsky.social www.vindy.com/opinion/davi...

Thursday?

I am home sick in bed for NYE, but I have a sweet little fur ball keeping my feet warm. So long, 2025.

When I was little, the U.S. military came to our home at gunpoint and took me and my family away. We were imprisoned for years in barbed wire camps simply because we were Japanese American. I have spent my life telling that story, hoping it would never be repeated.

Hey so this seems like something more people should be talking about 🤔 🗳️ www.npr.org/2025/10/23/n...

Gov. Mike DeWine signed legislation to eliminate the four-day grace period for mailed absentee ballots.

This poster, 1938, was printed by the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio to encourage Americans to welcome Jewish refugees from Germany & Austria. More info in ALT. I couldn’t track down the name of the artist. #arthistory #illustration #immigration #immigrants #Refugees

Were Jesus, Mary and Joseph refugees? In today’s Feast of the Holy Family, we read of Jesus, Mary and Joseph fleeing the murderous designs of an evil king and journeying to Egypt, a traditional refugee for Jewish people of the time, as Joan Taylor points out in her book “Boy Jesus.”

Happy 91st to Columbus’ king of the late night airwaves, Frederick Peerenboom aka Fritz the Nite Owl!!

unironically a good idea

Merry Christmas to all!

Bill eliminates grace period for mailed-in ballots in Ohio “It simply erects more barriers to voting and punishes hard working Ohio tax paying citizens for something out of control, the speed of the mail service.” -Jen Miller, @lwvohio.bsky.social bgindependentmedia.org/bill-elimina...

This brings back childhood memories of Christmas Eves spent trying to fall asleep on a aluminum and nylon camp cot (so cold) as my bed was reserved for my one of my 2 great aunts who stayed over every year. #DuvetKnowItsChristmas

ICE Sweeps Into Ohio, Stirring Fear Among Somalis and Other Immigrants www.nytimes.com/2025/12/24/u...

ah yes a true holiday classic

Catholic Bishops is Florida want a holiday moratorium on immigration enforcement so people can go to church and celebrate Christmas and New Years.

Canada doing Radio Free Europe for Americans

It’s the “season of love and giving”…but this year, doesn’t it seem more like a “season of fear and taking”? Like many of you, I’ve been saddened by the human impact of draconian government budget cuts and how angry many housed Americans are at unhoused Americans. 🧵 1 of 9

If I hired a research assistant who made up multiple papers that didn’t exist, and when I asked why he said “Well I’m hallucinating 30-40% of the time”, that guy would be fired, and I’d have a talk with his advisor, and it would be my go-to anecdote at every conference for the next few decades

My official holiday season kickoff with BalletMet's performance of The Nutcracker in the historic Ohio Theater.

And so checked out Google Scholar. Now on my profile it doesn't appear, but somwhow on Nelli's it does and ... and ... omg, IT'S BEEN CITED 42 TIMES almost exlusively in papers about AI in education from this year alone... scholar.google.com.vn/citations?vi...

Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵 Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...

I'd like to chat to one or two people, ideally women (I've already talked to a load of men) who've got into the Merlin app for identifying birdsong this year. For a nice positive story. Please drop me a line, thank you!

The real People of the Year: Student Journalists

According to a new court filing, the Trump administration has a six-page list of banned words that Head Start locations are forbidden from using when describing their programs. Among the censored words: "disability," "race," "women," "trauma," "Gulf of Mexico." Short thread with the full list. 🧵

The Ninth Window. The Doctor and Grey Brock knocked on the door at half-past seven, and were welcomed in by Old Fox for a quick repast of eggs and toast and potato cakes and plain cake and coffee.

I wish a notice like this wasn't necessary. www.icrc.org/en/article/i...

On Aug 24, 1869, Ohio Rep. John Bingham, principal framer of the 14th amendment, gave a remarkable speech on “Equal Rights-Impartial Suffrage,” in which he said of those who sought to reject the principal of birthright citizenship, “no greater political atrocity than this can possibly be committed.”

“Traumatized, humiliated, degraded.” The nurse, a US citizen, 4’11”, 85 lbs, says she was following orders when she was dragged out of her car by masked immigration agents in Florida. It was the 3rd time she had been stopped and told to produce ID. Free link ⤵️ www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

A Jimmy Durante classic!

Interior with a Girl Reading, 1905 https://botfrens.com/collections/48/contents/15474

The second pie of #SecularPieThursday, and apple pie made with a recipe passed down from my great grandmother. A happy day to all who celebrate, and special holiday cheer to @duchessgoldblatt.bsky.social

For @duchessgoldblatt.bsky.social, my first offering of ##SecularPieThursday Cranberry Crumb.

Fifteen Years xkcd.com/3172/

#ForSale #KeisaiEisen #JapaneseArt #Edo #Geese

It turns out that the folks at Anthropic used two of my books to train their Large Language Models. I've gone and submitted my claim via the class action settlement. If you're an author whose work has been stolen, you should too

Um so that is very bad. For many reasons, but perhaps the most obvious end-game of this new development is if you people are just reading AI summaries of original content, but that kills how we fund original content... eventually you won't have original content for AI summaries to draw on. 12/

Remember: they used thousands of academic books too! If you’re a scholar, check for your books too. This isn’t just novelists and pop writers, it’s academic books too!

Margaret Spellings, the Ed Sec'y under George W. Bush, weighs in on the changes announced today to move several core functions of the Ed Dept to other federal agencies

In a rare move Tuesday, an Ohio House committee voted to advance a bill changing the deadline for absentee ballots after a single hearing. Lawmakers also folded in a different controversial measure on proof of citizenship just hours before the hearing. ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/11/18/o...