NEW: "Reconstruction and Ruin" the Winter 2025 Issue of Middle East Report is now live! This issue captures the challenges facing ordinary people in the Middle East as the warfare politics of dispossession and division continue amidst efforts to rebuild urban landscapes.

I just stumbled across this and thought some of you might like to see it. A letter from E.B. White to a man who'd written he'd lost all hope:

If you happen to be in London on Thursday, please consider attending this conversation about On the Semicivilized -- or any of the other great talks coming up in this series "Histories of Capitalism and Race" at SOAS.

Trump: “Nobody understands a word this guy is saying.” Reminder: 550 million people worldwide speak Spanish, 45 million of them in the USA. Poor monolingual president. He doesn’t get it and can barely even speak English. www.nytimes.com/live/2026/02...

for those who missed the Bad Bunny halftime show, a long clip on reddit www.reddit.com/r/nfl/commen...

Catch authors @naylandblake.bsky.social, @wolffdr.bsky.social, @jeelyachar.bsky.social, @beansvelocci.bsky.social, and @maxliboiron.bsky.social at in-person and virtual events in February! buff.ly/SJZ076W

Imperial Boomerang open.substack.com/pub/chrished...

"Guess who is the largest direct investor in the US?" -- @philippasigl.bsky.social

"Cash is anonymous. It’s the first choice for unhoused and undocumented communities,... for people who are legally subject to income reporting to maintain their education or benefits status, for elderly people... Cash is less vulnerable to taxation or garnishment than bank accounts...."

Our attempt to make sense of Trump II, sans sane-washing. Big thanks to @andrewelrod.bsky.social and Maya Adereth whose editing made the piece much, much better.

Secretary General of the Council of Europe says “International law is either universal or meaningless. Greenland will show which one we choose.” Yes, well. Did Gaza show which one we choose? www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/o...

Honored to be speaking February 12th in London as part of the Histories of Capitalism and Race series of the SOAS Walter Rodney Collective Spring 2026 series. www.soas-walter-rodney-collective.com/events. www.dukeupress.edu/on-the-semic....

Been making my way through @hofrench.bsky.social biography of Kwame Nkrumah and it’s every bit as good as advertised. So good at connecting African American experience to African liberation, without ignoring the problems and contradictions. Loved it. wwnorton.com/books/978132...

The Trump administration is asking countries that want a permanent spot on his new Board of Peace to contribute at least $1 billion. Trump’s reported duties would include: approving the board's agenda, deciding which countries to invite, and controlling the money

"The incredible work that’s been done to crystallize a broad opposition to Israeli & U.S. genocide against Palestinians in Gaza needs to move forward. Our space at @historians.org, extraordinary capacity building, & the conversations that bring us together—we’re not going to rescind that space.”

me in @publicbooks.bsky.social thinking through what a philology beyond liberalism might look like via one book which really shows us a path forward and one which very much so does not // the age of babel is dead, long live the age of the pentecost!

RIP German anthropologist Johannes Fabian, who passed away last Tuesday. Fabian was most widely known as the author of "Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object" (1983), a then-radical & still-influential critique of anthropological writing, knowledge-making & fieldwork relations. RIP.

Yup www.crisesnotes.com/trump-vs-pow...

Why Greenland? "Peter Thiel, who wants to set up crypto-empowered 'network states' on undeveloped territory, has invested in Praxis, a start-up that aims to do just that and which has scouted Greenland. Trump’s ambassador to Denmark, Ken Howery, was a co-founder with Thiel and Elon Musk of PayPal."

Blue states & cities could use sub federal public institutions to create sub federal public money See @moneyontheleft.bsky.social for more

For a great introduction to Nasser Abourahme's must-read new book, dukeupress.edu/the-time-ben..., @dukepress.bsky.social , read this conversation in Journal of Palestine Studies www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1658.... @dukepress.bsky.social

The first time Charlie Chaplin spoke onscreen, he implored the people of the world to resist the rising tide of fascism. Nearly 90 years later, it remains a timely message.

I also had a great time talking to @armanc.bsky.social for @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social about www.dukeupress.edu/on-the-semic.... He really pushed me to think on my feet.

In 2021, our Arabic journal sat down with Mohammad Bakri to explore the broader dimensions of the Palestinian struggle as they intersect with art, culture, and political expression. The interview with the late filmmaker & actor is now available in English: www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1658...

"Polishing impunity just makes the unaffected feel better."

Surrounded by dozens of DEA and FBI agents, the deposed president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, is escorted off a US government jet at Stewart Airport in New York.

What a gift to speak with Mikey Muhanna of @afikra.bsky.social about my book On the Semicivilized: Coloniality, Finance, and Embodied Sovereignty in Cairo on this episode of Afikra www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfHc....

the US AI ecosystem will make Enron look like sticklers for accounting rules.

I left Gmail 8 years ago and for not a ton of money you can replace these features with a non-Gmail address by using Spark email and SaneBox: www.sanebox.com/signup/a8b31...

So great to talk with the wonderful Fatima Seck, co-host of Conversations in Atlantic Theory atlantictheory.transistor.fm/episodes, about my book On the Semicivilized. I am so grateful to you, Fatima, for your amazing questions. I learned so much from you! open.spotify.com/episode/2QAV...

No one leaving New York City because of Mamdani, say two top real estate CEOs

Over at @phenomenalworld.bsky.social, @ceaweaver.bsky.social offers a timely primer on housing politics and policy in New York City.

Curtis Yarvin is planning flee the country. Steve Bannon is worried about returning to prison. Don't listen to anyone who says the fascists have already won. The future is not yet written.

A RADICAL VISION FOR MAMDANI’S NEW YORK CITY

If you buy anything at all from Tesla, you are endorsing a corporation that chose to give a trillion dollars to this man:

finance guys on twitter are like "can't believe zohran hired lina khan. she wants to make it illegal to bundle memecoin futures into junk stocks and sell them to public worker pension plans. the public won't stand for it."

SUPPORT MERIP: You can show your support for MERIP by picking up a poster or a tote bag today! All products printed locally in a union shop!

Systematic execution of hundreds in a hospital in Darfur, as RSF/Janjaweed take over the city of El Fasher (population ~250k) in Darfur. That adds to an estimated 150,000+ death toll from fighting, plus many more from famine. But Sudan is one of those places the outside world cares little about.

Hardwiring Normalization—Infrastructures, Extraction and Gaza’s Future www.merip.org/2025/10/hard... A must-read from the new issue of @merip.bsky.social by @rafeefz.bsky.social

I will start telling my students that the biggest chance for them to succeed in the future job market is to spend their entire (under-)graduate studies learning how to think for themselves. If they survive this hardship & frustration, they’ll eventually outdo everyone cutting corners #AI #ContraAI 🤖

“Larry Ellison’s Oracle & Peter Thiel’s Palantir now form a single operational spine for digital governance and defence, from cloud infrastructure to predictive analytics. And Trump’s Gaza peace plan looks like the vehicle thru which that spine could extend into Gaza’s reconstruction.” 10/16/25 …1/

The amazing ppl at IDEAS ON Fire are offering a free first book webinar.#academicsky

Balaji (a close associate of Thiel & Andreessen) leads the “network state” movement, which encourages tech elites to build their own “countries” by acquiring physical territory w/in host countries & building “parallel institutions” to replace existing ones in media, education, finance, & science 1/

Brett Kavanaugh is basically arguing tha there have been "sufficient remedies" for racism. This seems like a good time to bring up the @politico.com about how young Republicans have *remedied* racism. www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

A truly remarkable interview with my colleague Lana Tatour on race and the question of Palestine: rss.com/podcasts/2-p...

AFP (10 freelancers in Gaza across text/photo/video) : since the agency founded in 1944 we’ve had journalists killed, injured or imprisoned, but none of us can recall a colleague dying of starvation. Which is imminent.