“Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business.” -Jacob Marley, A Christmas Carol

Yep, Muppet Christmas Carol still slaps

Hey Now You're a Boxcar Full of Children Solve Crimes

How do you practice writing? What's your version of running through your scales or doing mile repeats? buttondown.com/draftingthep...

Shower thought: way more food is "mostly just grain + cheese + tomato" than you would think lasagna spaghetti (marina + parmesan etc) enchiladas grilled cheese & tomato soup nachos if there's salsa I gotta be missing some

When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.

If you want to actually improve archival access, you do that by spending money providing liveable wages and more resources to existing archives and professionalizing the thousands of volunteer-run local repositories. Spending money on AI/genAI isn't helping either.

That indeed is the fun of it. I don’t want some entity to do that work for me. And until it becomes more trustworthy, I really don’t see the point of herding everybody into using a tool that is so often wrong.

Seems like it's worth posting this one again.

What historians (and other scholars do) is create knowledge. We should use that phrase more and talk about what it means. I think we don't, and it's part of why AI enthusiasts are confused when we don't readily agree that our work can be replicated/replaced by their products.

And this is what librarians spend all our time trying to facilitate. Thinking about how stuff is organised, how can we help you find what you don't even know you don't know. It's literally the joy of our profession

Building on this, “Feeding AI” also devalues the labor of archivists, while endangering original records as well as the authenticity and reliability of the records. People do not understand that end of the work and assume we can just digitize everything. No. No we cannot.

honestly, “it’s because they’re still mad about the New Deal” is a pretty good guiding hypothesis for a lot of stuff

I’m sorry but ‘heritage American’ makes you sound like a tomato

My point is there is no substitute for Deep Work. For wrestling with readings you don't understand. For trying to make connections between 5 things you just read and the context beyond that. AI cannot do this and it robs you of the foundational skills you need in whatever career you choose.

A big part of being a historian is being a detective! Who did this? Why? Where? Why does it matter in the grand scheme of things? You have to learn how to probe, how to uncover, how to read against the grain, how to find unusual sources, how to interpret those sources. How to piece together a puzzle

Suffragists didn't just march. They baked, held bake sales and sold cookbooks to raise money for the cause of equality.

🚨 WIND ALERT Winds to ramp up rapidly this afternoon, spreading W to E from noon–2p. Already seeing 60 mph gusts in Cumberland, Md. Strongest winds W & NW of DC, esp at higher elevations, but gusts of 45–55 mph poss Beltway area. 🌳 Downed trees, isolated power outages poss. 👉 Updates at cwg.live

Reminder: Volatile weather day Friday. * Gusty downpours barge thru 6-9a * Temperatures plummet. 55-60F early but falling into 40s in afternoon. * Wind advisory in afternoon for gusts to 45-55 mph. Detailed forecast at cwg.live

Saw the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope today. It’s very big, and very cool, and I want my tax money to go to things like that.

Just to be clear. It’s the John F Kennedy center legally. Just like it’s still the department of defense

James Garfield is often portrayed as a good man in an age of bad governance—but the real story is a little more complicated, Jake Lundberg writes in Time-Travel Thursdays.

I see solely from my TL that the president is having a normal one

“And then when we were finished, he comes up to me to shake my hand and say goodbye. And he says to me, "You know, you have a lot of power in the discretion you use to be kind to people." And I looked at him and I said, "You know, you do, too." The moral core of the feature, the photos, all of it.

Photographers are journalists. That is all.

This kind of statement would once be made inside the most rarified councils of state, some ultralimited Special Group, wherein POTUS & his most trusted advisors would commit to never putting anything in writing yet some handwritten archival scrap excavated 50 years later would reveal the truth.

I still can't believe they're trying to make a war happen out of thin air. Not just their abrogation of Congress's role in formally declaring a war -- that's been a slippery slope for decades -- but their total unwillingness even to go through the motions of drumming up public support.

In honor of Rob Reiner, I wrote about the Michael Stivic / Archie Bunker dynamic, the dual-fission reactor that powered "All in the Family" [giftie] www.nytimes.com/2025/12/15/a...

Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.

'Merry' is an adverb in this case.

I mean, the answer is obvious? People are already jammed in, they want room for their feet. I am not saying they’re *right* to break the rules but it’s the fault of the airlines cramming everyone in so tightly AND charging for checked baggage etc.

BREAKING: Indiana Senate Republicans reject new congressional maps in defiance of President Trump’s redistricting push.

Thei did a studye and founde out who ys awesome and capable of great thinges and worthye of love and the newes ys that it ys you.

Quick shower possible through early evening as a cold front passes. Real fun is to the west. ❄️⛄🌬️ First blizzard warning of the season in the Alleghenies through Thursday morning. Up to a foot of snow and gusts to 50 mph. Details at cwg.live.

Eventually AI wastes everybody's time. Now it's archivists and librarians.

"If a reference cannot be found, this does not mean that the ICRC is withholding information." Someone who does not work in this field may think it unlikely, if not impossible, that an institution would be accused of withholding information. They would be dead wrong.

And it is necessary because people keep insisting that history can be done by generative AI. It is such a frustration.

NEW: Winter weather advisory issued for possible dangerous glaze of ice on untreated roads/sidewalks TONIGHT (7p-1a) because of freezing drizzle and refreezing snow as temps fall into 20s. Latest forecast updates: www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025...

6:55am: Latest radar forecast indicates the continuation of mainly light snow - although some pockets of moderate snow in southern areas, especially Southern MD, and patches of very light snow to flurries heading north of Beltway — before tapering W to E to east by ~10am-1pm

The series' title sequence was created by Ruth Long with an original theme composed by Dillon O'Hara.🪐🎶

Read 'A Citizen of the Universe' now: www.theuntoldadventures.com/a-citizen-of...

The first second of eternity has finally passed. Clara Oswald: The Untold Adventures’ first episode, ‘A Citizen of the Universe’, is available to read (link below).✨🔮 #DoctorWho #ClaraOswald

Need a refresher on where we left Clara and Me last before diving into The Untold Adventures? We’ve put together a handy recap of the Series 9 finale.🐦‍⬛ www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcYq...

It's almost here. The Untold Adventures takes off with its opening episode tomorrow! 🚀

Well this is an easy follow

Update on Friday snow potential! ❄️ Some trends in latest model runs worth noting… More models now show at least a little snow for Beltway area. 🌨️ Snow may move in faster than earlier thought, affecting the am commute — and yes, maybe schools. 🚸 We’ll have snow map, timeline and more on Thurs.

Who else despises rain with temperatures in the 30s? 😡

🌬️ Breezy tonight, lows near 30 🌞 Sunny Monday, still on the cool side ❄️ Predawn Tuesday may start with a brief mix before turning to rain 🤏 Low impacts overall; a few slick spots NW of D.C. possible early 📢 Full details: CWG.live

I found a flowchart which helps you navigate the IT landscape

Just one week until The Untold Adventures is due to launch! 💎