thanks to @hyperallergic.com for the shout out in the latest Required Reading: "As with too many art forms, several now-classic books by male authors would not have been possible without the women who typed and often edited them." hyperallergic.com/required-rea...

Revisiting David Foster Wallace's 'Big Red Son' today, @raxkingisdead.bsky.social in @flaminghydra.com a smashing essay as you can imagine flaminghydra.com/issue-507/

You busy April 9-10? There's going to be an amazing conference at Rutgers celebrating the (beta) rollout of the Black Bibliography Project database. Here's the agenda: globalracialjustice.rutgers.edu/sites/defaul... Registration can be found here: globalracialjustice.rutgers.edu/event/networ...

At long last, I was united with "A Dip in the Lake: Ten Quicksteps, Sixty-two Waltzes, and Fifty-six Marches for Chicago and Vicinity" during its last day on view at the Newberry. So glad I got to see it after many years wishing I could. mcachicago.org/collection/i...

From rare book (physical) to 3D scan (digital) to cleaned-up 3D model (digital) to 3D printed object (physical). This was a really fun process to think through texture and materiality of a tactile book object. This was a test, and I learned a lot from the process. More to come later this year!

Concentration camps: stories of as many as 50 people to a cell — men and women in some cases — with no windows and limited airflow, a single camera-monitored toilet, aluminum blankets, no showers and poor quality food.

GM: Charisma check. Mamdani: [rolls natural 20] GM: that’s a d6 how did you Mamdani: [direct to camera] Did you know you can check out board games at your local public library? 😊

Remember that midnight raid in Chicago supposedly to arrest Tren del Aragua members? Newly revealed court docs show that the raid was facilitated by the building owners who are now accused of using the raid to evict tenants. DHS never mentions TDA in their filings: www.propublica.org/article/chic...

I'm so thrilled to be welcoming @mapcenter.com for this month's free Community Zoom Call. On Sunday, February 1st we'll be talking about the intersection of comics and cartography and teaching YOU to map your own unconventional environs. All the details are here: www.patreon.com/posts/maps-f...

Posting from my book because it's true.

In fact most of the proposals I see tossed around appear designed to make immigration arrests more seamless and less upsetting, rather than actually reduce the number of people arrested and sent to jail.

Because many people on here are talking about making demands, it might be worth thinking about the goal. Body cameras, unmasking, and making it easier to sue will not reduce the number of people arrested and condemned to jail to die, suffer and/or be deported.

I will simply never recover from reading this sentence: "Since Georgia implemented work requirements in 2020, they have spent twice as much on Deloitte consultants and administrative costs as on healthcare for people."

Thanks to Tribune critic Lori Waxman for this review of our exhibition "Mapping Outside the Lines," highlighting the exhibit’s investigation of the political, epistemological, and navigational implications of lines and the maps that contain them. Open through February 14. @chicagotribune.com

Just saw this, and it makes me wonder how you think you should still be in the United States Senate — let alone a Democrat — if you’re going to follow up the first two paragraphs with the third. This is a dead child, and your response sounds like Al Gore talking about Reinventing Government.

There's apparently body cam footage of Alex's murder. Do people know this? This lets you know that a demand for body cams is USELESS and in fact just a way to give more money to the killers.

So now we know this federal agent was trained to do exactly what he did. I hope this helps inform people's response.

I wrote this essay because I wanted as many people as possible to understand that what Paine did in Common Sense was recognize the urgency of his historical moment, and that he matched that moment with words. That is why it resonates now. What words will we find for our moment?

It’s feeling very real!!! Publication date: June 16, 2026. @pennpress.bsky.social

There are still a lot of hard times ahead, but remember this moment and what it means: We can win.

as i've been saying for weeks, he has broken 50% and this is going to be important his ability to control the narrative after tonight

Young people in NYC absolutely showed out and there should be 1000 articles and profiles about this. Because we have had to put up with 1000 MAGA diner stories for years now.

More unemployment and poverty will likely lead to more violence. More police will not stop this.

here’s a current chopper view of the chicago protests. the crowd moved north from grant park up michigan avenue; chicago pd has blocked the bridge across the river to trump tower and are routing everyone west down wacker drive

"The teachers union is stepping up by helping students+families understand protections they have under the union contract for which we fought, as well as the rights we all have under the Constitution. Teaching not just our nation’s history, but also how to make it." www.usatoday.com/story/opinio...

white reactionaries disenfranchising black voters to secure political power? that’s a jim crow. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/u...

@jamellebouie.net has won the 2025 Tikkun Olam Prize for Promoting Public Historical Literacy. And I'm thrilled to add that he is joining the panel for the AHA's annual op-ed workshop at #AHA26. (Free to attend, but preregistration is required.) 🗃️

ICE out terrorizing Rogers Park and Edgewater in Chicago this morning. Lotsa watchers in the streets too!

Mapping Outside the Lines is open! Explore how maps work with classics like portolan charts and Antonio García Cubas and contemporary artists like Tonika Johnson, Ed Fairburn, and Ibrahim Miranda Ramos. Marvel at a fold-out river and listen to our rendition of a John Cage score.

*Many more neighbors were affected, but you won't get tallies on those numbers from the media because they don't get free ambulance rides and a PR team to issue statements on their behalf

eventually politicians need to start advocating for criminal and civil penalties for people involved in fabricating stories to get citizens incarcerated. or, put another way: a society that would like to keep functioning has to discourage baldfaced lying, especially by authorities

Body-camera video appears to contradict the government’s claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed. trib.al/9Sxu9IN

this is a very very big story because of the apparently totally fake story ICE/DHS put out about what happened.

We’d be in a much stronger position right now if mainstream Democrats had taken a common sense stand for First Amendment principles instead of piling on undergraduate standing up for Palestine.

I've taught a range of map-related classes since 2009. We almost always started with Pedro Lasch's Latino/a América, which was such an evocative way to convey the politics + poetics of cartography, and the importance of cartographic *materiality* — how maps carry traces of their own journeys

Liberals say the Supreme Court had destroyed our democracy. They're wrong—it has destroyed our Republic.

supreme irony that the party of lincoln is now the party of taney

NEW: In what appears to be one of the largest expansions of surveillance in IL history, we found hundreds of new Flock license plate readers—all paid for by AG Kwame Raoul's office in the last 3 years. Issues with Flock Safety's data sharing practices are mounting. Will our sanctuary status hold?

And then this. As always, everywhere, "tough on crime" policies require no ACTUAL data to back them up, just breezy correlations, bc they are seen as the natural, obvious solution. I doubt making low-level things tougher has led to a big increase in safety. But I can't compete w gut instinct.

I mean, it's the Platonic ideal:

Some of the people in line to apply for other companies are being handed these pamphlets. Hotel security here less than thrilled.

Happening now: protesters in Chicago are interrupting a hiring fair at the Congress Hotel, where U.S. Customs and Border protection is recruiting today. Banner reads, "stop kidnapping our neighbors!" It's quite the scene in here, and the DHS table has been blocked for several minutes already.

This bill was never only about eviscerating social services or enriching oligarchs, bad as that is. It’s also about using state power to build a private police force for the fascists—and spreading fear and destroying solidarity. Being brave and building solidarity is a big part of how we fight back.

Our guide to public records for Chicago tenants is now available online! In this series of videos, senior reporter Maya Dukmasova walks you through how to use free government databases to learn about any property’s building code violations and ownership. www.injusticewatch.org/knowyourbuilding

I just submitted my book for peer review. After 15 years of thinking, researching, and writing, and, as I keep saying, an NEH this year to finish up. I’m furious about the gutting of that institution, which makes so much knowledge possible. I hope this book eventually lives up to that honor.

All of the talk about "peaceful protest" makes me think of all the times I have been part of a protest where the police cracked someone over the head and then charged that person with assault. They will call you violent. You can't control that or other people.