Happy Birthday Charles Dickens!

This is truly incredible. Shakespeare speaking to RIGHT NOW—on the “mountainish” inhumanity of punishing and casting out strangers from your country.

You’ll never guess but the solution to people not having money is to give them money.

Rep. Morrison on conditions at Whipple: "She said, 'they are treating us like animals in here. The women that are in this cell with me, we slept on a cold concrete floor last night. We were begging for a blanket, & guards were cruel'... we have to resolve that every single person deserves dignity"

Right now: the federal government has to help these folks and get the power back on, and if they can’t, they should resign After that: we need a Grid New Deal and rebuild the grid for this century

People say we can't compare this to the Third Reich because of the atrocities but we only found out about the atrocities after the fact when it was all said and done and we're not done with this yet so I am sure the worst stomach churning shit has yet to be revealed.

Taxing the billionaires is…a start.

❤️

Who’s next? One demotion cannot detract from accountability. Greg Bovino and Trump’s agents must still be held responsible for the killings and the damage they’ve done to America.

We are observers, not protestors. We show up to document and film the atrocities ICE is committing. Using 5 year olds as bait. Kidnapping senior citizens. Breaking down doors without warrants. Murdering poets and nurses. Media has all of that information because *observers* were there to document it

Tomorrow's front page of the Minnesota Star Tribune: Jan. 24, 2026

we are going to win

The type of people who can engage in this behavior need to be kept away from society

they went to an emergency room seeking help for their 7 year old child. ICE arrested the 7 year old and her parents. the family is here legally. www.oregonlive.com/portland/202...

I know people keep saying this but it’s hard to communicate the depth of active resistance here. Like, I’m on random cafes and people are checking in for observation shifts. Signs everywhere. Folks in visibility vests on the corners. It’s wild. Absolutely wild.

Spend some quality time this spring with George Eliot and @newberrylibrary.bsky.social. Registration now open. www.newberry.org/calendar/mil...

I am just a simple small-town lawyer but I really can’t think of a more toxic and self-defeating political strategy than telling your constituents the things they care about are “a distraction.”

everything is bad but teaching close reading remains so good

Hamlet: To read or not to read?

Breaking news: The leaders of the University of Virginia’s board resigned Friday after Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger (D) asked them and at least three other appointees of her Republican predecessor to step down.

“Here is the prize for the first sack-race,” said Miss Lydia.

These barbarians are destroying everything that makes society work. Kids can't go to school, patients can't go to the hospital. We are, in effect, paying them to wreck the basic infrastructure of the country

Keith Ellison: "These poorly trained, aggressive, and armed agents of the federal state have terrorized Minnesota with widespread unlawful conduct. They're making unconstitutional arrests and using excessive force ... this has to stop."

Imagining a regime of kindness as radical as this regime of cruelty.

Sorry for limited skeets; frozen fingers! Large Chicago crowd has hit the streets in protest of the U.S. bombing of Venezuela and kidnapping of President Maduro.

Leave, delete the app, salt the earth behind you, do not look back.

Obit for Michael Slater in the @theguardian.com: www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...

Make a Bond movie academic: Dr. No not that kind

Make a Bond movie academic: Octoprécis

Happy Boxing Day!

Federal judge blocks ICE from arresting immigrants who show up for court appointments in Northern California

25 December 1858: All prosperity of soul and body attend to you this and every other day in the calendar. That, dear friend, is the sincere wish of Yours affectionately Marian Lewes

Every Xmas, @patrickleary.bsky.social shares w his Victorian buddies how Kate Wiggins (of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm fame) met Charles Dickens. It's a joy, & should be better known, especially when she kindly tells him not to worry about the 'very dull parts' in his books. Happy holidays, all!

RFK Jr. is going to end CDC recommendations for most childhood vaccines. It will take a few years before the deaths and disabilities ramp up to a level that even the most vile Republican cannot tolerate. RFK Jr. will be long gone and unaccountable, as our babies die from preventable illness.

Wonderful time today visiting the Shakespeare First Folio at the invaluable @newberrylibrary.bsky.social. Little known fact--during the ghost's first conversation with Hamlet, a stage direction is clearly asking for someone to say "Oooooooh." Really no other explanation.

This isn’t enforcement. This is harassment. They’ve grabbed people off the street for how they look, separated families, and scarred communities with masked agents with guns. I encourage everyone to do as they have — peacefully protect your neighborhoods and neighbors.

Elton John's "Step into Christmas" suggests there is an outside of Christmas, but as we know, il n'y a pas de hors-Noël.

Bernard Shaw or David Letterman?

Happy Birthday George Eliot! “All honour & reverence to the divine beauty of form! Let us cultivate it to the utmost in men, women, & children—in our gardens and in our houses. But let us love that other beauty too, which lies in no secret of proportion, but in the secret of deep human sympathy.”

Happy Birthday George Eliot! Good times in Berlin with George and George.

So, sort of a… Modern Prometheus?

Rollin's got all the feels. My upcoming virtual classes at the Newberry Library include "Watching and Reading Shakespeare's Hamlet" and "A Serial Reading of George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss." Available to all. Details to come.

“'To read a poem as part of a justification or a rationale for a judgment of this importance shows how art can express the complexities of what we’re living through in ways that maybe other forms of speech can’t,' said [Srikanth "Chicu"] Reddy." chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

Hey @durbin.senate.gov, PLEASE don’t cave to Trump. There is no “middle ground” when it comes to millions losing their health insurance!! cc: @duckworth.senate.gov @laurenunderwood.bsky.social

Caving on a deal that doesn’t fix health care is, and always has been, a giant betrayal of the American people. Hold the line. Save health care. I’m a NO on anything that doesn’t extend ACA subsidies.

The excitements of an election.

Dan Smith “Knowledge Wins” World War I Propaganda Poster (American Library Association, 1918) movieposters.ha.com/itm/movie-po...

(from the inbox) Less than an hour later this morning, just before 10:30 at Roscoe and Harding, feds again released gas as they were driving away, unobstructed, from a relatively small number of neighbors.

Moreover, ICE must be destroyed

Because he’s doing his job…reporting. Because we still live in a free country with a First Amendment and a free press.