That Ben Johnson-Matt LaFluer postgame interaction felt like a guy who knows he's going to win a Superbowl in the next decade shaking hands with a guy who knows he'll be an offensive coordinator again soon* *After one more stop as an HC to develop a young QB & max out a team in the wildcard round

My favorite (relatable) line from In Your Dreams: "I'm a dad with two kids, I'm always down to sleep."

A sociological approach to New Year's Resolutions

Check out this OPEN ACCESS pub by my on-the-job-market PhD advisee, @akotanko.bsky.social. This is the article version of Adam's excellent master's thesis and the seed of inspiration for his even more excellent dissertation project on what he's termed "moral ambassadorship".

Original footage from Pete Hegseth's speech today

What's the collective in this #collectiveaction? A. Kotanko’s (@akotanko.bsky.social) #Socius study of an #immigration clinic demonstrates how #socialmovement organizations draw on #personalidentity to encourage collective action participation. Read: doi.org/10.1177/2378...

NEW ARTICLE/OPEN ACCESS Proud to share my PhD advisee, @akotanko.bsky.social's, recent publication in Qualitative Soc. Adam and I worked on this one together, which was a great collaborative experience, but he is very much the lead author. The first of many to come from the future Dr. Kotanko!

They want more MOMS at home. And not just because they hate women. Their *economic* model depends on unpaid labor. And the most effective way to coerce unpaid labor is to create a second class of people and teach them that they're only "naturally" suited for labor they're forced to do for free.

So contrary to many post-election analyses, Dems don't need to move rightward to win. Rather, they need to figure out what those nearly 40% of nonvoters want & how to help them vote. A good place to start: protect voting rights, make election-day a federal holiday, fight disenfranchisement, etc.

Seeing someone use “woke” as a derrogatory descriptor is useful in that it lets me know I don’t need to take whatever they say next seriously.

AI, MOOCS, etc. = tech solutions for symptoms, not the disease. #Learning is a messy, inefficient, personal, relational process. It’ll never be rational (in the Weberian sense). We need to embrace the messy, costly process bc it’s good in itself, not instrumentally (eg for profit, jobs, etc.)

When I was a young writer, I received a LOT of rejections. Now, after decades of hard work, I am no longer young.

I regularly wake up in the middle of the night. If I can't get back to sleep & don't start working, I often listen to a couple eps of Star Talk w/ @neildegrassetyson.com. It's perfect, bc it's fascinating/fun & not tied to my work. I'll usually understand the 1st ep & fall asleep during the 2nd

We're never going to catch everyone, or even a majority, who "cheat," esp given AI capabilities, & trying to do so is emblematic of a bigger problem in education: a focus on what students do wrong over over an emphasis on intrinsic reasons to care about learning even when it's difficult

My extroverted wife: My sister’s graduation party went until 4am Introverted me: That sounds horrible Wife: Everyone had fun

Kid: I’m hungry Me: You just ate Kid: I just ate FIRST bfreakfast. What abt second breakfast? Elevensies? Lunch? Tea time? Dinner? Supper? Once? Midnight snack? Pre-bfast snack? Random treats? My kids are basically hobbits

To distract you from end-of-term #grading, here's @alfiekohn.bsky.social's wonderful essay (which I have my students read in a module on Foucault & discipline) laying out reasons why u should stop (or at least minimize) grading www.alfiekohn.org/article/case... Big spoiler: grading impedes learning

"Innovation" is one of the most powerful controlling ideas of capitalism. Defenders of neoliberalism flippantly assert that #capitalism drives innovation in ways that other economic systems don’t. They're right. BUT . . .

My wife: "I had a dream last night with either you or Henry Cavill." Me: "It's easy to confuse us. We're so similar."

This is the irrationality of rationality (in the Weberian sense), where bureaucratic fidelity to procedure contradicts the purpose (learning) & public image of an institution/social system, hurting everyone, especially those who aren't the institutional default (e.g., straight, white, cis men).

Harris won all racial/ethnic groups except white folks and “other.” So a key question in this election is “why did white people prefer a candidate that majorities of other racial/ethnic groups saw as deeply problematic?” There’s no one reason, but here are a few thoughts:

I’ve seen a bunch of takes on the election that don’t mention racism & misogyny. That’s like trying to explain pizza without mentioning bread/dough or cheese. Sure, we can discuss pineapple & inflation. But that stuff makes no sense apart from these more fundamental things.

A t-rex regularly eats my 3.5yo son’s arms. His 6.5yo sister builds him robot arms, & we hunt the dinosaur to make it into soup (birds are dinosaurs, so why not?). Today my daughter built biological arms using carrots for muscles/bones & tortillas for skin. Daughter’s now waiting on her Noble Prize.