“It is unfair [building illegal settlements in WB] because the [occupied] West Bank has nothing to do with Hamas…This becomes a political project and his [Netanyahu's] aim is not to dismantle Hamas but to deny Palestinians the right to live in peace.” - Macron in an interview with Israeli Ch. 12.

I somehow released 4 collaborations in 2024. One of them was “The Nighttime Ensemble,” which came out on the great + now retired Longform Editions. I’ve just gotten around to putting the piece on BC. It is our ode to a YouTube comment on Boren and Der Club of Gore’s iconic Midnight Radio

A college English class where they’re told to use AI to complete assignments. Why bother teaching at all? Especially the languages/literature. I’m sorry but I will judge any professor who does this, especially in fields like English and history

This is the biggest attack on free speech since the McCarthy era but it also has significantly less popular consensus behind it than the second Red Scare. It's being done on behalf of a minority faction led by the most unpopular president in modern history. Organizing against this can win.

Charlie Kirk famously asked college audiences to “change his mind”, but his mind never got changed. An expert on the language strategies used to advance white supremacy says that is definitely not the “right way”, and suggests a different approach.

"It was the kind of label that gave you releases you had no idea you needed... a revelation machine." A celebration of the late Portland-based label owner John Whitson's uniquely eclectic vision. Dave Segal acts as our psychedelic explorer, guiding us through highlights of Holy Mountain's catalog:

Great Lives: Towards the end Stewart Lee explains to Mathew Parris why Parris is an ignorant buffoon (my words, not Stew's). Priceless. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Learning that *Stewart Lee* is a huge Derek Bailey fan has been both blowing my mind and making my day. My wife’s favorite comedian loves one of my favorite guitarists.

WHAT THE HELL

I definitely went to school until 24th grade so that one day I could be in the special hell where a faculty member is scheduled for a room with fewer desks than the course cap and arcane policies mean little can be done about this without at least 10 emails. That was on my fourth comps list.

every Jewish Studies colleague I know who had an NEH grant saw their funding cut earlier this year. now we know where the money went: to the far-right, "western-civilization"-worshipping Tikvah Institute to promote their vision of "Jewish Civilization" as a foundation stone of "the West"

Some personal news: I've been fired from the Washington Post in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk shooting. Thread incoming. substack.com/@karenattiah...

I shouldn't be shocked, but I'm still always brought up short to realize how many people think "civility" means "white people speaking in relatively calm voices" no matter what vile shit they say.

In Silksong, as in the original Hollow Knight, I really enjoy the boss fights that feel like a duel, rather than slaying a monster. In that genre, the Lace and Widow fights have been my favorites so far. I am also enjoying the difficulty and I’m a bit bummed about the nerf, as much as I get it.

Yearly reminder, Susan’s version this time. youtu.be/zxfw6L0ux70?...

I think it is always worth mentioning that Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were killed with their beloved dog Gilbert: www.nytimes.com/2025/06/27/u...

Exactly.

Super excited to finally see this piece of mine online.

It turns out that protecting hate speech did not create the conditions to protect other kinds of speech; instead, it protected hate and allowed hate movements to take over all the institutions of that might have defended the rest of us.

👀

George Lakey: "As a young activist during the civil rights movement, I learned the importance of singing to get through hard times."

An interesting comparison to new records, which I think is kind of a similar situation.

I just played through HK a few months ago so playing SS today was a bit disorienting because I kept doing button combos and just regular movement stuff based on the knight. I love that she is already more acrobatic but it’s definitely taking some getting used to.

Happy Silksong Day to all who celebrate

Your periodic reminder that mRNA vaccines are a scientific and public health game-changer. Those that have been approved have passed stringent efficacy and safety checks. They protect you and your child against potentially fatal diseases. You may, however, get a sore arm.

oh man... Rafael Toral Traveling Light now up on preorder boomkat.com/products/tra...

I don’t think there is a single conservative principle that they actually hold applies universally. All their principles, “rights” and “freedoms” are just privileges that only apply to them

“The idea that campus activists would be suspended en masse for protest activity would have been unthinkable back in 1985 when Columbia divested from apartheid South Africa after years of student protest and pressure. But these are very different times…” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

If you're itching to read about "Apocalyptic" in the most arcane senses of that term, perhaps to distract you from much else apocalyptic in our times, this is the series for you! humanhistoriesofkn.substack.com/p/away-from-...

"Not long ago, I used to jokingly say “Helen de Cruz is who I want to be when I grow up”. I still feel that way."

If we’re doing another round of “this website will die without me” remember that scientists, i.e. people that actually know things are all coming here. If the choice is between them and column guys, people who know nothing but are good at being annoying, it’s a pretty easy pick

If you don't like music enough to learn how to make music -- which is an incredibly fun process -- I have no idea why you would want to make music.

The Northeastern Republic is finally starting to get itself together.

I know a couple of far-leftists irl who bought into that RT “Ukraine is Proto-Nazi bullshit. I thought they were outlier kooks. Actually I still think that.

#NowPlaying Lake Mary & @danielwyche.bsky.social - Deer's Breathe In Every Color laaps.bandcamp.com/album/deers-... #electronic #experimental #ambient

"All bets were off in the Texas punk of the early 1980s." Get your first taste of Pat Blashill's SOMEDAY ALL THE ADULTS WILL DIE!: THE BIRTH OF TEXAS PUNK with an exclusive excerpt of the book's chapter on the Butthole Surfers, up today at @rollingstone.com. www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...

I have many mixed feelings about the institution, but I can, especially now, say that doing a humanities PhD at Chicago was genuinely one of the best—and tbh most fun—things I’ve done in my life. So many unparalleled, rich conversations with people who are now the closest of friends. What a loss.

"Tao is one of the most prominent mathematicians and academics to publicly oppose the administration’s actions, calling them an “existential threat” to his field, and academic science, more broadly. He said public advocacy is a priority over his research, for now." www.nbcnews.com/science/scie...

“If we stop producing people who are trained or educated to help undergraduates understand the most important things thought or written or painted in human history, we might not be able to recover that.” www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

I'm going to be mourning drummer Jim Kimball for a long time. Some people play air drums to Rush. If I play air drums to anything, it's gonna be Laughing Hyenas songs like this. He was so so good!

must be so embarrassing to be a dog and to have your owner tell you to stop barking at something like oh ok it’s illegal to be interested in something now

Team Bear since day 1.

precipitated the crisis by taking on too much debt to finance (non-humanities-related) expansion and lost a good deal of money on bad bets in the crypto market (you can't make this stuff up) Anyone who has been following American higher ed over the past 16/ stanfordreview.org/uchicago-los...

Oh shit look what the legends at ESS just uncovered! Nirvana at the Metro, 1990, recorded by Malachi Ritscher himself! ess.org/audio-archiv...