Feels flippant to use the term Streisand Effect here, but that's what happened. Japan ensured a statue very few people would've seen and even fewer would've understood won't be put up, and instead people all over the world are going to read about their system of sexual slavery during WWII.

In a country that took the humanities seriously, way more of the medievalists you’re seeking out to explain Avignon would have actual academic jobs.

You have more in common with the people of Iran than you do with anyone in this administration, any member of the technocracy, anyone who is profiting from this war, or any billionaire. When you see Iranians forming human chains outside key infrastructure sites, you should feel a sense of kinship.

You are a senator.

“A whole civilization will die tonight” is the most vile thing a US president has ever said, certainly during the post-1945 era when they’ve had the power to kill civilizations with the dropping of a bomb. I’m staring into the darkness. May this not be one of the most fateful days in human history.

“The Klan monument is run by slave labor” is a little too on the fucking nose

Tapping the sign

Also who gives a shit what other countries do. In this country we fought a civil war about slavery that turned into a war for emancipation, and birthright citizenship is part of the project of making emancipation meaningful, so like, it matters that we do have this HERE. We need this here.

Calling this practice “therapy” is equal parts infuriating and baffling to me. It has shown in virtually every arena of research to be harmful, ineffective, and dangerous. Anyone practicing it should have their license revoked and be shunned from the field. 8-1…what a fucking disgrace

Happy Trans Day of Visibility ❤️🏳️‍⚧️❤️

Wrote a whole dissertation on monuments and let me just say: this is ridiculous. Literally no one needs a statue of Columbus, least of all the White House.

What the US is purposefully doing to Cuba should be considered genocide.

just a thought: no movement should ever depend so completely on the reputation of its chosen figurehead that one of its founders is forced to make a calculation like this on behalf of its survival

a preliminary survey for the next component of my research: if you're willing to tell me about your connection to the movie/musical 1776... docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

RIP to Pedro O’Hara’s, Maine’s version of this restaurant.

Sad to see the Ides of March becoming commercialised like this. I really feel like we're losing track of the true spirit of the holiday. It's not about how many knives you can stick in a tyrant all at once, it's about the whole community coming together to stab the tyrant as many times as possible.

Cis people need to pay attention to the way they communicate this. They freely admit that after all of their research, they came up with zero evidence that HRT was harmful. Then they banned it anyway, claiming their inability to find a reason is a reason in of itself.

RIP Baudrillard you would've loved this episode of imperial decline

you know, if the government’s going to fund theater for the public to enjoy, it would have cost a hell of a lot less to just do a new WPA

Edmonia Lewis virtually vanished from history when she died in 1907. A new exhibition at the Peabody Essex Museum teases out the mysteries of Lewis's life while showcasing her marble sculptures.

What's scary about this story is the surveillance it hints at. This trans woman had changed her name, legally, but chose not to change her gender marker. She was apparently flagged in the DMV system as trans and her license was invalidated under a law that supposedly only concerned gender markers.

tl;dr: more people should watch this gentleman's speech and think seriously about what he is saying bsky.app/profile/slcl...

“The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.” James Baldwin

As of tonight, licenses of trans people across Kansas are being invalidated en masse, enabling the overnight criminalization of an entire group of people for going about our lives. It’s often said you never know when you’re living through history, so let me assure you: that’s what’s happening now.

btw for trans women to offer this kind of practical warning and sympathy is a serious mitzvah and we cis women really owe it to them (and to ourselves!) to step up our solidarity in kind

@toddbrianbackus.com and I are starting a new theatre company here in Portland, go give @foxbrambleme.bsky.social a follow!!!

ProPublica published children's letters and drawings documenting their sadness and suffering at Dilley. And Dilley staff are now retaliating by confiscating kids' letters and drawings. www.sacurrent.com/news/san-ant...

And if you’re wondering “Why is there a blob in the back?” Well, that’s where the first woman president was supposed to go. More than a century later, it remains unsculpted.

Rev. Jesse Jackson's "I *am* somebody..." remains one of the all-time great pieces of 20th century rhetoric / agitprop And he could deliver it at a Black separatist meeting, the Democratic National Convention, or on god-blessed Sesame Street (see below 🥹) RIP to the Voice of the Voiceless

rev jonathan edwards, gazing upwards from hell

It would be embarrassing under any circumstances to spend a year on this reactionary horseshit, but to have spent the year in which graduate students were sent to concentration camps for op-eds and the federal govt launched a no hold barred attack on academic freedom is just beyond

A little under 18 months ago I was part of the care team of a dear friend who got diagnosed and then died from stage 4 colorectal cancer in a two month span. She would have turned 41 a month after she died.

we know this, but a reminder: anytime ICE CBP etc says they’re drawing down their presence in a city, it’s bullshit. whatever their numbers, lawless federal agents remain behind & still cause havoc & kidnap people. Also relocated agents just go somewhere else to destroy lives. Abolish ICE end DHS

The short story of the 21st century in the United States is that out of malice or cowardice or some combination of both, every presidency contributed to building and expanding a federal secret police of goons and thugs, despite clear warning and obvious abuses, until we got to this point.

That the illegal destruction of USAID will kill more than *20 million people* in the next five years, & has ALREADY KILLED 600,000 in just one year, is a world-historical crime that Americans aren't being told about in the terms & with the repetition necessary for them to believe it.

Classic literatures adaptations as a way to get young people going to the movies, you say?

I've been singing this to myself all day

We put on an all-Yiddish community production of fiddler on the roof in Philadelphia and cast member and local artist Sofie Rose Seymour created the most amazing show poster that ever was

Context: this speech is from SIR THOMAS MORE, a history written, as near as scholars can tell, in the early 1600s by 6 or 7 people including Dekker, Heywood, Chettle, Shakespeare, and Munday. It was never performed, because Jacobean England was a police state and it was banned by the censor.

Always found this 2020 Philadelphia report on the Columbus statue helpful to think about. Even oversampling local whites didn’t show support for keeping the statue. It’s still here, but not because the majority wants it. www.phila.gov/media/202011...

'measles outbreak at the child prison' seems entirely avoidable, it's really the kind of thing that only happens if you do several unthinkably evil things on purpose all at once

Todd got a cool title change! And he’s directing my favorite play later this season! A little good news in 2026!

🖤🖤🖤

Everything they learned in Minnesota they’re applying in Maine from day one. They started off doing fast-moving snatch and grabs on the street, recording and using facial id on observers, and threatening observers directly. They’ll do it all where you live too.

The Maine Office of Attorney General says the information collected could become fodder for an investigation into ICE activities during its surge here: