BREAKING: A record-high 40 senators just voted to block weapons to Israel, up from 27 last July. There is much more work to be done, but today was yet another statement that the movement for Palestinian rights is growing in the halls of power.

I’m sitting here at 11:12 pm on a Tuesday trying to generate puns with Eric Swalwell’s last name: It is not swallwell and good, Eric! So long, Swallwell Swallwell swan song… There must be something here

A fascinating listen!

"The scale of devastation is likely far greater than The Times’s analysis. The Iranian Red Crescent Society...said on April 2 that at least 763 schools and 316 health care facilities had been damaged or destroyed in the war." www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

🚨 New article: Measuring the Emperor's Clothes My article with an NYUAD student 😁 is part of an upcoming issue on quantitative research in MENA. We provide a robust method for measuring dissent in dictatorships & apply it to Tunisia. Link: brill.com/view/journal... Ungated: osf.io/preprints/so...

Asharq al-Awsat: Three months since the announced formation of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, none of its members have been allowed in via Rafah. /1 aawsat.com/%D8%A7%D9%84...

Just had a Lyft driver who said she “paid no attention to government“ until recently, then went on an impassioned rant about how Netanyahu had tried to rope multiple presidents into this war, she was terrified her stepson would get called up to serve, and could I believe that “we targeted CHILDREN!”

Who was it that argued that international law only matters because it incentivizes would-be violators to change how they talk about the ways that they have violated, or plan to violate, the law? “civilization isn’t a protected identity group under the Genocide Convention” etc

I am in Michigan and please know that everyone here is tired this morning! 🌽💙 #goblue

The way the process unfolds leaves chills: base staff making “a flurry of phone calls” when they find out Ramos is undocumented, the criminal investigator at the base reporting to DHS, then the interactions between ICE agents and Ramos’s mother-in-law described below. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/05/u...

"The detention came just days after Annie Ramos, 22, a college student with no criminal record, and Matthew Blank, 23, celebrated their marriage with family and friends. Sergeant Blank, who enlisted more than five years ago...is set to begin training at the end of the month for deployment."

I have not read this piece yet, but the abstract certainly evokes the "Gaza as laboratory" argument: www.iisi.de/en/irsi-vol-...

Consider this: Not only does the band Jimmy Eat World still exist, but they are *on tour*.

Everyone walking around NYC today is both awkwardly overdressed and joyful. 🌞

Just a reminder that Palestinians in Gaza are being forced to finish the demolition of their own homes, businesses, and structures, some of which sit atop human remains that will never be recovered, in order to even begin to contemplate rebuilding. Notice below from al-Bureij municipality, March 12.

Interesting new JPR article on natural resource extraction and state/rebel governance: academic.oup.com/jpr/advance-... “We suggest that beneath the struggle over control of the resource revenues lies a more subtle but crucial battle: the authority over the allegiance of the labor force.”

First NYT article on the situation in Cuba that comes up in a quick Google News search. This is such unserious journalism.

Having one of those semesters where I volunteered myself for too many things and consequently my research productivity is suffering. Just putting this out there so you young folks know that some of us keep making these mistakes after tenure and it can take years to learn to say no effectively.

My husband and kid left the house for 4+ hours this afternoon. It was so amazing to have some quality “me time” to finish our taxes and do yard work. True indulgence.

Finding it difficult to keep my intro to world politics course intellectually interesting. Everyohe is a realist, the strong do what they will, no one believes in institutions, etc. What are you all teaching/discussing? Anything that suggests a middle path between defeatism and revolution?

Helpful explainer on South Pars apnews.com/article/iran...

Update below via @middleeasteye-rss.bsky.social. And this source says Iraq relies on Iranian gas imports for nearly one-third of its energy needs: www.reuters.com/business/ene...

One can get a PhD in the "History of Consciousness" at UC-Santa Cruz.

Holy shit y’all I just got an email I’d like to nominate for the "Wildest All-Faculty Email" Hall of Fame

FIRST WOMAN TO EVER WIN BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY. FIRST BLACK PERSON TO WIN BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY. FIRST FILIPINA TO WIN BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY. ACADEMY AWARD WINNER AUTUMN DURALD ARKAPAW.

Why does the ADL insist on making me feel less safe?

This is such a cool paper, wallah www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

"It is a tortuous path from attitudinal shifts at the micro level to the coalitional and institutional shifts necessary at the macro level to physically overthrow an authoritarian regime – but it can be an important start," (Slater 2010, p. 20). www.cambridge.org/core/books/o...

I’m just waiting for a password reset request email from my bird feeder then I’ll get that to you ASAP.

The souq in Jabalia Camp in 1958: www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=... This is what the caption reads: "The market of Jabalia camp in 1958. The picture shows the courtyard of the preparatory school "A" before it was cut off as part of Sharon’s project to open streets for the occupation patrols /1

Ho-hum. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

An illuminating study of the spatial, social, economic, and political history of Jabalya, featuring archival and ethnographic work by a Palestinian scholar who is himself a refugee who grew up near the camp. It was written in 2020; it is now a very difficult read. online.ucpress.edu/caa/article-...

“being confusing and problematic at a critical moment” belongs in the AJC bio

"Our institutions have failed us" is by now a completely banal observation, whether referring to domestic checks on executive war-making or international legal constraints on how those wars must be conducted... /1

This…is…insane.

One thing I can say about being in my 40s is that I have (re)discovered nuts, and I am really a fan of just traveling with a bag of pecans or whatever on my person.

Husband: What’s your ETA tonight? Me: I need a sabbatical

This is…a lot of snow

Ok NYers, you have to pick up your dog‘s shit this time because, as you have now seen, snow is not a magical dog shit composter.

Trenchant critique by Barbara Savage (2021) here on the "rediscovery" and oversimplified categorization of Merze Tate's scholarly work on international relations, geopolitics, (dis)armament, race, and empire. Source: www.cambridge.org/core/books/a...

Instructors, I hear you about all those great AI-detection hacks you've developed but have you considered adding begging to your toolbox

“Religion is often characterized as a home for the right, but I am continually inspired by the religious left, by ordinary people who wear their faith not as a suit of armor guarding against the ‘other’ but as a big coat warming us as we navigate an icy world.” - @thatrabbicohen.bsky.social

"Knowing how institutions were constructed provides insights into how they might come apart," (Thelen 1999, p. 400).

Starting in half an hour: zoom.us/webinar/regi...

"Lexical algorithmic resistance" in >10k pro-Palestine Arabic-language Facebook posts Oct 7 2023-Apr 27 2024: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... "As a cursive writing system, written from right to left with a dense morphological framework, the Arabic script presents significant challenges for...

"List of aid groups working in Gaza that Israel is suspending": 1. Action Against Hunger 2. ActionAid 3. Alianza por la Solidaridad 4. Campaign for the Children of Palestine 5. CARE 6. DanChurchAid 7. Danish Refugee Council 8. Handicap International: Humanity & Inclusion (cont)

If your recipe calls for a jalapeño “seeds removed“, just no.

Toddler holiday travel sleep schedule: 1 Peptide firming eye cream: 0

Reddit is telling me I can block and unshrink my cashmere sweater that accidentally went in *the dryer* (gah! I know), but is this false hope? I’ll report back. In a the meantime, please feel free to share carefully curated anecdotes of success.