NEW: Yu Miri is one of Japan's most celebrated authors. Yet some say that, due to her background, she has no right to criticize the country. Why the award-winning writer is under attack, and how it's rekindled a discussion around what it means to be Japanese.

“We have failed to pass immigration reform through Congress and left immigration policies to the whims of whoever is president, and those whims, prejudices, and hatreds have been affirmed by the Supreme Court," said Cameron Vickery. sojo.net/articles/new...

This is an ominous development. ICE is well on the path to becoming the NKVD.

The real story of the FOXP2 gene, & what it can & cannot tell us about human language, is complicated & fascinating, & it does not involve any extraterrestrials. If you want to learn more, some overviews of the science are here: www.cell.com/current-biol... & link.springer.com/article/10.1... 10/n🧪

25 years ago, we implicated rare variants of the FOXP2 gene in a severe speech disorder. I’ve spent much time stressing that FOXP2, while interesting, is not the mythical “gene for language”. Weirdly, on occasion I also need to explain why it’s not “proof of aliens”. Full disclosure in this 🧵. 1/n 🧪

Grateful to the 1654 editors of this _E-iri Genji monogatari_ 『絵入源氏物語』 for putting ALL the voice marks in -- it would make reading aloud so much easier (which may in fact be the point 🤔) (from the "Tenarai" 手習 chapter, available here: lccn.loc.gov/2004551302) #BookHistory #書誌学

"and another thing: i haven't lost the Mandate of Heaven. please don't put in the newspaper that i lost the Mandate of Heaven."

Trump is losing the mandate of Heaven. All we need now is a wayward space rock to complete the job. Though I would settle for a lightning strike on all those fireworks stashed in the mall.

TIL there was a eunuch government department under the Ming solely dedicated to the production of toilet paper for the Forbidden City, although the emperor had special loo roll made by a different department that was extra fluffy

2026. Tall ships parades are battlefields.

Excellent use of terrifying colors here. www.conservation.ca.gov/cgs/sh/earth... #cartography #dataviz

My favorite weird fact about Thomas Paine is that the person who overheard that the order for his arrest had been given and he needed to flee London, who tracked him down and told him it was time to run, was William Blake.

I'll summarize this: Mamdani asked NYers to keep air conditioning at 78 degrees. A wave criticism hit online. A MSNBC broadcast pointed out the US Department of Energy recommends that 78 degree figure. Immediately after, the US Department of Energy deleted 6,000 web pages related to energy saving.

You've heard of ザ and ジ, but may I interest you in definite article 地?

Look! It's finally happening, I'm so excited! Please share with your friends, people who assign books, and pets.

This was a really interesting dive into how #18thc dictionaries are used and misused in legal cases. I contextualize the dictionaries and the subjectivity of their authors and legal scholar John Mikhail shows how the Trump administration selectively applied definitions.

Excellent new article on Kofun archaeology

Today’s #NCCShowcase is exciting news from Toshie Marra (UC Berkeley) that 125 titles of Japanese 14th-19th c manuscripts have been digitized & made available! This is part of a multiyear project to make research materials more accessible & discoverable. Explore at: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

I sat in on Nakano Kōichi's seminar on late Heian monogatari back in 73/74-'ish. I was freshly arrived from New Zealand. I had no idea what was going on. It all seems a long time ago now.

Political scientist here: this is not funny, democracies only do this when they're in extreme distress

鈴木俊幸『書籍文化史料論』(bensei.jp/index.php?ma...) チラシやハガキ、書籍におされたハンコ、そして版権や価格、貸借に関する文書の断片など、これまで真正面から取り扱われることのなかった人々の営為の痕跡から、日本の書籍文化の展開を鮮やかに浮かび上がらせる。

Bizarre story: Two journalists were removed by police from a corporate-sponsored Freedom 250 event in Brussels after they asked US Ambassador to Belgium Bill White about his threat against an American citizen/Belgian resident who had emailed Zac Brown Band urging them not to perform at the event.

I looked at the titles of those binders with some pain. Multiple reorganizations of administrative units in the 20th century can play havoc with trying to locate towns and villages in the early modern period, especially when the han 藩 are a crazy patchwork of enclaves and exclaves.

I think a lot of people underestimate how complicated life could get if your birth certificate wasn't accepted as prima facie evidence of US citizenship, absent some new federal bureaucracy that vetted and registered qualified births.

Saddened to hear of the passing of the Sinologist Victor Mair, a linguistic genius the likes our field will not see again for a long time. I first got to know him via his incredible blog, Language Log, fresh out of college and was beyond-the-moon happy when he reposted my writing there, but

中野幸一『物語文学の諸相と展開』(bensei.jp/index.php?ma...) 『 #源氏物語 』『 #うつほ物語 』『 #堤中納言物語 』などの物語史を検証。 また、緻密な文章表現の分析により、物語世界に新たな解釈を提示する。 #古典文学 #平安文学 #物語文学

A new book you should check out, very tied to this moment www.harpercollins.com/products/on-...

I need y'all to understand that I teach high school and there are teenagers already planning to leave the U.S. to because they will be studying science or medicine. They are SO serious about it - saving money, learning extra languages, and looking to see if there are familial connections abroad.

Sotomayor's dissent warns about this. The majority doesn't admit it now. But Slaughter may be the beginning of the end for a merit-based civil service. Do we want qualified people inspecting our food and making complex decisions about medical care, science, etc...? Or ppl who passed a loyalty test?

Note left behind by the Iranian team before leaving Seattle:

this is actually a good reminder that you should delete the tracking nonsense off of any url that you share online. just delete everything after the ? (including the question mark) and share like you usually would

New paper in Cognition on how speakers produce sentences when they don't fully know what message they're conveying. Arella Gussow & I find that English and Spanish speakers begin speaking before the full message is known but adjust on the fly... 1/2 authors.elsevier.com/c/1nLO02Hx32...

If you’ve ever wanted help transcribing calligraphic Japanese texts for your work or teaching, you won’t want to miss this CDDP introductory video by Tarin Clanuwat on the ROIS CODH Kuronet Kuzushiji Recognition tools and IIIF Curation Viewer! guides.nccjapan.org/cddp/video-s...

if you haven’t read the @sabs.bsky.social piece from defector

evergreen

I had not heard of these star-gazing train trips. 🤩 🔭 www.nytimes.com/2026/05/13/t...

John Adams and the US Senate said that “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” A guy who drink drinks five gin-and-tonics before noon says the US was meant to be theocracy. For busy Americans, it can be hard to know who to trust

This is clearly the worst bit - Hegseth is blowing apart fishermen by the dozens to keep a nasty old man entertained. But I have to note the revelation that Trump insists on fully carpeted bathrooms. The man is irredeemable.

Wait till the GOP latches onto this idea. Guaranteed to cause chaos at election time. (It's already true of people from American Samoa, who has US Passports but not citizenship.)

Sometimes The Onion gets a little too close to the bone.

I was charmed by this video so I looked him up. He’s a cardiologist who brought bypass surgery to his rural SW Virginia area decades ago. Political service is a more recent development. His love for his community is the constant, & finding ways to put that love into action is an example to follow

yo I need everyone to notice this this guy just did a Zohran-style video that’s low-budget but super authentic, credible, and watchable. Proof it doesn’t take Zohran-level charisma! Sincere belief in what you talk about helps though.

Some very smart observations from the very smart Michael Kinnucan in this week’s New York City primaries. (thread, all quotes from him)

additionally, if there is ANY possible non racist motive for an explicitly racist action, Alito says you must accept it as the actual motivation. meanwhile, ANY use of race consciousness to prevent or alleviate discrimination is unconstitutional under “equal protection”

PlayStation is deleting 551 purchased movies from its customers' accounts, reminding us nothing digital is ever truly ours https://kotaku.com/playstation-store-movies-digital-studio-canal-terminator-2000711013