"Vigilance committees were antislavery organizations that began forming in northeastern cities in the 1830s, often supported by Black churches." hammerandhope.org/article/unde...

your regular reminder that the national shoplifting crisis was a manufactured moral panic largely engineered by corporations in order to cover up their own mismanagement — and that wage theft is the largest category of theft in the U.S.

Local exhibitions this summer explore flight, work from Black Mountain College, and the West writ large, among other things.

Exclusive: Unionized tech workers at the New York Times have filed grievances accusing management of using AI-powered performance tools to track and discipline staff. The Tech Guild says recent disciplinary notices appear to be generated using one of the tools. 🎁 www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

“The regulator is no longer an independent regulator — we do not know whose interests it is serving,” warned a former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about the Trump administration’s changes. “The safety culture is under threat.” (Published March)

Yes. I also like this point raised by Wright...

I keep banging on public libraries because it's a simple way of making public goods LEGIBLE to a couple of generations that don't have a grammar for the commons anymore. It's such low hanging fruit and yet... we can't get the socialist Mayor of NYC to increase funding for them.

Today is the 389th anniversary of the Pequot Massacre at Mystic Fort in CT. While there were several battles during this war, the attack at Mystic was brutal & unprecedented. 400 - 700 Pequots were killed during the attack led by Capt. John Mason. Learn more here: www.mptn-nsn.gov/history/

“One study found that increasing the number of people who receive SNAP benefits by 5% could have prevented nearly 32,000 suicides over 15 years. And a $1 increase in minimum wage has been linked to roughly 8,000 fewer suicide deaths over a decade.” kffhealthnews.org/mental-healt...

I think a good chunk of the problem with "AI" discourse is that the fundamental shared definition(s?) of "intelligence" are rooted in eugenics.

“Drivers for apps such as Uber and Lyft have unionized in Massachusetts… The union can now begin contract negotiations with Uber and Lyft. Issues at the bargaining table will most likely include pay, driver safety and deactivation, which is when drivers lose access to an app.”

Reviewers in two groups were given identical resumes for Emily Clarke and James Clarke and told they had used AI. Emily's was 2x as likely to raise doubts about competence. "She can't even write a CV herself." But James "just needed a bit of help." fortune.com/2026/05/10/i...

Well, at least they’re poisoning Black people and raising our utility bills for the worthy cause of terrible white rap

Rich text just dropped for eugenics scholars: German businessman bows to roided up Greek athlete at the Enhanced Games (the doping olympics) meant to 'redefine human performance.' www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/m...

The first Memorial Day dates to 1865 when members of Black churches re-buried Union soldiers from a mass grave in a Confederate prison camp to individual grave sites. Memory of the event was later suppressed. apnews.com/31e1623c7565...

A Louisiana state senator helped secure Meta’s largest datacenter. Then he sold the land beside it

"Traitors shall not dictate or prescribe to us the terms or conditions of our citizenship, so help us God." #tdih 1865, election day in Norfolk, African Americans tested their right to vote and when denied, cast their own "freedom ballots." Read ⬇️ 🧵 www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/bl...

River Wye formally recognised as living ecosystem with intrinsic rights

Here's a free version of the same article gcaptain.com/drowning/

I love @tressiemcphd.bsky.social brain. “Doing the job of the state is a threat to the state. […] If the people turn to each other, and self organize, that is seen as a threat.“

Indigenous Protector Movement receives property from Minneapolis Lutheran church as an act of reparation. www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...

I assigned random gender/ethnicity labels to scientific abstracts from the literature and then asked Claude to do a thematic analysis. Claude identified a clinical versus computational split for female/male authors and a DEI focus for Black/URM authors. All in completely random data.

You may be getting an email like this soon. Here's what you need to know.

If you acknowledge that the richest man in the world is a Nazi is has all sorts of unsettling implications about the moral valence of success and the arc of society, so it's easier to just ignore it entirely.

State officials in New York say the Salmon River district's special education program confined young children with disabilities in wooden boxes. Parents weren't notified.

The repressed conservative ideas courses are so popular that the government has to make students want them.

Well that's a thorough summary. One of the best articulations of university governance for a public audience that I've seen in a while.

The president of Cornell hit two students with his car, lied about what happened, and got away with it. The story illustrates an under-reported crisis in higher education: administrators and the trustees they answer to are increasingly hostile to the idea of college itself. I wrote about it here:

You love to see it! Cleveland Owns is co-hosting a conversation on unions and co-ops May 26 at 7 pm ET in-person and on Zoom. IBEW and USW co-ops will share how unions and co-ops work together to build worker power. Register at clevelandowns.coop

“The AI-powered app aimed to replace hand counts of some products with automated ones that were expected ‌to be ⁠faster and more accurate… A video uploaded by Starbucks at that time showed the tool failing to recognize a peppermint syrup bottle on the shelf as it counted adjacent bottles”

🎺🎺🎺 and I would add that the people who are silently cooperating will not either.

“Diversity of thought” is an expression invented by conservatives to imply that rejection of their ideas is a form of bigotry

Bezos says that the US has one of the most progressive tax codes. This is true by some measures. But our tax and transfer system reduces inequality far less than countries with broader tax systems. Tax cuts can't help people who don't have an income, but a generous tax financed welfare state can.

Many of the rationales for my AI course policy appeal to students' self interest (say no for your own sake). But I also stress (& they find it eye-opening) that inputting anyone else's work into a chatbot is unethical because it "turns over" that work w/out consent to for-profit tech companies...

BREAKING: VA Gov Abigail Spanberger just vetoed a bill that would ban ICE from making warrantless arrests inside of courthouses. VA Dems have the House, the Senate, and the Governorship. They have all the power and still under a Corporate Centrist Democrat, align with fascist ideology.

It’s a small thing in the grand scheme of things where institutions of liberal democracy are basically ghosts but my first thought was of all the *curriculum* we built around Google searching. Understanding it. Manipulating it. Exploiting it. Thinking like it. Whew.

What do we actually know about the history of abortion care in the U.S.? In light of recent legislation, it’s crucial for young people to understand how access has shifted over time. This primary source collection invites inquiry. ⬇️ Explore timeline + docs: www.zinnedproject.org/materials/pe...

1. Number of stories about Trump buying and selling hundreds of millions of dollars in stocks in the first three months of 2026: CBS: 0 CNN: 0 Fox News: 0 NPR: 0 PBS: 0 Politico: 0 Semafor: 0 Business Insider: 0

I’m not sure why this isn’t being mentioned more, but: IRS policy for 50 years has been that the sitting president & VP get audited every year, in an effort to reassure the public they’re not corruptly abusing the office to enrich themselves.

this is precisely the math, which is most often stealing public funds for corporate welfare, not unlike stealing public funds for grifter insurrectionist welfare, and is why ed tech went all in on authoritarianism

I genuinely struggle to understand what these people think is going on

absolutely wild scoop by my @indyweek.bsky.social colleague @ccourtneybohl.bsky.social on the Town of Cary’s $330k spend on “documentary-style videos about town projects and culture”—including a mini doc about the leadup to a staff flash dance—for internal use.

Even for 2026 this is wild

“Dancing Queens: A Case Study,” a video the town of Cary commissioned at a cost of $34,975, tells the story of a handful of town staffers who spent months planning a surprise dance performance for their colleagues and bosses.

Students forced to listen to AI propaganda during their commencements may wish to cleanse their palates with the University of Glasgow rectorial address from 1972, which is perhaps more relevant than ever. www.gla.ac.uk/media/Media_...

I'm refusing to review for academic journals that haven't banned AI/LLM use in manuscript production. I hope others will join me. #academicsky #medsky

NEW: Roger Shoffstall spent three years in prison for evading income taxes. It hasn’t stopped the FCC from sending him $1 million a year to sell obsolete internet service in Alaska. The money comes from a special government subsidy program. You help pay for it. w/ @adn.com

My very unpopular opinion is that this framing won’t play well in the South. And it might still matter. But what do I know?