As a former marching band kid, this is a real bummer for those kids who traveled all the way to DC to get to march in the parade. Safe choice, but still disappointing.

i can name any song this one? i call this one Brian

Me: Oh, Boston 25 reports bear sightings in 2 local cities. KL: Which cities? Me: Uhhhh, Avon and Randolph. KL: No I don’t need to know the names of the bears, I need to know where they are. Me: Avon and Randolph are towns, not bears… KL: Well I just live in a world where bears have names.

Wait ADAM SANDLER was the officiant??????

KL went to run errands, and I managed to crank out about 700 words while I had time alone in the air conditioning. I have to wait for a book to arrive before I can finish this Star Trek section of the autonomous weapons chapter anyway, so I guess I’ll have to take a break for now.

Asking how people can partake in joyful acts during a period of immense suffering leads me to believe this is your first time at the suffering rodeo.

Okay so. I have a heaps and heaps of unpublished conference papers and other short essays about all sorts of sci-fi, film, TV, etc, that I don’t need to publish for promotion anymore. If I were to post one a month on Patreon, with text and audio options, would folks be interested in subscribing?

It is nice to be Doing Discourse again. I miss that part of the old AcademicTwitter days.

*taps the sign* This includes telling people to be ashamed to cheer for their country’s sports team. Soccer didn’t cause fascism, and building community is super important in fighting against oppression.

Honestly I think parents would lose their minds if their kids didn’t have a phone. Do you know how many COLLEGE STUDENTS share location with parents, have to check in multiple times per day to assuage mom and dad’s anxiety? Latchkey kids doing insane, unsupervised shit don’t exist anymore.

“Fed is best” is also true of full-grown adults, stop being weird about what people eat.

FROGBYYYYYYYY

Watching the temperature drop as we near sunset, like the slowest New Year’s countdown in the universe

The way my whole body clenched for the first half and unclenched for the second half

It’s my last official day as an academic. To celebrate, I took 2 naps, played video games, and hung out with the cat.

The cat, who has been sleeping in the un-air-conditioned cedar closet all day, is now mad at me because I won’t sit in and snuggle her.

soccer kitty

Cold Comfort: Monday, July 1, 2024 – Henry Henry thought the nondisclosure agreement for this place was ridiculous right up until he saw the man coming out of the Poe cabin and knew, without a doubt, that his first name wasn’t Edgar. They weren’t supposed to take photographs of anything that…

One thing that is apparent to those of us who study social movements is how often they lose & how quickly those losses are forgotten when they have big wins. Go back and watch Milk & see how often he lost. It’s eye opening. 🗃️

Very thankful for this letter to Becky Pepper-Jackson (the 16 year-old trans girl SCOTUS ruled against yesterday) from James Dale, a gay man whose expulsion from the Boy Scouts was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2000.

The number of times I have wanted to write “this has been talked about extensively you’re just 21” on a student’s paper cannot be calculated in human numerals.

Transgender History by Susan Stryker

Please stop pointing out how few trans people receive athletic scholarships. That’s not even the point of the legislation, and it opens us up to even more anti-trans hatred.

So I went to get a passport about a year ago, and I presented my birth certificate from the state of PA, issued some time in the ‘90s because my parents lost the original one. Except it’s no longer valid. The crrtificate I used for every proof of citizenship for 30 years is now no longer valid. 🧵

Well. Who’s got recommendations for products that get rid of facial redness? Preferably not makeup, but I’m open to going back to it if I have to.

I wrote about 350 words today before my brain melted. Now sitting in the air conditioning until I solidify again.

I mixed chocolate chai tea into my coffee this morning, and now I can see time. Gonna be a good research day!

Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles (1974) is a phenomenal film that fits into a much larger tradition of cultural works that challenge Hollywood and vaudevillian whitewashing of the American West This week I reviewed it in conversation with Deadwood (2004-2006; 2019) and Springsteen's album Western Stars

Share an 80s movie you’ll always love

Submissions are now open for @bosunderground.bsky.social ! If you have a film that's weird, scary, inventive, experimental, silly, surreal, and/or gonzo, we want to see it! Show me something I haven't seen before! (Do NOT make me watch anything with AI tho i stg) filmfreeway.com/BostonUnderg...

"Don't comply in advance" includes not telling everyone around you that things are only going to get worse and that there's no hope for anything. Cynicism is complicity.

the camaraderie of being on a bus passing a bad car accident and just looking at each other going “yikes” while feeling content with the fact that this 25 minute transit ride has gone on for 45 minutes

Hug your trans kids extra hard today. Tell them you love them unconditionally. Create whatever sense of safety for them you can.

I’m really glad he was able to get treatment! I’ve had major depression since I was 12, and it was debilitating until I finally went on meds in my 30s. It’s no joke, and stigma still abounds. May this revelation help him change the minds of his party-mates in congress.

SCOTUS rules 5-4 against eating kittens. Kavanagh, concurring in part and dissenting in part, says that such animals are a snack, not a meal. Thomas and Gorsuch, in their dissent, assert that it is within executive’s power to declare that cats of any age are rabbits, thus fair game.

When we say “we need money” it’s because we know exactly what we need. Regular, consistent, sufficient income to match and hopefully exceed the basic spending we have to do to survive. Aid orgs are all short term help to “get back on your feet”. But there’s no ground to land on.

Had a nightmare last night, but at least when I woke up, the cat was still out here catting.

[whispering] the same is true of generative AI…the tech isn’t the problem, and actually the tech has some really great possibilities…the dudes getting rich from poor regulation and misinformation are the problem…

New Englander here to verify that sometimes old buildings just can’t be modernized without spending more money than anyone has.

My dad’s ex wife had migraines so bad she’d spend entire days vomiting from the pain. It makes me so mad when I hear people being dismissive of migraines.

Matthew Lillard in Scream, judging solely on the amount of spit that flies out his mouth in this scene

Found the cover art for my book on labor, gender, and AI

The school where I adjunct requires faculty to submit CV info to a centralized website, including publications, presentations, awards, etc. so they can track stuff for promotions and accreditation. 5 stars, highly recommend typing out all your accomplishments in one sitting!

Well I’ve been asking you to take me to Funkytown for YEARS, so whose fault is this research gap????

When I tried to check in the desk attendant called me classist for wanting to book a room when some people have never had a room

We need to use this framing more often, that the government is stealing our money and our services from us when they take away social safety nets. It’s ours, not theirs, and they’re supposed to take better care of it.

MA’AM.

Sorry, everyone, America's been rained out. Come back in another 250 years.

I was a lifelong liberal Democrat. Then I learned that Kat Abughazaleh spent 12 bucks on a basket of fast food shrimp.

W/ more attn on data centers, I'm appreciating old-school rsch on telecom + data infrastructure - eg, Stephen Graham + Simon Marvin's work from the 90s, Kate Ascher's + Kazys Varnelis's + Andrew Blum's work from the mid-aughts, Michael Chen's cell infrastructure work fm ~2010...