Finally got my inbox below 30. woot!

Fall 2025 is already killing me. Got my inbox down to 53 messages, the lowest its been in a few weeks, but higher than normal.

Carolyn Miller in the recent RSQ: "I will just question whether it’s helpful to think of rhetoric as having “methodologies.” Does this language engage in a kind of science-envy? Isn’t rhetoric, as a discipline, rather a set of questions, a habit of mind, an interpretive vocabulary?"

You know Routledge/T&F editing is crap when I'm excitedly reading a new article and I keep getting distracted by the copyediting errors instead of engaging with the authors' ideas.

Due to travel and then being sick today, my inbox hit 90+ emails today, which is anxiety inducing! Got it down to 45 after a few hours...

[email protected] I'm a Mac OS user and haven't even updated to the newest Mac OS yet, and your syncing has become incredibly slow and unreliable. It takes hours to sync just a few MB files, and I've had to quit and restart Dropbox and force quit Finder just to get things to sync. Can you fix your app?

Is Bluesky glitching for others? I tried the browser version before mobile, and there’s no compose button available 🤷

USPS received a package for me, delivered to Lubbock, and instead of delivering it to me, sent it to New Mexico. I just wrote feedback: “Uh, WTF?” Odds I actually receive it?

Goddammit I have become too Type A to have any friends.

wrote my first Blog post in a long-ass time last night, on problems with accuracy of institutional (and field-wide) data: michaeljfaris.com/blog/2025/05...

One thing I really appreciate about TTU is that promotion dossiers for non-tenure-line faculty don't require external reviewers. Requiring that would be stupid, because external reviewers can't actually review their teaching, just what the institution and faculty member writes about teaching.

Starbucks in the SUB is the worst. They put black coffee in the drink queue so that you have to wait 15+ minutes for a drink they could hand you in 30 seconds

Not sure how, but as fascism rises, I'm managing to keep up with my email? inbox is at 9.

Inbox down to 13. Miracle.

This song came on the radio, and I'm brought back to my childhood, reminded of big hair, youthful love, and hay seed plow boys: "She's In Love With the Boy" by Trisha Yearwood: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUFO...

While I'm pissy: Why is it that I go through 1 provider (Covenant) and get 4-5 medical bills rather than just 1? Why not do your job & send a single bill that is easy to follow and pay? Here's what should happen: 1) medical experience, 2) 1 bill from the place I went to (not 4 different bills).

If these academic conferences continue with their uses of digital apps for programs, I'm gonna stop attending altogether. A dozen apps with a dozen logins and none of them are useful. What a waste of organization's money and my time. (Especially when my name is misspelled. WTF)

"What explains the connection between Hooters waitresses and young gay men? Perhaps these women ... see kindred spirits in the boys who aren’t quite “right.” Or maybe it’s simpler: a waitress’s knack for reading a room, turned tender for those who need it most." www.nytimes.com/2025/03/23/o...

NEW: An internal email obtained by WIRED from a threat intelligence team monitoring US Treasury systems advised labeling DOGE operatives an "insider threat," adding that it recommended suspending their access "immediately." | www.wired.com/story/treasu...

NIH is maxing indirect costs for grants at 15%. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Facebook messenger is the worst. Heads up: you message me there, my response is either to ignore it or to respond that you should email me.

We worked for months with USAID to build an $85,000,000 project to end TB in two regions of the Philippines. The project is funded by private money, the Philippine government, and matching USAID funds. It could provide a blueprint for eliminating TB worldwide--except it's...not happening.

Your 40s: you’re using the bathroom, see a big blue spot and assume automatically you got a bruise you don’t remember getting. Turns out it’s lint from your jeans. Always assuming your body is falling apart

Inbox less than 15 for the first time of 2025!

I dreamt last night that I was on some sort of super heros team. I think my skill was axe and hammer throwing, because I carried these 3-foot axes and hammers with me. But the best part of the dream was that I was dating a fellow hero on the team, Ariana Grande

It's hard enough to find time to nominate folks for awards. Stop adding extra stuff that no one would think of for nomination requirements (e.g., RSA asking for a 35-page excerpt from a dissertation chapter — just ask for the whole dissertation).

Bartender asked me how I pronounced Notre Dame. "Like how I would say it usually, or how I would say it to a snob?" I asked. She wanted authentic.

Today and in the coming days, remember

So many emails sent with "send later" because so many people email on the weekend and holidays.

Newest issue of Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy is out! Super exciting! Some great stuff! Listen to a podcast about resisting AI! Learn about publishing your work in open access repositories! Play Vy Manivannan's super cool parser game! And more! kairos.technorhetoric.net

This is a reminder that every time you share a cloud file with me that should be an attachment, both a puppy and a kitten die. Stop fucking killing baby cuties!!

The U.S News & World Report rankings of doctoral programs is obviously junk, since it relies on surveys of rankings from department chairs and program directors. I just took the least scientific survey I've ever taken (and I've taken 100s of student-designed surveys)

I read this & had a full twenty seconds of v seriously thinking “is today Walter Benjamin’s birthday”

I made a gingerbread panopticon

What I learned from visiting the family this holiday season: there’s a comedian named Jeff Dunham who is constantly on tv and is decidedly not funny

In addition to announcing caucus news, we'd also like to promote the research of our members, so please tag us in anything relevant that you're proud of and want shared!

Hello #TeamRhetoric, the CCCC Queer Caucus is now on Blue Sky!

A new CFP for folks out there who do work in writing program administration. Please share with others who may be interested. If you have any questions, contact me and my fabulous co-editor Kristi Murray Costello. Looking forward to reading some great proposals!

I got my first starter pack going! Please let me know if I left anyone out! These are some truly brilliant and big-hearted humans I'm thrilled to call my academic colleagues! go.bsky.app/CYShoyU

New issue of Kairos is live! kairos.technorhetoric.net Lots of great work in this issue, as well as memorials for Johndan and Gail. Some great stuff to read as the whole country tries to survive this cold weather.

Hey folx! A reminder that TTU is hiring in composition/writing studies, technical communication, or rhetoric: tenure-track Assistant Professor. Applications close Fri, Oct 6: joblist.mla.org/job-details/...

TTU English is hiring 4 TT asst. profs for fall 2024! Share and apply! Tech Comm, Rhetoric, or Comp (2 positions): joblist.mla.org/job-details/... Creative Writing: Poetry: joblist.mla.org/job-details/... Victorian British Lit: joblist.mla.org/job-details/...

#LaborDay On this Labor Day weekend, let us not lose sight of the fact that more than 120,000 disabled people are still paid subminimum wages. Half of those disabled people earn less than $3.50 per hour. Sadly, this is still legal in many states. We must end this injustice.

See the CFP for a College English Symposium on the 50th anniversary of the special issue on "The Homosexual Imagination": ncte.org/resources/jo... Proposals due Oct 6. T J Geiger and I are happy to answer questions!

BREAKING: Graduate workers at Duke University have won a union. 2,500 student-workers have chosen to organize with Duke Grad Union, with 88% voting yes. They now form the first graduate union at a private university in the South.