A small (personal) example of this book’s intellectual dishonesty: My father-in-law is reading In Covid’s Wake, and excitedly told me he found a passage where I’m quoted. The quote in question is me saying the FBI worked to censor speech on social media. Huh? When did I say that?!

one thing i post every christmas is my piece about charles dickens’s washout brother www.chicagomag.com/city-life/de...

I think we need a mega thread of everyone's craziest archive stories.

I count 10 cities in 2025 that are on track to have the fewest murders since at least 1970. Newark is on pace to have the fewest murders since 1956 (though only have data through Oct this year) and San Francisco is on pace to have the fewest murders since 1942.

TIMELINE CLEANSE. Please post your adorable getting into the holiday spirit. Molly is dallying in the Christmas garland.

BREAKING: WATCH the full 60 Minutes CECOT segment here. This was sent to me anonymously. It appears to be the segment CBS' Bari Weiss killed. www.muellershewrote.com/p/watch-the-...

Hi all: reupping my perennial call for indexing and editing clients for Spring / Summer 2026. It might be my last year doing this work, so get it while it's hot! Email at [email protected] for rate and availability. Feel free to share!

ICE claims that this man's death was "suspected to be from natural causes" but the story makes it patently obvious that ICE murdered this man through their actions and negligence. abc7chicago.com/post/bulgari...

1) Google Scholar is not inventing fake citations, but it transfers these hallucinations into a temporary catalog page on the library site via standard API tools. This not good, here the story continues:

When viewing the fake article in Google scholar on my university network, there is a link to access the article via my uni's library. That link sends me to a library page that makes fake article appear real... Turns out library page is made programmatically from info on Google scholar 🤦

Worked hard to get this into Guardian Oz & big props to @fiercemum.bsky.social for setting it up & Melissa Davey for publishing it. She will doubtless get loads of hassle from transphobes for it, but it needs to be out there. Puberty Blocker bans harm trans kids, no-one should pretend they don’t.

Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵 Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...

Chicago is having none of this administration's BS.

This Yglesias piece in the NYT is horrifically bad. Almost every "fact" it cites is provably false. At best it is cocktail party banter from a pundit who knows nothing of energy. At worst, it was cut/paste from oil industry talking points. So, a rebuttal: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/o...

The Vanity Fair photographer from the Susie Wiles story. Holy. Shit. www.washingtonpost.com/style/power/...

Currently watching CBP agents intimidate Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss in a Home Depot parking lot.

NEW: Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, who is running for Congress, confronted Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino today:

The Onion, 23 years ago. theonion.com/no-blood-for...

A thread of how to say “nobody asked you” from around the world, starting with this one… A Lithuanian way of telling someone to mind their own business is ne tavo kiaulės, ne tavo pupos. It means “not your pigs, not your beans.”

"Malort advent calendar" is already such an unhinged concept but every little window just having Malort in it really pushes it over the edge into something transcendently funny

Please sign the open letter: No layoffs at the Poetry Foundation! forms.gle/oUe2YV73pNxK...

In a world of absolutely dogshit news about trans athletes, it was such a pleasure to write this piece about the derby community and the way they're stepping up for their trans + nonbinary + gender diverse athletes.

Carnegie Mellon’s literature PhD is being liquidated in favor of “computation,” casualized labor, and AI. That has profound ramifications for, students, faculty, and program alums like myself. I wrote it about it (w/ Catherine Evans, a current PhD student). www.chronicle.com/article/a-co...

My publisher's shop has a mega bundle sale of all my stuff! fenrispublishing.com/product.php?...

This is the compromise? This is the bipartisanship? This is the civility? This is the return to normalcy? This is the price of winning? WHAT WILL YOU HAVE WON

Here are the 28 Dem Senators who voted to advance the first federal ban on trans athletes & a federal definition of sex that would make trans & intersex people non-existent: Angela Alsobrooks (MD), Tammy Baldwin (WI), Richard Blumenthal (CT), Lisa Blunt Rochester (DE), Chris Coons (DE), ->

I…did not see the closing sentence of this photo caption coming: www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/15/n...

Armed ICE agents trapped US citizens in a restaurant and demanded their papers. Federal agents walked into East African restaurants in Cedar-Riverside, MN. They closed and blocked the doors. Then they demanded to see everyone’s papers. Every person present was a US citizen.

One of the ways you can see this is driven by an industry looking for some way to make itself profitable? No one has shown any concern that students demonstrate basic competency with computers before enrolling (or graduating)—and, many do lack that.

I'm teaching public policy theory next semester and I'm trying to spend the next week thinking up useful readings that are rarely included in that type of course when it's housed in a public policy school. You know, stuff like Machiavelli's The Prince. Let's get wild and crazy.

100 years old today.

This is one benefit of having an independent student newspaper that doesn't depend upon university financial support :) (...I also appreciate how lots of their DJT-related pieces make sure to identify him as a Wharton alum *right there in the headline* 😈)

“She has marks on her neck and wrist from where agents restrained her. Agents cut off her wedding ring and held her in leg shackles at Whipple Federal Building for about five hours.” Her crime: witnessing ICE, from a distance.

Bong Joon Ho hit me up for the squad you legend deadline.com/2025/11/bong...

The thing I would like is for everyone to do lists of books they read this year so that I can get little mini review-lists and Christmas ideas

jesus christ

🚨NEW INQUIRY! Imagine sharing your private fantasies with what you believe is a bot that cannot judge or remember. Just that, on the other side, is a man in a one-room home in Nairobi, pretending to be an AI companion. That man is Michael, and this is his story: data-workers.org/michael/

The special issue I co-edited on "Melville's Queer Afterlives" is here and it's queer. This issue has EVERYTHING: gay pirates, dirty pictures, racist internet fanfic, Gilbert Gottfried, original poetry, and just so many French people. Available at your library, but LMK if you're paywalled...

This should make any human with values sick.

DC Public Library with a friendly reminder 📚

A new report on dietary findings in a select area of Pompeii likely inhabited by enslaved people came out in Scavi di Pompei. Many newspapers are now running w/a headline about Roman slaves “eating better” than free Romans. pompeiisites.org/e-journal-de... Let’s discuss why this is problematic

“I became both heroine and heroin to him. And sometimes, a heron, for when we did bird play.”

Some rare good news: Journalists at the PEN Guild won their arbitration case against Politico, which deployed two separate faulty AI products (a "report builder" and a headline and summary generator on the homepage) without their knowledge or input. That violated their contract, the arbiter found.

does anyone else notice the giant lady doesnt cut up your hot dogs anymore!?

Way to stand up to... *checks notes* 61-year-old recreational players. Good work, USTA. 🙃

If you're buying gifts for spirited 12 year olds who have read most of the middle grade graphic novel canon, can I recommend my book The Legend of Auntie Po? It's multi-awarded, and well reviewed, but hasn't entirely found its commercial footing. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/601780...

Bookish Holiday Fun and Games For... YOU! Now in its sixth year, for this #NewberryLibrary Advent Calendar, we'll play around with the collection! Cards, Board Games, Puzzles, Gambling... What's up first? CHESS! December 1 (1/24) Here's last year's extra-shiny offering: bsky.app/profile/drka...

This is Mr. Paworotti. His favorite Christmas song is Howl-lelujah. If you'll excuse him, his solo is coming up. 13/10 (TT: therealpaworotti)

my aunt got me this cute penzey's DEI themed advent spice calendar. we love an extremely woke brand don't we folks