this is your seasonally scheduled reminder that Mannheim Steamroller slaps, actually

I’m just going to tell the story. Back in 2000 I was volunteering for the Gore campaign when he came along with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Alfre Woodard and Dule Hill to a GOTV event here in MN. He ended up sitting down across from me stuffing his envelopes.

There isn't a single problem "solved" by edtech that couldn't be fixed with smaller classes led by well-paid teachers given real academic freedom

I just don't think Warde Manuel is the dude to be in charge of one of the most powerful machines in American sports. @slate.com column on the Sherrone Moore fallout slate.com/culture/2025...

It's so stunning to realize the total rot of Fort Schembechler. To see that it's always been this way after feeling for so long that somehow it wasn't, until the bricks started falling by the dozens. Tear it all down, starting with the dumb statue, and rebuild with something resembling humanity.

Circa 2001, our little group of high school German class clowns successfully taught our teacher's Furby to swear auf Deutsch. She'd put it in the closet, but it would keep going for a while. Disturbing behavior!

i've had "tear down the bo statue" in whatever social bio i've had since the wilmerhale report came out in 2021 for a lot of reasons

SKULL OF THOMAS AQUINAS: TAKE A LEFT NOW PRIEST: No, the GPS says we have to keep going— SKULL: I KNOW A SHORTCUT PRIEST: Do you remember the last ti— SKULL: FOR THOSE WITH FAITH, NO EVIDENCE IS NECESSARY; FOR THOSE WITHOUT IT, NO EVIDENCE WILL SUFFICE

Me, sitting here, with my @shutdownfullcast.bsky.social Patreon subscription

45. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEdA...

Hoosiers, that's the post.

Today's featured title: “Orthodoxy on the Line: Russian Orthodox Christians and Labor Migration in the Progressive Era,” by Aram G. Sarkisian, NYU Press, 2025 @nyupress.bsky.social @aramsark.bsky.social nyupress.org/978147983315...

UM-OSU, what are we doing? Embrace this, at long last.

Beat Ohio, that grand annual tradition.

Yeah, that’s the Denver airport

The BBC Scotland commentary for Kenny McLean’s halfway line goal is glorious. Stuff of dreams. 🔥 Congratulations #Scotland, see you at the World Cup.

reminder that Dubs, Washington’s live mascot, is an ABSOLUTE UNIT

[Pastes in both seasons of Detroiters, which is a documentary]

George Carlin, our lovable Mr. Conductor.

A reminder that we’ve never heard the Monster Mash. Only a song about the Monster Mash.

Private equity destroys 200-year-old book distribution company that libraries around the country rely on and now libraries are having trouble getting new books: www.404media.co/libraries-sc...

Downstate folks upset about the share of funding that’d go to NE Illinois in the latest iteration of the transit bill, consider this: about 845,000 people rode CTA on an average day in 2024. That’s more than the population of every county in the state except Cook and DuPage.

The best taster was this guy, an academic whose comments were either a) ”With this dish, you have made food, which I have eaten,” or b) “I have tasted the essence of the ancients and you have revealed a narrative continuity worthy of praise, this is very good.”

I do believe it’s Michigan hockey season.

my wife is a Cal fan and apparently this week they’re putting a “59” on their football helmets to honor the 59 Nobel laureates tied to Cal in order to flex on Duke this is maybe my favorite dunk anyone has ever done on Duke

Anyway, support quality senior citizen musicians

the post office is a public service. it doesn’t need to make money. public transit doesn’t need to make money. the library doesn’t need to make money. some things exist for the public good and we desperately need lawmakers to stop thinking about them in terms of capitalism. these are not businesses.

Jury Garcia Band

Dan Campbell is a bad bad bad bad man

How your email finds me

Longshot, I know, but if anyone in Chicago has leads on a good job for a seasoned higher education professional with experience in non-profit administration, I could really use the connection. Also definitely open to remote work.

And not to be dramatic, but it’s never a bad thing to have a non-abstract sense of the murderous lengths American corporate and governmental power structures will go to in order protect themselves. None of this is ancient history.

Billy Sherrone 🤝 Making inexplicably dumb coaching decisions

I think I’d be fine if Michigan came out for the second and kneeled it out until the final whistle. Would certainly fit their level of interest in winning this game.

The Wrong Child, or maybe Sitting Still?

Once again calling for the MLBPA to designate this day as Curt Flood Day. And a shout-out to all unions, including my local CUPE. Workers unite.

Happy Labor Day 🙂

……And there’s a drive deep into Alabama territory by Castellanos amirite

Illinois Gov. Pritzker vows to pursue Trump officials who participate in an illegal National Guard deployment to Chicago: "If you hurt my people, nothing will stop me - not time or political circumstance - from making sure that you face justice under our constitutional rule of law."

Illinois is launching a first-of-its-kind legal hotline for LGBTQ+ individuals — Illinois Pride Connect. As the only state in the nation that will provide free legal advice to protect the LGBTQ+ community, we'll help fight ignorance with information and cruelty with compassion.

Historian here to remind, for no reason at all, that there is never a wrong time to point out that slavery was bad. Nor can it ever be said enough. Slavery was bad.

wondering if anyone at ESPN reflected on that intro to this Rich Eisen special hosting show & thought "hmm maybe there was a formula that worked here"

Siri, play "The Victors"

TIL trans pizza night is a thing, how delightful

I have spent my adult life studying and teaching the humanities when I could have had far more lucrative work. Seeing the humanities openly attacked and devalued by governments, corporations, and (worst of all) educational institutions for decades now has done real damage to my soul.