Got our almost-2-yo a betta fish. He’s very excited about Fishy. Tried to explain the concept of a name (his name is ___, dog’s name is Arlo, etc). Seemed fine. What is fish’s name? He tries. “Rock?” (Fish likes/has rocks/gravel). We affirm, but he refuses to validate the choice.

While it’s true one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, I’m wholly enamoured with the cover art for my new book. It looks phenomenal. Read about the artwork that begat the cover design here: cassandrahartblay.net/2025/10/21/o...

Looking forward to the inevitable bombshell report exposing exactly how many university administrators took bribes from edtech AI companies

In honor of my book coming out next week, I got some new professional photos taken and spiffed up my website. Hard to believe that the previous version, up since 2014, was more than 10 years old!!

Join me next Tuesday for a virtual book launch event for my new book, Access Vernaculars. Hosted by the Society for Disability Studies. With discussants Raquel Velho and @xcherkaev.bsky.social, and organized by @mw-m.bsky.social ! Get the book at @cornellupress.bsky.social

It was the omg of times, it was the Jfc of times

Last week at @4sweb, I got the honour of being on a on Disability Access, Infrastructure, & Technoableism panel w/ @chartblay.bsky.social , @ashleyshoo.bsky.social, & Raquel Velho, learning from & speaking w/ them & @disabilitystor1.bsky.social & @besswww.bsky.social, as commenters & interlocutors…

Canada treating MAID like a pressure release valve will never not horrify me. The cold cruelties of a system that exists to repeatedly communicate the message to disabled people that they are disposable, and more efficient at dispensing death than it is at care.

My 1.5 yo child pointed at this photo in a coffeeshop and said, “mama!” So now I know what movie I’m watching next time I can stay awake

It’s slave labor. The goal of the whole tariff grift is a new global chattel slavery order. 🤬

love to get letters from the government asking if i’m jewish

Among the most offensive things about technocultic rhetoric around so much (AI, robotics, and more) is how easily (often-abled) techbros of all levels deploy disability and disabled people as a cover for whatever asinine/BS claim they make to investors, journos or VCs.

In the latest episode of @dearhankandjohn.bsky.social someone wondered how and why envelopes fit trifolded paper, asking wouldn’t it be easier to just fold the paper in half. Guesses abounded but I’m still stuck on one that John & Hank missed (and surely a historian on here will set us straight)

roses are red carnations are white

Canadian disability advocates’ critiques of MAID (Canada’s medical assistance in dying policy) backed by new UN report. www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...

This is the wildest story I have literally ever read. In any normal circumstances, a half-dozen senior officials would be forced to resign over this—starting with the National Security Advisor. And I doubt anyone will face any accountability at all.

I believe the firings and the AI have the same purpose: to get humans out of the loop of evaluating contracts. To automate the process of spending government money. To rig up a computer that sends taxpayer dollars directly to the broligarchy.

Mahmoud Khalil should be at home with his pregnant wife. Instead, he's been illegally abducted & had his constitutional right to free speech & due process stripped. We're demanding his immediate release and we cannot allow this abuse of power to go unchecked. #FreeMahmoudKhalil

Horrifying that this literal sanctioning of sexual assault got so many GOP votes, but relieved it didn’t pass. Small blessings for girls & women who play sports.

See, college kids, you can’t trust ChatGPT to do your work for you

Supporters Praise Trump For Upholding Traditional American Value Of Supporting Murderous Dictators For Political Gain

This is a bigger scandal than people realize. It really makes it look as though this entire meeting was a setup by Trump that was planned in advance. If you watch the video it is clear that they are deliberately and almost derangedly blindsiding Zelenskyy. Now we know who the audience was. Putin.

Today, the current occupant of the White House and his lap dog @JDVance tried to act tough. Zelenskyy made it clear to the world how weak they are. They have reduced the United States position to be nothing more than Putin or bust. Zelenskyy smartly chose to go home.

The scene that just unfolded in the Oval Office is appalling. Trump and Vance berating Zelenskiy on live TV? We’re so focused on how much Musk controls Trump, are we missing a bigger picture?

Once again, I've never heard an instance of "DEI forces" dictating what a professor can or cannot teach, but I've seen more and more of this garbage from the other direction.

Wowza! Page proofs! The thing is typeset - it’s really happening?! This is technically my second book, but in a lot of ways that count, it is my first book… the book that developed out of my dissertation.

In the opening of my book out next year with Ecco, I cite stats on how common disability is (6 in 10 US adults have a chronic condition, 26% of US adults have a disability) and use its ubiquity as a place to start talking about ableism and what it means to be human, and how we need care.

Same!

I’ll be on a virtual panel tomorrow on “bodies in focus” in Eurasian studies. It’s the end of a great series. The discussion will focus on intersectional liberation. What would you all like to hear me talk about? slaviccenter.osu.edu/events/bodie...

Things are changing quickly. US lawmakers are now voting under credible threats of bodily harms and untimely deaths.

Elon Musk not being the leader of DOGE is a legal+technical distinction that contradicts public representations made by Musk, DOGE + President Trump about the billionaire's position in the government, and continues to raise questions about operations that Musk claimed to be "maximally transparent."

Enshitification of the day: UofT replaced all sink faucets with the automatic on/off sensors. Conservation! But the water is only ever freezing cold. As a result, in the dead of Toronto winter (and covid/flu season), I’m washing my hands in ice water 2-3 times a day. 😞 #greenwashing

If you work in any aspect of disability at HHS and are already seeing new changes or guidances as RFK Jr. takes over or DOGE comes in, please message me on Signal.

If any parents of children with disabilities received similar emails like this, message me on Signal at emgarcia.85

This is a program for teenagers with serious disabilities who are finishing high school and transitioning to their next steps in life. Trump just axed it, effective immediately, in the middle of the night, with no notice.

Coloring in patterns on a sheet of graph paper to help me focus while watching/listening to the 1992 Clinton inauguration. I was allowed a stim in my normal classroom, but got chewed out for “disrespect” by a teacher from a different grade chaperoning the event, and I didn’t get to watch the rest.

Did the Army just say “No”?

I don’t agree with everything in this article, but I think Levitsky & way’s term “competitive authoritarianism,” used to describe certain governments that emerge from former democracies (Turkey, soon/now the US), is useful to think with. www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

I hate this but we told you disabled ppl are a social category, that ableism is real, that it’s connected to all other systems of inequality —these attacks on disabled ppl, the adding of “A” (for accessibility) to anti-DEI actions really f-ing sucks but it’s also the clearest evidence we were right

My heart ached when I was reminded that Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for trying to make academic knowledge more accessible to the public. Meta, meanwhile, is doing it for their own bottom line. I'm going to guess that no one at Meta will be looking at spending 35 years in jail for this.

Reporter: You said an example of fraud that you have cited was $50 million of condoms was sent to Gaza but after a fact-check apparently it was Gaza in Mozambique meant to protect them against HIV.  Musk: First of all, some of the things I say will be incorrect

Still repeating the lie that it was $50 million dollars, just for condoms. "“USAID procures condoms for around $0.05 apiece...$50m would be ONE BILLION condoms...What’s going on is that the bros at DOGE apparently can’t read govt spreadsheets.” www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/...

I’m sure anyone following me knows about this disaster headed our way already, but just a bump for Mother Jones’ coverage of the impact of the Project 2025 plans for the DOE on disabled kids and their families.

Butler comes from a generation that knew Freud well and took such work seriously, and I think that's relevant for why Butler is able to see this kind of thing so clearly while many others today aren't.

There’s a very cool one year post-doc/post-MFA at UT-Austin for someone with a scholarly and/or creative project focused on intersectional disability studies, activism, or arts & culture. Get more info & apply here: apply.interfolio.com/160768

Protagonist in every 90s movie to the villain: YOU CAN’T DO THAT!! Villain: MWAHAHAH WATCH ME. // … I JUST DID, SUCKER! Final scene: [justice is restored for protagonist & villain gets covered in used chewing gum]

1/ For the people who are asking: “Where are the protests?!” There have been many! Much of them organized by immigrants rights groups and leftists. Here’s a thread of some I have found, or know people who have attended. Feel free to add your own.

As a scholar of American institutions, I ask in genuine bemusement and with sincerity--under exactly what fucking authority are Elon Musk and his young adult hoodlums roving around Washington, DC and gaining access to secret & sensitive government data and systems? Constitutional crisis