The new issue of the Made in China Journal is out! This time we explore how queerness offers a lens for understanding contemporary Chinese society, as state visions of family and citizenship collide with diverse lived realities and unevenly translated global LGBTQIA+ discourses.

Today, Truthout is grateful to open submissions for the sixth annual Keeley Schenwar Memorial Essay Prize. The prize is awarded for essays authored by currently or formerly incarcerated writers. We award two prizes for an original essay on the topic of prisons, policing or a related subject.

The University of Texas System’s Board of Regents unanimously approved a rule requiring its universities to ensure students can graduate without studying “unnecessary controversial subjects,” despite warnings it could leave them less prepared for the real world.

Happy Year of the Horse! 🐎🧧

Legendary founder of NPR programming Bill Siemering is enjoying Zoom visiting with students so much that he's asked me to put a second call out. No honorarium necessary. Any takers?

This is AWFUL. Univ of Texas is consolidating 4 depts into 1: African and African Diaspora Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, American Studies, and Mexican American and Latino Studies will become "a Social and Cultural Analysis department." www.texastribune.org/2026/02/12/t...

⏰ Reminder: our 2026 creative non-fiction contest is still open for submissions until 1 March! The theme is ‘In Flux’ – in the era of uncertainty, what are the lingering aftershocks of instability, and how do you respond to the changes? 🔗 More details here:

Excited to announce that my post doc, Sasha Kaurov, and I are launching reckoningscience.org/launching-re... Please take a look, read, and subscribe! All proceeds will go to supporting the underfed post-doc.

DOCTOR: I told him he needed to get out to a show, that was how he would cure his depression. CHOTINER: So you learned this technique in school? DR: No, not— listen it was good advice. Pagliacci was in town. C: Right. Is it standard to give advice before learning a patient’s name? DR: Now look

"It may take time to prove you're right, but you have to stick to it." - Fred Korematsu Jailed for refusing to abide by FDR's Exec Order 9066, he took his case against internment all the way to the Supreme Court - and lost. Remember him on Korematsu Day, January 30th. 1/

"Boxer" indemnities🎓

❤️

I am just very sad for everyone involved. But I’m proud of the student journalism here.

In his acclaimed 'Breakneck', Dan Wang frames China as a fast-moving technocratic 'engineering state' and the US as a rule-bound 'lawyerly society'. In this review, Clark Aoqi Wu argues the contrast is overly simplistic, substituting a memorable slogan for historical explanation.

I will simply never recover from reading this sentence: "Since Georgia implemented work requirements in 2020, they have spent twice as much on Deloitte consultants and administrative costs as on healthcare for people."

Some good news! Guan Heng has just been granted asylum in the US, although DHS reserve the right to appeal the decision in the next 30 days.

Last year, a human trafficking victim trapped in a crypto scam compound in the Golden Triangle region of Laos contacted me. He then proceeded to leak to me a huge collection of the compound's internal materials. Then he had to get out alive. This is his story. 🧵👇 www.wired.com/story/he-lea...

In an effort to appeal to the youth and confuse the olds, the Doomsday Clock is now 67 seconds to midnight.

"The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality." -James Baldwin, from Notes on the House of Bondage (The Nation, 1980) #everynightapoem #ofsorts

According to its new privacy policy, TikTok now collects more data on its users, including their precise location, after majority ownership officially switched to a group based in the US. www.wired.com/story/tiktok...

TSMC’s innovative business model took inspiration from the long history of electronics manufacturing in Taiwan. https://bit.ly/4a6Iq7K

Amidst the fixation with semiconductors and geopolitics, how did Taiwan become a center of global electronics? Who were the people that powered its rise, and what happens when the tinkerer becomes the tycoon? I review Honghong Tinn's Island Tinkerers @thenation.com: www.thenation.com/article/worl...

All this impending snow. Reminds me that now we enter into the 24th of 24 micro-seasons: “Greater Cold” #大寒 - the coldest period of the year. Yet also, a period anticipating the beginning of spring and the warmth of the coming lunar new year. [Kawase Hasui, Evening Snow at Terashima Village, 1920]

"Against all the saber-rattling, myth-making, and visions of world domination, [Island Tinkerers] offers a timely intervention and powerful antidote." @thenation.com reviews @honghongtinn.bsky.social's fascinating #OpenAccess contribution to the history of computing technology:

"As the world appears entranced by faster chips and smarter electrical brains, elevating a company like TSMC to mythical status, few are pausing to ponder what the computing power is for—and who powers the computers?" I review Honghong Tinn's important new book, Island Tinkerers, in @thenation.com:

TSMC’s innovative business model took inspiration from the long history of electronics manufacturing in Taiwan. https://bit.ly/4a6Iq7K

Reupping this as January 21, the anniversary of Orwell’s death, begins in Europe and is midway through in Asia, www.the-independent.com/news/world/g... —by @atasoyemrah.bsky.social & me, in part the piece looks at novels, news, & non fiction of the 1930s-1940s that influenced Orwell’s vision

New review for The Nation by @yangyangcheng.bsky.social, on ISLAND TINKERERS by Honghong Tinn, which explores the history of bottom-up innovation and growth in Taiwan's technology sector, with special attention to the frequently overlooked work of women in the industry.

Amusingly, I just gave a mini-lecture of sorts on this very topic for a comparative politics course. Funny timing.

Great review of an important book.

Amidst the fixation with semiconductors and geopolitics, how did Taiwan become a center of global electronics? Who were the people that powered its rise, and what happens when the tinkerer becomes the tycoon? I review Honghong Tinn's Island Tinkerers @thenation.com: www.thenation.com/article/worl...

"Island Tinkerers" tells the story of Taiwan’s transformation into a central hub for technological development and manufacturing. @yangyangcheng.bsky.social calls it "a timely intervention and powerful antidote" to all the saber-rattling and myth-making. www.thenation.com/article/worl...

"Those who are ready to protest against, and resist, what is happening today are legion, but the political means for doing so are for the moment unclear or absent. How to wait in this state of forgetfulness?” John Berger, from "Confabulations (2016), his final book #everynightapoem #ofsorts

A resignation letter: "We all saw it. We all saw, with our own two eyes, people getting dragged like dogs and killed. But we could not write one line about it on the newspaper. In shame, we put down our pens. May 20, 1980 All Journalists of Jeonnam Maeil Shinmun"

Each Carnegie Medal finalist was asked by @ala-booklist.bsky.social to share a brief reading list. Here's mine:

For a @motherjones.com article, I am looking to speak to caregivers of disabled individuals who are 14 and older who are on Medicaid re Medicaid work requirement exemptions. My email to reach out is [email protected] and reposts are appreciated.

Today marks the beginning of "Lesser Cold" #小寒 in the lunisolar #microseason for the chilliest period of the year (小寒大寒，滴水成冰). More precisely, we are in Lesser Cold's first pentad, "When Wild Geese Fly Northward" #雁北鄉. [Detail from 芦雁図 Reeds and Geese, 鉄舟徳済 Tesshū Tokusai, 1343 @metmuseum.org]

What museum-worthy fine art were you making at eight and a half months old?🎨🐣

We’re looking for an experienced newsroom leader with a track record of producing and editing impactful, community-centered journalism. If that sounds like you, apply to be our next editor in chief: buff.ly/jKsWWgE

We’re kicking off the new year with some good news: Thanks to 114 readers like you, we raised $31,804 during our year-end campaign! We’re ready to tell the stories that need to be told in 2026. Thank you for your investment in The Xylom! 🎉 Missed the party? Help us start the year strong below:

六年前的今天， #李文亮 医生遭武汉市公安局武昌分局中南路街派出所警察训诫。

“And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been…” Rainer Maria Rilke, in a letter to his wife, the sculptor Clara Rilke, on January 1, 1907 (Translated by Jane Bannard Greene and M.D. Herter Norton) #everynightapoem #january

#Caturday 🐱: Min Zhen 閔貞 (China, 1730–after 1791) Black #Cat (n.d.; Qing dynasty, 18th c.) Hanging scroll; ink on paper Painting: 78.5 x 38.5 cm. (30 7/8 x 15 3/16 in.) Princeton University Art Museum y1947-65 artmuseum.princeton.edu/art/collecti... #CatsInArt #ChineseArt

Potato chip flavors on sale for the Hong Kong market. A thread 🧵 Steamed Garlic Shrimp

For many, the end of the year is an opportunity to catch up on reading or to purchase books as gifts. In 2025, a number of authors joined the Tech Policy Press podcast, providing fresh insights into how technology interacts with people, politics, and power. Check out the list:

Pleased to share the Spring 2026 schedule for the SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN ASIA online seminar series @ Harvard! Talks are over Zoom on Tuesdays, 10:30–11:45 am EST. REGISTRATION: seow.scholars.harvard.edu/STinAsia #histstm #histsci #histtech #histmed #envhist #envhum #sts 🧪

An Amusing Wooden Automaton That Types a Courteous Email on Computer Keyboard When Cranked laughingsquid.com/courtesy-ema...

Waymo has halted service in San Francisco after numerous videos & images showed its autonomous cars snarling traffic during the blackout. With traffic lights down, Waymos across the city stopped dead in their tracks at intersections. missionlocal.org/2025/12/sf-w...

Behold: the first-ever list of news outlets that have banned generative AI in their reporting. As of today, this is literally information that you cannot find on Google. My goal is to fill the starter pack, so please send over suggestions with supporting evidence! go.bsky.app/8cn1XfT

CDT Quote of the Week: chinadigitaltimes.net/2025/12/vide...