“we strongly urge the newly-reconstituted Board to rescind the appointment of Mr. Beardsley, form a search committee with more than token faculty representation and begin anew the…search for a president whose scholarly record, professional experience and personal attributes better qualify them.” 🔥🔥🔥

Wesleyan University President Michael Roth, a leader in organizing college presidents, has proposed Democracy Summer 2026, evoking the heroic Freedom Summer of 1964 that aimed to advance voting rights in Mississippi, now employed to safeguard the midterm elections. From Bob Kuttner:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZfL... Splendid clips of UVA English alums talking about the impact of the major on their lives and careers

www.instagram.com/reel/DU1-DrF... Amazing Presidents' Day dance tribute to Renée Good and Alex Pretti by The First Amendment Troop.

I don't understand the Olympic scoring in any events except hockey and, I don't know, maybe speed skating, but I definitely get these special election results. virginiamercury.com/2026/02/10/b...

Pre-game score as # of mentions in Epstein files: Seahawks owner Jody Allen 0 (though she inherited the team from her brother, who's mentioned lots) Patriots owner Robert Kraft 20 (most or all pertaining to his solicitation indictment--Bannon comes to his defense in an email)

I'm good with attention to the halftime show, especially this year, but these great bits of pre-game Super Bowl art should not be forgotten. blog.ogdennash.org/2009/12/ogde...

#SuperbOwl www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53777/...

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0... "Adults underestimate the power of simply telling a young person to read a book and vouching for it ourselves."

James Joyce was born on this date in 1882. poets.org/poem/ecce-puer

Anyone can sign this; I think everyone should.

Charlottesville's corporate connections to ICE: a very well-made report.

UVA English folks: the post is from next week's visiting speaker, and the article cites one of our PhD graduates, Kim Shirkhani.

I wrote this yesterday about the hero city of Minneapolis www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKOW...

"...what would you think To be thus used? This is the strangers’ case; And this your mountainish inhumanity."

Battle of the Bans: Narratives of Reading and Engaging with Banned Books, eds, Matthew Panozzo and Paul William Eaton, @myersedpress.bsky.social, seems like an important collection --due out at the end of the month. myersedpress.presswarehouse.com/browse/book/...

YOU SHOULD STUDY AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE

I'm late getting to this excellent essay, but I recommend it heartily, particularly for its concluding call to action, to which I hope those with the relevant expertise will respond.

They also apparently have in common excellent transition teams and splendid coordination with other governmental entities.

Block instantly.

Oh hell yes, Gov. Spanberger! www.nytimes.com/2026/01/16/u... [gift link]

The Clintons' letter is bonkers.

just discovered that all of finnegans wake is up & annotatable as “song lyrics” at genius & now i have to forget that so i can do anything other than read internet randos trying to get to grips with it genius.com/James-joyce-...

This Great Blue Heron has for weeks been competing, unafraid, with the local fishing folk.

"Prestigious universities...can continue to select students already trained to succeed in their existing environments, or they can do the harder work of asking whether their environments themselves need to change to nurture all talents."

www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026... "It’s an imperial Squid Game – entertainment for a rambling emperor staged with actual killings.:

That word "kidnapping" and the casualty figures associated with the act it describes have been absent from or greatly subordinated in much US coverage. The administration has in a year greatly increased tolerance of brutality. Minnich: "the evil of banality."

news.virginia.edu/content/mars... Students are way ahead of univ. admin: "Wallace predicts a 'reckoning will have to happen regarding the purpose of a liberal education in a society inundated with AI...At some point, people will grow tired of a world that is artificial, untrustworthy or shallow.”

OK, 2026, I dare you to come up with a better headline--and while you're at it, a better quote than Officer Keel's "That’s when we learned the importance of correcting these AI-generated reports.”

Lots of stuff here worth spreading far and wide web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicd...

@merriam-webster.com How apt? I thought it was just a new spelling of “boogie.”

O'Toole's reliably illuminating. But I'd want to add to his analysis here how deeply gendered begrudgery became in the 80s and 90s as women's achievements became more conspicuous, and how misogyny then established terms that could later be reapplied to other Others.

"...Postman warned that a 'technopoly' arises when societies surrender judgment to technological imperatives...Knowledge becomes data; teaching becomes delivery. What disappears are precious human capacities—curiosity, discernment, presence." Great, chilling piece, many informative links.

To my mind, the speed of this search is the definition of *malfeasance.* It was politics over the health and integrity of the university from beginning to end--from firing President Ryan to now. The appointees have consistently put the desires of Trump and Youngkin over UVA.

c-ville.com/city-using-a... The huge AI company running Charlottesville's garages says, "We may keep personal information for as long as necessary to achieve the purpose for which it was collected, our business needs, or any other purpose permitted by law." Not parking there.

Extraordinary courage from Ahmed al Ahmed, a Muslim, 43-year-old father of two, who bravely risked his life to save his neighbors celebrating Hanukkah. Praying for his full & speedy recovery. And so deeply inspired by his example.

I mentioned in my last post writing detention writing programmes but sometimes people find their own way. This is in 'An Arbitrary Light Bulb' and was inspired by someone I worked with in a Liverpool drugs and homeless project.

Here's some awful writing by @ncte.org , announcing an awful project paid for by big tech. Inviting ELA teachers to contribute to the destruction of their subject is craven and corrupt.

Good morning

www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/91395/... One of the great winter poems...

One year Puccini posted Toscanini a Xmas panettone, forgetting that they'd fallen out again and fired off a telegram : “PANETTONE SENT BY MISTAKE -- PUCCINI!” He received another back almost as quickly: “PANETTONE EATEN BY MISTAKE -- TOSCANINI!” Thanks Mark Pullinger for the reminder and the photo.

Heart-wrenching. Horrific.

Any sign that Dems' leadership is preparing for post-DT times by cataloguing, Project 2025-style, all that must be done and undone, all that must be reassembled and dismantled, all who need to be platformed or prosecuted? If not, could @indivisible.org, @moveon.org, or some other entity do the work?

Amazing numbers of ibises in Chincoteague

I don't know why I ever both to start watching highlights on ESPN. The constant commercials always make me give up.

The calls here for "virtual hearings" would seem to have a lot of potential--I wonder if it can become standard practice in invaded cities.