Saw Hedda Gabler last night at The Old Globe with Katie Holmes in the title role. Highly recommend. www.theoldglobe.org/pdp/26-seaso...

Folks, if you’re one of those people trying to go full Lestat and live forever, you might want to check out this TikTok from Professor Anne Churchland over at #UCLA. www.tiktok.com/@neuroanne/v...

“Karen has no criminal record. She is a grandmother who spent eight years working as an admin assistant at a primary school before her retirement. “I don’t even have parking tickets in the background anywhere,” she says.

“It is only in popular parlance that social movements “die” or political eras “come to a close.” The finality of these phrases is rarely borne out in reality. Movements do not so much die as survive on a much smaller scale.

Thrilled to share that my new TRAILS assignment, “Practicing Ethnography with Visual Media: A Step-by-Step Assignment Using Downton Abbey,” is now live!

The Mexican federal government does this; it provides free, easy to obtain voter IDs to every eligible voter.

In the summer of 1964, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)—one of the central grassroots organizations of the Civil Rights Movement—worked with local Black communities in Mississippi to create Freedom Schools as part of Freedom Summer.

Very helpful discussion that demistifies tenure and explains what it is and what it’s not as a type of labor contract. open.spotify.com/episode/21c6...

One common phrase you’ll hear in Silicon Valley is, “I want to change the world.” In contrast, I’ve never heard my sociology students say that. What I have heard them say (often, and without irony) is, “I want to help people.”

“The abolition of gender studies is a way of further guaranteeing impunity to the elite men whose contempt for and exploitation of women and girls apparently knew no bounds." - Joan Scott www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... h/t Dan Hirschman

The Sage College Publishing Keith Roberts Teaching Innovations Award is designed to support the next generation of sociology scholars and teachers who are committed to teaching and learning sociology.

Sociology Folks: Applications are now open for this year’s SAGE Keith Roberts Teaching Innovations Award. The award provides $1,000 in travel funding to attend the ASA Teaching and Learning Section’s Preconference in New York City on August 7.

Here’s your higher ed historical tid-bit of the day: According to survey’s conducted by UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute, 44.4% of all first-year college students in 1970 agreed that “College grades should be abolished.” That figure had plummeted to 13.9% by 1984.

Singing in Spanish on the most watched stage in American life is refusal as defiance. A refusal to translate oneself for permission. For permission to be American; for permission to belong; for permission to live without fear.

I guess it was just a group of humans living out their fantasy of AI super intelligence. Kind of like those “fully automated” tech companies that quietly rely on hundreds of workers in the Global South doing the supposed magic behind the scenes. #WizardOfOzTech #AI

Three random and interesting tidbits about football from the latest episode of Ones and Tooze:

Una de mis versiones favoritas de La Bamba. music.apple.com/us/album/la-...

Today in office hours, a first-gen Hispanic student shared a quiet, devastating truth: their parents won’t attend graduation—not because they don’t want to, but because they’re afraid. No one should have to celebrate an achievement in the shadow of fear.

Y’all… this is Cato. Cato.

Moltbook turned out to be part scam, part total flop. 🤷

You know who’s not in the files… Obama.

Moltbook is the latest news in AI. It’s a social network for AI agents. Not humans posting with bots replying—but bots talking to bots, sharing tools, and reacting to each other, Think Reddit, but the users aren’t people.

In this piece Andrew Gelman offers an interesting reflection on the long, messy relationship between the left–right divide and ideas about utopia, rationality, tradition, and anti-rationalism—and how those associations have scrambled over time. open.substack.com/pub/statmode...

If you know, you know. h/t German Vergara

1/ BREAKING: Government documents reviewed by ProPublica identify Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa, 43, and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez, 35, as the two who fired their weapons during the deadly encounter with Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

In current discussions about America’s crisis of hegemony, one deep structural factor has received less attention: the connection between civic and political freedoms at home and the ability to exercise power on the global stage.

Llevé a mis hijos a ver al Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán en el San Diego Civic Center hace un par de semanas y todavía no sé qué me emocionó más: escuchar un gran mariachi con mis hijos por primera vez… o descubrir que el Hijo del Santo estaba sentado a unas cuantas filas de mí. 🤩🇲🇽

During the period when China was rising but not yet fully risen, the liberal world order kept warning that corruption, authoritarianism, and the absence of the rule of law would ultimately limit capital investment in China.

Teaching #sociological #theory this term? Check out these helpful seven principles from @mestefan.bsky.social on @firstpublics.bsky.social thesocietypages.org/firstpublics...

Folks, here’s some life advice small enough to fit on a classroom wall and big enough to hold a society together.

TCW CEO Katie Koch tells Bloomberg Business that large asset owners are “quiet quitting” US bonds and seeking to diversify. #HegemonyLost

🤔

Just when you thought the world couldn’t get more topsy-turvy, new research finds that humans are starting to sound like ChatGPT. 😳🤦🤷 arxiv.org/pdf/2409.017...

It’s -9 degrees. Downtown Minneapolis is packed for the anti-ICE rally and the crowd keeps growing

Many commentators who fear the collapse of the trans-Atlantic alliance and American hegemony under the post-WWII liberal order point to erratic tariff policy, the difficulty of distinguishing real threats from bluffs, and a range of other policy aggressions and incoherencies.

In addition to their amazing rosca de reyes, Marta's on Adam's Ave has an incredible piloncillo latte I haven't seen anywhere else (I get it half sweet), first-rate conchas and a cheddar jalapeño biscuit to die for! #SanDiegoCoffee #SanDiegoBakeries #SupportLocalBusinesses

Here’s something I learned from this podcast: apparently, Napoleon wasn’t short at all. He was actually a bit above the average height of French men at the time. open.spotify.com/episode/3rCv...

Some interesting facts about higher ed enrollments: www.insidehighered.com/news/student...

I sometimes find history soothing in moments when I’m carrying that kind of low-grade sadness that lingers after someone is needlessly unkind. open.spotify.com/episode/3rCv...

Grateful to Fabio Rojas for highlighting my comments on the expansion of accommodations in colleges and universities over at Temple of Sociology. #Sociology #Disability #Accommodations #HigherEd open.substack.com/pub/templeof...

The PERF 2013 review of 67 CBP deadly-force cases and agency policies found that while shootings involving armed suspects were generally reasonable and within policy, many incidents involving shots fired at moving vehicles and at people throwing rocks raised serious concerns.

Went to Murrieta this past weekend for my kid’s soccer game and ended up having fantastic Indian food at Ticca Tikka Indian Cuisine. ticcatikkaindiancuisine.com #naan #IndianFood #SupportLocalBusinesses #Murrieta #SoCalEats #ImmigrantsAreAwesome

Really enjoyed the conversation with my colleagues at The University of Alabama in Huntsville today! Always energizing to spend time with thoughtful, serious instructors grappling with the real challenges of teaching right now. #TeachingInPractice #Pedagogy #Teaching #FacultyLife #HigherEd

This AJPS article found that secret police organizations aren’t staffed by the regime’s most capable or ideological agents. They’re disproportionately staffed by underachievers. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Very excited to speak with my colleagues at The University of Alabama in Huntsville on Monday! Yes, we're going to discuss digital devices in the classroom, BUT... I'm going to frame this issue in a much broader context. Here's the full title of my talk:

The iced pistacchio latte with pistacchio foam over at Mevan on Fourth Avenue is, as my students would say, totally lit! (I might be using that term wrong, but you get the point). #latte #icedlatte #SanDiego #SanDiegoLife www.mevan.shop

If you think about it, “Abolish ICE” doesn’t sound nearly as radical or impossible after watching an administration abolish USAID and dismantle the Department of Education by fiat.

This is from Heather Cox Richardson’s daily commentary. Off-shore account? Controlled by the president? 🤯😮🤦😔