Historically Black College and University archives preserve the histories and accomplishments of HBCUs and their graduates, along with important aspects of Black life in America.

Just in the local obits this week "born in San Pedro, California… During World War II she and her family were sent to a relocation camp in Jerome, Arkansas. " www.legacy.com/us/obituarie... & "born in Seattle… sent to live in horse stalls at the Puyallup Fairgrounds www.legacy.com/us/obituarie...

TIL: Before Hans Asperger or Leo Kanner, a Jewish-Ukrainian psychiatrist named Grunya Sukhareva defined autism in 1925. Both men did not cite her work. She also had documented how it affected women and girls, where the men did not. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunya_...

Today, let's celebrate a drawn and illuminated crane that functions as a pointing gesture to a new paragraph (in a fourteenth century manuscript). It looks like he is walking into the text, right? #bookhistory

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I'm so happy with my new t-shirt from Sistah Scifi!

Glassmaker Dale Chihuly asked me where the bathroom was & I told him. Retired US Congressman Jim McDermott came to see a movie when I was working as an usher & I gave him a free bag of popcorn as a thank you for his work.

Making US Roads as safe as Canadian, Australian, or European roads would save more American lives (30,000 per year) than eliminating murder from the US (24,000 per year). Image with alt text:

🚨 WA and other vote-by-mail states: The post office changed its postmark policy and no longer guarantees a postmark will be given on the date mail is received. For deadline sensitive mail, like ballots, this means that you need to mail far in advance (10+ days before) or use a drop box. #waelex

. @edzitron.com: > We have now entered Enshittification Stage 4, where businesses turn on shareholders. www.wheresyoured.at/the-enshitti...

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Your yearly reminder that due to the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement that replaced NAFTA, nothing new will enter the public domain in Canada until 2043. www.lib.sfu.ca/help/publish... 📚

I hadn't thought there could be a more annoying Jonathan Harker than Keanu Reeves in the 1992 Dracula. The Jonathan Harker in the 1979 Dracula is so much worse.

The Frank Langella Dracula is leaving Netflix at the end of the month. Since neither Spouse nor I have seen it, that's our holiday viewing for tonight.

Disappointed to see Jon Stewart & co joke about masking in public. I do it for my medically fragile daughter (Batten Disease). People not masking properly led to her getting pneumonia, which led to her being on life support, which led to me getting price quotes on her cremation just in case.

When I went to Dingfelders today to buy pumpernickel bagels, they were out. I also found out their pumpernickel bagels are actually from Blazing Bagels, which is no longer their supplier. They're going to start making their own pumpernickel bagels but not until mid-January.

Ran into a friend while out getting bagels. Mentioned I was almost out of my favorite N95s & the new box wasn't due for delivery until Jan. 7. She'd gotten a box, decided she didn't like that style & was thinking about contacting me to offer them to me.

TIL

Another example of how the U.S. political right appropriates digital tools, platforms, and data to create, (re)frame, and remix data visualizations to spread anti-immigrant propaganda. If you're interested in learning more, here's a paper from my research team: dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1...

I don't know how many levels there are but I'm currently at 20 and still laughing my ass off.

Kid's service dog is about as thrilled to get positive reinforcement in the form of praise & petting--instead of food-- as I am to get an anniversary service plaque at work. It's nice, but it's not what either of us want.

From Kathmandu to Antananarivo, from Jakarta to Lima, a digital native generation is shaking the foundations of power and teaching the world that democracy’s revival may come not from institutions, but from those who’ve lost faith in them.

A vaccine for chicken pox didn't exist when I was a kid. That virus now lives in my nervous system & has reactivated 3xs. The 2nd time it caused nerve damage that felt like the side of my head was on fire. I really wish I'd been able to get a vaccine instead of getting chicken pox.

Checking through Kanopy's list of "leaving soon" movies yesterday, I ran across the 2006 Romanian film "12:08 East of Bucharest". Set in a small town at Christmas time on the 16th anniversary of the Romanian Revolution, a local TV show asks if the revolution really happened in their town. 1/

A friend gave me a beautiful scarf for Christmas. Unfortunately, it's drenched in perfume. I've washed it multiple times in both hot & cold water trying to get the scent out with no luck. Anyone know how to get heavy perfume scents out of fabric?

First time I went to Romania it was only a couple of years after the revolution. The only jobs the ex-Securitate goons could get was as badly paid waiters and they didn’t get tips ‘cos everybody hated them. I hope the ICE asshats are reading this post.

Through this special monthly column in partnership with the Emerald, Pongo invites readers to bear witness to the pain, resilience, and creative capacity of youth whose voices are too often relegated to the periphery:

Only 1 more week of vacation. To make sure I get outside in daylight, I'm telling myself not to watch any shows or movies until it gets dark. Since sunset is around 4:30, that still leaves a lot of time for bingewatching.

1. The conditions in county jail are *far worse* than the conditions in ICE detention. It's not even close. Most of the people in county jail are innocent, and pre-trial. Many people get stabbed in county. Dems ramped up mass incarceration more over the past 20 years than the GOP (thanks Biden!)

One of the things I’ve come to believe is that America teaches us all to hate ourselves to such a degree, the majority can’t tell the difference between someone saying, “You are better than this,” and “I am better than you,” so they settle for, “We are better than them.”

Having bad eyebrows isn't what makes her a villain! Shit eyeliner is politically neutral! Criticising a woman's lip filler more than her dogshit politics is still treating women as decoration first and a people capable of action and influence second

If you're in Seattle, you can find this at Street Cheese on Beacon Hill. Both the regular & the spruce-wrapped versions are delicious!

Forgot about this weird German version of "Rapper's Delight." youtu.be/6pQ5Xqv6bQk?...

I worry that many boomers are so unable to deal with the fact that the world is trying to move away from abusive patriarchal hierarchies that they would rather burn everything down than let go of them.

You all, after YEARS of archival research and writing, my book is out in exactly ONE month and it’s my job to promote it. Please help me spread the word!! 😀📚#booksky

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my father tried his entire life to raise his self-esteem by putting down others. you can push people down a mile, and it doesn't raise you one inch. it was a good lesson for me to learn, although a hard way to do it

Friends came over on Boxing Day to eat cheese & it was so much fun I think we may have a new Boxing Day tradition!

The Texas African American Photography Archive in Dallas Expands Photo History glasstire.com/2025/12/16/t... It includes more than 60,000 photographic prints—circa 1850s to the 1990s—& over 20 recorded oral histories of largely unknown & previously uncelebrated #Blackphotographers from across TX.

Two reasons ChatGPT et al. work 'faster' than humans: - Not constantly nagged by emails - Can just dump their output in a terminal window instead of saving it somewhere on Sharepoint

Activists were notified around 8:30 a.m. that someone was taken in the Walmart parking lot, followed by an encounter in the same lot around 10:20 a.m. and a third incident outside WinCo in Union Gap around noon. (@donaldwmeyers.bsky.social & Joanna Markell / Yakima Herald-Republic)

Make a Bond movie academic: Dr, No I am not a medical doctor I have a PhD!

The Irish Studies Program at Boston College & Cumann na Gaeilge i mBoston are excited to announce the annual Lá Gaeilge on Saturday, January 31st. Join us for Irish language classes for all levels, rank beginner to fluent. #gaeilge #irish events.bc.edu/event/la-gae...

If you want to see some of the great cheeses of Québec… ‘Fromages d’ici’ is a good place to start. www.fromagesdici.com/fr/fromages

Ontario does a supremely shitty job at marketing its cheeses (looking at you, Foodland Ontario) … but this article give a flavour of some of them: www.ontarioculinary.com/our-favorite...

Back in 1992, Robert Altman wrote this scene in "The Player" about a group of studio executives discussing whether it would be possible to get rid of scriptwriters. Who needs ideas?

Finally, someone called out my favorite obsession on TikTok. The White River should go north. King and Pierce Counties had a 100-year agreement to manage it. You will not be surprised that King never fulfilled their contractual obligations. 1/4 www.tiktok.com/t/ZTr3vNrEk/

70% of Americans don't attend religious services. Christmas isn't a religious holiday here, it's a consumer holiday where people buy each other material possessions they don't need in order to pretend like they care about each other, because we can only communicate via credit cards in this country

This might possibly be the best one yet.

After more than 80 years of impeding the migration of salmon, the Bateman Island Causeway at the confluence of the Yakima and Columbia rivers is scheduled for removal beginning Dec. 22.