Another must-read response to Ezra Klein's "Charlie Kirk did politics the right way" argument, this from @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social in @bostonreview.bsky.social on political correctness, stigma, and shame as fundamental to living together.

"Common decency stigmatizes people that do not participate in it—removes them from voluntary association. We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply." me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...

Oh nothing to see here, just a Missouri U.S. Senator spouting white and Christian nationalist rhetoric about how America is only for descendants of "Western" "European" "settlers" and non-white immigrants are not American: www.dailysignal.com/2025/09/02/s...

In Pam Bondi's America bakers may refuse to make cakes for gay or trans people, medical pros may refuse to provide women with complete healthcare, military personnel may refuse vaccination orders—all for "religous" or "conscience" reasons—but an Office Depot employee may not refuse to print a flyer.

"Over the past 23 months, Israeli forces have killed nearly 3,000 people attempting to get aid in the Gaza Strip and wounded almost 20,000 others." New @newhumanitarian report with open database and timeline of aid killings in Gaza: www.thenewhumanitarian.org/investigatio...

"Many of the facile defenses of Kirk and his legacy are predicated on the idea that it’s acceptable to spread hateful ideas advocating for the persecution of perceived enemies as long you dress them up in a posture of debate. This is just class privilege." www.thenation.com/article/poli...

Israeli commander says that the IDF has killed more than 200,000 people in Gaza - 10% of its population - and has not been constrained by the law one time: www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

Charlie Kirk Was Not Practicing Politics the Right Way: www.404media.co/charlie-kirk...

Seven Theses Against Viewpoint Diversity: www.aaup.org/seven-theses...

this is such a grotesquely cynical excuse for letting both gigantic tech companies and Donald Trump's MAGA aristocracy run rough-shod over the interests of everyone else

like so many products to come out of silicon valley in the last decade or so, AI is a legal innovation masquerading as a tech innovation. the legal theory seems to be that AI is entitled to everything but liable for nothing.

the maga constitution doesn’t allow any institution, public or private, to explicitly work to ameliorate racial inequality but allows the government to racially profile

In addition to their redistricting attempt to gain a seat in Congress, Missouri Republicans are seeking to make citizen-led initiatives more difficult to pass. MO voters recently overruled the GOP statewide on abortion, minimum wage, marijuana, sick leave. missouriindependent.com/2025/09/04/a...

no surprised that brett ”almost certainly flunked his remedial classes” kavanaugh thinks the constitution authorizes a race-based federal “papers please” regime. quick, someone ask him what he thinks of the fugitive slave act.

Incredibly bleak how half this country is ready to gleefully cheer on state violence repeatedly, anytime, anywhere so long as it's against brown people or uppity activists they don't like. Every day this society sinks further into fascist hell.

Weird that these mass shootings get narratively framed as random violence caused by an imprecise miasma of social pathology and not as independent contributions to a specific and highly organized political program.

Here's what the third day of elementary school looked like in Mount Pleasant, Washington DC.

"A famine declaration is not an anticipatory warning; it means that a deadly trajectory has already taken hold." @jeremykonyndyk.bsky.social refutes the lies and bad faith misinformation being trotted out in defense of famine and genocide in Gaza: www.telegraph.co.uk/global-healt...

National Guard soldiers called into service for President Trump's law enforcement surge in D.C. have been assigned to spread mulch at federal monuments. Normally the Park Service does that, but the administration laid off the workers. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

this semester's first-years were born the year I started college you're welcome

the crisis in which the University of Chicago is now engulfed -- one entirely of its own making, and which has led to the (hopefully temporary) suspension of admissions into numerous PhD programs in the humanities -- represents I think a seismic event in the history of American higher education 1/

"even as a wide range of essential American institutions—universities like UChicago, but also hospitals and health insurers—increasingly sacrifice their duties to society on the altar of asset accumulation, they fail at accumulating assets." stanfordreview.org/uchicago-los...

this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like

my AI policy might be a little agro 🤷‍♂️

“What does a human slowly going insane look like to a corporation? It looks like an additional monthly user.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/13/t...

one question to ask the editorial board is whether there is a minimum bar for what constitutes "american democracy." if most people in most states are gerrymandered out of effective political representation, is that democracy?

Wesley Bell @wesleybell.bsky.social, fresh back from his AIPAC-funded field trip to Israel amid its ongoing genocide, got an earful last night from his constituents at his first townhall: www.stlpr.org/government-p...

The GOP's midterm Congressional gerrymander strategy is also coming to MO as it becomes more likely that the Governor will call a special session to redraw the state's districts: missouriindependent.com/briefs/misso...

Interesting to see it laid out so plainly that WashU, Vanderbilt, & co. are trying to outflank outspoken liberal Ivies amid the Right's attack on higher ed by pledging neutrality and capitulating to reforms around DEI: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

"The goal might have been going viral, but the message was still *Stop thinking you can play this game without any dicks involved.*" @brandyjensen.bsky.social on the misogyny of throwing dildos at women: defector.com/why-a-bunch-...

So it turns out that Cuomo's slam at Mamdani's lodgings wasn't just a know-nothing misrepresentation of homelessness, rent control, and rent stabilization, it was also a stealth boosting of the landlord lobby's coming messaging on why rent stabilization should be gutted.

Line goes up at the fascism factory.

CLASSROOMS WITHOUT BOOKS. This is the fruit of SB13. Melissa ISD is forbidding class libraries, book bins, & reading corners after book banners forced the law over objections of Texas parents. The law doesn’t require it. But we @TXFreedomRead told legislators it would happen.

Don't mind me, I'm just adding slides to my Introduction to Anthropology "what is culture" lecture

Been watching this unfold on Instagram and finding some much-needed laughter. The message discipline of the Man in Bean Coalition is very impressive: blockclubchicago.org/2025/08/08/t...

"St. Louis County’s attempt to prosecute a pro-Palestinian protester arrested at WashU faces a major complication: The student is charged with assaulting a police officer, but WashU campus police officers are not police officers under Missouri law." 😂😂😂 www.stlmag.com/news/washu-p...

Good piece highlighting some of the direct action work opposing ICE raids, especially in LA and NYC: www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/o...

“When the Department of Justice recently opened an investigation into George Mason University…. Professors quickly published a resolution supporting their president and the university’s efforts around diversity. Now, Justice Department officials say they will investigate the faculty, too”

CUNY fired four adjuncts for Palestine activism. According to one: “academic freedom does not meaningfully exist for contingent faculty. But we are not the exception — we are the warning.” jacobin.com/2025/07/zion...

St. Louis' own Bob Suberi is aboard the Handala, which is approaching the Gaza coast: www.stltoday.com/news/local/m...

Sad to see that @wennergrenorg.bsky.social will be closing down @sapiens.org at the end of the year: wennergren.org/important-ne...

Absolutely shameful - amid widespread scholasticide, including over a year of deliberately targeting schools and destroying every university in Gaza - that this Harvard publisher canceled a special issue on education and Palestine: www.theguardian.com/education/20...

"We believe something important has begun. For the first time in Europe, Israeli suspects linked to crimes in Gaza have been subjected to formal arrest and questioning." www.hindrajabfoundation.org/perpetrators...

"Washington University has quietly removed many references to the university’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion from its websites amid rising federal scrutiny of higher education." www.stltoday.com/news/local/e...

“It’s not that traditional liberal arts is out of step with student demand. Instead, it’s out of step with the priorities values desires of a powerful board of trustees with no apparent commitment to liberal education, an administrative class.” www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/o...

Rümeysa Öztürk describes the library in the prison where she was held for 45 days for co-authoring an op-ed

This was always the end point: criminalization of any and all support for Palestine or criticism of Israel. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

I'm in the newest issue of Anthropological Quarterly with a review of Rachel Marie Niehuus' @dukepress.bsky.social book on healing and repair amid violence in Congo.