Not my field obviously but it does seem weird that America’s turn to fascism has so many institutional press releases about how we’re all turning to fascism now.

Great thread. I do always have to stop and marvel at how useful cursives were as a technology WHEN YOUR MODE OF WRITING WAS A FEATHER YOU PLUCKED FROM AN ACTUAL BIRD AND DIPPED IN INK.

The challenge with this strategy of course is many of his voters will have to start thinking of themselves as the kind of cringy dorks who say things like “I sure do like the job the mayor is doing.”

The flip side to these dumb attacks though is the quiet blacklist they create. Editors keeping Mamdani and Duwaji off the cute little “Cooking with the Mayor”-type puff pieces because they’re “too controversial” generating a vague aloofness that can derail a reelection campaign.

Starting an early modern utopian village, just to commonweal something.

Can’t wait to read this one. George’s story is amazing. Glad it’s getting its due.

One benefit of working at a regional public is that, while you do absolutely get this sort of colleague who turns every hurt feeling into a Grand Narrative of Social Decline, there at least aren’t national mags lining up to publish their nonsense.

Sums up about 70% of Bluesky interactions.

I have been enjoying this whole conversation all day, not least because it reminded me to go listen to Tre Burt for the first time in awhile, an artist Prine very much and very affirmatively wanted all of you to listen to.

✅ Acquire legacy name w huge real estate holdings ✅ Pump up debt to reduce worker leverage and enhance board control ✅ Do a bunch of dumb stuff because you don’t understand your product or its social role 🔲 Skim profits and sell for scrap? When they say “run Unis like a business” they mean Sears.

Make a Bond movie academic On Her Majesty’s Secret Service Commitment

I mean, case in point, they’re getting mad at the basic idea of happiness here.

It’s also why appeasement and triangulation never work. The desire to be angry is their motivation. It will always find a new thing.

🎶Frying steak in bacon fat/ 🎶Doo dah/Doo dah 🎶’Cause Julia she rolls like that/ 🎶All the doo dah day

This is just the crystalline essence of all the “thank the troops for your freedom” messages of the last four decades. All human endeavor is downwind of a violent contest for survival. It’s also why “create bomb-makers and medics” is all higher education is allowed to be anymore.

This post is not about higher ed but it is also about higher ed.

Probably that time the Windsor archive was closed for renovation and @brookenewman.bsky.social and I got shunted into the royal family’s personal library to work next to old chunks of the Victory, various coronation books, and George III’s favorite malfunctioning clock.

It is a key lesson of the past twenty years: one of fascism’s greatest allies (besides the rich) is people’s unwillingness to believe it’s actually happening until it’s too late.

One of the more infuriating things about AI discourse is that it’s unseemly to defend your profession because, well, of course you’re biased. You’re the ones we’re threatening starve.

“Cite your sources” is what helps keep us from veering into fan fiction.

This, for the record, is what goes into a footnote. It’s the key part of the research process where I examine the practical, methodological, ethical implications of my sources before I join the stream of interpretation. It cannot be outsourced to an LLM.

Everything for sale is a crap knock-off version of something that used to feel cool Every other space is some sort of pop-up for a midlevel marketing scheme You’re there a lot but you can’t remember the last time you were happy to be there Yep, checks out.

Does kinda underscore that the thing everyone hated about the Biden presidency was largely the 118th Congress.

The compounding sadness of the past 48 hours is that Reiner was one of the few mainstream filmmakers whose characters never used mass murder to solve their problems.

The extra depressing part, as humanities faculty, is knowing full well how impervious to evidence peoples’ little stories are.

Jacobite tobaccobite

I stayed up exactly one hour too long tonight.

Given the apparent opportunities it creates in the shady spam-text and robocall sectors, it’s kind of surprising that domestic solar has not been more warmly embraced by Trump.

If you ever want to see me transform into a bald eagle meme, put me at a table full of Brits discussing higher education.

“Watch us get run over!”

They literally have to make up numbers to justify this. Numbers so bad that I, a historian who had one quant course thirty years ago, can see how bad they are. Criminal distortions of the Y Axis. No wonder they love the machine that invents comforting lies.

Truly, the university has never recovered from the disaster of RateMyProfessor

Congrats to JMU for moving up a rank this year.

Admin: “Be entrepreneurial!” Also admin: “Sorry, your proposal does not fit into our scheduling grid, budgeting system, IT capability, accounting procedures, timesheet reporting, and/or third-party contract agreements. Do not take this initiative.”

Predictive algorithms are not ready for the human chaos field that is driving in St. Louis.

If you ever want to see me transform into a bald eagle meme, put me at a table full of Brits discussing higher education.

RIP, Stoppard. When I say you were one of the biggest influences on me as a historian, I mean it equally as a joke and in all sincerity and that is my tribute.

Is that really a proper trade, sir?

Good handwriting is so rare on this site so let’s take a minute to appreciate this /#c18 clerk’s tiny, perfect script.

From Jim Axtell

The Soane Museum. Always a good reminder of the very thin line between historical interest and outright madness.

Ran it like a business* no doubt. *Pumped it full of debt to undertake capital improvements to spur urban real estate development and now all its assets will be sold off for a song to vulture capitalists.

And US administrators, struggling with their own section-wide crises, actually look to the UK as a model and say “We want that for us.”

Mostly I just wanted to spite my family.

Many years ago Wonkette summed DC as “the city of the almost pretty and the almost famous” and nothing has continued to provide more insight.

This morning’s breakfast companion at the cafe. Ideal company.

How’re you going to get all that product across the water?

And they are also obsessed with those places. Morning, noon, and night on Facebook probing every rumor, commenting on every news story to make themselves mad again and again.

Always a special day in a nerd’s life when you get invited to the staff entrance at your favorite museum.

Now it’s a real trip.