More and more colleges and universities are cutting Religious Studies, just as current events make it more and more obvious how necessary Religious Studies education is to understand today's world.

This is ABSOLUTELY just a skill issue. Come on. Get gud, people.

Even if they weren’t rolling deathtraps manufactured by a fascist trying to seize control of our government, I’d still rather die than ever allow another human being to see me riding in something so hideous.

Do not let people blame Netanyahu for this. Do not let them shift the blame away from themselves, their neighbors, and their families. If you watch TV, get mad, go outside and try to stab, shoot, or burn the closest Jews you can find, it's not because you watched TV, it's because you hated Jews.

Between Republicans wanting to destroy our entire profession, and Democrats using us as a convenient rhetorical punching bag to prove their supposed moderation, those of us in higher education have to accept that everybody on all sides hates us right now.

The ADL lost its credibility by failing to address and respond to right-wing antisemitism, and by cozying up to right-wing antisemites. Maybe they can build it back, but I really wish that anyone else was capable of filling the role it used to fill—as roughly a politically neutral watchdog.

This reflects a genuinely concerning and worrisome trend, and I really wish the ADL had not so badly torched its credibility in the past few years that anything it puts out is now inherently suspect. We need an actual reliable record of this, and the ADL cannot be the source of that.

I just.. I expect better of my enemies and I’m constantly disappointed. Especially when they go after mutual enemies

You’d think the Free Press would want to emphasize that her views are concrrningly normalized in her generation, but they go with “grooming” instead

She has been told she is part of the axis of resistance, she’s in her 20s, she believes it, that isn’t grooming or brainwashing, that’s just choosing to fight for the wrong cause and believing their bullshit (like countless others do)

She has basically normal views for a campus leftist but acts on them. That’s not not notable, and it is, again, despicable given some of the things she believes, but they act like her enjoying riding a motorcycle and living in Lebanon proves she’s insincere or a “sociopath”

They talk like she’s being played by Cuban/Iranian intelligence, and like, no, she obviously knows she’s working for the power structure in those countries, she thinks they’re the good guys and she’s proud they recruited her! I think that’s abominable and will work out poorly for her but come on

Just read the Free Press article on Calla Walsh - I won’t link it bc, Free Press - and man, they missed their chance to make an actually good article about her and focus on this weird narrative that she has to be a grooming victim instead of just believing some extremist things and being connected

I remember this. Lefties were incredibly mad when the hostages were rescued alive.

“Those damn Black people! Always complaining about things like demanding equal rights and legal protections! If only they would shut up and do what they’re told, I could make the white working class’s life easier! Why won’t they just give me the votes I’m entitled to?” I hate him so fucking much.

We haven’t even begun to understand the Pandora’s Box that this war has opened. @cfr.org www.cfr.org/articles/aft...

The biggest success of Uncommitted and other 3rd party voters wasn’t the 620k they garnered. It was the ability to trash the Democratic Party enough to have people stay home or vote for Trump. They really pulled something off there. Big Congrats, assholes.

Two things are true: 1) The Israeli right wing land grab in the West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon must stop. 2) Ending it will have exactly zero impact on antisemitism in the West. It's an excuse, not a reason.

The same people who decided to falsely describe the Park East event as "auctioning property in West Bank settlements" are now saying "the presence of a single vendor with brochures for settlement property is just as bad" If you believed that, you wouldn't have lied in the first place

Can't think of how many great movies I was first exposed to because they aired on TCM when I was a kid. Definitely was the first place I ever saw a Kurosawa movie. A huge influence on me and my eventual decision to go into filmmaking as my career. RIP Ted Turner

TCM made a big deal out of showing movies uninterrupted, in their original format including the correct widescreen aspect ratio. That sounds whatever now but was considered a revolutionary stance by the standards of showing movies on tv in the mid 1990s.

A huge thing to the credit of Ted Turner: he was widely criticized for his dumb and stupid classic movie colorization scheme and instead of doubling down and crashing out over the negative publicity, he listened to the criticism and launched Turner Classic Movies.

a critical difference between woke 1 and woke 2 is the understanding that woo is something to be fought tooth and nail

**Laughs in JSTOR**

Sad thing is, I expect most Americans to not know about this.

Honestly, I have a little more respect for the people who say "Yeah, he sucks but we're gonna be stuck with him" rather than those telling us what a great progressive he REALLY is underneath the Nazi tat, the rape apologia, the Blackwater/Constellis history, etc.

Indeed, I would argue that if he's the presumptive nominee, he needs to be held to GREATER account NOW. Because the GOP isn't gonna take it easy on him, and it's not unlikely they have a lot more oppo. His advisors should be telling him how to actually make amends, not just deflect.

You can make the argument that he's better than the alternative. You CANNOT ask people who have suffered harm because of shit he has endorsed to embrace him at face value just because he's learned to make different noises with his mouthhole.

Asking people (esp marginalized ppl) to accept on faith that a guy who sported a Nazi tat for years may not actually be a Nazi, that a guy who diminished rape may not be a misogynist, a guy who voted five times for the person he claims to want to beat has "learned his lesson" and is cool now? Mkay.

Dear Kremlin, We’re just getting started. Better keep your windows closed. Sincerely, Ukrainian drone fleet

it's simpler than that. people see "farmer" and they think "guy in a field" rather than "capital investor"

I also suspect if he was exactly the same dude he currently is with exactly the same history and story, but wasn't white, the defenses would be a fucking lot less intense. And that fucking says something, and it sure as fuck isn't a good something.

If you think you have to grudgingly vote for him because Collins: fine. I disagree, but that's a fair assessment. But don't fucking pretend you would give **anyone else** this level of extraordinary grace.

No one currently pretending to think Platner isn't and never has been a Nazi or never held Nazi views would absolutely not allow that argument to fly for a hypothetical Platner running as a Republican.

The “After Hitler, our turn…” strategy worked out so well for German leftists.

Graham Platner talking about Trump voters.

Was he just sitting at a table talking to himself? Yes, Captain Totenkopf, we know you’re a fucking Republican. That’s just one of the many reasons that you’re a worthless sack of nepobaby shit.

I don’t even like Basketball, but I’d go to a thousand Knicks games before setting foot at the Met Gala. Was it actually his girlfriend’s friend’s birthday party, or are people somehow just bitching that he wanted to do something fun instead of hang out with Jeff Bezos?

Internet is a basic need. Proud to announce that we are expanding NYC’s Neighborhood Internet Program, which provides free, high-speed broadband to New Yorkers living in affordable housing. Now an additional 2,000 NYC households will gain access to high-speed broadband across the Bronx.

exactlyyyy

Elliot Rodger killed more men than women, but nobody doubts that he was motivated by misogyny. Equally, the fact that the London attacker stabbed a Muslim acquaintance first doesn't make his principle motivation not anti-Semitic, given that he was *actively looking for Jewish people to kill.*.

but like, if you teach your kids that God has a special dimension for souls He thinks need more work, or basically any variant of "place for bad people after they die that you want to avoid" that has an expiration date, I think you are... at least substantially less of a fucker, & that's not "hell"

before anyone jumps on me about the "abuse" term: I fully understand under US law it's a nonstarter to make laws against any religious doctrine. I'm not advocating CPS take people's kids. I'm saying, if you teach your kids to believe in eternal, merciless torment, I think you're a fucker personally

and this is, incidentally, why I reserve a special category for religions which teach an eternal Hell. I sincerely believe these religions are less acceptable, probably constitute abuse to teach to children in these terms, and should be socially stigmatized

the idea of Hell is a memetic virus designed to destroy the free will of people raised as Christians (&other religions which import the "eternal" concept)*forever*,to make sure you can *never, ever escape* the ideological confines imposed on you as a child. it is a cult control & retention mechanism

and this is *the point*. if you "merely" believe in some other "bad place you can go where you die," but after fifty thousand eons your soul would be allowed to dissipate, you can justify doing something like homosexuality or disobeying your parents if your heart tells you it's right

the reason Hell matters so much to Christians is that it is an override on all other moral judgment. the idea of Hell is so horrible, to anyone who's able to grasp it, the idea of being eternally tormented and never even allowed to cease, that it overrides all other moral judgement

sort of branching off a discussion between Jews I follow that I don't want to hijack, about how different religions use the concept of Hell: I think the "eternal torment" nature of Hell as Christians understand it is inseparable from the psychological impact of the term in Christian culture