signed up for BBC Select to watch Kenneth Clark, David Attenborough, Simon Schama, and Mary Beard. and other stuff. but man I dig those multi-part BBC historical docuseries. that is the good stuff!

the newspapers

All the people that died from AIDS

This isn't what I argued, but also, can someone *please* write up some good stuff on the way universities/consulting firms change metrics over time to find the one that justifies closing departments?

name them and shame them

In fact, yes, I do think it’s a widespread social crisis that students are going to be graduating without the capacity to think critically and without subject matter knowledge. At a time when technofascism prevails, more of us should be terrified about the consequences of universalizing gAI use.

Shame.

It’s all the usual suspects trying to push AOC out because she’s an actual viable candidate for President who agrees with what they claim to care about but of course they don’t “trust” her because she’s a woman.

I appreciate y’all.

sigh. on any given day there are 700,000 people on board cruise ships around the world. Seven hundred thousand people EVERY DAY. in 2025, there were a total of 18 norovirus outbreaks on cruise ships reported to the CDC. during that same time there were 2,500 norovirous outbreaks in the U.S.

This 1952 memo from the Pentagon UFO files is superb There is no point preparing for aliens ‘because no one of consequence is going to take this rubbish seriously unless it happens. At that point, our policy will be determined in the traditional manner of grand panic.’ 🤣 www.war.gov/medialink/uf...

THE BOYS, season five (Amazon Prime)

Happy Friday folks... Nearly there.

“Throughout the Grammy winner’s career and personal life, many Christians have embraced and then rejected her at various points — be it her divorce, her move into secular music or her more recent decision to host her niece’s same-sex wedding.” apnews.com/article/amy-...

Was in a meeting earlier today trying to explain to the provost the value of the humanities & history. Completely uninterested & dismissive. I guess this is to be expected but nevertheless it's depressing how impervious university administration can be to all of our evidence and arguments.

Sometimes people are too mean to die and sometimes they are kept alive to be a conduit of joy and wonder even as the world they taught us to love fights to survive.

people are so damn funny, it gives me hope

7 dollar gas. Well, I guess I'll buy an electric car. Oh those are 60 thousand dollars? Well at least electricity is cheap. Oh the government won't build solar panels because it's "Too transgender"? Well at least wages are going up. Oh the idea of jobs is fake now? Well at least everyone is happ

“That’s a minotaur, not a mediator.”

Cinco de Mayo explained

😂

I write about people who became famous for saying and doing horrible things so I routinely get asked this question. "Did they really believe it?" Look, I get the curiosity, but in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what's in their hearts. They put evil into the world.

shout it from the rooftops!

(I make a "mouth" with the side of my hand and draw little eyes above it) Richard Dawkins: hmmmm (I put lipstick around the "mouth") Richard Dawkins, suavely: well hello

this has been the weirdest spring

In 1976 Richard Dawkins coined the term 'meme'. Fast forward 50 years and all the memes in the world have been stitched together into a Frankenstein's creature of synthetic personalisation, and they are his new girlfriend.

my biggest accomplishment lately Wordle 1,778 2/6* ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

God bless Jesse Lemisch. He and I became good buddies late in his life. He was a pistol.

whewww The Boys

this is SO. COOL. the Old English poem starts on the last few lines of the manuscsript image in this article www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...

This Is the Way

the Discover feed is not working. is this…vibecoding?

👀👀

👀

why hav they started a third playoff basketball game tonight at this late hour? this is madness.

Nice (from the Costco app)

Listen, don’t ask if you don’t wanna know

welp

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe… Today, for example, while driving north on 99 I saw a CHP Durango cruiser do a pit maneuver on a large armchair that had fallen out of somebody’s pickup. Sent that thing bouncing away onto the shoulder of the slow lane. that’s how we roll in the SJV

a wonderful use of retail space at the Chattanooga Airport

okay, back to my audiobook about Theodoric the Great

This Is the Way

intelligent life would conceal itself from our attempts at discovery

you know how every historian of the Gilded Age writes about that damn Vanderbilt Ball? every single future historian of this era — if we survive it — will write about this awful night

this violence just cannot keep happening

what a horrible, awful thing

🙃