Where we send you if we catch you inferring future events on the basis of resemblance to past occurrences. Or, at least, where we've sent people so far.

For @rollingstone.com, I wrote about the making of the myth of sheriff Buford Pusser, and how recent revelations that he was likely responsible for the 1967 murder of his wife, Pauline, undercuts that myth -- and begs for a new narrative about intimate partner violence and family trauma.

the Barack Obama-class supercarrier

thinking about another ship designed around the leader's aesthetics rather than anything practical en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(s...

The ongoing Make-A-Wish Foundation that is the Trump Presidency reaches its Mahan stage.

"hey kids mr. beast here. if you accept my mark you'll be able to buy goods and services"

suspect a big reason why many academics and others who work in areas where getting facts RIGHT is key are disinterested in using LLMs for research: they’ve tried it, they keep noticing major errors in output, and they conclude that having to verify all that doesn’t actually save them time.

bari is the standard bearer for the media types who think any journalism that leads the consumer toward a left-wing position must be tempered and balanced until it doesn’t.

Where those Harper’s Letter folks at

When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.

1. BREAKING Sharyn Alfonsi, a correspondent for 60 Minutes, sent an internal email to colleagues stating that CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss “spiked our story” about the Trump administration and the transfer of deportees to a prison in El Salvador.

you could copy-paste the rhetoric from when trains stopped needing firemen, because there wasn't a fire to tend. reactionary rent seeking isn't solidarity just because it's done by a union.

any time now

not that the present economic picture is rosy, but i do think that popular culture — and specifically nostalgia bait television — is a big part of the reason that our public memory of the 1970s, 1980s and even 1990s seems to miss the real economic pain that marked each of those decades.

and if the system provides clout for helping save an innocent man, that's exactly how democracy is supposed to work

Huuuuuuuuuuuuuge power grab that makes every instructor’s job directly more dangerous

genuinely don't know what to do about the broad public desire for deflation. terrifying stuff

My forthcoming book— For which I began research in 2006. Is now posted on the website for Princeton University Press. Cover will be added soon. The King’s Slaves: The British Empire & the Origins of American Slavery

visiting family over the holidays and talking about the news

There has been one (1) period of sustained deflation (eg prices down for multiple years in a row) since the 1910s. That was the Great Depression. I understand why people (not Chris, he gets it) naively think prices should fall but I cannot emphasize enough how Bad that would be.

a nation of good and decent people would not include Ronald Reagan

british history is when you write about england but your footnotes note “may have been different in wales, scotland and ireland”

several years of my life in two pages here we go

Looking for the last few people on your list? In a break from typical coverage of things like early modern finance and the history of right-wing economic thought, I've got you covered with this issue of my newsletter buttondown.com/anotherway/a...

Disappointing work from Greg Grandin. "Yet what I’ve found most compelling about Chomsky is his contempt for bullshit"-- did he display this contempt for bullshit when he tolerated Bosnian genocide denial?

it would be nevis, unfortunately. thinking of this 2012 article again anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

"scientific management schemes are just improved cost accounting with a fake justification for new labor control bolted on?"

replacing "bullshit" with "bogus" in proofs because I'm a professional

apart from the sheer inconceivable horror of the El Fasher massacre and its attendant horrors itself, the thing I'm feeling depressed about is that it probably won't matter. these were people already on the utmost margins of the global system, who the world has already decided it doesn't care about

“[Foucault] struck me as completely amoral, I’d never met anyone who was so totally amoral [...] I mean, I liked him personally, it’s just that I couldn't make sense of him. It’s as if he was from a different species, or something.” – Prof. Noam Chomsky

oh God what why

the 20th century really was the age of acronyms. hoping readers of this chapter won't mind being told FTO worked for the MNC AMAX and its subsidiary RST and sided with UNIP rather than the BSA-backed ANC, with complex implications for AMAX's relationship with AMWU and MASA

British Library staff asked for a decent pay. Instead they got ‘a few money-saving present ideas’, such as ‘consider not giving presents this holiday season’. They are on strike this week. I wrote about it for @lrb.co.uk. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/de...

Computer scientists: "So with machine learning we can extract subtle patterns from massive datasets. What shall we do with it?" Business school professors, every single time: "You know, I think phrenology got a raw deal in the late 1800s."

Fonts are in the news, so I'm going to take the opportunity to port over an old thread: what was typography like in the Soviet Union? Spoiler: they did not just have 1 font everyone had to use. As a matter of fact, there were 39. One of them, you can see here, used to great effect for "Chernobyl."

One cause for optimism with AI job displacement and disruption: new technologies that disempower particular classes of worker often encourage new forms of solidarity. The British artisan class that lost their livelihoods in 1790s-1830s was instrumental in the development of unions and socialism

I did not know that the shortest day of the year is not the earliest sunset until Trevor (aka Plateau Astro) explained how...well, planets and sunsets work. Read more below! Sunsets only get later from here! 🌇 www.plateauastro.com/index.php/bl...

SKULL OF THOMAS AQUINAS: TAKE A LEFT NOW PRIEST: No, the GPS says we have to keep going— SKULL: I KNOW A SHORTCUT PRIEST: Do you remember the last ti— SKULL: FOR THOSE WITH FAITH, NO EVIDENCE IS NECESSARY; FOR THOSE WITHOUT IT, NO EVIDENCE WILL SUFFICE

"Listen to Hegel while eating a bagel" will bring more students to the yard than the most charismatic and credible lecturer on the topic (and can also be repeated next semester w Schlegel)

the 20th-century right on pencils: isn't it a miracle how capitalism brings us all together across national boundaries to produce this writing implement the 21st century right on pencils:

If I can't even write my own grading feedback why would I be qualified to grade student writing?

2014 from me: No, students aren't customers. Because you, the student, are much more important than a financial transaction. www.chronicle.com/article/facu...

does anyone have suggestions for e-ink devices (tablets?) for writing and reading?

students cannot be customers and also students. these are mutually exclusive. the customer is always right, and students by definition are not. a teacher needs to be able to challenge students

It’s completely absurd. The Constitution does not allow for-cause removal protection, unless it will affect my stock holdings. Lawless.

From Amnesty International: