One of the most interesting books I’ve read in a while. Conceptions of property in Soviet economics, from micro and macro lenses, but fun! Like this lil glass hedgehog, for example.

A pretty obvious point, but “the Hayek that I like is the anti communist one” sort of gives the game away on this whole “defense of liberalism” stuff

More than 1800 detainees are missing after the closure of Alligator Alcatraz. Their families and lawyers can’t find them and they’ve vanished from the ICE database. Feels like this should be a much bigger story www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

Clearly academia.edu is a sinking ship. So what are the alternatives you are all using? Is there a general consensus on any platform, or is it still at the stage of competing fiefdoms?

“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

“LMU spokesman Griff McNerney said the university’s decision to un-recognize the union was primarily financial.” It seems … illegal (?), or immoral at the very least, to use a religious exemption if it’s not actually based in your religious doctrine

Shwedagon Pagoda is the most sacred Buddhist pilgrimage site in Myanmar, thought to enshrine eight hair strands of the Buddha. Philip Klier's photo, taken in the 1880s, shows the activities of both monks and merchants on the main platform in front of the pagoda. 🧵 🗃️ 📜 #Myanmar

Pathetic

In our latest, @dreanyc123.bsky.social returns to discuss how healthcare workers can resist ICE and refuse to participate in criminalizing the people the care for, and the resources available from Beyond Do No Harm www.patreon.com/posts/138979...

Seems like we need a heresiography explaining all the different little rightwing factions and what obtuse political theologies make them hate each other

Interesting priorities we’ve got here

With students heading back to the classroom, a group of cognitive scientists and AI researchers has published one of the most forceful and evidence-backed calls yet to reject the "uncritical adoption of AI" in academia:

As Sotomayor writes, "carry your papers if you're Latino and work a low-wage job" is bad enough -- but then consider headlines about ICE agents roughing up citizens while either seizing or ignoring their REAL IDs, e.g., www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Sotomayor on the impact: "The Government, and now the concurrence, has all but declared that all Latinos, U. S. citizens or not, who work low wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time, taken away from work, and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction."

Of course, AI advocates will say the solution to this AI-produced problem is to have AI analyze the submissions, or something

🚨 UPDATE on the current COVID vaccine access situation in the US. Please note that this is based on state laws but different things may be happening on the ground, and some pharmacies are defaulting to federal guidelines instead of state laws.

Just did this. I’d like my several thousand dollars

Just a reminder to check for your name in this list of books that OpenAI trained from. If your name is there, they probably owe you several thousand dollars. OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.

🐣 Our SBL Review Symposium for Mike Chin’s new monograph “Life” has just been published with Religious Studies Review 51/2. Have a look here, especially if you are interested in ancient natural history or new ways of writing old history: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/17480922...

Shelby County, where Musk’s xAI facility sits, has Tennessee’s highest rate of ER visits for asthma. For the majority-Black residents of the area, emissions from the company’s methane gas turbines exacerbate longstanding public health concerns. By @wendicthomas.bsky.social, @mlk50.com

We took the paywall down on this one. defector.com/how-the-fuck...

In a just world this would be treated, at the very least, as worthy of impeachment

Yeah not to be a doomer but I think the ship has sailed on this one

Academic editor friends: I'm helping @kyrafreestar.bsky.social update her list of writing groups, communities, and courses for the fall! If you're running a group or course aimed at academic writers, could you put a short blurb about it in the comments and drop the link? (or just paste the link?)

Extremely my shit

God willing, stuff like this will turn the tide in public attitudes toward AI

wow

Cool

Clifford Ando (Classics Prof at UChicago) is a hero in this story. He's calling out the University at every turn, dissecting their flawed finances, and making sure everyone knows they're a bunch of profit-seeking hypocrites who gambled away tuition money on crypto. chicagomaroon.com/40486/news/u...

In print September 9, Younus Mirza’s “The Islamic Mary: Maryam Through the Centuries.” You can find a synopsis and table of contents for Younus’s book here, as well as a link to request a copy for review or course adoption: www.fortresspress.com/store/produc...

It’s ironic that the decisions taken by MAHA RFK Jr etc actually going to make it more likely that “ultra processed” foods will be eaten even more now, since at least they won’t poison you immediately, unlike tainted vegetables, meat, and dairy

🧵(1) Digitization & cataloging is complete for 2,343 manuscripts in the collection of Bibliothèque des Manuscrits al-Wangari—the library of the Sidi Yahya Mosque (or Jāmiʻ Sīdī Yaḥyá) in #Timbuktu, Mali, which dates to the 15th century. 
 Learn more: hmml.org/collections/...

The Miccosukee Tribe helped stop Alligator Alcatraz, being constructed on their land! Late yesterday, a federal judge ruled Miccosukee citizens must be able to “access to the site consistent with the access they enjoyed before the erection of the detention camp.” thehill.com/regulation/c...

So much think-piecing and op-ed'ing about data centers. I wish folks knew that some scholars have been studying these things — as real estate, as geopolitical battlegrounds, as ecological disasters — for a decade+. Mél Hogan, Alix Johnson, Ingrid Burrington, Jen Holt, Patrick Brodie, et al

There's gotta be hundreds of towns out there that AI companies have told "If you build a data center here, you'll be the new hub of tech." www.propublica.org/article/memp...

“Someday, I hope, we’re going to have a reckoning over the horrors of this moment, but I don’t think we can do it without a clearer understanding of how this fits into U.S. history. There’s a tendency to say, “This isn’t who we are,” and I get the impulse, but history is never that simple.”

Beyond the bad politics of this, it seems entirely possible this is breaking campaign finance laws. How can lawyers donating their time pro bono to a mayoral campaign, assumedly without declaring it as an in-kind contribution, be legal?

Reposting this for folks who want to control the AI-ification of their work posted on Academia[dot]edu.

“I’m Hearing I’m Not Doing Well” is going to be the title of a JAAR article in a few years ala Eisenhower’s “And I Don’t Care What It Is” academic.oup.com/jaar/article...

The theology implied by this quote is fascinating. Slightly offensive and strange usage of “totem pole” here is also *chef’s kiss*

“Think of Gloo as something like Salesforce but for churches: a behavioral analytics platform, powered by church-­generated insights, psychographic information, and third-party consumer data.”

The people dominating our political landscape, culture, and economy are just so stupid and full of shit it's almost impossible to describe

Far from the most important point here but: universities/colleges do (inter)national searches to find talent. But it seems increasingly impossible to trust that the institution that hired you to move your life to **wherever** won’t just unceremoniously fold in a number of months or years

It’s not a one-to-one comparison, but a creepy, prescient 1960s Italian sci-fi novella with similar themes www.nyrb.com/products/the...

This is actually good news. We have to get comfortable celebrating small victories where we can right now. And while this is not perfect, it is good news

This isn’t an impoverished regional school – this is the University of Chicago. Devastating.

In Minnesota law, it is perfectly legal for people to use whichever restroom they want. What happened here was plainly illegal and horrifying. This sort of thing is why I'm scared of going out to Greater Minnesota as a trans person.