John M. Willis

Names of presidents or Star Wars expanded universe characters . . .

Wow. They managed to turn it into a musical number in a Disney series . . .

It was so close to giving us Gerald Fart . . .

Do you just ask Chatgpt to produce a typical Democratic non-statement or are you actually paying someone to produce this? Either way you should get your money back.

I woke up thinking I'd better learn that bass line in case I'm ever confronted with this scenario . .

Last night I dreamt I was jamming with some musicians on the Fugazi song, Waiting Room, before realizing I didn't know the bass line. I had to fake it as best I could. Good to know I have musician anxiety dreams as much as I do academic anxiety dreams.

Border Patrol using rental trucks to stage a raid on an LA Home Depot. I wonder if there's any scholarship on the use of rental trucks for such things? Yes, there is . . .
www.middlebury.edu/institute/ct...

Sacrilege! But then again, I think Devo's cover of Satisfaction is better than the original by the Stones.

Appalling, and Fetterman continues to be a lardhead . . .

Why Won’t U.S. Politicians Say “Genocide”? The international human rights community has been clear in its language. Yet even Bernie Sanders refuses to speak of a Gaza genocide.

Nathan Robinson documenting the inability of our gutless political class to address the question of genocide in Gaza.
www.currentaffairs.org/news/why-won...

Good God Almighty . . .

Okay, but I'll believe it when I see it . .

"Talks between Harvard and White House officials have also been “on and off again,” according to the faculty. But in any discussions, Garber reportedly said, the University is treating academic freedom as nonnegotiable."

Mile after mile of grey rubble - the view from a plane dropping aid to Gaza Sky News goes on board a Royal Jordanian Air Force plane for one of the first aid drop flights since Israel announced they could resume.

"Then a few short minutes later, it's clear we've crossed Gaza's border.

The ground turns grey, the shapes of buildings disappear, there are no cars, no people.

You can see the outline of communities and villages that are now flattened. Mile after mile of grey rubble."
news.sky.com/story/mile-a...

Lucy: We at the university support your right to free speech and academic inquiry Charlie Brown: Even on Palestine? Lucy: No

Academic Peanuts (with apologies to Charles Schulz):

Cover of the German weekly, der Freitag, that states "Genozid" (Genocide)

Der Freitag . . .

The eight hour Supremacy game that ends when everyone really wants to go home so the nukes start flying . . .

What a perfect moment to declare war on all institutions of research and higher learning.

I spent decades at Columbia. I’m withdrawing my fall course due to its deal with Trump | Rashid Khalidi The university’s draconian policies and new definition of antisemitism make much teaching impossible

Rashid Khalid explains why he has withdrawn an upcoming course on Middle Eastern history at Columbia U.

YouTube video by IggyPopOnVEVO Iggy Pop - Cry For Love

The first song I ever heard from Iggy Pop was Cry for Love. With no knowledge of his background in the Stooges, I just found it very confusing. The 80s pop-rock sensibility of the song just made no sense in relation to his punk-contortionist writhing . . .
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI9v...

Negotiating With Terrorists, Unsuccessfully How to lose ideological battles by believing in nothing.

On Brown's shameful deal with the Trump administration:

"These schools do not believe in anything. A fuller way to say this is that, like many institutions that come to thrive under capitalism, these schools do not have any ideological values other than their own flourishing"

i remember when the only accessories a man needed where a snuff box and a proper sword cane . .

Brown University Makes a Deal With the White House to Restore Funding

Another university submits to a government shakedown . . .

How the Israeli Right Explains the Aid Disaster It Created The fiercest defenders of Netanyahu’s war in Gaza continue to insist that Palestinians aren’t starving.

www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

Another great interview with Chotiner, who carefully fact-checks all of Segal's statements.

UK 1999 Kosovo humanitarian intervention criteria

Revisiting NATO legal justifications (or non-justifications) for the 1999 Kosovo intervention.

Here is the UK's articulation of the criteria for humanitarian intervention.

Foucault described the logic of biopolitics as "to make live and let die," but this is really "to make live and to make die."

Israel forced to release study on Gaza blockade An Israeli court forces the release of government research detailing the number of calories Palestinians in Gaza needed to consume to avoid malnutrition during Israel’s blockade.

In 2007, Dov Weisglass, an adviser to Ehud Olmert said of the siege of Gaza: “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.” Hunger has been part of Israeli policy for years in a combination of bio/necropolitics.

Exclusive: US diplomats asked if non-whites qualify for Trump refugee program for South Africans In early July, the top official at the U.S. embassy in South Africa reached out to Washington asking for clarification on a contentious U.S. policy: could non-whites apply for a refugee program geared toward white South Africans if they met other requirements?

Whites only asylum policy:

"The answer came back days later in an email from Spencer Chretien, the highest-ranking official in the State Department's refugee and migration bureau, saying the program is intended for white people."
www.reuters.com/world/africa...

Exclusive: USAID analysis found no evidence of massive Hamas theft of Gaza aid The internal U.S. government analysis challenges the main rationale that Israel and the U.S. give for backing a new armed private aid operation.

Another excuse for starvation crumbles in the face of evidence . . . www.reuters.com/world/middle...

Why are we reluctant to recognize Israel’s genocide in Gaza? | Kenneth Roth A narrow understanding of the term, as well as Israel’s history as a haven for genocide victims, explains the dissonance

Kenneth Roth:
There is little doubt that Israel’s actions are sufficient to meet the requirements for genocidal conduct. . . . The number of civilians killed thus far exceeds the 8,000 killed by Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica in 1995, which an international tribunal found to constitute genocide