Free Palestine 🇵🇸

Democracy is not a magical machine for determining the Will of the People, it is a process of legitimating political succession and allocating power-sharing between different groups. This is all it can be, because the mythology of making it more demands totalizing victories and the end of democracy

Here's a big-picture geopolitical thread on Israel's war on Iran - its possibilities, impossibilities, dynamics, and delusions. My goal is to give you a full big-picture view in one place, which is why this is a long thread. If you prefer drip-fed updates, skip this thread.

Justice for Mahmoud Khalil—Urgent Support Needed Dear Friends, Allies, and Supporters,

Mahmoud Khalil’s fundraising goal has almost been met. Please donate and/or share.
chuffed.org/project/just...

In case you had any doubt, the near perfect fit of the quadratic trendline makes it clear: global sea surface temperatures are accelerating.

The current rate of warming is about 0.32°C/decade, which comes out to somewhere around 275 million Hiroshima bombs worth of ocean heating in 2025.

< David Lynch & 6m・ It is with deep regret that we, his family, announce the passing of the man and the artist, David Lynch. We would appreciate some privacy at this time. There's a big hole in the world now that he's no longer with us. But, as he would say, "Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole." It's a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way.

Fucking hell

RIP David Lynch

www.facebook.com/share/1K2vXv...

A green LA sanitation truck is parked along the curb next to an area taped off with yellow caution tape, while people in yellow high-vis vests stand inside the taped-off zone. The air is smoky and the sunlight has a yellow hue to it due to wildfire smoke.

Five people in yellow high-vis vests wearing Tyvek coveralls stand around inside a taped-off area while two people in regular clothes appear to be trying to move their belongings

LAPD and LA Sanitation found the time today to destroy several tents belonging to our unhoused neighbors in LA's CD15 district. Many of these residents are elderly, disabled, and suffer from chronic disease including cancer and Stage D congestive heart failure. Please help us replace their tents.

How many times have we tried to prematurely manufacture Chomsky's death?

"I am deeply troubled by the violent crackdown on peaceful demonstrators, arrests, detentions, police violence, surveillance and disciplinary measures and sanctions against members of the educational community exercising their right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression."

Lindsey Rogers, 27, and her husband, Jared, public school teachers in Baker City, Ore., saw their household income double at the start of this school year, rising by around $48,000, because of mandated salary increases in their new union contract. Their school district in rural Eastern Oregon in previous years struggled to fill open positions, but started this school year without a single vacancy because teacher pay jumped significantly, said Erin Lair, superintendent of Baker School District. For the Rogers family, the pay increase means they can afford the $750-a-month child-care costs for their new baby. “We sat down at a union meeting on Zoom, and they pulled up our new pay scale and it was life-changing,” Rogers said. “I was in shock. We were both in tears. We were going to be able to provide a great life for our kid. We were actually going to be paid like professionals.”

Devastating.

Just horrifying to see how organized labor is changing lives.

Something must be done.
www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

So You're a Professor? Here's What You Can Do to Oppose Genocide - Steve Salaita Feeling helpless does not mean being useless. It is possible to support Palestinians from afar.

If you're an academic in the West, here are a few suggestions for opposing Zionist genocide:

Beef stew is back, baby! And there's plenty.

Israel has been carrying out airstrikes and drone strikes in the occupied West Bank — in Nablus, Tulkarem, and Jenin — since October. The latest strikes in Jenin have killed 6, just announced Sunday AM by the PA Ministry of Health.

Son of Al Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief killed by Israeli air strike Journalists Hamza al-Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya killed after missile targets their vehicle in Khan Younis

The journalist son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael al-Dahdouh, has been killed by an Israeli strike. This comes after Wael previously lost his wife, daughter, another son and a grandson in an Israeli air strike. Wael was himself wounded in a separate strike that killed an AJ colleague.

💩💩💩

Lol meanwhile Biden allows a genocide to continue. They're more alike than we like to believe. Trump is a boogeyman with too much attention, and that's it.

The real crisis is of leaders and their cronies is to demand better of them. Hard to realize, but not impossible.

Why moving to the Sinai peninsula is the solution for Gaza's Palestinians - opinion By JOEL ROSKIN Published: DECEMBER 25, 2023 19:39 Updated: DECEMBER 25, 2023 20:23

The same publication where the editor in chief argued that Jews who demonstrate against the war should not be considered Jewish has now published an article openly calling for the complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

They are openly displaying their actual values.

Muppet Runner

Penn’s President Resigns, After Her Responses About Antisemitism Elizabeth Magill angered many alumni for allowing a Palestinian writers conference on campus. After she appeared to dodge questions at a congressional hearing, the outcry swelled.

This is very bad. This kind of right-wing bullshit - force an academic into an impossible situation by acting in bad faith - has been going on for a while. If university presidents were paying attention when their faculty were being attacked, then maybe they would’ve been prepared

and, in lockstep, it did

Cultural landmarks destroyed in Gaza

Dominant Orthodoxies | Seth Anziska On November 9 the NYR Online published an essay by the historian Seth Anziska about Zionism and its critics, the 1982 Lebanon War, and the

"How, in light of that history, do you assess Biden’s behavior over the last two months?"

"No other American president has actively enabled and materially supported Israeli ethnic cleansing on such a mass scale"

www.nybooks.com/online/2023/...

‘Disheartened' and ‘dismayed’: Penn community reacts to resignation of Middle East Center dire... Faculty members, students, and alumni affiliated with the MEC talked to the DP about the implications of Küçük’s resignation as director amid heightened campus tensions.

My comments, along with many other Penn faculty and students, including the last two MEC Directors and the Director of the Katz Center for Advanced Jewish Studies, on the shameful situation that has led @harunkucuk.bsky.social to resign from his leadership role at Penn.

Can I get some recommendations for peer-reviewed works which are intentionally funny? Looking for inspiration.

URGENT: Oppose an Amendment to Eliminate Funding for the NEH I just took action to oppose the elimination of the National Endowment for the Humanities! Join me and take action here.

The House is gearing up with a new bill to completely eradicate the NEH budget for FY 2024. Dang it! The National Humanities Alliance has created a form to make it easy to email your congressional rep to stop this bill before it comes to the floor: p2a.co/yqrC42g

Hi skystorians,
Any recommended articles about old Turkish/'Ottoman' translations of the Qur'an before the sixteenth century?

Caroline Finkel "Osman's Dream", Marc David Baer's new book "The Ottomans", both written by scholars, given high marks by scholars and lay readers alike.

Please add me!