Rob Weir

That seems bad

Oh, you can just read stuff to students and they will just LEARN it? As a college lecturer, this is news to me

Likewise, the suggestion that people passing through Ellis Island might not have realized that the way their name was written (as given on the ship manifest) was not legally mandated going forward presupposes that *anyone* thought of names as legally mandated.

Consistency is expected today both because of and in favor of rigorously documented bureaucratic systems - the systems enable people in power to force you to be consistent, and all of us being consistent helps keep the bureaucracy working. (I'm not a libertarian, that's just how it is.)

I saw the suggestion last night that maybe people would have had problems if their name on the manifest/Ellis Island books had been altered and they hadn't continued spelling it that way in application for citizenship later, but that's an assumption based on our current bureaucracy.

I think a lot of people don't quite grasp how little documentation of a legal identity anyone had before, like, the 1930s. No social security number, no green card, no driver's license. This made you reliant on your social network; OTOH nobody could force you to write your name a certain way.

Exhibit 10/13: did your family have their name officially changed by someone at Ellis Island or did they change it themselves?
It's so much more complex than either of those options but we're starting from most ppl only having inherited lore/well-founded suspicion so we can't have a conversation.

Every Discourse on this site is evidence of how it's not good to treat K-12 history education the way this country has.

Petro-masculinity and the politics of climate refusal Writer in Residence Cara Daggett explores how 'climate refusal' is being created by new violent forms of petro-masculinity.

Came across the term "petro-masculinity":

"In these spaces, fossil fuels can serve as potent conservative symbols that represent masculinity, autonomy, and self-sufficiency, even when they are not real economic interests for most of the public."

autonomy.work/portfolio/pe...

$50 millon, or thereabouts, is what Penn State just paid James Franklin not to coach.

414,000, or thereabouts, of children in Pennsylvania live in poverty.

I saw a woman in a mid-Missouri Walmart wearing an (I can only assume) unofficial Mizzou hoodie with the text "Give It To Me Hardy" so Mizzou by 50 tomorrow

Never had a trans student disrupt my class in even the smallest way. Had plenty of very-gender-conforming Overly-Assertive-Main-Character students be disruptive - monopolizing discussion, talking out of turn, that sort of thing.

WHAT DOES TREASURY KNOW THAT WE DON'T

"out of its gourd" is what we mean when we talk about speaking truth to power

Thanks, Rob. I agree with your own thoughts here too. There is a hope for agency in Klein's words that makes sense because he can recall a time when his words had direct influence on policy So I think their ultimate goals differ. Klein wants to rebuild what was and Coates is arguing for a new build.

Coates, of course, is coming from a place where politics is something that is done to people, not something that is observed. I'm not saying this to be an essentialist about race or class, but to say there's a reason each goes back to his roots.

people of the race and class of Klein are the types of people who could, with a straight face, talk about journalists being "objective" and seriously believe that journalists could kind of float above "politics" because to them, it's something that is hashing out boring stuff like marginal tax rates

This is very good from Jeremy (which, duh), but I would also put a spin on the Coates/Klein difference that's based on their relationships to politics, which are ultimately personal. It's not a particularly compelling insight, of course, but ...

So Democrats stake out these weird cases of acknowledging GOP arguments on immigrants or trans rights rather than arguing about the morality of how we treat the least of these. It undercuts their ability to offer a compelling alternative vision because you're fighting on someone else's terms. ...

We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.

Abusing FCC authority to pressure media outlets into censorship or bribes is plainly unconstitutional. But it turns out, it's also incredibly unpopular, even with the president's own supporters!

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/p...

Drop charges against Cincinnati journalists before upcoming trial Journalists must not be put on trial for covering protests

Prosecutors must drop charges against two Cincinnati journalists arrested while covering a protest. The first jury trial begins Tuesday.

A coalition of rights groups and journalism professors explained why this case is so dangerous.

Listen, if Kadyn Proctor is rumbling towards me with the football I am opting OUT

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA

10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

How I, a non-developer, read the tutorial you, a developer, wrote for me, a beginner - annie's blog “Hello! I am a developer. Here is my relevant experience: I code in Hoobijag and sometimes jabbernocks and of course ABCDE++++ (but never ABCDE+/^+ are you kidding? ha!)  and I like working with ...

"How I, a non-developer, read the tutorial you, a developer, wrote for me, a beginner" by Annie Mueller 😅 😂 😭

anniemueller.com/posts/how-i-...

I think Mike Gundy's buyout was $15 million.

It's raining pretty hard today in Columbia. I sat with a homeless man for an hour or so in the church lobby, talking through different services he can get.

He spent the morning panhandling so he could buy his seizure medication.

Anyhow. $15 million

oh my god Nebraska

The Internet of Consent - Anil Dash A blog about making culture. Since 1999.

The entire modern internet has been built on platforms that don’t believe in asking for consent. What if we started demanding a culture of consent online? www.anildash.com//2025/05/27/...

Tearing the country apart down to the molten core of the Earth because a bunch of dipshits wanted to do slurs at work

There’s a lot of nonprofit media out there doing the work. Like (cough) @statesnewsroom.com but also @propublica.org, @insideclimatenews.org, @19thnews.org, @mississippifreepress.org, lots of local organizations, independent journos, etc.

Reader-supported journalism is thriving.