Stacey

These grad students appeared to have done more reading than others, but (of course, unsurprisingly) had a shallow understanding, missed key points, and struggled to make use of the material on their own. From my perspective, it was a failed performance. So who was it really for? Other students.

Yes, I think this is right, too.

A young Fred Korematsu

A photo of Fred Korematsu in his later years

"It may take time to prove you're right, but you have to stick to it."
- Fred Korematsu

Jailed for refusing to abide by FDR's Exec Order 9066, he took his case against internment all the way to the Supreme Court - and lost. Remember him on Korematsu Day, January 30th. 1/

Abolishing ICE isn’t enough – it’s time to center people’s humanity | Heba Gowayed and Victor Ray It’s far from radical to reject a system predicated on violence – despite what thinktanks might claim

Abolish ICE is not enough.

It's not about training -- Ross who killed Renee Good was a TRAINER. It's not about body cams -- we saw Alex Pretti killed with our own eyes.

We have to abolish the idea that violence ever made us safer, before it's too late.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Middle East Studies Association Joint letter with CAF regarding Israel’s relentless assaults on Palestinian universities and its targeting of students and faculty in the occupied West Bank.

Thanks to @mesa1966.bsky.social Committee on Academic Freedom for this letter, detailing how the Israeli military "destroyed the university’s main gates and raided the campus during formal hours of instruction while more than 8,000 students were present..." and then "opened fire indiscriminately."

I was in Doha on Jan 6, eating lunch with a group of researchers from across the region. My attention was on news coming out of Yemen, not on Birzeit. But one of my colleagues was from Birzeit, and he must have wondered why we weren't talking about his campus. Or maybe he didn't wonder. 2/n

The quiet grief and shame enabled by our curated feeds. My feed talks to me about Yemen and I get angry when few of my friends and colleagues seem to know or care about what's happening. Then I "catch up" after the fact about outrages elsewhere, and I feel shame at what I didn't know. 1/n

Judges who ruled against Trump say harassment and threats have changed their lives More than 100 pizzas were delivered to the homes of judges and their families this year, some with signs of foreign involvement. Judges say the message is clear: We know where you live.

Pizza deliveries - often sent from abroad - are being sent to the adult children of judges who rule against the Trump administration, *dozens* in the name of one who was murdered in 2020.

This year has made clear, however, that TPS is a crude instrument - it provides blanket relief in times of crisis, but also produces blanket vulnerability when categorically withdrawn. Individuals are owed individual consideration of their circumstances, as a central feature of due process.

Protect Yemeni TPS Holders from Forced Return to War: A Letter to U.S. Congress - WCYS Send a letter to your congressional officials to protect Yemeni TPS holders and stand for justice, humanity, and security.

For those who are unaware, TPS is scheduled to expire in March for Yemenis who have had legal status in the US since 2015, though Yemen's conflict remains a risk to most, if not all. A decision on whether to extend it is expected in early January. Read more here: wcys.org/protect-yeme...

Took my family to the RPO Holiday Pops concert at the Eastman School to officially close out the semester and kick off the break. Best part? When my youngest realized that Jeff Tyzik - yup, that one - is also known as “Mimi’s dog dad” from the dog park.

Yemen’s Warring Sides Agree to Largest Prisoner Swap in a Decade of Fighting

A small bit of good news.

In proof that I have lived my life wrong, it's 2:50 a.m., I'm still trying to finish my fall term grading, and I just found a student's hallucinated footnote to a putative book of mine that I never wrote.

And then I was reading today's new collection from @pomeps.bsky.social marking one year since the fall of Assad in Syria and saw @hyyppati.bsky.social's essay on decentralization, and how exciting to see the connection to Thaler's work there, too!

“My dog” has an Instagram account that follows (a) my HS daughter, (b) two clubs she runs, (c) the pet of one academic colleague, and (d) Zohran Mamdani. That’s it. This has given me an unintended glimpse at algorithmically driven college recruitment, and it’s pretty interesting, actually. I’d go.

Disturbing, and I can’t shake comparisons to @abuaarvark’s description of the role of similar digital polarization in amplifying support for Tamarod —> total military takeover in Egypt. Honestly, thinking about that makes this is one of the darker bits I’ve read today.

When Rebels Win by Kai M. Thaler | Paperback | Cornell University Press In When Rebels Win, Kai M. Thaler explores why victorious rebel groups govern in strikingly different ways. Many assume civil wars destroy state capacity. In the Democratic Republic of Congo and Libya...

The main case studies are from Nicaragua, Liberia, and Uganda, and my seminar has been discussing whether the argument could (or should) extend to cases like Houthi-held areas of Yemen or Somaliland. Rich fuel for discussion.

If you're thinking of a Spring 2026 syllabus, consider @kaimthaler.bsky.social's "Why Rebels Win." He was gracious enough to let my students take a sneak peak this term and as I work my way through their papers, I can tell you that students will read this book and take it in some great directions.

Notably coinciding with the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, happening right across town at the same time. And evidently drawing on the collective knowledge of its membership not a bit. This tracks entirely.

Our new round of billboards are up, with a clear message: a murder that the president orders is still a murder.

NotWhatISignedUpFor.org can connect servicemembers with resources to help them understand their choices in the face of patently illegal orders.

I'm totally kidding. It's because I read too quickly and there was a definite article in the original text that I missed. It said "run by *the* US-designated terrorist group" but I have been reading all day and I read too fast. Language. It means stuff.

Maybe it's because the WSJ's Africa editor and MENA editor didn't check with each other? 4/

Maybe the difference is because there's an internationally-recognized GoY that has been displaced but still has access to means of self-representation and can challenge the Houthis' ability to self-present as being in control of "Yemen" as a whole. 3/

Is it because the Houthis only control part of the country? (When AQAP had de facto territorial control in Hadramawt for a year in 2015-2016 it attracted less attention, I think, than either of these cases, but I could be wrong.) 2/

I was annoyed when I read (too quickly, it seems) a @wsj.com article claiming that if Bamako falls to AQ, Mali would be the first country to be run by a US-designated terrorist group, since the same outlet has also written recently about FTO-designated Houthi rule in Sana'a. I've assigned both. 1/

books have no tech tree, no fog of war

Statement: The Sana’a Center Condemns the Incitement Campaign by the Islah Party and its Aligned Military Elements - Sana'a Center For Strategic Studies The Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies strongly condemns the incitement campaign directed against the Center and its Chairperson, Maged al-Madhaji—a vicious online smear campaign that culminated in a...

Here’s the SC statement on the threats their folks received in response to their editorial. Tldr; space for civil actors is under threat in all parts of Yemen, not only in the ways that make it to the pages of @nytimes.com or @wsj.com

Almost all non-specialist coverage of Yemen is focused on the Houthis and if there is discussion of the rest of Yemen, it aggregates the whole. Policy folks don’t do this, I know, but policy specialists are increasingly not shaping policy. So the non-specialist discourse matters more than it has. 2/

A Lawless Land: Government Factions Must Impose Order or Risk Losing Legitimacy - The Yemen Review, July-September 2025 - Sana'a Center For Strategic Studies The assassination of Taiz official Iftehan al-Mashhari in broad daylight is the starkest example yet of how political violence and impunity have taken root in the territories under the control of the ...

If you’ve been focused on the Houthis and the situation in the North or the Red Sea, make sure you also read this editorial detailing the spiraling effects of conflict fragmentation in Yemen. The fallout from this editorial has also been significant for the writers. 1/

Too grim to bear. But as I read a stack of essays arguing that if we can just get things right in Gaza, it’ll be better next time, I’m indebted to those who are compiling the evidence that next time is now.