Jason Mellard

On that Tower in Austin are chiseled the words: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free"

UT System votes to limit 'controversial topics' in class share.google/aIz3sZrzQY55...

Censorship Is Bigger in Texas Texas officials apparently think Texas students are stupid snowflakes who must be protected from hearing controversial ideas.

"In recent months, Texas universities have inflicted some of the worst repression of academic freedom we’ve ever witnessed at American colleges, with gag orders, speaker bans and arbitrary firings of dissenting faculty."

🤠 Texans: Plesse contact the Board of Regents! Please consider testifying at this week’s meeting! Let’s make ourselves heard!

YouTube video by Nightloop Jesse Jackson’s - Wattstax Music Festival Opening Speech (1972)

Wattstax remains the best of the music festival films, and this invocation seals it for me. youtu.be/NTVwT3j_zqY?...

UT American Studies is my intellectual home, with a rich and expansive history of scholarship. These other departments share the same, crown jewels of what was once among the greatest public universities in the world. Just sick over this.

Some days it feels like the contemporary university is just an ever-shifting pile of edtech vendor contracts wearing a trench coat.

"I'm A Dumb Redneck": Jelly Roll's Cop Out and Nashville's Imagined Norm Imagine if we could go two weeks in this newsletter without having to reckon with some country/politics foolishness. Imagine if people like Jelly Roll and Kid Rock would just shut up and sing!! I jest...

wrote about jelly roll pretending he and we are stupid for this week's drti www.dontrocktheinbox.com/im-a-dumb-re...

This week in Texas music history: Willie Nelson records ‘Shotgun Willie’ and ‘Troublemaker’ Nelson's Austin homecoming and label change opened up new avenues for creative autonomy.

In early February 1973, Willie Nelson and his Family Band, along with guests Doug Sahm, Waylon Jennings, and Jessi Colter, traveled to NYC to record not one, but two Nelson albums in quick succession: “Shotgun Willie” and “The Troublemaker.” buff.ly/nX64CQp

CODE MAROON at Texas A&M: Protect academic freedom and reject political control Texas A&M is ordering a philosophy professor to remove readings by Plato from his syllabus, per new rules requiring ideological review and approval of course content. This is not academic oversigh...

Please sign and share this Aggies Forward petition link with alumni and allies -- and anyone you know who wants to protect free speech and academic freedom in Texas and across the country: alumni.standforcampusfreedom.org/petitions/co...

Never mind the jobs you had, tell me five classes you took in college:

The History of Being Cool in America
Primate Behavior
Revolution in Latin America
Contemporary European Social Theory
Walking

Legalize Plato!

Top-down decisions to censor, cancel, or flag classes at Texas A&M do not protect students. It harms their growth.

Brian Evans, @texasaaup.bsky.social president, believes in the students’ ability to stand up for themselves, and for the futures of their university and of Texas.

Recently learned that Cleve Hattersley of Greezy Wheels led the prison band for a few of these.

Texas A&M Ends Women’s Studies and Overhauls Classes Over Race and Gender

Texas A&M ends its women's & gender studies program while hundreds of syllabi remain flagged and censored under top-down review policies.

“I have never seen anything like this.”

— Dr. Leonard Bright, @tamu-aaup.bsky.social President

@texasaft.org
@texasaaup.bsky.social
@cwa-tseu.bsky.social

Just to reiterate

Tempted to put this atop the syllabi I'm introducing next week.

Stand With Minnesota: Resource Hub Causes to Donate to in Minnesota to Help Our Communities Defend Themselves from ICE This list is now available/shareable at standwithminnesota.org *Note: I am from Minnesota, and these come from peo...

For people elsewhere who have asked how to support Minnesota while we’re overrun with nazi thugs, here’s an excellent list of places that could use financial help. Lots of choices. Thank you so much!

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Places to Donate to in Minnesota Buy/Donate Materials: Help buy dashcams for legal observers Bethel Church Food Pantry TC Food Justice: Donate food Mutual Aid Funds: Lyndale School Mutual Aid Fund Rent Relief Fund for Southside Fami...

I was desperate for some organization, so I put together a list of places you can donate or buy things for to support folks in Minnesota.

If you have places for me to add, please DM me.

I've been looking for this clip! Thanks!

When explaining how or why a person could devote a life to "Texas music," Joe Ely is on the short of list of artists you could use to make the case, and almost effortlessly so. Just listen.

A heartbreaking, monumental loss. May he rest.

To Root Out Wokeness in the Course Catalog, This Texas University Is Turning to AI “The AI was upset with my use of the phrase ‘women's rights movement.’”

“School officials have created a Microsoft Copilot prompt to review course descriptions with an eye toward avoiding ‘advocacy-oriented or prescriptive terms.’”

Terms: “dismantling, decolonizing, interrogating, challenging, centering, combating, liberation, resistance, activism, justice oriented”

EVER HEARD OF… THE UFO CLUB? – Underground The latest in our series investigating overlooked or obscured figures in musical and subcultural history takes a look at London’s first psychedelic night club ‘

EVER HEARD OF… THE UFO CLUB?
(Underground-England)

A look at Joe Boyd's legendary, short lived UFO club, and the UK psychedelic underground scene of 1967.
(Photos by Adam Ritchie)

underground-england.com/the-ufo-club/

Hey my news outlet @thebarbedwire.com is hiring a social media manager. Looking for someone smart who lives in Tx and loves covering our messed up state www.journalismjobs.com/job-listing/...

📝 Sign below to support Professor Tom Alter of Texas State who was fired for speech he made in his capacity as a private citizen! ⬇️

Austin #NoKings

While I would root for an inflatable rally parrot swaying gently to Buffett on repeat, Heaven 17's "(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang" has proved a useful dance-it-out anthem in this household.

Asking again, if you're a UT-Austin grad, to add your name to this open letter. You can also forward it to President James Davis (president@utexas.edu) and the UT Board of Regents (bor@utsystem.edu).

Meet the people preserving Texas history, one home movie at a time. Your home footage may be more special than you think, the nonprofit says.

It was an absolute joy to write about the Texas Archive of the Moving Image, a nonprofit that works tirelessly to preserve Texas' film history by digitizing tapes and film before they degrade. Their website is a treasure trove of cool state history: www.chron.com/culture/arti...

Judge’s Order Clears Way for Fired Texas State University Professor’s Reinstatement A Union of Professionals

Good news to your end your week ✊ Dr. Thomas Alter is set to be reinstated at Texas State University after an initial court victory.

Statement from @texasaaup.bsky.social President Dr. Brian Evans and Texas AFT President @zephcapo.bsky.social 👇

www.texasaft.org/membership/h...

Amanda Shires Tells Her Side of the Story After Divorce From Jason Isbell: “I'm Not Scared” After a marriage in the spotlight ended in brutal divorce, the singer-songwriter-fiddler is telling her story, her way.

Amanda Shires spent an afternoon introducing me to Lubbock and a small portion of those very fun hours is now chronicled in Texas Monthly ahead of her new album :) gift link: www.texasmonthly.com/arts-enterta...

Manufactured outrage is killing academic freedom in Texas | Opinion Enough with the "gotcha" attacks like the recent firing of a Texas A&M instructor. Let professors teach. Let students learn, writes Pauline Turner Strong.

"Enough is enough. Texas must allow faculty and college students to explore freely the breadth of human knowledge, and administrators must support us in that time-honored quest."

– Pauline Strong, President @utaustinaaup.bsky.social

#AcademicFreedom
#AcademicSky
@texasaaup.bsky.social