Jason Mellard

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

Same! At HEB in East Austin. Even they were a little surprised to find they had the updated one in stock when asked and cautiously and kindly walked me through the new requirements.

Texas State terminates history professor over comments made at conference Texas State University terminated Associate History Professor Thomas Alter on Sept. 10, after videos of him speaking at an online socialism convention were published online. The conference was the Rev...

Texas State terminates history professor over comments made at conference – The University Star share.google/CCzqjzasnYQY...

Appreciate my unions today and everyday. If you work in Texas universities, join up with @cwa-tseu.bsky.social and @texasaft.org The only way through is together!

Opinion | Why the Texas Democrats’ Walkout Worked

“Texas Democrats lost. But they drew attention to Republicans’ efforts to put their thumb on the scale, and demonstrated a valuable tactic for galvanizing their beleaguered party.

They lost, but they lost loudly. Losing loudly has been a crucial feature of successful political movements.” Gift:

2025 AAUP Faculty in the South Survey The Georgia conference of the American Association of University Professors [AAUP] and its partners in states across the South have been at the forefront of fighting attacks on higher education. To as...

Calling all part-time and full-time faculty in the South: Speak out on academic freedom, shared governance, and your working conditions! Survey closes 8/29 at 5pm ET. States: AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Why should I write better when a machine can do it for me? Because actually no one can do it for you, because your voice is unique among all the people on earth. Siri never petted a horse's neck. Alexa has never been ghosted by the captain of the football team. But you have lived, your heart is beating, you have suffered, and you have something important to say. It's a human's job, to use words, and whatever job you give to a machine, that part of your brain goes dark. Maybe it's worth it when it comes to remembering phone numbers and directions, but when that part of your brain that uses words goes dark, that's a vast area that's very close to your soul. Don't let some internet platform convince you that what you have to say and create isn't worthwhile. Words are the echo of your soul. Honing that echo matters.

this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like

Simply believe that people who don't live in cities shouldn't be able to declare cities "unliveable." Like, most of us do live here, in the face of all your imaginary terrors.

things can be different

“We wanted to rid ourselves of the fashions of historiography,” Burns summarized at one event, “and make a film that simply shows what happened.”

That’s not how history works though. You’re making an argument about what happened & what mattered even if you don’t realize you’re doing it. 🗃️

Some mixed feelings about my hometown Austin these days, but the 13th Floor Elevators' "Slip Inside This House" on the airport speakers definitely goes on the plus side of the ledger.

"Find your political home" remains, for me at least, the single best guiding star in times of crisis and chaos.

Individuals can doomscroll and post and have big feelings; groups can take meaningful action. Maybe it's an activist org, union, student group, career, collective/crew, etc (1/3)

The Swan Song of an American Music Legend - KUTX In 1949 Huddie Ledbetter, known as Lead Belly, performed his final public concert at the University of Texas Hogg Auditorium.

From @jasonmellard.bsky.social: "This Week in Texas Music History, Blues giant Leadbelly performs his final concert at UT’s Hogg Auditorium" - #Texas

YouTube video by Curtis Hayden Rendez-vous avec Trini Lopez (1964)

Agreed. Trini Lopez doesn't get talked up nearly enough as a hinge of 60s Texas cool. Was reading up on his Paris shows with the Beatles recently and got stuck on this performance for days. youtu.be/duY1Yg-2BA0?...

KVIC, Victoria, Texas, syndicated Casey Kasem countdown, sitting at my childhood desk next to a clock radio with a tape recorder, probably chasing, like, the Ray Parker Ghostbusters theme or Karma Chameleon

I often open my rock history classes with the video. Perfect scene-setter!

Close Reading Is For Everyone | Defector In Sigrid Nunez’s 2018 novel The Friend, a famous writer kills himself. Not long before, he complains to the narrator about readers: “People talking about a book as if it were just another thing, like...

Hell yeah. Here's my manifesto: close reading for all.

On Sigrid Nunez, and Karl Ove Knausgaard, and Erich Auerbach, and why close reading is an answer to AI.

Thanks to @brandyjensen.bsky.social, rockstar editor, who rules. For @defector.com defector.com/close-readin...

Texas lawmakers aim to strangle liberal arts with SB37 Senate Bill 37, under consideration in the Texas Legislature, would change our public universities so radically that they would no longer be first-class.

Don't make Texas universities unconstitutional by passing SB37 www.expressnews.com/opinion/comm...

The @thebarbedwire.bsky.social writers out there doing the Lord's work, and consistently so.

If you've been waiting in the wings to launch an artisan chicory coffee revival, congrats, I guess.

The last time I felt like this was when Leticia Van de Putte asked her epic question — what does a woman have to do to be heard over the men in the room — during Wendy Davis' filibuster of the 2013 TX omnibus anti-abortion bill and the crowd in the building hollered until the clock hit midnight.

Funny how "erasing history" only applies to tearing down Confederate monuments, emphasizing the role of enslavement in the development of the U.S., & renaming military bases named after Confederates, but not to acknowledging historical Black, Brown, queer, and trans folks