Sam Kastner

well. at least there's new worms

will say these are business school guys from the looks of it, but either way no professor in any corner of the university should be doing this to students

Auntie Cathy was a fucking legend, I still say “too bad, too bad” out loud in her accent like twice a day every day, a dozen years later. RIP

It’s not antisemitism when people say this is evil and must be stopped. I feel like as Jews it’s probably the most important thing we can do

It has been really good seeing people in congress championing the NIH and other important agencies like NASA.

I've become increasingly alarmed that the unfolding disaster at NSF (50%+ cut, irreparable loss of infrastructure and expertise) is not receiving the same attention.

If you ban Calvin and Hobbes you’re a straight up fascist son of a bitch and that’s that

supporting guys like cuomo is a way for wealthy new yorkers who are actually republicans to maintain dem cred without voting against their own interests

Hello, I’m Jewish. I think genocide is bad and Zohran Mamdani is good. Hope this help.

The sea level in Bermuda is 1 meter higher than in NYC, roughly.

if your grand approach to politics is bloodless poll-testing so that you're always aligned with wherever public opinion happens to be, you've already lost

I’m also bringing back Blue Book exams for my students, but in the oldest school way possible. that’s right, the Kelley Used Cars ones. lol cheaters in James Joyce and Modernism 2002 let’s see if “AI” helps you price a 2002 Mazda Protege

If a degree is just a piece of paper you need to get a desirable, good-paying job, someone invents a machine that can do it for you, and the notion that you might go to college to develop your mind for its own, non-remunerative sake is a punch line and an elite privilege, why not use the machine?

this is the whole ballgame imo. the fact that students can feel like their entire future depends on doing well on a paper doesn’t incentivize learning; it incentivizes doing well on the paper. goes double when those futures depend on having a degree

I have poured
from the vintage
where the grapes
were stored

and which
you were saving
for the coming
of the lord

forgive me
they were
so wrathful
and so battle born

I do think it's worth marking and remembering that these people were willing to tolerate everything we've experienced since January and more provided it didn't disrupt the economy.

One good description of how we got here is that for a long time “The constitution is not a word game” is something that lots of ostensibly smart people pretended that they did not understand.

Anyone who has ever faced a bully knows it doesn't stop just because you gave him your lunch money today. Which other department will Columbia have to place under receivership? What other demands will they face next month?

Op-Ed: Optimize Sound Transit, Split System into Urban and Regional Lines - The Urbanist # As Sound Transit builds the largest light rail expansion in the country, splitting the system into urban and suburban lines could unlock its full potential and queue up logical extensions.

NEW STORY // Op-Ed: Optimize Sound Transit, Split System into Urban and Regional Lines www.theurbanist.org/2025/03/21/o...

if you find yourself reluctant to support the guy at Columbia because you find some of the politics he espoused distasteful or even abhorrent, you should know that this is exactly the reaction that they hoped for in choosing him as a target for unlawful detention based on political speech.

re the previous repost: if they can disappear permanent residents they can disappear citizens

🚨Inbox: Palestinian Columbia grad student Mahmoud Khalil, a negotiator for the student encampment last spring, has been detained by DHS agents “without the physical demonstration of a warrant or officially filed charges.”

more luka flopcic am I right

also Glenn knows that a return to his so-called “merit-based opportunity” is that the kids of Glenns Youngkin get preferred entrance into elite universities.

pretty horrible that he stood alone, frankly. what year is this

these terminations are good evidence that this is just wanton destruction by deranged ideologues. there is no rhyme or reason other than whatever makes sense to a bunch of zoomer nazis and their bosses and enablers

this one is at least funny since "not from the faculty lounge, but from the assembly line" is the kind of thing you are much likelier to hear in a faculty lounge than anywhere else

the idea of professors working so assiduously to get students deported just is wild. Deportation is a black mark on your immigration history, and its very difficult to move at all after deportation. They are destroying these young people's lives, and its all done with such self righteous glee.

I absolutely don’t have time to make a podcast and I simply think the governor of California should be at least as busy as me