Elaine Frantz

And why not.

I can't get over this number: in 2007, there were 360,000 newspaper jobs. Now, there are 80,000. "My local paper sucked!" Sure. What sucks even more? The void. "I get all my news from the Guardian!" No, the Guardian doesn't report on your town council, your school board, local cops.

How far back in time can you understand English? An experiment in language change

"As his post goes on, his language gets older. 100 years older with each jump. The spelling changes. The grammar changes. Words you know are replaced by unfamiliar words" Fascinating. So how far back in time can YOU go?

This one hits hard.

Quakertown parents, groups demand release of students in police clash Civil rights groups and parents gathered in front of the Quakertown Police Department Saturday demanding answers for the violent confrontation Friday.

INBOX: the police chief of Quakertown, Pa., led a group of plainclothes officers to disrupt a peaceful high school student sidewalk protest yesterday.

They threw an underage girl to the ground, choked her, and disconnected all calls to the detention center where she and others are currently held.

The Misuses of the University - Public Books Have the funds that might have trained the next generation of scholars at the nation’s first research university have been blown on ostentatious new buildings?

“Maybe the leaders of our nation’s wealthiest universities can’t think a generation ahead anymore, beholden as they are to board members who think in terms of the next quarter….” - François Furstenberg @publicbooks.bsky.social
www.publicbooks.org/the-misuses-...

america could be such a cool fucking place if we’d just let it be

Two women, detained by ICE, say they helped agent having seizure The women say they guided agents through the emergency, later raising concerns about medical protocols, weapons safety and accountability.

www.startribune.com/detained-by-...

I think we are a little frozen in shock and so not responding to this situation we are in . It’s time to face it.

What we’ve just done is created the capability for the federal government to violently control cities even if the local (and state) government is willing to resist with force and even if our military and National Guard would refuse to implement the violence. That’s new.

If you’re in PA, Dem committee seats open this spring. Now is a good time to find your local democratic committee, run for a voting seat on it, and fight to make the party what it is not, and absolutely needs to be.

"A list of things I'd rather do than ask ChatGPT Consult an oracle / Ask a crow / Dig out my old Magic 8 Ball / Call my grandma / Ask the void / Ask a brain inside a jar / Talk to the old stranger that feeds the birds / Ask the artists / Ask the scientists / Listen to the screaming wind / Search my dreams for answers / Flip through dusty, old library books / Talk to anything, anyone with a soul" Alex Dawson

Sadly, the subject is always timely.

Opinion | How Democrats Became the Party of the Well-to-Do

How Democrats Became the Party of the Well-to-Do www.nytimes.com/2025/10/23/o...

There are people out there who legitimately hate violence and suffering, no matter who the victim is. Lots of us.

CHICAGO…

Fascism encourages you to think it’s a spectator sport and when it’s too late you realize you’re also on the playing field and always have been.

The is a technical social science term for what @adambonica.bsky.social has laid bare here, and that is "absolutely fcking insane"

Seriously. Read and weep.

Unpopular opinion: we were better off when American masculinity was defined in terms of stoicism and self-restraint then whatever the fuck the neofascists are peddling. And we should make a concerted effort to promote it.

GOOD PARENTS, BETTER HOMES & GREAT SCHOOLS Selling Segregation before the New Deal

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you're interested in why American cities are *like that*, you need to get this book.

Physically, even.

US citizen, Army veteran detained at California immigration raid | CNN George Retes, a 25-year-old Army veteran and father of two, had been planning his three-year-old daughter’s Minnie Mouse birthday party at the park for weeks.

Authoritarianism 101-Detain educators & public servants; portray them as anti-American.

"Retes was...driven to...LA's Metropolitan Detention Ctr, where he was held by...US Marshals Service...
He was booked..& placed in a holding cell with a professor...detained that same day"
shorturl.at/oQU1Q

You used to be able to google information and reliably get accurate info. Now you just have to swim through a soup of low quality websites (that also might be warped by AI) and try to figure out what's real

Update: We have now been at this for 22 hours and Republicans are still hard at work trying to kick 17 million Americans off their health care to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.

When I had my first baby we were kinda far from family and friends. New job, new place— small town Wisconsin. Got a government baby basket and man, it really made me feel good, like somewhere people were looking out for my baby and I. So the republican war on baby baskets is hitting me hard.

Masked men in U.S. Border Patrol vests brutally beat, take Santa Ana father In a graphic video that has since gone viral on social media, about seven or more masked men wearing U.S. Border Patrol vests are seen taking part in a brutal beating of a Santa Ana father before f…

I can’t believe this is my country. If we wonder “what we would have done” during the holocaust, now we know.

War. Peace. Food. Drinks. People. Labor. Politics. And more! Check out the Gilded Age & Progressive Era podcast, been around for a few years, doing some amazing stuff & now with new hosts! @shgape.bsky.social @oah.org @shafrhistorians.bsky.social @historians.org 🗃️ shows.acast.com/gildedageand...

ICE Arrests David Huerta, Beloved Labor Leader and SEIU California President “We all collectively have to object to this madness,” said Huerta after his violent arrest for witnessing an ICE raid.

Have national Dems, who claim to want to "win back" the working class, said anything yet about ICE injuring and arresting the head of the SEIU of California?

truthout.org/articles/ice...

4-year-old Bakersfield girl facing deportation could die within days of losing medical care In 2023, a Mexican girl, 4, was allowed U.S. entry for lifesaving medical care. She and her parents, who live in Bakersfield, have been told they must leave.

4-year-old Bakersfield girl facing deportation could die within days of losing medical care - Los Angeles Times

Don’t ever tell me that Christians support the GOP. There is nothing Christian or Christ-like about this. Just plain old cruelty and callousness:

Perfect day to head to the Valley Forge National Park. The rangers were so knowledgeable, and, seeing us coming w a wheelchair, grabbed a book to talk us through everything in the Washington’s HQ building. It was lovely.

I’ve taught the 14th Amendment but only today did I fully grasp how radically inclusive Birthright Citizenship really is.

What makes you American? Not race, not religion, not lineage.

You’re born here, you belong here.