Jesse Hession Grayman

Part 1 (of 2) in our interviews with leading anthropologists on the subject of academic freedom. The 🧵 below tells the story of how my co-editors and I decided to do this. #AnthroSky #Anthropology #AcademicFreedom.

We are very far over the cliff here folks

Reminder: Kash Patel is a Q-nut & has pledged to undemocratically prosecute peaceful political opponents. Is NZ prepared for test cases of US citizens/dual nationals being renditioned to black sites from our territory for their legal political activities? Maybe think it through motherfuckers?

Cartoon. Title: FINALLY... Brooke van Velden, minister in charge of all the important stuff, is here to give great news. Six panels show her. 1st one she has her arms in the air and says, "IVE FINALLY GONE AND BLOODY DONE IT!" A grey office worker says excitedly, "Ooh let me guess!" 2nd panel, "Finally reduced the cost of living crisis?" She looks worried, "Er... No..." 3rd panel grey man asks, "Finally stopped decimating the public health system?", she looks to the side and says, "Er... No..." 4th panel, he asks again, "Finally sanctioned Israel?" She looks down kicks a stone, "Er... No..." 5th panel. He says exasperated, "Ok, Ok I give up what have you 'finally' done?" The last panel is just her. She's holding the New Zealand passport and declares, "Put English above the Māori on our passports!"

My cartoon in today's www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3607...

Finally! We've all been waiting for this very serious and life changing announcement. You knows it and I knows it...

#NzPol #BrookeVanVelden #Passport #Cartoon #Caricature #Politics #Announcement

We Need New Jewish Institutions Sustaining the struggle will require spaces for reimagining our tradition.

Great, unflinching piece from @jewishcurrents.bsky.social Arielle Angel about the need for new Jewish leftist institutions.

jewishcurrents.org/we-need-new-...

Harvard was NEVER going to lead anything other than a fundraising campaign.

"Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize"

"I don't want to satirize George W Bush and his puppeteers... I want to vaporize them."

- The incomparable Tom Lehrer

This includes my grandparents and my mother, who had his records, played them often, and sang along with delight when I was growing up. I miss them all! #TomLehrer

It's on my exercise playlist! #disco #SuziLane

At our most recent application deadline, the Foundation received a 40 percent increase in proposals for our core programs, and we anticipate that demand will continue to dramatically increase in the months ahead. Without immediate action, we face funding rates of less than 9 percent for Dissertation Fieldwork and Post-PhD Research Grants, and as low as 7 percent for our Hunt and Fejos Postdoctoral Fellowships. We are also facing possible reductions across our entire range of program areas including conferences, workshops, and community engagement. The consequences are stark: a narrower, less diverse, less adventurous field, with brilliant projects left unfunded, scholars left unsupported, and doctoral students stalled in their progress towards their degree

Wenner Gren is closing Sapiens because, among other things, they anticipate being able to fund fewer than 10% of their applications... at the same time as other funding sources from the federal government are being destroyed. This funding environment is an existential crisis for anthropology 🏺🧪

I know it’s not the first ethnography of depopulation out there, but this is the first one I’ve had the pleasure to read and I think it’s a fascinating topic for more anthropologists to pursue. I can’t shake the images of creeping brushwood across the historic garden terraces of the Azores.

Another Breakup Note: I can’t / don’t / won’t / shouldn’t control my readers’ actions, but my sincere wish is that nobody tries to figure out what organization I’m talking about in this post. I have had enough…

🚨 Hey nerds/activists: I wrote up the full story of what happened last week—when a professional society told me to change the abstract for my already-accepted talk on data + injustice. The result of censorship and cowardice? I’m (once again) breaking up with a professional organization. #AcademicSky

My last two Campari soda nightcaps at home were the best ever. Mix whatever citrus you have. Last time I mixed in citron-ginger jelly. Tonight I just squeezed a fresh mandarin orange. The right mix of sharp and soft. I think I can sleep now.

Naps hit different in this awful weather. Cozy. Inviting. Perfect.

You can subscribe to certain feeds like "Popular With Friends" to get an algorithm-like experience of seeing what's popular in your network. This is also why "likes" don't drive views on your main Bluesky "following" feed. Instead, the re-skeet/quote-skeet button helps amplify the content you like.

I think part of the appeal of Bluesky is that it doesn't rely on an algorithm. Your feed is like original 2007 twitter, everything in your feed appears in the order that the people you follow posted.

I mean, it has always been thus!
tHeY mAdE sUpErMaN WoKe In 1 9 4 9!
#Superman

Black Flag

Black Flag #artbots #magritte
https://botfrens.com/collections/61/contents/19217

plz don't leave

this monkey is not full of juice

(It sucks that in my search for more info about this online, every search engine just assumes I’m misspelling Hannibal, which is also about cannibalism! #Gannibal)

Keisuke not only crackles with his main character match, the hero Daigo, but also his bestie Iwao, the village priest, his TWO father figures, and so on. All these characters have so much more pathos and chemistry with each other than with their onscreen heterosexual partners. #Gannibal

Just finished watching both seasons of #Gannibal and the queer coding/reading possibilities unexpectedly had me transfixed. Nearly all surround the tragic villain Keisuke, but in multiple directions.

A story in 4 parts

NEW 🇱🇦 We're pleased to share two new essays drawing on ethnographic research in Laos! 👇

My latest: "The Nervous Breakdown of The Elite"

The NYT's shameful smear of Zohran Mamdani and whitewashing of a racist, eugenicist source is the latest example of the establishment's nervous breakdown over the next mayor of NYC.

thelefthook.substack.com/p/the-nervou...

The sheer scale of the funding for a fullscale fascist army + dismantling so much of the functioning state and civil society institutions inside of *6 months* has been a level of state reformation at a speed that I don't know if I've seen before in peacetime other than the end of the Cold War

I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE.

This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined.

It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing.