Our Lady of Perpetual Zoom

If Books Could Kill Society & Culture Podcast · Updated Biweekly · The airport bestsellers that captured our hearts and ruined our minds

Everyone in the virology, Infectious diseases, epidemiology, and public health fields has looked at the case for the lab origin vs. natural spillover as the origin of COVID.

The evidence is far more compelling for spillover. Good debunking by

@michaelhobbes.bsky.social

Wow I mean nobody* saw this coming.

*Everybody. Literally everybody. Recluses in remote hermitages. Antarctic penguins. Newborn seal pups. Babes in the womb. Anyone with two eyes and a working amygdala. Plant life.

I want to remind everyone that without Elon Musk, we wouldn't be in this situation where our academic institutions, science enterprise, and democracy are being dismantled, and millions of additional people around the world are going to die. We want both of them to lose horribly in this fight.

Listening to you read Scalzi has been such a fun bonding experience for me and my teen son. Thank you! You are a terrific performer.

A woman with curled blond bangs and cats eyeglasses grins at the camera.

48 years old and feeling pretty good about it.

Just blazed through that book last week. Funny and poignant and terrifically scary. The scene on the plane!!

I spent two years reading so many nonfiction books on art crime that eventually every book was referencing something else I had already read and I had to stop.

Me in the national security group chat

How many different ways can I submit “I saw Goody Proctor with the Devil!”

Drop a pic of yourself in B&W.

Up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep. Angry about everything.

Random PSA / Reminder: Bisexuals / Pansexuals /Omnisexuals in a committed, monogamous relationship haven't chosen a side, they've chosen a partner.

A lot candle sits nexts to a small postcard of a beautiful drawing of Castiel from Supernatural by The Friendly Pigeon.

Finally found a frame for my Angel. He’s watching over me. Thanks, @thefriendlypigeon.bsky.social
#Destiel

One of my very favorites

This is just straight up chilling. It asks arts orgs to conform to the distorted, dangerous, immoral values of the Trump admin in order to receive federal arts grants. Many arts orgs will refuse to compromise their missions in this way. This will be a test for Board leadership.

Just so.

Part of what kills me about all this is that we don’t have anyone willing to communicate, in plain English, that in ten days trump and musk have compromised American lives for a lifetime, and probably more

a woman with red hair is wearing sunglasses and red nails Alt: Rowena, a witch from Supernatural, a woman with red hair is wearing sunglasses and red nails

“Her husband’s to Aleppo gone,
Master o’ th’ Tyger,
But in a sieve I’ll thither sail,
And, like a rat without a tail,
I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do.” #ShakespeareSunday

For me, queer history is an activist tool. It's a way to shout loud and clear WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE. Across the world, throughout time LGBTQIA+ people have existed and always will.
Sharing our histories is a powerful way to connect and strengthen our community. #LGBTQIA+HistoryMonth

We’ve all done it. I’ve had some DOOZY episodes, one just last month. In five years, this might be a very funny anecdote you tell at parties or something you barely remember. Hang in there.

We used to be a real country

My students really dug my lecture this morning on inclusive hiring practices.

Make them tell you, specifically, what you're not allowed to do. Don't make changes you guess that they want. Don't offer them a menu of things that you infer they might be telling you not to do. Do the work you proposed, and received funding to do, unless instructed otherwise in specific detail.

Welp, I teach non-profit arts management in a state-funded R1 university so… not well. Not well at all.

"But what could Democrats actually do? They're in the minority!!" So glad you asked...

In Senate, minority can delay and sometimes derail. Debate rules require 60 votes—and often unanimity—to call for a vote on measure.

Oof. Sending you good health vibes.

I’m trying not to give in to despair. I keep telling my students not to despair. But here I am.

Wow

So glad he is okay! Hope you are getting some rest after this stress.