Eliana S. Santos

I'm a professor. We're not the 'elite' the powerful billionaires say we are. Most professors don't have tenure. An increasing number don't even have full-time jobs. How did these inconsequential people become enemies of the state?

"We are not the elites the billionaires claim we are. Most professors don’t have tenure. The humanities professoriate don’t even have full time jobs, have been known to sleep in their cars. How did these inconsequential people become enemies of the state?"
www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outl...

Meme that says “is the cure to male loneliness, invading Portugal?“ With a painting of Napoleon riding a horse.

Air filters in classrooms reduce sick days by more than 10 per cent Putting air filters in classrooms seems to boost student attendance, which may be due to them reducing levels of air pollution, pollen, pathogens or all three

Putting air filters in classrooms seems to reduce student sick days by more than 10 per cent.

A screenshot of a tweet by Pope Francis: "Our societies are too enslaved market logic, and everything risks being subject to self-interest and the quest for profit. Volunteering is prophecy and a sign of hope, because it bears witness to the primacy of gratuitousness, solidarity, and service to those most in need" - from 9 March this year

requiescat in pace

Original 1925 jacket cover of The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby Here is a novel, glamorous, ironical, compassionate a marvellous fusion into unity of the curious incongruities of the life of the period which reveals a hero like no other one who could live at no other time and in no other place. But he will live as a character, we surmise, as long as the memory of any reader lasts. "There was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life. .. It was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again?" It is the story of this Jay Gatsby who came so mysteriously to West Egg, of his sumptuous er-tertainments, and of his love for Daisy Buchanan a story that ranges from pure lyrical beauty to sheer brutal realism, and is infused with a sense of the strangeness of human circumstance in a heedless universe. It is a magical, living book, blended of irony, romance, and mysticism. CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS The GREAT GATSBY FITZGERALD

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.

-FS Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, published 4/10/1925.

Biopolitics in reverse:
"If a pandemic breaks out, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on orders from the White House, refuse to publish data on its spread, will it still kill people?"

Latest release of files from MI5 - The National Archives Today we have made available a selection of previously top secret files from MI5. Including new details on the Cambridge Spies Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross.

The full cache of declassified MI5 files, released by the National Archives today, can be found here www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/news/l... Among other things, they cover the Cambridge Spy ring, including Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross.

I would absolutely rather talk about astrophysics than health — partly because it’s where my expertise lies and partly because it’s more fun — but as a human person with a frustratingly biological existence (and friends and family who are also humans) it’s real hard to just ignore this dire stuff

Maybe you stopped masking before—it isn’t “too late.” Masking today is better than not masking at all, just as carrying an umbrella today helps you *today* even if you got soaked yesterday. Especially if yesterday it was drizzling and today it’s increased to pouring.

Please mask up:

just want to say that even if you stopped masking for whatever reason, you can start back up at any moment! and the moment you do, you are a true comrade to disabled people, elderly people, immunocompromised people, each other, everyone else. it’s really easy to be a real ally :)

If you’ve stopped masking, now is a great time to start again. Literally every one of my friends or family who have traveled recently caught covid. N95 masks are best, 3M Aura brand are very comfortable and sold lots of places online or in stores like Target (you can even do curbside pickup). 😷

Labour can end austerity at a stroke – by taxing the rich and taxing them hard | George Monbiot The focus on growth to ease the UK’s economic ills will not be nearly enough, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

Tax and spend is the foundation of a civilised society. The new government should embrace it, because without it, we're stuck with pointless and destructive austerity.
This week's column.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

We should know better:

"These tactics are how we get used to so many bad things, from mega-fires to insurrections."

March 2024
Most people: the pandemic is over
Boston University Epidemiologist: definitely still a pandemic
Some pandemics "With nearly as many hospitalizations in January 2024 as in January 2023, it’s clear that COVID is not growing milder and it’s not fading away."
www.bu.edu/articles/202...

I’m gobsmacked by how good this is. Imagine interviewing an RNA virus specialist protecting his aged parents, a clean air specialist angry with the hospital who treated her breast cancer and the head of an institute who calls out minimizers and deniers instead of Lena Wen and Ashish Jha.

Open PHD position in history and theory of architecture at USI Mendrisio: www.instagram.com/p/C1WVBWlMRj...

A brutalist building resembling a frog says “Angry Frog Want Awards”

It’s the 14th Annual Architecture and Design Awards and Mark Lamster and @langealexandra.bsky.social have invited me once again to take part in this highly official ceremony. Who won? Who lost? Who wore it best?

lamstermd.medium.com/spheres-jeer...

Richest 1% account for more carbon emissions than poorest 66%, report says ‘Polluter elite’ are plundering the planet to point of destruction, says Oxfam after comprehensive study of climate inequality

Richest 1% account for more carbon pollution than the bottom 66% www.theguardian.com/environment/...

To condemn unequivocally Hamas’s horrific acts of terrorism on October 7 and to condemn unequivocally the Israeli government’s horrific assaults on the people of Gaza is not “both-sidesing” the issue. It’s the consistent application of humanitarian principles.

Thanks!

Thank you!

Minnette de Silva and politician George de Silva at the 1948 World Congress of Intellectuals in Defence of Peace. Photograph: PAP

Does anyone have a pdf copy of Minnette de Silva's chapter on the architecture of India, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia in the Banister Fletcher (18th ed. 1975)?

The one important take of this op-ed is that Tokyo invests in public transit:

www.nytimes.com/2023/09/11/o...

🍂🌍 Neste Outono, no CCB - Centro Cultural de Belém irei partilhar ideias sobre várias "Histórias da Arquitectura". São quatro sessões: 26 de outubro, 2, 16 e 23 de novembro. Mais informações aqui:
www.ccb.pt/evento/histo...