Howard Eissenstat

Federal Government's Growing Banned Words List Is Chilling Act of Censorship Banned words list 2025: The federal government is banning a growing number of words to comply with executive orders from President Trump.

George Carlin, eat your heart out.

The federal government's list of words to be scrubbed is more than seven, and it is growing fast.

pen.org/banned-words...

Federal Government's Growing Banned Words List Is Chilling Act of Censorship Banned words list 2025: The federal government is banning a growing number of words to comply with executive orders from President Trump.

George Carlin, eat your heart out.

The federal government's list of words to be scrubbed is more than seven, and it is growing fast.

pen.org/banned-words...

this is incredible

Yeah I feel like this isn’t appreciated enough as the origin story

Reports of more clashes between SDF and Syrian Government.

@mideast.csis.org's Mona Yacoubian on the Syrian "election," minorities, and relations with neighbors.

"Al Sharaa needs to find way for Syria to be more inclusive."

drive.google.com/file/d/1aU7V...

I see a lot of "what did you expect?!?" posts on bluesky this week regarding the American electorate and Trump.

I'll be honest with you. I study authoritarianism elsewhere and I expected much of this. I did not expect any of it to happen so quickly or for institutions to surrender so abjectly.

US Supreme Court rejects challenge by Turkey's Halkbank to prosecution The Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear another bid by Turkey's state-owned lender Halkbank to avoid fraud, money laundering and conspiracy charges in the United States for allegedly helping Iran evade American economic sanctions.

"The Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear another bid by Turkey's state-owned lender Halkbank, opens new tab to avoid fraud, money laundering and conspiracy charges in the United States for allegedly helping Iran evade American economic sanctions"
www.reuters.com/world/us-sup...

two ferrets are standing next to each other on a table . ALT: two ferrets are standing next to each other on a table .

Maybe, but I don't think that is something to assume. Apparently ferrets do not. Cute though they might be.

Runner's High Hardwired in People—And Dogs The pleasurable sensation known as "runner's high" may have motivated human and canine ancestors to build endurance, a new study says.

Humans and canids are both "persistence hunters," that is, we were designed to chase faster animals over long distances to exhaust them.

We were both designed to be long distance runners.

And we both experience "a runner's high"

www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/ar...

This story is somehow not on either CNN's or the NYTimes' main page...

„Es gibt überall Zeichen der Regime-Ermüdung“: Der Kampf um Erdogans Nachfolge ist ausgebrochen Ein scharf kritisierter Besuch in den USA – und ein Präsident in scheinbar schlechter körperlicher Verfassung. Im Regime von Recep Tayyip Erdogan zeigen sich Risse.

For German speakers, my comments on current rumblings in Turkey over the "succession question"

www.tagesspiegel.de/internationa...

In the end, I use a much rougher rubric: easy runs should feel easy, a 4 or 5 on a scale of 1 - 10. No doubt a trainer would hold me to a tighter frame, but this is the one that doesn't drive me batty.

I've always found these to be too niggling to use in practice. And they don't account for a myriad of additional factors: how hilly? How hot? How much sleep did you get? How hard have you worked out the past few days? Etc.

Also, I want to enjoy my run, not look at my watch

Turkey tops renewed spike in European incarceration rate – DW – 06/06/2024 Europe's prison population rate has grown for the second year in a row. It may mark the end of a decade of declining incarceration, or just a post-COVID rebound.

See also this DW article

www.dw.com/en/turkey-to...

Probation system in Turkey: an analysis of a public policy formation using multiple streams framework Turkey initiated a major reform in its criminal justice system in 2005 and a probation system was officially created. This article analyses the probation policy formation, and development processes...

I took the graph from this 2019 article by Akgul, Akbas, and Kule

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The rise of the "prison industrial complex" in Turkey is quite remarkable. This graph brings us to 2018, but the trend has continued to this day.

Bad news for the EU and Ukraine: Czechia has become the third potential veto player against pro-EU and pro-Ukraine initiatives. More so than ever before.

It’s also another reason to be less optimistic about corruption control and the rule of law in Czechia, the wider region and Europe as a whole.

If politics are going crazy in several European countries one after the other, I think it is time to go past blaming the failures of individual political actors (and there are quite a few, both in the UK and France) to looking at the systemic pressures our political systems are failing to deal with.

Minorities had hoped to break into Syria's new political order in the weekend vote but few succeeded Syria's first parliamentary elections since the ouster of former President Bashar Assad have revealed deep divisions among the country's minority communities.

Minorities had hoped to break into Syria's new political order in the weekend vote but few succeeded

We followed minority candidates from Latakia, Jaramana and Afrin in Syria's parliamentary elections

apnews.com/article/syri...

AK Parti, 2026'yı “Reform Yılı” ilan etti  | Son dakika haberleri Cumhurbaşkanı Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, AK Parti’nin genişletilmiş il başkanları toplantısında yeni yasama yılında daha önce genel çerçevesini paylaştıkları Türkiye Yüzyılı Reform Programı'nı peyderpey ha...

As announced a few months ago, the Turkish parliament is preparing to vote on a new law on municipal powers. The new legislation should enable the central government to exercise even greater control over municipal prerogatives, particularly in terms of budgeting.
m.haberturk.com/ak-parti-202...

Call for Visiting Researchers IstanPol is pleased to announce its Visiting Researcher Program, aimed at supporting the work of young scholars and professionals engaged in research on de

Visiting researcher position for junior scholars at IstanPol

istanpol.org/en/post-call...

GUEST ROOM | Cornell’s Actions Against Professor Cheyfitz Violate Academic Freedom, Faculty Governance and Due Process The Cornell AAUP Committee on Academic Freedom writes against Provost Kavita Bala's non-compliance with a unanimous Faculty Senate decision vindicating Prof. Eric Cheyfitz of alleged discrimination in...

Our academic freedom committee on how Cornell egregiously violated its own rules in discipling Prof Cheyfitz and cancelling his class on Gaza

Every day is a good day to protest the ongoing Gaza genocide, and I don't think every protest needs to mention Hamas's massacre.

However, holding a special mass protest on the 7th Oct anniversary without acknowledgment of Hamas's massacres on that day, is a very different thing.

Dogs and children... when they are joyful, it is a joy without limits

I feel horrified by what the Israeli government is doing in Gaza, which I fully feel meets the legal criteria for genocide. To the extent I feel personally responsible for this genocide, it is much more as an American taxpayer than as a Jew.

YouTube video by Middle East Institute Can Turkey and Israel Find Common Ground in Syria?

Sunday extras:

"Can Turkey and Israel Find Common Ground in Syria?" with Kenneth Pollack, @gonultol.bsky.social and @natansachs.bsky.social . [1/5]

The Cyprus “problems” and the dialogue of the deaf There is not even consensus on what the Cyprus problem is

A good, short read on the Cyprus issue and why it's so hard to bring the sides to talk by @fionamullency.social
sapienta.substack.com/p/the-cyprus...

Personal view:

Unless you prefer a *very* narrow definition, Trumpism can indeed be understood as "fascism." Whether describing it as such is politically valuable is something I am much less confident about.