Meredith Farkas

Confessions of a Luddite teacher: a case for edtech pessimism - LSE Higher Education Swimming against the tide in a higher education environment replete with learning technology, Anna Lukina has adopted an unconventional approach in her classroom I shall preface my post by saying that...

“Instead of reflecting on what will boost both attainment and interest, educators are often pushed to tick the boxes necessary to signal reward-worthy performance. Using technology while teaching is one such metric as teachers feel that they must show that they are keeping up with the times.“

"Our librarians and instructors have integrated AI-generated quiz tools, citation assistance bots, and plagiarism detection systems into their instruction."

Based on 2 years of testing gen AI tools for research purposes as they are released and updated, I can say with reasonable confidence: lol.

Vinay Prasad departs the FDA Vinay Prasad, a top FDA official, is out after less than 3 months on the job.

Good news for Vinay Prasad haters www.statnews.com/2025/07/29/v...

That's horrible. I'm so sorry Violet.

55. Able-bodied workers aren’t separate—they’re just temporarily spared. The line between ‘us’ and ‘them’ is thin, shifting, and often crossed without warning. Solidarity means recognizing your future is bound up in ours.

Late to this, but still have lots of thoughts so let’s go: one like = one point on the political economy of disability and chronic illness. Consider this my belated ADA anniversary offering :)

Does Health Insurance Make You Fat? Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

When I post about NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya believing that health insurance causes obesity, a lot of people are justifiably dubious. So here’s the paper he published on the topic.

It was not peer-reviewed.

www.nber.org/papers/w15163

ALA’s Closed-Door Dilemma: When Governance Reform Conflicts with Organizational Values The American Library Association (ALA) finds itself at a crossroads that epitomizes a fundamental tension in nonprofit governance: the balance between operational efficiency and organizational tran…

"Librarians regularly advocate for government transparency" ... "champion the public’s right to know. When ALA adopts the very practices its members oppose in other contexts, it undermines the moral authority of the profession’s advocacy efforts."

trevordawes.wordpress.com/2025/07/19/a... .

The #1 way to explain America working properly is by saying “comedians can make fun of he President on TV.” A good way to explain fascism is “the President forces companies to fire those comedians as a condition of allowing them to conduct business.”

Op-Ed: Katie Wilson is the Zohran Mamdani of Seattle » The Urbanist # Progressive mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s victory in Tuesday's Democratic primary is a watershed moment for New York City, and Seattle is on the cusp of its own watershed moment with the opport...

Seattle has its own Zohran v Cuomo mayoral race going on: A young charismatic upstart who actually wants to make the city cooler vs an establishment dinosaur who once pulled a gun on a pregnant woman in a road rage incident.
www.theurbanist.org/2025/06/29/o...

My entire career as a librarian has had the drumbeat of “innovate or die” in the background. But innovation has largely been whatever the tech hype cycle has been pushing, rather than anything library workers have developed for ourselves.

Opinion | I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.

I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/o...

RAG-TIME DESTROYING NATIONAL CULTURE ATTACKS "RAG TIME" WRITING AND SPEAKING Americans Lowering Culture to the Vulgarity of the Slums and Great White Ways --Oklahoma Weekly World, 4 Dec 1913

the real problem: RAGTIME

and also racism

I'm glad I read this today. It gave me the words and framing to better organize my own thoughts and emotions toward machine learning/"AI". It is also one of the most ethically admirable pieces I've read in a good while.

I think maybe three of the over 20 kids on my caseload at the time were still eligible for services when all was said and done, and it's not like the others didn't have significant needs that were now going to be completely unmet.

Awful. 23 yrs ago, I was a psychotherapist working in a school-based program for kids (4-17) with mental health diagnoses when nearly all of the kids I worked with suddenly became ineligible for our services due changes to Medicaid made by the State of Florida. It was beyond heartbreaking.

My love, I was so wrong. Dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body, I did not go away. That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere, but a portal to here. I am more here than I ever was before. I am more with you than I ever could have imagined. So close you look past me when wondering where I am. It’s Ok. I know that to be human is to be farsighted. But feel me now, walking the chambers of your heart, pressing my palms to the soft walls of your living. Why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive? Ask me the altitude of heaven, and I will answer, “How tall are you?” In my back pocket is a love note with every word you wish you’d said. At night I sit ecstatic at the loom weaving forgiveness into our worldly regrets. All day I listen to the radio of your memories. Yes, I know every secret you thought too dark to tell me, and love you more for everything you feared might make me love you less. When you cry I guide your tears toward the garden of kisses I once planted on your cheek, so you know they are all perennials. Forgive me, for not being able to weep with you. One day you will understand. One day you will know why I read the poetry of your grief to those waiting to be born, and they are all the more excited. There is nothing I want for now that we are so close I open the curtain of your eyelids with my own smile every morning. I wish you could see the beauty your spirit is right now making of your pain, your deep seated fears playing musical chairs, laughing about how real they are not. My love, I want to sing it through the rafters of your bones, Dying is the opposite of leaving. I want to echo it through the corridor of your temples, I am more with you than I ever was before. Do you understand? It was me who beckoned the stranger who caught you in her arms when you forgot not to order for two at the coffee shop. It was me who was up all night gathering sunflowers into your chest the last…

Baruch Dayan HaEmet.

May their memory be a blessing for love.

A revolution for presence.

An insurrection for compassion, for caring, for showing up.

😭

I never see this in reverse. Like I've talked to individuals still healing from family that cruelly threw them away for who they love or don't worship but I never see conservatives opining about a responsibility to love & accept their LGBTQ family. Or to stop terrorizing them.

“CONFUSION”

'Murderbot's David Dastmalchian Explains Gurathin's Shocking Finale Decision: "He Is Willing To Risk His Own Life" Murderbot's David Dastmalchian discusses Gurathin's shocking finale decision, wearing his trademark black nail polish for the character, and more.

The #Murderbot finale interviews continue — I spoke with the absolutely marvelous David Dastmalchian about Gurathin’s dangerous decision, his character’s addiction struggle, falling head-over-heels for Noma Dumezweni onscreen, and more:

Pregnancy is a minefield when you're disabled Few OB-GYNs get disability training—and their disabled patients are far likelier to die.

Disabled people are 11 times more likely to die during labor/in the postpartum period than non-disabled people. Better education and smashing ableism is how we get out of this horrible stat.

For the past year, I’ve been looking into the topic of disability and pregnancy for @motherjones.com 🧵

“.. traffic has dropped by only a single percentage point as a result of leaving Twitter ..”

@niemanreports.org #Hellsite
niemanreports.org/npr-twitter-...

There is no ethical AI. The tech is based on stolen intellectual property, anti-solidarity between workers, labor exploitation, environmental injustice, climate destabilization, structural racism, and gender inequalities.

Maps being notoriously apolitical 😬

We’ve all wanted a one-stop-shop of an article summarizing why AI is bad to give to people in our lives who simply are unaware without sending them on a journey of 5 separate articles, this is it. Give them this.

Is the New York Times trying to wreck Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral bid? | Margaret Sullivan With their made-up scandal, combined with the pre-election editorial, the Times looks like it’s on a crusade against Mamdani

The NYT was better when it had any public editor, and arguably at its best when Margaret Sullivan was that public editor. A takedown as withering as it is plainly stated www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Microscopic image of stained tissue with red and purple clusters resembling fragmented microclots. Above the image is a bold turquoise headline: “EXERCISE FRAGMENTS MICROCLOTS.” Below, a navy-blue text box explains that exercise in Long COVID causes microclot fragmentation and inflammation, highlighting potential harm and the need to rethink rehabilitation. The Long Covid Advocacy logo appears at the bottom, alongside the study citation: Thomas et al. 2025, Research Square.

🧪 Important study that reinforces the need to reassess the recommendation of exercise-based rehab for #LongCovid as it:

⬇️ Blood flow
⬇️ Oxygen uptake/transport
⬆️ Inflammation
⬆️ Vascular injury

👉 Need to develop targeted treatments before rehab

🖇️ tinyurl.com/2zs5796x

Universities should be the places rapidly raising the alarm about AI, not adopting it