Jarita Bavido

Trump makes English official language of US It marks the first time the US has had an official language since the country was founded.

好吧，我要多練習中文能力。自古以來，美國的原住民有自己的語言,例如：奧吉布瓦語，梅诺米尼語，聖語, 等。。。兩百年前，你在威斯康辛州會聽到法語。一百年前，你在威斯康辛州的話一定會聽到德語，俄語，波蘭語, 國語，等。。。現在還是一樣，路上會聽到西班牙語，苗語, 普什圖語，等。。。 這樣想你會發現多種語言的美國就是我們的遺產。
www.bbc.com/news/article...

Thanks to this recommendation, this was my first book read in 2025. It was so worthwhile, especially right now. Go read it!

Doing historical research isn’t just an intellectual enterprise; it’s emotional and embodied.

I legit almost threw up earlier this morning while researching etymology related to the year 1712.

If you’re a historian and/or do archival research, how do you handle the SHOCK of revelation?

1. Twenty-some years ago, as the embers of the intelligent design movement were dying out, a loose band of thinkers known as the New Atheists made a name for themselves by confusing materialist methodology with materialist metaphysics and going on the offensive against all of organized religion.

The biggest superpower in a autocracy are saying the words "no, I won't comply."

We outnumber them. Autocrats require constant effort to maintain control. Forcing them to expend effort to enforce compliance is our asymmetrical advantage.

"A female doctor cuts into a woman’s skin with a scalpel to administer a smallpox vaccination. Both women have nervous expressions. The purple of the patient’s kimono and the green of her kimono sash create a contrast against the spotless interior of the white room, and the traditional arrow feather pattern is arranged in a modern design." (from the Kyocera museum art description)

Vaccinations: a historically good idea

Ōta Chōu 太田聴雨, Smallpox Vaccination 種痘, 1934
(Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art)

Spending my birthday weekend in Chicago, eating good food, going to the Art Institute, and participating in alcohol induced oversharing with three of the most soul nourishing misandrist reprobates I know.

Oh, nice! I go to UWSP and have lived in SP for the past 7 years. I do a lot of local history research that goes beyond the usual narratives. The plan is to have a draft focused on Stevens Point by the end of the year.

My research focuses on the Upper Wisconsin-- Rapids, Stevens Point, Wausau, Merrill, Tomahawk, Rhinelander, and Eagle River. But there was at least some presence at Prairie du Chien, Portage, the Dells, and Necedah for varying lengths of time.

I studied as many things in the humanities as I could and did research with as many professors as my regional uni allowed in 4 years and now I'm graduating in 2025. I don't know where I'm going from here but that's a short version of part of why I'm here now.

The Other Site changed my life. As a fresh escapee of evangelical isolation & anti-intellectualism, I had no idea the breadth of scholarship and community happening. I started doing historical research during COVID, realized I didn't have any analytical frameworks, so went back to school.

Thanks for this thought provoking read. Romans 1 has been wielded as such a bludgeon against queer people, and we can't just pretend it's not there. Your reframing here is so clarifying and important for this moment.

This article hits right at the multivalent intersection of our USian political moment, my evangelical pasts, queer questioning present, and conversations happening in the Ancient Mediterranean art history and Ancient Greek philosophy courses I'm taking this semester.

I've got a kid who loves dinosaurs but I was raised a creationist and don't know a single thing about the actual study of paleontology so I need this book. Also, taphonomy? What a great word!

Taphonomy might be my new favorite concept! My parents took me to the Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose, Texas so I grew up on those narratives. I've since rejected most of that, but I don't have the science clear in my head. I can't wait to hear more! 🦖

As someone with a friend group that’s like 50%+ autistic it’s really fucked up to see people ready to jettison life-saving medicine like vaccines because they get it into their heads that it somehow causes autism. That’s worse than dying?? Is it???

Kitchen Garden The insatiable salt-soil's eaten everything. I pulled out the gnarled roots Of curling vines that grew here once-This humped, dry, scabbed earth Like a hospital patient's lips... A calloused foot rests on a shovel Under a torn sole... Hands run through with heavy fire Like a skull crushed by irons. She, the earth, resisted me With some ancient vengeance, but I With a pickaxe, pickaxe-just like that, like that I will outstubborn your stubbornness!

A Bluesky And frisky peas will raise their frills And trunks of corn rise steeple-high, And a monstrous potbellied pumpkin Will fling out its serpentine braids like a Gorgon. Ah, no snowdrop or crocus smells so of spring As the first cucumber from the garden! In the sun my sharp pick glitters like a fang, Around me earth-clods bob up, crumble, And a sea-breeze runs down my neck And the sweat froze in a thin chill snake And never, never has the pride of possession Burned so with bliss unclouded through me; And away in the valley the almonds were fading And the peaches bloomed in their place.

I find this 1924 poem (inspired by her efforts to sustain her and her lover during a drought and the Russian Civil War in Crimea) to be remarkable & inspiring. And damn fun to translate. buttondown.com/theswordandt...

Photograph of red sporophyte stalks of moss with white lichen

A reminder that strength and determination can grow from the tiniest places. These moss sporophytes are only a few cm tall but colonize rock, build soil, and can launch spores high enough to be picked up by wind circulation.

I'm working on my senior thesis in history on the lives of Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans in the Wisconsin River Valley from 1880-1940. I spent time at the National Archives looking at case files for the Exclusion Act and I'm disappointed at how relevant this topic still is.

black and white photo of Wong Kim Ark, American of Chinese descent. He is looking straight at the camera.

A thread on birthright citizenship I wrote in 2018, that unfortunately remains relevant.

I always thought this was where it was all headed. Abolishing birthright citizenship for the non-white and non-rich. And why I teach on United States v. Wong Kim Ark every semester.

Who was Wong Kim Ark? 1/