Cedar Riener

I hate it when people kill other people and that’s why I’m a firm believer in understanding and confronting the seeds of violence so that people stop planting them

We can only move forward into a better future if we are willing to have an honest confrontation with the past

I just saw someone use the abbreviation “AI;DR” and I’ll be laughing for a while.

this is so hard to remember online, which is wild because the ratio is still in favor of non assholes - but 2 out of 100 would still be orders of magnitude more assholes online than in person, which is a difference difficult for our brains not to pick up on

Why This Essay Could Cause the University of Virginia to Shut Down How Linda McMahon’s latest “compact” would do deep and permanent harm to American higher education

I wrote about the “compact” for higher education

newrepublic.com/article/2013...

Letter Regarding Compact MIT Chapter of the American Association of University Professors October 6, 2025 Statement on the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” MIT has been invited by the federal governmen...

I am proud of MIT, where our branch of AAUP has voted unanimously to endorse this statement urging MIT leadership and the MIT Corporation to reject the Compact wholesale
docs.google.com/document/d/1...

How the national guard call-ups are screwing students who joined in hopes of.l being able to afford college.

A fascinating read.

I'd like to see more of "this person, who previously lied about this, was shown to be lying about that too". If the shame of lying following people for longer than a day, it might discourage it in the first place

Claim: 10 cars rammed ICE
Truth: No cars rammed ICE

Claim: She boxed ICE in
Truth: ICE boxed her in

Claim: She shot a rifle at ICE
Truth: She did not have a rifle

Claim: ICE returned fire
Truth: Only ICE fired

Claim: She drove herself to the hospital
Truth: Paramedics found her

This is true for students too. Yes there are many factors impacting student reading, but working 30+ hours a week to be able to afford college is definitely one of them.

I really do appreciate Taiwo repeating the simple drumbeat of "lying is bad and we should be better at discouraging it" - sometimes it is just that.

when I was in college contending with Bari Weiss’s astroturfed witch hunt turning my classes and my department upside down so she could make a name for herself, it simply never occurred to me that it would WORK and I would have to spend the rest of my life hearing her name

I'm genuinely starting to think that the people who say they want to see American's really fight back are really saying they want a specific kind of visible, stereotypical depiction of protest, and have zero zero tolerance for the kind of groundwork it takes to make change happen.

For my #psych profs, update to add to your availability heuristic slides

People really have no idea how violent, cruel, and intentionally torturous American jails and prisons are.

And most people in American jails have never been convicted of a crime.

Setting aside the philosophical questions about the relationship between higher ed and democracy, accepting this compact is to accept lies about the history of higher education. I wrote a whole book about it. adamhsays.substack.com/p/a-raw-new-...

Some good advice in here but one critical piece I always give is this:

Get a hobby. Preferably a mildly social one. One that has NOTHING TO DO WITH SCIENCE. NOTHING.

You need friends. Not colleagues. FRIENDS. Friends who will love you no matter your research prospects...

During the 2025 Southern Hemisphere flu season, vaccination reduced influenza-associated outpatient visits by 50.4% and hospitalizations by 49.7%.

CDC recommends flu vaccination for everyone ≥6 months.

I'm seeing this too. My sense is that one source of strain is that everyone wants to be part of a functioning community right now (and no wonder), but a lot of us are bad at it, out of practice, disagree vehemently with current direction, etc.

Ok but I get 100% of my Isaac Chotiner jokes on BlueSky.

I am also very suspicious of the concept of "firing the racism neuron" or any variation of it

I think lots of folks would benefit from reading the history of the civil rights movement, which targeted America’s home-grown fascist movement. Resistance was constant, even amidst the terroristic threat of lynching. People push back against oppression in big and small ways.

We are living under an aspiring fascist regime that has not yet fully consolidated. This is not difficult to understand unless you get paid to muddy the waters.

This morning, an attack carried out by Israeli forces killed Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) staff member, Omar Hayek, and seriously injured four others. The attack took place on a street where our teams were waiting to take a bus to the MSF field hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza. All staff were wearing MSF vests, clearly identifying them as medical humanitarian workers. We express deep sorrow and outrage over the killing, which occurs less than two weeks after another MSF colleague, Hussein Alnajjar, was killed by the Israeli forces, in Deir Al Balah. Our thoughts are with Omar’s family and colleagues at this tragic time. Omar, 42 years old, is the fourteenth MSF colleague to be killed in Gaza since 7 October 2023.

MSF staff are universally understood to be engaged in an essentially sacred form of work. For a state to nonetheless continuously murder them is a testament to a truly unthinkable degree of depravity.

msf.org/msf-denounce...

Just talking about this recently given our state’s current shenanigans. I sincerely believe that this happened because of the business influencer consulting industry. Whole guide books out there about getting appointed to a university board to build your brand.

Also, while the compact promises punishment for those who refuse to sign, isn't it also promising favoritism for those who do sign? Isn't that equally sinister to those who have not even been asked to sign? A gold Trump card for a thumb on the scale for federal grants?

this is also white nationalist framing straight from the Jim Crow era, as if Joy Reid citizenship is a gift from Vance, whose belonging is of course unquestioned

it’s what @profkori.bsky.social would call “know your place aggression”

Universities teaching literature students how to cope with long novels Critics blame GCSE English for deterring teenagers from the subject, describing the literature syllabus as boring and repetitive

I think we’re really going to have to do a lot more of this. A massive deprogramming so that people can read more than ten words at a time without anxiety.

www.thetimes.com/uk/education...?

Also fits with trend in approach to philanthropy, don't build libraries, must show results. Gates led way on that, esp school reform. Old bargain of "give a building, get status" gives way to "gotta fix this, oversight over wasteful spending" +coincides w austerity brought on by state disinvestment

Arkansas man seeks to have visa status restored after being arrested for ‘Opium’ perfume bottle Police thought bottle contained drugs and arrested Kapil Raghu, who was then taken into custody by Ice

I'm still just baffled at the sheer stupidity here.

“You got a vial of opium that was in your center console,” an officer told Raghu. “Go and take a seat.”

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...