Tamara J. Walker

Oh No, What is Jim Acosta Doing? The former CNN host "interviewed" an AI avatar of one of the Parkland shooting victims.

Okay, here's the piece I wrote about all of this. Please check it out, share it, consider subscribing, etc. www.readtpa.com/p/oh-no-what...

We're such an unserious country.

Jeddah Tower: Everything You Need to Know About the Soon-to-Be World’s Tallest Skyscraper When finished, the tower will stand at 3,281 feet tall—nearly 11 times the height of the Statue of Liberty

I'm going to start a series called "How Did Literally No One Ask That Question?" where I point out blind spots in interviews/articles that make me feel insane. Because, how could you hear about this and ask questions about inspo, timelines & occupancy, but nothing at all about worker safety?

All historians know the sinking feeling of tracking an "authoritative" reference back through several generations of writers to an unsourced assertion by someone nobody's ever heard of.

Now AI can make up new ones in no time at all.

👀

That puppy thinks he’s speed dating 😂😂

Opinion | What Hulk Hogan Left Behind

"Mr. Thiel and Mr. Hogan created a playbook for deep-pocketed people to pressure news outlets, by weaponizing the judicial process and threatening them with bankruptcy."

This is a great piece.

book cover photograph of Dan Pelzer in front of the Columbus Metropolitan Library, "What Dan Read 1962-2025"

Dan Pelzer's handwritten book list, first page: 1962

Final page of Dan Pelzer's book list from 2025. Photo of Dan (man in glasses, polo shirt, and holding a bottle of "Danhattan"

“Nobody loved the library more than Dan.”

A meticulous list kept by Dan Pelzer from 1962-2025, cataloging all the books he borrowed and read from the Columbus Metropolitan Library, shared by his daughter.

I could not could not love this more.

Dan's book list (all 109 pages) at what-dan-read.com

Journalism Needs Government Funding to Survive The recent cuts to public media are part of a broader attack on public welfare.

“The decision to defund public broadcasting in rural communities at a time when there are 75 percent fewer local journalists than there were a quarter century ago is clearly insane, if you consider the government to be a thing that should make people smarter, healthier, and happier.“

Robert is from Cleveland. We have a Greyhound station closing and he'll be travelling here when the bus is finished. 🫶

Me and my book projects

Opinion | Students Want the Liberal Arts. Administrators, Not So Much.

"The tragedy of the contemporary academy is that even when traditional liberal learning clearly wins with students and donors, it loses with those in power."
Students Want the Liberal Arts. Administrators, Not So Much. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/o...

What an absolute dumbass

Do people know about this? I was struggling with how expensive Kobo audiobooks are compared to that demon site, which are usually half the price by comparison, but then I found this. I got a price match applied as a credit. ✨The more you know ✨✨

Editorial | The Times has concluded that the Epstein client list does not meet our standards of newsworthy journalism, and thus we will not be covering it. Unless it turns out that Zohran Mamdani is on that list.

For those who don’t know (or forgot) what it’s like, we take a trip down memory lane on our Substack and also ask whether some of that nostalgia is a trap. We’re also curious to know where you land. Is there any part of traveling in the 1990s that you’d like to bring back, or try anew?

Tourist Arrivals to U.S. Drop Again – Now Just 80% of 2019 Levels U.S. overseas tourism remains 20% below 2019 levels; June arrivals fell 3.4% year-over-year amid geopolitical concerns.

The U.S. inbound tourism recovery is stalling, not strengthening. June's roughly 3% year-over-year decline masks the real story: overseas arrivals remain stuck at just 80% of 2019 levels, six years after the pandemic.

skift.com/2025/07/09/t...

It's interesting/terrifying to me that at the same time that AI deepfakes abound in video content, media outlets and social media platforms (like this one!) are diving headlong into sharing information via video content.

This seems relevant to the Digital Blackface @ericastanley.com is unpacking on Code & Conscience

This TikTok video is fake, but every word was taken from a real creator TikTok researchers and users say there is yet another type of deception to look out for on the hit video app: Deepfake videos that copy the exact words of a real creator but in a different voice.

"Many of the videos posted by both accounts depict Black personas that Berkeley's Farid said appear to be "low-quality deepfakes" made with AI."

I could picture their shoulders relaxing after leaving the heat, noise, and chaos of the city behind and stepping into the cool, quiet calm of this other realm. It made me think about the power of retreats and how, even at their most basic, they make it possible to reset and just *think*.

It was SO quiet. Like a white noise app. The only sound came from a stream running through the property (also kids at the pool but alas). Between that and the breezes wafting through the trees, I had a visceral sense of what it was like for the people who came up from NYC to attend the conference.

The 1933 Conference That Helped Forge Civil Rights Unionism Ninety years ago this month, at the Amenia conference co-organized by W. E. B. Du Bois, young black leftists argued for a mass politics aligned with the labor movement. Their radical approach set the ...

Last week I spent an incredibly relaxing and productive 24 hours at Troutbeck, a new hotel at the site of the 1933 Amenia conference. This article does more justice to that history than I can, but one thing that stood out to me was how utterly peaceful it is up there. 🧵

How three young Londoners set out to explore the countries of their parents’ birth – and redefined the travel vlog ‘No resorts, no tourist traps and no fancy restaurants’ – the friends behind the Kids of the Colony YouTube channel go in search of real connections in their countries of origin

“[The name] references children of immigrants from ex-colonies. But when we come together, we can create a colony of our own – like ants – to be a nice and powerful force.”

Haven't read yet and am looking forward to doing so soon 🗃️ @columbiaup.bsky.social

You are cordially invited to our Anti-Prime Sale, where every purchase will financially support bookstores, NOT billionaires 🥳

‘Less Prozac, More Protein’: How Conservatives Are Winning Young Women

You read this and wonder: aren't these the same people who get so worked up about "Sharia Law?" What's so different about their fantasy?

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/23/s...

Freedom Ship by Marcus Rediker

I Have Avenged America by Julia Gaffield

The Painter’s Fire by Zara Anishanslin

Lineage by Karin Wulf

New or forthcoming trade and academic releases by talented early modern/18th-century historians that I look forward to reading this summer.👇 Spread the word! @juliagaffield.bsky.social
@marcusrediker.bsky.social @kawulf.bsky.social

I'm also willing to bet they prioritized granting refugee status to families with young children for precisely this moment and type of messaging.

White South Africans Granted Refugee Status by Trump: What We Know

Has anyone written anything about the Trump administration's ham-fisted use of white children in photo ops and press conferences? Because I would like to read it - this whole form of messaging is getting weird.