ProfBarbaraKerr

I'm loving these pictures of my old neighborhood.

I knew him when he was a nobody seeking adulation from teachers at gifted ed conferences. He showed fMRI's and spoke on the neuroscience of intelligence. Little data, big claims, then as now. What changed is he got into the neoliberal boys club.

Ok, I couldn't stop thinking about this. Apologies to the literally dozens of people I've lifted from... I want to do a fully credited version, but I'm sitting here sobbing and, well, maybe you'll feel some release, too.

The trends this aging history professor observes are no different at public state universities.

He wants a mass movement. He just doesn’t want protesters to have fun, to be creative, to get high, to make love behind some bushes like we hippies did at our protests. He’s so jelly.

With all due respect to Robert Frost, if Hollywood has taught me anything, it's that the 'road less traveled' always leads to a cabin occupied by a family of murderous hillbillies.

Thank you.

Someone told me lately "Bluesky is just like Twitter." I argued that was untrue on the basis that last time I had a Twitter account most times I got a new follower their bio said "single & looking for fun" & here when I get a new follower it tends to say something like "professor of rare moths".

The New Yorker has specialized in articulate, depressed short story protagonists for years. Blame the writers' workshops!

a woman with feathers on her hair is standing in front of a dark background . Alt: Tina Turner with feathers on her hair is standing in front of a dark background .

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome

The concept of women being "morally superior" is a leftover of the feminine mystique. It also ignores the gleeful enthusiasm of women for the Nazi party in Germany.

I only get to see my Icelandic grandchildren a few times a year, but it's our nightly watching of funny animal videos (BBC talking animals are best!) that bonded us. I think that's why Baldur wants to be a scientist.

My hometown radio station, telling it like it is.

Thank you for your work. It is almost too late, but every concentration camp must be challenged.

#StoptheSaveAct

A high proportion of Trump voters have never left their hometown, according to studies of their characteristics. The SAVE act, requiring a passport or birth certificate, may disenfranchise these voters as well as the Democratic voters at which it is aimed.

A deeply satisfying list of hacks, pop scholars, and insufferable bores.

I became a tiny scholar of man's inhumanity to man. Here is what I know about detention camps. Most don't begin as death camps, but as ways of moving lots of unwanted people out of town.Then disease ravages; food supplies can't keep up; mass killing becomes the inevitable solution.

Cover of the book Auschwitz by Miklos Nyizli.

Photo of 9 year old White girl in white blouse and head band looking serious.

I was a precocious reader, finished with children's books by 7 or 8 years old. My parents allowed me to read the books on their bedside shelf, like Adventures in Ideas and Religions of Man. I finished this book before my Dad noticed I had it and said, "No, you aren't old enough." It was too late.

What does it mean? I'm not sure, but I've seen the pattern of thirsty scholars turning to ANY funding source and ANY audience that will give them admiration and buy their books.

I'm old, so I knew three of the more recent named men back when they were young scholars unrecognized in psychology and neuroscience despite actually having some exciting new work. They found recognition and downright adulation in my other field, gifted education, where women greatly outnumber men.

Michael Moorcock Dancers at the End of Time

Trust me, the woman of academia are not at all surprised by the number of academic men orbiting Epstein.

We gotta come up with a better system than “everything rests on whether these twelve billionnaires are nice”

Bit of a Venn diagram overlap of Epstein pals and authors featured on If Books Could Kill! Congratulations, @michaelhobbes.bsky.social, on identifying such a great list of reactionary centrists and public pseudointellectuals!

Mel, thank you. All these years, I just wrote off David Brooks as just another Gen X who observed those of us who had genuine 60's experiences --political transformation, community experiments, mind expanding, and of course, sex after the Pill and before AIDS -- and was full of envy, sick envy.

Thank you.

I read this book in my darkest hour, and the story of the young historian's gentle courage helped my heart to heal.

The racism and sexism in not only appalling -- the discussion sounds like a couple of drunk uncles.

I TAKE THAT BACK. Just found him on Epstein's suggestions to Bannon of, you know, great guys.