@karl-jacoby.bsky.social
Professor of History at Columbia University; author of CRIMES AGAINST NATURE, SHADOWS AT DAWN: A BORDERLANDS MASSACRE AND THE VIOLENCE OF HISTORY; and THE STRANGE CAREER OF WILLIAM ELLIS. Working on a new project on the US-Mexico War (1846-1848).
They pulled the plug on this disaster, but I hope they're still sued into bankruptcy as a warning to other companies.
Autistic "flow" or deep immersion can be essential for autistic people's wellbeing. It is not necessarily a sign of 'withdrawal' or escape, but a "rewarding, adaptive way of regulating, coping, and connecting—with others, themselves, and the world."
www.bps.org.uk/research-dig... #autism #autistic
Grateful to the Modern Language Association for making available the documents produced by DOGE when they used ChatGPT to gut humanities grants in the US. You can really see how superficial it all is. www.mla.org/Resources/Ad...
I'm afraid I can't just sit here and say nothing when another law professor gives false testimony to Congress about the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Ilan Wurman has given false testimony to Congress, being fully on notice of the falsity. I do not think this is fairly debatable. 1.
Just to show how stupid this was, a project on Harriet Beecher Stowe's religious writing got flagged as DEI.
Are you a young academic working on climate and feel ready for a move? We are recruiting two Assistant/Associate Professors @granthamicl.bsky.social at Imperial College London @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social (1/6)
Grammarly went further and resurrected a historian who died in January 2026 to serve as an ‘AI’ reviewer/editor. It’s grotesque, the company is enslaving digital ghosts all so they can get a few clicks more.
Not to mention the US acquisition of Puerto Rico!
One might add that Spanish was a language on about a third of what is now US territory before English was.
But I won't pretend to be surprised that the Idiot-in-Chief doesn't know what the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was.
Turns out that trying to explain what he means by DEI without admitting to his racism, misogyny, and homophobia is, um, hard for him.
A win for academic freedom.
Being a professor is a tough job because we have a lot of competing pressures, but remember that we have an obligation to govern ourselves.
www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...
Perhaps Thoreau's most powerful line from CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE: "Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."
"Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure."
blogs.law.columbia.edu/uprising1313...
Arguably the US-Mexico War was even more unpopular, (although of course there was no polling at the time to give us concrete numbers as to public support). But consider that the US-Mexico War was greeted by anti-war petitions to Congress and Thoreau's classic text, CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE.
This is a technical story with stunning strategic implications. It is quite possible the US launched a massive war because Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff lacked the technical expertise to even understand what the Iranians were offering in negotiations. Absolute idiocy.
www.ms.now/news/trump-i...
“Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding.”
-- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, writing about the unfortunate director of the local paper factory
mannerofspeaking.org/2010/05/12/s...
Honestly, I am absolutely disgusted by academics suggesting that AI can do the reading and writing for you. At a certain point, what you're bragging about is fraud. And in a broader sense, what you're contributing to is the erosion of knowledge and the destruction of trust in academic publishing.
And again People Magazine brings the receipts….
How did I not know that you are on Bluesky?
Thanks for the plug, Karl!
For more, see Rosina Lozano's An American Language:
The History of Spanish in the United States
www.ucpress.edu/books/an-ame...
Move Over Colombia—The U.S. Is Now the World’s #2 Spanish-Speaking Nation
wearemitu.com/wearemitu/cu...
Spanish is also "our damn language": the US is home to the second-largest Spanish speaking population in the world (exceeded only by Mexico).
Trump Tells Latin American Leaders 'I'm Not Learning Your Damn Language' at International Summit
people.com/trump-tells-...
Not a Cormac McCarthy fan at all, but his passage is infinitely better than the derivative AI version.
New sign inside all Columbia University apartment buildings
It's stunning how ignorant the DOGE bros were who were sent into agencies. Justin Fox cannot even articulate in his own words what his "present understanding of DEI" is: he can't even formulate a coherent sentence about it. I wouldn't hire him for basic tech support. #NEH
youtu.be/jomaMvItnew?...
Make himself his name?
Wonderful opportunity for Indigenous youth who are writers! Apply today to work with First America; details below.
These poor kids. This family did nothing wrong except believe in the United States.
To clarify this: the context is college sports. Trump is saying that Russia helping Iran target Americans in a war is less important than the pay structure for athletes. (1/3)