Crystal D. Howell, Ph.D.

Pumpkin: A favorite sign of fall, with a bit of shady history Pumpkins are a harvest symbol and part of our nostalgia for a simpler time. But while the word "pumpkin" has been around for centuries, the plant dates back thousands of years.

Pumpkins are a harvest symbol and part of our nostalgia for a simpler time. But while the word "pumpkin" has been around for centuries, the plant dates back thousands of years.

Friends and colleagues, we’re hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Education at Randolph College, a small liberal arts college in Central Virginia. Randolph values high-quality teaching and a commitment to helping students live a life more abundant. 3/3 load, great community. Please share!

Republicans like to claim they aren't actually cutting Medicaid.

Which is an easily disproven lie.

Same.

🤮😳😡🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

At Stake in the Shutdown Fight: Obamacare Prices That Could Rise by Thousands of Dollars Here’s where Affordable Care Act premiums could increase the most.

Why is the government shut down? Elderly West Virginians, Senate Democrats are advocating especially for YOU. (Please note that WV Senators Capito and Justice happily voted to let these subsidies expire, leading to drastically increased premiums for their constituents.)

Why Hospital Policies Matter in States That Ban Abortion Our first-of-its-kind data analysis found that a seismic split emerged in how medical institutions in Texas' two largest metro areas, Houston and Dallas, treated miscarrying patients — and in their ou...

The rate of sepsis in Houston surged 63% after Texas banned abortion.

In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where hospital leaders empowered doctors to intervene before patients’ conditions worsened, it rose 29%.

(Published May)

@drfarls.bsky.social just a heads up—getting extra weird/scammy redirects from the blog this afternoon to this site.

"We are told that AI is inevitable, that we must adapt or be left behind. But universities are not tech companies. Our role is to foster critical thinking, not to follow industry trends uncritically." www.ru.nl/en/research/...

War fighting.

While Stephen Miller claims that Democrats calling him a fascist constitutes incitement, there are hundreds of examples of Miller publicly calling Democrats fascists.

Wheat paste poster that says the all the world is dying and the new world struggles to be born now is the time of monsters. There's a picture of Elmo

Morning walk

National Weather Service at ‘breaking point’ as storm approaches The National Weather Service is struggling to maintain its weather forecasting operations due to significant staffing cuts under the Trump administration.

Those private "weather services"? They all depend on the National Weather Service. Not one can take up the slack.

This is an infuriating and shameful scandal. The Roberts Court is condoning Trump’s law breaking, again, pure and simple. There is no serious path forward for democratic government without Supreme Court reform.

The teacher pay penalty reached a record high in 2024: Three decades of leaving public school teachers behind Over the past three decades, stagnant weekly wages of public school teachers have fallen further and further behind those of college graduates who chose other careers, resulting in an ever increasing ...

In 2024, teachers earned 73 cents for every dollar their similarly educated peers made, on average. A record low.

In 1996, the gap was much smaller: 94 cents to the dollar. We can fix this—by investing in public education.

The full report from @epi.org lays bare the challenge—and the solution.

One of the big asymmetries in US politics is how Republicans getting more votes from men is a major crisis for the Democratic party that must be addressed, perhaps by abandoning some values, while Democrats getting more votes from women is a nonissue for the Republican Party, not worth discussing.

An ICE agent threw a mom to the ground.

You know how she can file a complaint with DHS?

SHE CAN'T. Trump closed that office.

www.propublica.org/article/home...

a close up of a man 's face with long hair Alt: A young Rob Lowe smiles.

The dealership usually plays HGTV for folks waiting on their cars, but today we have St. Elmo’s Fire on the waiting area tv. I don’t know quite what to think about just having watched Rob Lowe hook up with Mare Winningham while surrounded the by the elderly conservatives of Lynchburg.

More men want a return to traditional gender roles than women: No shit.

25,000 people in #CT05 are facing a 62% healthcare premium increase if ACA tax credits expire.
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This will cost an average of $1,735 more per person, per year.

Virginia, the deadline to register to vote is October 24th — just one month away.

There’s no time to waste. Register to vote online or check your status at abigailspanberger.com/vote

Hundreds of Alligator Alcatraz detainees drop off the grid after leaving site As of the end of August, the whereabouts of two-thirds of more than 1,800 men detained at Alligator Alcatraz during the month of July could not be determined by the Miami Herald.

More than 1800 detainees are missing after the closure of Alligator Alcatraz. Their families and lawyers can’t find them and they’ve vanished from the ICE database. Feels like this should be a much bigger story www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

The Man Calling Bullshit on the AI Boom Ed Zitron built a massive following by saying what tech journalists won't: that generative AI is an unsustainable bubble propped up by hype and bad math.

"And the media lined up to say, 'Wow, I guess the metaverse is here... 'Metaverse this, metaverse that.' They burned $45bln, and you know what? Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing happened. Everyone just pretended like it didn't happen at all. We all moved on." www.readtpa.com/p/the-man-ca...

How ICE Raids Are Making It Easier for Civilian Men to Assault Immigrant Women "This phenomenon is only possible because of the outsized power that state agents have always had to abuse and control women and victims' bodies," argues Kylie Cheung.

#OpEd: "We can’t bury the deeper, driving forces behind why this is happening. This phenomenon is only possible because of the outsized power that state agents — ICE, police officers, prison staff — have always had to abuse and control women and victims' bodies." Read the full story here. ⬇️

Be Loud — For America By Governor JB Pritzker

"I have spent the last few weeks addressing and preparing for a military invasion by the President of the United States. No, I’m not a soldier or a foreign adversary. I’m the Governor of Illinois"

Trying out Fable instead of Goodreads to divest from Amazon a bit more. You should follow me!

Marshall president and wife make $50M gift to university to promote eliminating student debt Marshall University says its president, Brad Smith, and his wife, Alys Smith, have made a $50 million gift to the university to promote a program aimed at eliminating student debt.

I generally think millionaire business folks are sus as university presidents, but I give Brad Smith and his spouse credit here. Go Herd!

RFK Jr.-Backed Vaccine Panel Advises Against MMRV Vaccine for Young Children New members of a key committee tweak routine childhood vaccine guidance as some states and insurers go their own way.

RFK Jr. is objectively pro-disease, pro-illness and pro-child death.

A free and democratic society cannot silence comedians because the President doesn’t like what they say.

This is an attack on free speech and cannot be allowed to stand.

All elected officials need to speak up and push back on this undemocratic act.

Let’s be clear about what happened to Jimmy Kimmel Trump’s most brazen attack on free speech yet.

After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.