Brooke Newman
@brookenewman.bsky.social
Historian, voracious reader, & cocktail 🍸 enthusiast. Upcoming book—THE CROWN’S SILENCE: The Hidden History of the British Monarchy & Slavery (Mariner, Jan. 2026). Link: https://tinyurl.com/5erj7z6x All views, my own. Website: www.brookennewman.com
I’d like to donate my body or turn into compost. “Maryland’s 37,000-square-foot facility will service the whole entire East Coast. Inside, there are 126 slowly rotating vessels that look like submarine missile tubes. They hold human remains as they decompose into soil.” www.wypr.org/wypr-news/20...
Maryland is now the nation’s capital of human composting
The Elkridge facility can compost 126 people at once.
wypr.org
It’s a rainy evening and I’m recovering from a virus. This refreshing paper plane riff is delightful. 🍸 Little Wing 3/4 oz bourbon 3/4 oz elderflower liqueur 3/4 oz Aperol 3/4 oz fresh lemon juice Shake with ice & strain (garnish w/cucumber if you have it)
"It’s as if we launched a war against nature, and that has turned place after place into something that resembles a war zone," writes @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social. "The climate movement is a peace movement, a movement to end this war and its casualties."
We launched a war on nature. Now we are in a climate warzone | Rebecca Solnit
Summer is not what it once was. We have been robbed of one of life’s great joys
theguardian.com
…”the US is an unpredictable instrument of global disorder.” In Iran, the U.S. Appears Headed for a Strategic Defeat, Allies Fear www.nytimes.com/2026/08/01/w...
In Iran, the U.S. Appears Headed for a Strategic Defeat, Allies Fear (Gift Article)
With none of President Trump’s aims accomplished and the Strait of Hormuz closed, U.S. allies see dysfunction and vulnerability from the war.
nytimes.com
This story is wild for multiple reasons, including its implications for all writers (show your work! prove you’re human! have evidence!) and the fact that publishers are only pulling the plug on suspected AI texts b/c writing generated by AI can’t be copyrighted. 💰 futurism.com/artificial-i...
Major Publisher Cans $2.4 Million Book Deal After Author Was Accused of Using AI, for a Very Cynical Reason
A major book publisher has walked away from a $2.4 million deal for an unpublished debut novel after the author was accused of using AI.
futurism.com
People want to “write” but not read (or write). “Almost everyone I know says they want to write a book…Because romance sells, [we] thought it would be the genre most susceptible to A.I. intervention, but instead it was nonfiction —a term used loosely in this context.” www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/t...
I Got Slopped (Gift Article)
Someone used A.I. to write my biography. Thousands more of those books are polluting Amazon. Who is behind all this drivel?
nytimes.com
When I worked in WaPo Opinions in 2017-2018, senior editors specifically told junior editors not to factcheck Marc Thiessen and other MAGA columnists, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to publish anything by them at all, and “we need them for intellectual diversity.”
John Carl Baker@johncarlbaker.bsky.social · 9mo agoIt’s very telling that opening your publication to MAGA “thought” requires a massive downgrade in quality control.
Adding to my holiday wishlist.
Princeton University Press@princetonupress.bsky.social · 2w agoListen: Distinguished historian and author A. G. Hopkins speaks with @tkingston.bsky.social for @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social about his latest book, The Land Where Nothing Works: How Britain Lost the Plot. newbooksnetwork.com/the-land-whe... #History #Economics
Pre-Odyssey cocktail 🍹. Whatever Nolan does, I’m sure to enjoy it.
Oh how the cultists used to cheer at his campaign rallies when he said this.
AI making everything “better,” volume 8 gazillion
Eldercare is hard work, severely underpaid that was already understaffed. Since Medicaid is "the primary payer" of this work, it's unlikely there will be a huge increase in wages to attract non-immigrant workers. Are Americans prepared to quit their jobs to take care of their elders? Many have.
How Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Is Hurting Elder Care (Gift Article)
Retirement communities already grappling with labor shortages are being forced to terminate caregivers at a time when more Americans are living longer.
nytimes.com
So DUMB 😡… The U.S. Is Pulling Back on Energy Efficiency Just as Prices Are Rising www.nytimes.com/2026/07/21/c...
The U.S. Is Pulling Back on Energy Efficiency (Gift Article)
The Trump administration is undoing fuel-saving efforts even as war in Iran, data centers and heat waves are pushing up gasoline and electricity costs.
nytimes.com
This drops Thursday & I’m ready.🎧 “Two Aussie lesbian lovers touch down in 1990s London & become the toast of British high society. They charm rich businessmen, England’s horse-loving elite, & even Queen Elizabeth herself. But the glamorous duo are concealing a dark past & dastardly intentions...”
Mark your calendars for the Women's World Cup in Brazil. June 24 to July 25 www.olympics.com/pt/noticias/...
Copa do Mundo Feminina 2027: ingressos, datas e onde assistir
Mundial feminino chega à 10ª edição e será disputado pela primeira vez na América do Sul. Confira tudo sobre o torneio
olympics.com
Local plumbers two steps ahead of every university administrator in america 👏
Metin Seven (Moon Child's dad 🌝)@seven.eurosky.social · 2w ago
Catherine O'Hara as Moira Rose Says 'Indeed'
Alt: Catherine O'Hara as Moira Rose Says 'Indeed'
static.klipy.com
Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa@benjaminschultzfig.bsky.social · last yr.My prediction for how this will play out: Most colleges will doubledown on AI even as employers realize their graduates know next to nothing. Elite colleges will market themselves as being non-AI. Not using AI will be a bespoke luxury commodity that's highly sought after.
“… the people of the Caribbean would be looking to see if their king was going to advance the conversation about ‘sovereignty, decolonisation and reparatory justice for these crimes that have been committed.’” www.theguardian.com/news/2026/ju...
Caribbean calls for return of British Virgin Islands – and for King Charles to back decolonisation
At London briefing, Caricom Reparations Commission decries fact region remains ‘most colonised part of world’
theguardian.com
An interactive atlas of the British Empire's civil service: ~16,000 Colonial & India Office careers (1820–1966), every move an arc across the map. Rebuilt from the digitized Indian and Colonial Office Lists with a knowledge graph. WIP, feedback welcome: jimclifford.ca/col_matching/
Are you unable to attend the tonight's (6:15pm) SHEAR Presidential Address? Well, President Carolyn Eastman’s address on “What They Talked About When They Talked About Demagogues in the Early American Republic,” will be livestreamed to our YouTube channel. Link here: www.youtube.com/live/0izEG4S...
SHEAR 2026 Presidential Address
YouTube video by SHEAR
youtube.com
More on the Greenidge saga: “From Tufts, Boston got missed deadlines & increasingly vague explanations about when the reparations report [led by Greenidge] would be complete…the task force will move forward w/the work it does have in hand, even if this is not the full report envisioned.” 👇🔗
Megan Lee@meganlee.bsky.social · 3w agoSee if this works. archive.ph/0G6ll
This saga is unfortunately still unfolding, now impacting the city of Boston’s reparations report. Article is behind a paywall. Anyone want to share a gift link with BlueSky peeps? www.bostonglobe.com/2026/07/17/m...
Boston’s reparations project has hit an unexpected snag. That doesn’t make reckoning with our past any less urgent. - The Boston Globe
The state of the city’s long-awaited report on Boston’s racial history has been a long-simmering mystery in City Hall for months.
bostonglobe.com
Not sponsored by Purina 😂 (but maybe this is Lily’s audition!)
