using angelou's likeness in this way is obscene and reckless and exactly on brand for this model, which is a problem for everyone in secondary and higher ed from harvard on down

Matt Seybold@mattseybold.bsky.social · 2d ago

I’m publishing something tomorrow about Alpha School. One of the things I focus on is how it is an incubator for EdTech platforms with the ambition to hyperscale. Alpha may only have a few hundred students nationwide, but its founders are developing MANY extractive EdTech brands. This is one:

Surely one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century. A prolific, important songwriter with a voice that could make you cry and a wit that could make you gasp. The King. www.theguardian.com/music/2026/s...

Mighty Sparrow, the Trinidad and Tobago singer known as the ‘calypso king of the world’, dies aged 91

Slinger Francisco, who performed as the Mighty Sparrow, died on Sunday surrounded by family in New York

theguardian.com

bell hooks:

Jacob Romanow@jakeromanow.bsky.social · 5d ago

Much more accurate, and furthermore helpful in that the unwieldiness forces analysis of both processes and often-misleading metaphors that are otherwise easy to naturalize

Newsom has vetoed a bill that would have prohibited future governors from handing over abortion providers, helpers, and patients to red states for criminal prosecution. The bill also barred extraditions involving transgender care.

Newsom vetoes bill that would ban extraditions for abortion and gender-affirming care

California’s pro-repro rights governor rejects a key protection that 18 blue states have enshrined into law.

motherjones.com

"I am used to dealing with the dead." Read Sarah Tindal Kareem's essay, "Vita Nova," in the Summer 2026 issue of Ploughshares: https://pshares.org/issue-article/vita-nova/

my love and respect for Larry David grows all the time pagesix.com/2026/09/22/h...

The State AGs were on pace to kill the Paramount/Warner Bros by litigation and delay until Gavin Newsom stepped in and turned the tide. Now the Trump loyalist Ellisons will control CNN and HBO. Don't ever, ever forget that Newsom stabbed us in the back www.wsj.com/business/med...

Exclusive | Newsom Expresses Concerns About State Antitrust Suit Against Paramount

The California governor has told people involved in the suit that blocking the $81 billion deal could harm Hollywood jobs.

wsj.com

Give us a Bass Persuades/Come On Fhqwhgads mashup, cowards

I think Donald Trump is letting the Eritrean government get away with the Tigray genocide in exchange for them fighting the Houthis for control of the Red Sea www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

US lifts sanctions targeting Eritrea's ruling party and the military

The United States has lifted sanctions against Eritrea’s ruling party and military, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury

washingtonpost.com

Everyone knows you shouldn't represent yourself in court; humanists defending the humanities is bad for the humanities and bad for the defense of the humanities and that is why they want us to do it (not to say we never should—but we should get real about why we're being asked).

Great thread altogether, but this is the point I keep returning to over the last four years. The rest of us are in many ways along for the ride of the tech sector attempting to enforce labor discipline on a highly trained workforce w a tool that potentially is increasing their leverage.

Soren Spicknall@sorenspicknall.bsky.social · 2w ago

Then it dissipated. Public perception of shiny tech companies shifted as scandals broke, movies got made, and unions busted. A glut of new coders on the market combined with the pandemic and the end "free money" to de-elite-ify tech work. Even privileged tech workers experienced labor discipline.

Godspeed Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys. A true pioneer.

Fun fact: in our polling of battleground states, about 60% of voters said it is a “top” or “high” priority for Congress to investigate and hold Musk accountable. Lean into it Dems. He’s a cartoon villain - treat him like one.

Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 3w ago

Musk is already underwater in polls and if Democrats lean in they can make him even more toxic. He's declared open war on you all and is pushing a toxic, destructive, racist agenda. Maybe it's time to push back? I don't know, I'm just spitballing here.

The hype machine loves asking about how tech alters our understanding of self (and of course it does, as ever) but chronically avoids asking how tech alters our understanding of (human) others—that is instructive

People don’t want to hear diseases just happen. It scares them to death. They need it to be because of malign actors or because they didn’t take the right thing. The fact that it could happen to anyone, anytime, just because is terrifying because you can’t control it. Whether autism/covid it’s fear.

It's like a parody, but it's deadly serious; the Commerce Department (which includes Census, NOAA, and others) has outright deleted "don't alter or suppress scientific findings for political reasons" from its scientific integrity rules. Seriously.

Hansi Lo Wang (he/him)@hansilowang.bsky.social · 4w ago

SCOOP: After the Census Bureau issued a highly unusual report tied to a President Trump-aligned think tank, the bureau’s parent agency, the Commerce Department, cut language banning political interference from its scientific integrity policy, @npr.org has learned www.npr.org/2026/08/31/n...

American Left discard of your consumerist worldview of politics challenge (impossible)

Ned Resnikoff@resnikoff.bsky.social · last mo.

Regarding DSA-LA's non-endorsement of Nithya Raman, I think a lot of people on the left don't get that the way you gain clout with politicians is by proving yourself useful to them, not by threatening to withhold hypothetical future usefulness.

Genuinely abundant, cheap, accessible energy has vastly more liberatory potential than AI, for vastly more people -- especially more poor people. Which, I guess, is your answer.

mtsw@mtsw.bsky.social · last mo.

Have you seen any reporting on how solar power generation in the USA is 5 times higher than it was in 2020 in mainstream outlets? If not, why do you think this is not being widely covered the same way other large technological changes are?

Grammarly-mur

Daniel Bellingradt@dbellingradt.bsky.social · last mo.

Humans were writing, monkeys were proof reading. Those were the days... #skystorians

Actually, NO reading "counts." Counts for what? For whom? Are we competing to get a pizza party? Do you count how many times a year you go swimming or drink a cup of coffee? Thinking and feeling are not side hustles

The ag lobby really, really, really, really, really, really, really wants you to think AI is the reason reservoirs are going empty. It's not. It's agriculture.

Kent Lind@camasonian.bsky.social · last mo.

We have data on this. The blue is all the non-ag human use:

Jedermann! Biedermann!

G. Willow Wilson@gwillow.me · last mo.

These AI detection programs are starting to look an awful lot like fire extinguishers sold by arsonists

Obviously the V-word has been the headline here, but I love Jake’s piece for the way it demonstrates the illuminating power of distinctly *literary* expertise.

Jacob Romanow@jakeromanow.bsky.social · 2mo ago

My article "Provincializing Victorian Studies" is out in the latest PMLA. It's many years in the making—thanks for reading. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

yeah man "woke 1" sucked ass. I "woke 1" morning from uneasy dreams to find myself transformed into a giant insect

Between this and the Clinton comments on El-Sayed, I'm starting to think that the Bluesky obsession with misleading headlines (and I'm guilty of that too) is actually a reaction to Bluesky people being incredibly credulous headline readers

Michael Hobbes@michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Insane that AOC is being quoted as saying "Woke 1 was crazy" when this is what she actually said. youtu.be/SFwAnMLBSOw?...

Imagine thinking in 2026 that negativity makes you unable to foster public engagement

scyll issue

Giovanni Colantonio@marioprime.bsky.social · 2mo ago

the odyssey is a realistic depiction of what it’s like when you’re trying to get home to your girl at 2 am on the mta. it’s always some shit

I wrote about this a few years ago for New Chaucer Studies: Pedagogy and Profession, particularly the paradox of the increasing demand for specialization on the job market vs the generalist reality most of us teach within: escholarship.org/uc/item/7gn2...

Sheila Liming@seeshespeak.bsky.social · 2mo ago

It’s syllabus prep season, and I’m thinking about what a privilege and benefit it must be for those academics who get to directly tie their teaching / syllabi to their research / writing. 1/5