I'm starting to suspect that my tax dollars are going to munitions I'll never use, either

USA TODAY Opinion@usatodayopinion.usatoday.com · 3d ago

Opinion: Mamdani's idea may sound appealing, but it's NYC taxpayers who will take the hit, subsidizing discounts they may never even use.

AI chip count "expected to double roughly every nine months, putting the world on pace to have about 200 million of the chips by the end of 2028—10 times current levels." www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

The End of Reading Is Here - The Atlantic share.google/e9aR6fSRbSH6...

The End of Reading Is Here

Optimists once believed that universal literacy was inevitable. Now it seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history.

share.google

A few thoughts on Lyndsey Stonebridge's new-ish book, "We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt's Lessons in Love and Disobedience" (2024). www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

lithub.com/a-bookstore-boom-in-a-time-of-literacy-decline/

A Bookstore Boom in a Time of Literacy Decline

I was standing in line at Chaucer’s Books, my local indie, when it occurred to me that the line was longer than usual. This has been happening regularly enough that I’ve stopped being s…

lithub.com

This week on the Sinica Podcast, I speak with historian Andrew Seth Meyer about his wonderful new book "To Rule All Under Heaven: A History of Classical China from Confucius to the First Emperor." Relevance schmelevance. This was a fun convo! 👇

Thought bubble of the year so far from @politicalwire.com

Jamie Ding you will always be famous to me people.com/jeopardy-cha...

New Haven, CT proposes $33 million upgrade to train station while state can't find even $3 million to maintain train service amid other public transit cuts. A great piece on the systemic failure to prioritize anything other than cars, even in densely populated corridors ctmirror.org/2026/04/26/i...

Opinion: In CT, a cathedral for trains... but no trains.

Why are we spending $402 million on station improvements when we can’t find a paltry $3 million to restore some train service on Shore Line East?

ctmirror.org

"Tuesday was different. The president used a threat of genocide not to whip up a rally crowd, not to insult a political opponent, and not to offer colorful commentary on some policy or other. He did it as an act of statecraft."—from @dsallentess.bsky.social therenovator.substack.com/p/trump-prom...

Trump Promised Genocide

Don't look away

therenovator.substack.com

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum under the Trump administration has deleted its teaching materials about links between Nazi racism and the Jim Crow laws: www.politico.com/news/2026/04...

‘Proactively fall in line:’ Holocaust Memorial Museum quietly changed content after Trump returned to office

Two former employees said they believed the museum was altering its content preemptively to avoid unwanted negative attention from the Trump administration.

politico.com

On "cognitive surrender" and the negative effects on thinking caused by leaning on AI too readily—and too uncritically. gizmodo.com/cognitive-su...

‘Cognitive Surrender’ Is a New and Useful Term for How AI Melts Brains

Once you learn this term, you will unfortunately see it everywhere.

gizmodo.com

For all the folk that struggle to articulate exactly what the US “strategy” is for its war - finally someone has articulated it succinctly and accurately. “War crimes”

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 4mo ago

People say Trump has no war strategy, but his strategy is quite clearly a criminal one of destroying Iran's civilian infrastructure (and killing a bunch of people in the process) unless they capitulate. We -- the United States of America -- are a rogue state and global pariah.

Outgoing Mayor Anne Hidalgo championed a car-free agenda, leaving Paris greener, cleaner and better for walking and biking. Take a journey through the city to see how it's changed. Read more: bloom.bg/41n0HIF 📷️: Getty Images

Trump, seated next to Japanese PM: Q: "Why didn't you tell U.S. allies…about the war before attacking Iran?" President Trump: "We wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Why didn't you tell me about Pearl Harbor?" cdn.jwplayer.com/players/oM6U...

The Inflation Reduction Act was $369 billion.

Richard Waite@waiterich.bsky.social · 5mo ago

The new $200 billion request is basically equivalent to the cost for universal free school breakfasts and lunches for all students across the United States for a decade

Wars are extremely hard things to justify. It is intrinsic to what they are that they tend to death, destruction, and misery. Given this and some knowledge of history, one's default attitude towards powerful people purporting to do the world some great benefit by war should be extreme scepticism.

I think about this Tony Benn speech much more than I used to

"The American bombardment of Iran has been launched without explanation, without Congress, without even an attempt to build public support. Above all, it has been launched without a coherent strategy for the Iranian people. . . ." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Trump Has No Plan for the Iranian People

The mere act of bombing Iran will not by itself create a stable regime.

theatlantic.com

“UCLA neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf has shown that deep reading, defined as sustained immersion in a text, builds the cognitive circuits required for critical analysis, empathy and perspective-taking in ways that skimming, scrolling and short-form video simply cannot.”

Sheila O’Flanagan@sheilawriter.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Ireland Reads Day: embrace the silence www.irishtimes.com/opinion/edit...

Nurul Amin Shah Alam crossed oceans to flee unimaginable violence, only to die here — where he should have been safe. The cruelty is endless.

In least surprising finding of 2026, study finds "lying flat," i.e. giving up one's life goals and doing as little as possible leads to lower life satisfaction. (Context is important, since working 70+ hours with no hope of meaningful advancement is also pretty bad.) www.psypost.org/new-research...

New research suggests the "lying flat" lifestyle actively decreases long-term happiness

A recent study of Chinese university students found that adopting a "lying flat" lifestyle—characterized by giving up on competitive efforts and goals—directly causes a measurable decline in a person'...

psypost.org

Our disciplinary hierarchies have flipped, says @foundhistory.bsky.social. “The ’useless’ has become essential, and the ’practical’ has become automated.”

AI Inverts the Disciplinary Hierarchy

Maybe we should be more cautious about defunding fields just because we can't immediately see their application.

foundhistory.org

So maybe let's not colonize Mars? (Or the Moon for that matter.) www.space.com/entertainmen...

Can you really survive on Mars? What science fiction gets wrong about off-world living

Arnie said, "Get your ass to Mars", but is it really a good idea? We asked the experts about our Martian future.

space.com

What do we mean by "discussion"? I compared several models: Harkness, Socratic dialogue, guided inquiry, and direct instruction. Each has descriptions, research-informed perspectives on when they work best, and examples. See full chart here: inquiryproject.org/2026/02/20/w...

Bleak. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

One challenge I find with discussion-based learning is each class inevitably has a handful of students who are less comfortable contributing verbally. The dialectical notebook, (aka, the "silent discussion”) is one way to guide them toward productive engagement. inquiryproject.org/2026/02/17/d...

Rev. Jesse Jackson's "I *am* somebody..." remains one of the all-time great pieces of 20th century rhetoric / agitprop And he could deliver it at a Black separatist meeting, the Democratic National Convention, or on god-blessed Sesame Street (see below 🥹) RIP to the Voice of the Voiceless

Fascinating interview on the demise of Neanderthals english-elpais-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/english....

Ludovic Slimak on Neanderthals: ‘It was suicide. Humans disappear when they no longer want to live because their values ​​have collapsed’

The French paleoanthropologist discusses his book ‘The Last Neanderthal,’ and provides clues about his latest discovery: ‘It’s possible that other, completely unknown human populations existed’

english-elpais-com.cdn.ampproject.org

“Khomeini spent only four months living on the very outskirts of the town, but his stay has thrown a shadow over the entire place especially with what has happened since." www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

‘It still rankles’: the French town living in the shadow of being an ayatollah’s refuge

Annual remembrance in Neauphle-le-Château revives memories of short exile that reshaped Iran, but which locals would rather forget

theguardian.com