I tell students not to take online tests in Wendy's parking lots because of poor Wi-Fi and it's kind of depressing. I guess the emo album "Songs to Listen to in the Wendy's Parking Lot" made that joke real. www.usatoday.com/story/money/...

Wendy's releases new emo album with metalcore, pop punk vocalists

"Songs to Listen to in the Wendy's Parking Lot" released on Sept. 23. Here's how to listen to the fast-food chain's new emo album.

usatoday.com

Teaching Durkheim in Classical Theory and wanted to re-up this...#sociology can be better at teaching theory and theorizing sethabrutyn.com/2026/08/20/t...

The Myths and the Messiness of Durkheim’s Suicide

I’m going to apologize for the length of this essay ahead of time, but it’s wild that in 2026 a serious and smart group of sociologists continue to signal that classical texts written over a centur…

sethabrutyn.com

May I recommend @novumsimulacrum.com's excellent book Risky Cities, which has a whole chapter on sinkholes, especially in CA, as the Natural Disaster You Probably Weren’t Worried Enough About www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/risky-cities...

Risky Cities

Over half the world’s population lives in urban regions, and increasingly disasters are of great concern to city dwellers, policymakers, and builders. Risky Cities is a critical examination of global ...

rutgersuniversitypress.org

Jerad Walker@jeradwalker.bsky.social · 3w ago

of course

Bad Religion's The New America came out 26 years ago. What's old is new again.

Happy Labor Day!

It will be interesting to see how academic writing changes in future. Publishers are licensing content to AI companies. I don't think we can talk about the ethical use of AI in research without also considering what happens to our intellectual property. journals.sagepub.com...

A friend that works there shared this with me. They want to outsource to chatbots. PASSHE also tried to outsource bargaining unit work. I believe that the system will be targeting counselors & other non-classroom faculty during our contract negotiations.

Years ago in a labor-management meeting admin offered to pay for an extra interview if social equity identified a scholar of color that wasn't short listed. In response, a union leader said that if the individual wasn't on the shortlist they might struggle to make tenure. Both sides were wrong.

Higher ed admin relying on consultants is the same as undergrads who rely on AI. It's to avoid doing homework.

I have totally heard the a- word in our system. Taking a shot every time it's used would result in alcohol poisoning www.chronicle.com/ar...

Amtrak to ASA. Love that I don't have to drive or fly, but NYC prices offset savings.

It takes seven forms, three approvals and finally a mistake to happen for me to get a reimbursement for cheese eaten during a business dinner. Meanwhile:

Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social · 2mo ago

An Army National Guard officer has admitted to using his government travel card to fund a secret second marriage

We just watched the Masters of the Universe movie. It was a lot of fun! I hope it gets a sequel with She-Ra. Hollywood is going to have to figure out what to do with these fun movies that sadly won't draw in the theater, but will result in repeat streaming.

Honestly, I think there's a private lending company that is lobbying for this hoping the value of their stocks go up.

Trump's Student Loan Limits Could Reshape The Black Professional Pipeline

New borrowing caps may curb college costs, but high tuition still makes it harder to become a teacher, nurse or doctor.

forbes.com

The section in this article on staff is important to highlight. I get frustrated when fellow faculty forget one reason we are overworked is because of staff reductions.

Higher Education Is Exhausted

Some don’t see a future in a sector battling for its very existence.

chronicle.com

I took part in a STEM workshop for middle school kids today, and talked about sociology and the social sciences. A lot of these students had never thought about or heard of these fields before. Not surprised. What's impactful to me was... 1/4

Last weekend, I attempted French macarons for the first time. Kid expects only the best from her personal chef (me). Now I'm combing online recipes for tips. Also, I need to do something with egg whites after making crème brûlée with the yolks.

Nationally, faculty demographics are going to be like those in Congress soon. I believe you need people in all career stages to have a vibrant intellectual environment. www.nytimes.com/inte... 1/2

The Age Issue: More of Congress Is 70-Plus Than Ever Before (Published 2025)

At the highest level, the U.S. government looks like a gerontocracy, with average ages around 60 in both the House and the Senate.

nytimes.com

Saw variations of this on social media. The NY Posts covers Mamdani the way the Daily Bugle covers Spider-Man.

A list of ongoing horrors in higher education. www.highereddive.com... 1/4

Colorado State University turns to layoffs and other cuts to manage budget hole

Officials at the system’s Fort Collins and Pueblo campuses trimmed millions of dollars from their budgets as the state left higher education funding flat.

highereddive.com

I know we’ve all read 100 articles like this, but I do recommend this one, especially for the series of questions at the end about how universities (not individual instructors) could change our practice. I’d love to discuss those

Opinion | My Students Can’t Read

The generational collapse in literacy is measurable, persistent, and likely to get worse.

chronicle.com

The Darth Maul show was good. Stil it felt like a version of Cal Kestis's story. A few points felt a lot like game story choices on a good way. Still SW needs to figure out what to do post-Skywalker Saga. That has held the franchise back from developing some amazing characters.

A cool AAPI teaching resource: www.foundationsandfu...

This is cool. aflcio.org/2026/5/5/...

Some of the posts about #Canvas seem to miss out on the fact that the LMS market is an oligopoly that is slowly becoming a monopoly. Blackboard went bankrupt last year. This left Canvas and D2L as the two major players. That would be obvious targets for hackers. 1/4

On #Canvas. We're too reliant on systems I wrote about. Private & public institutions will hire risk assessment consultants that will themselves be vulnerable to ChatGPT, Claude, etc. outages. Such is the cycle of reconsuming vomit that we call capitalism.

Universities Are Selling Themselves Off Piece by Piece

American higher ed has become a mesh of corporate contracts and outsourced services. From dining halls to student records, private vendors now run many institutions’ most basic operations — atomizing workers and undermining the university’s public mission.

jacobin.com

I'm not getting a sense from the news and the stock market that this war is going to accelerate the U.S. away from fossil fuels.

Happy #AAPIHM and #MayDay . Kent Wong came out to chat with APALA Philly a few years ago and shared some of the stories in this book. For more on AAPI and labor history: reappropriate.co/201...

I'm going to be 100% honest. Listening to Chris Van Vliet's interviews with wrestlers keeps me thinking about pedagogy. Much like when R-Truth gets a pop from doing John Cena's moves, flashing his "You can't see me" during a color blind racism lecture gets a good response.