Big Bend holds a special place for me: it was the first National Park my wife and I visited together when we were dating, a big road trip we’d planned during spring break one year. This is heartbreaking.

The Bulldozers Have Arrived in Big Bend National Park

Contractors are grading roads and surveying the Rio Grande corridor even as lawmakers, outfitters, and residents plead for basic answers about a $1.7 billion border barrier project

ourpubliclandsandwaters.substack.com

One of the things I don’t think some get about the Wilson critiques of The Odyssey is that one of the only and best ways academics can make our work and expertise relevant and available to the public is to pick a hot topic or newsworthy story and use it as an entry point to that expertise/research

I know we shouldn't stan politicians. But here's the thing: when the pandemic started, I was still in legal aid. I was talking with hundreds of people whose landlords were threatening to evict them illegally because they couldn't pay rent, and courts being closed limited our options.

To the extent that the Israeli left continues to emphasize security and demographics they reproduce the colonial mindset that is at the heart of the conflict.

Academics for Peace@academicsforpeace.bsky.social · yesterday

Is the Israeli Left serious about peace? Samah Watad (Journalist) breaks down why many self-described Zionist left-wing peace efforts avoid confronting the political structures she argues sustain inequality and violence. youtube.com/shorts/wrXUx...

Gotta say this is pretty adorable.

The Dodo@the-dodo.bsky.social · 5d ago

"I felt that she thought it was fun." www.thedodo.com/daily-dodo/c...

“Neighbours tell me that people are still coming to our house in black vehicles. The UP Police are also still visiting our house. My daughter and I have shifted to another location. She studies in Class 10, and I used to teach students. I don’t know what our future holds now.”

‘Stop hounding us’: Mother of 15-year-old who abused PM says driven out of home

The 15-year-old allegedly made remarks against PM Narendra Modi during the Cockroach Janta Party protest at Jantar Mantar. Her mother said they left their Noida home owing to constant harassment.

indianexpress.com

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas.bsky.social · 3d ago

Big strong Prime Minister of the most virile and glorious superpower India sending cops and rapist mobs and his regime's Goebbelsian media after a child for abusing him.

I have, with my own eyes, watched my tax dollars in the form of missiles as they hit buildings inhabited by civilians. I'd much prefer subsidizing a grocery story I don't use.

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.

Amusing that I've caught a bunch of blocks from people apparently offended that I pointed out that Maoism doesn't mean "everything that Mao did" but is rather a specific body of revolutionary political theory. It's also pretty funny calling Hasan Piker a Maoist just because he praised Mao. Ah well.

The US has a long history of creating remote concentration camps and outsourcing torture. From the Philippines' "zones of protection" to Vietnam's "strategic hamlets" to Operation Condor to GWOT black sites to CECOT, an unbroken line of imperialist control exercised through remote terror.

Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH@gavinyamey.bsky.social · 4d ago

The government is kidnapping people, putting them in concentration camps, torturing them, & trafficking them out of the country This man came to the US aged 4 years old, he grew up in Phoenix, he’s now locked up in Equatorial Guinea These are astonishingly cruel & extreme human rights violations

I'm sure you'll be surprised to know that this transphobe is also Islamophobic.

What I hate about COVID downplayers is… you won okay. In the aftermath of humanity coming together to develop the most crucial vaccines of our lifetime & collectively sacrificing to save lives, we are now less safe, less vaccinated & less empathetic than ever. You won ok. Lay down your swords.

"Colonial powers imagined a world with no borders they were bound to respect beyond those that other colonial powers could enforce ... Nations like the Tohono O'odham, whose land was sliced through by the U.S. border, had and have no power to keep out the forces of the bigger, better-armed state."

Truthout@truthout.org · 5d ago

What borders are mostly protecting is stolen wealth and stolen land and the insecurity that comes with knowing that the theft was unjust.

Looks like the rest of the year I'm making up for lost time: 9/9: Jimmy Eat World 9/25: Gin Blossoms 10/15: Ziggy Marley 11/19: Aterciopelados 11/20: Buzzcocks Looking forward to all of them, but especially the last two!

I'm seeing a lot of takes saying "we're past left-right distinctions", and they're just wrong. Being a leftist still means what it originally did: wanting to replace the existing system with one that is just and egalitarian. In our context that means not to reform capitalism, but to supersede it.

'Brodsky told the Times that Jeff Bezos, the billionaire Amazon founder, had spent more than $100m buying several properties three blocks north of the Flatiron. “There’s a group of wealthy people who want to be in a convenient place.“' So much for billionaires fleeing Mamdani's communist hellhole.

New York City’s Flatiron building enters new era with $58.5m apartments

Manhattan’s triangular building will open this fall to wealthy residents, with 36 apartments exposing Flatiron’s ‘steel skeleton’

theguardian.com

Wild to see Americans stanning Francisco Franco in the year of our lord 2026.

Arizona Right Watch@azrww.bsky.social · 5d ago

Turning Point USA stooge working on the campaign to elect Andy Biggs as Arizona governor: Bring back the mass murdering fascist dictator!

fuck you and fuck this victim blaming horseshit. you are the fascist media that didn’t give them sympathetic coverage. “The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising involved actions that ensured they wouldn’t attract legal support or sympathy” thats you, thats what you sound like.

Liberal Currents@liberalcurrents.com · 5d ago

"Their actions ensured that they struggled to achieve sympathetic media coverage outside of a few left-wing outlets, struggled to attract material or legal support (the ACLU, for instance, refused to touch the case), and failed to achieve positive virality in the larger culture."

Very interesting framing in this Times of Israel article, noting Israel's repeated violations of the ceasefire and "Israeli foot-dragging". www.timesofisrael.com/trump-will-b...

This guy never misses. Truckloads of slop fed to his 356k (!) Blue MAGA followers every day. Tragic.

Christopher Webb@cwebbonline.com · last wk.

Just wondering, where all the “say it’s a genocide” folks have been when it comes to Sudan and Myanmar?

"Across a sample from 400+ companies where AI adoption rose sharply...we found a 7.76% median increase in PR throughput." Given that AI-generated code poses real challenges for code review, it's quite possible that this represents a net loss in output when code quality is taken into account.

AI productivity gains are closer to 10% than 10x

The benchmark is wrong, not the results.

leaddev.com

The thing that really stood out to me in this poll: 73% of Democrats would support a candidate who describes themselves as a democratic socialist (with 20% of them being enthusiastic about it). Gives some context to all the desperate, overwrought condemnation of the DSA from pundits and politicians.

Ariel Edwards-Levy@aedwardslevy.bsky.social · 6d ago

Generic ballot numbers tend to get outsized attention, but IMO we asked a bunch of interesting stuff in our latest poll, so I want to highlight some of the findings that aren't directly horserace: www.cnn.com/2026/07/30/politics/cnn-poll-midterm-generic-ballot-democrats-republicans-change

Just got tickets to see Aterciopelados in November, really excited to see them. They're doing a 30th anniversary tour of the release of La Pipa De La Paz, apparently performing the whole album. Which TIL was produced by Phil Manzanera (of Roxy Music).

Aterciopelados - No Necesito (Video Oficial)

YouTube video by Aterciopelados

youtu.be

When 43% of boomers think we should arrest Netanyahu they've fucking lost the narrative and they'll never get it back.

Eric Michael Garcia@ericmgarcia.bsky.social · last wk.

Economist/YouGov poll ask "Should the U.S. arrest Netanyahu if he comes here?" 49% yes 27% no Men: 46% yes 35% no Women: 52% yes 21% no White: 47% yes 21% no Black: 53% yes 13% no 18-29: 58% yes 17% no yougov.com/en-us/articl...

Upwards of 200,00 people may have lost their jobs today; or will in the upcoming days. There is a palpable sense of fear among the Haitian community right now. They need your support.

Heba Gowayed هبة جويد@hebagowayed.bsky.social · last wk.

My Haitian friend was just fired from his job. "They said I don't have a legal status now." This is likely happening to hundreds of thousands of people across this country today. Sick.

Well I was one of the 2,600 people laid off from Visa today, 7% of its workforce, "in efficiency push as AI reshapes work" as CNBC would have it. Isn't it great how capitalism keeps you on your toes? Good thing that existential dread is good for your health...

I love that the very thing that mainstream Democrats hate about the DSA is its democratic structure and process.

Christopher Webb@cwebbonline.com · last wk.

EVERY DEMOCRAT NEEDS TO SEE THIS. DSA co-chair Megan Romer laid out the organization’s platform. Now I’ve got to ask: will they be held accountable when they can’t get these policies enacted, just like Democrats in general? 🧵

Creating a website called Jeeves Asks because people like being asked about their lives and opinions.

My book on grief, our need to pathologize everything about being human, the pressures of capitalism, and so much more comes out tomorrow! Ordering or picking up from your local bookstore is obviously a good way to support, but also...

All My Dead Cats and Other Losses: Practicing Good Grief in a Culture That Fears Mourning

"Both a grief book that doesn't read like a clinician's notes and a memoir wrapped around a bigger subject, All My Dead Cats takes grief from the taboo to the universal." — BooklistHave you suffered a...

bookshop.org

Lots of people sticking up for the Dems instead of engaging with @moiradonegan.bsky.social 's main point: that the reluctance to speak up about the Tates reveals a pattern of "prizing men over women, of coveting men’s votes and men’s support as somehow more legitimate, more valuable, than women’s".

The Guardian@theguardian.com · last wk.

Why are Democrats so quiet about the Tate brothers? | Moira Donegan