Shiva Balaghi
@sbalaghi.bsky.social
cultural historian of the Middle East
Extraordinary, powerful and heart-wrenching. Active duty Marine Colonel Zach Schmidt, speaking in his personal capacity, about Khalil, an Afghan national whose family helped U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Khalil was deported by the U.S. on Friday to a conflict zone.
NEW: Relative of Afghans Who Helped U.S. Military Is Deported to Africa www.nytimes.com/2026/08/29/u...
Relative of Afghans Who Helped U.S. Military Is Deported to Africa
The Trump administration has deported thousands of immigrants to countries where they have no ties. Dozens were on the latest flight, to the Central African Republic.
nytimes.com
Americans: leery of beef because of high prices & recalls Netflix: Martha shows you how to hire a chef to cook asado for 50 of your closest friends on your sprawling Westchester estate
The American Historical Association hired a lobbying firm to help silence member advocacy on Palestine. In this essay, Adam Rzepka covers @historians.org's relationship w/ Thorn Run Partners, its deep ethical conflicts, & the advocacy crisis AHA has thrust upon us. www.chronicle.com/article/a-sc...
Opinion | A Scholarly Association’s Secret Washington Playbook
Did the American Historical Association ask a corporate lobbying firm for advice on how to silence its members?
chronicle.com
This review I published when I was EIC by Dexter Thomas, was the article that made it clear that Kusama anti-Blackness permeated her work, and even more disturbing, the art market was trying to cover it up in all sorts of ways.
What the Art World Doesn't Want You to Know About Yayoi Kusama
A new publication tries hard to reinvent Kusama as a champion of racial equity despite her troubling record of anti-Black statements.
hyperallergic.com
In her 2002 autobiography, she “writes of the apparent ‘animalistic sex techniques’ of Black people, and what she describes as their ‘distinctive smell’. She describes working with a Black man in a past performance work, with lingering attention paid to her descriptions of his lips and genitals.”
Yayoi Kusama apologizes for historic racism
A history of racist comments and descriptions of Black people in the writing of Yayoi Kusama has drawn criticism on the eve of her exhibition at SFMOMA
artreview.com
CNA - Channel News Asia (Unofficial)@cna-poster.bsky.social · 4d agoJapanese artist Yayoi Kusama dies at 97, Kyodo says - https://www.channelnewsasia.com/entertainment/yayoi-kusama-dead-6344066
Reminder: The Kennedy Center is THE memorial to President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Kyle Griffin@kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 5d agoTrump admin lawyers just warned: The Kennedy Center might need to be "taken down" if Trump's renovation efforts can't move forward.
Dolly Parton, among a thousand other amazing things she did in her life, gifted over 330 million books to kids through her Imagination Library program. Her passing is a tremendous loss to the world, but you can support the program today to keep it going imaginationlibrary.com
Dolly Parton's Imagination Library | USA, UK, IE, CA, AU
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is a book gifting program that mails free books to children from birth until they begin school in participating areas.
imaginationlibrary.com
Was born in Nashville & lived there in my formative years. Dolly Parton was woven into my sense of the world from those early years. She was the epitome of decency & generosity, of fierce determination, & of finding joy in life. May she rest in power and may her memory be a blessing.
"Can new memories of music, dance, and fireworks exploding into color over an ancient, battered city undo, or even weaken, the memory of bombs falling?" Lina Sergie Attar on the triumph of ordinary life in Syria after Assad and why "the normal feels radical." time.com/article/2026...
The Quiet Miracles of Ordinary Life in New Syria
"Syria is trying to shake off the past while building a future on unsteady ground, and there are no easy answers on how to move forward after a war that tore the country apart," writes Lina Sergie Att...
time.com
"Columbia is just a shell of what it was": my colleague Marianne Hirsch on Columbia University in the aftermath of its "deal" with the Trump Administration. www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTa5...
DOJ Whistleblower Confirms "Antisemitism" Probes Against Universities Were Sham Investigations
YouTube video by Democracy Now!
youtube.com
Read Jafari Sinclaire Allen on Jason Arday. Feel their rage in my bones & am grateful for their erudite historical contextualization of the "apparatus of subjugation." www.thenation.com/article/soci...
The Machine That Came for Jason Arday
It wasn't a scandal but a machine—funded, transatlantic, and still running.
thenation.com
Northwestern to close its African Studies program. Founded in 1948, it was the first academic program focused on Africa in the US. An immeasurable loss to US understanding of a critical part of the world. thepurplewire.beehiiv.com/p/scoop-nort...
SCOOP: Northwestern moves to close Program of African Studies
thepurplewire.beehiiv.com
Yes. They hounded him to death. Days and days of breathless undoing. Damn them all.
Historian here: Julius de Reuter worked hand in glove w British Empire, creating a monopoly over news. He was paid handsomely by govt to spread news crafted by imperial officials to the Middle East. Queen Victoria named him a baron in recognition of his service to imperialism.
Robert Reich@rbreich.bsky.social · 2w agoThomson Reuters, which owns news agency Reuters, has signed a $125M deal giving ICE access to its databases of personal data. USA Today has partnered with Palantir to gain "actionable intelligence" on its audiences. The media should be opponents of Trump's police state — not collaborators.
i've been covering national security for decades, on and off. i've never heard of anything like this. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
USS Abraham Lincoln sailors tried to jump overboard amid extended deployment – reports
Aircraft carrier’s crew in ninth month at sea and has spent record 250 days consecutively without making land
theguardian.com
Today in @thenation.com: a harrowing piece written from inside the Dilley ICE detention center by Maryam Tahmasebi, a green card holder who's been locked up along with her husband and son for months despite none of them committing any crime. www.thenation.com/article/soci...
One Woman’s Message From the Hell of ICE Detention
My husband, son, and I have been locked up for months—despite being permanent residents with no criminal record. It is an unendurable, unending nightmare.
thenation.com
There's something uniquely despicable about lying a nation into war.
The mental and physical health of this country is under threat. We’ll need more than universal health care to repair what damage can be undone.
At a time brimming with grief, one's heart still has room to mourn the silenced songs. Rest in peace Glen Hansard.
Erin A. Snider@erinsnider.bsky.social · last mo.A doubly bittersweet performance by Hansard & Lisa O'Neill at Shane MacGowan's funeral, which I can't believe was two years ago... www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptay...
Thursday's Modern Art Notes Podcast will feature my 2016 conversation with the late, very great Betye Saar. Saar was in fine form. She was smart, funny, expansive, and generous. You will not want to miss it. Tell a friend. 🍎: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t... 🔊: open.spotify.com/show/25SUibT...
This is a really clearly written explainer of new DHS rules, which impose massive barriers for international students wanting to get graduate degrees at US universities.
Austin Kocher, PhD@austinkocher.com · last mo.Two new rules target legal immigration, hitting student visas and the public-charge test. Cato's David Bier notes neither affects anyone who crossed illegally, only people who followed the law. www.cato.org/blog/trumps-...
Arundhati Roy on protests in India: “Just when hope seemed lost, they came. Young roaches riding in on the rain.” m.thewire.in/article/righ...
Cockroach Democracy: Unarmed and Dangerous - The Wire
Can all the people be fooled all the time? Can a country with a population of a billion-and-a-half be dragged around like a corpse forever? It cannot. The Cockroaches are out and about.
m.thewire.in
Y'all — find the store(s) in the thread 🧵 below closest to you and REPOST it. 👇🏾📚✊🏾 #BlackSky
Penn professor Sarah J. Jackson's new book explores impact of Black storytellers on American culture | Africana Studies
africana.sas.upenn.edu
Sarah J. Jackson@sjjphd.bsky.social · last mo.I have not been doing a good enough job posting these but here is a thread of independent bookstores you can give your money for a signed copy of A SECOND SIGHT: Up first, Brookline Booksmith, MA
