"Every generation says that younger people don't read enough." First, is this actually true, or did you just make it up when you heard some people are worried about a decline in reading skill and stamina? Second, some of us are on the front lines, directly observing students. There has been a dramatic decline in reading skill and stamina in the last five years. No academic I've talked to says any different. It has to be a systemic problem with a cohort effect. It's not just a generational stereotype. This is a serious issue. Don't be dismissive.

This week in class, we were discussing Aristotle's claim in the Poetics that poetry speaks to universal truths, while history deals in mere particulars. It sparked a thought in me about the (largely fruitless) "fascism debate." From a historical perspective, of course nothing is ever going to be fascism or Nazism again. The conditions under which they arose are unique and will never be repeated, nor will other political actors pursue the exact same policies, etc. That's all true, but also useless.

Was just reminded of how much neoliberalism denial angers me at a gut level. Did something change decisively in public policy with Reagan and Thatcher and Pinochet? Was that basic agenda picked up by all major governing parties in the West and imposed by international orgs? I don't see how anyone can answer no to either of those questions.

I love how the Star Trek producers are carefully managing the fictional timeline by making the ships all look basically the same even when they're separated by hundreds of years in-universe. It's that kind of attention to detail that makes it feel "real." "Hey, we just barely got fans to accept a non-literal interpretation of the Original Series era visuals with the popular hit series Strange New Worlds -- why don't we start to erode that by making Next Generation-era ships look exactly the same?"

Homelessness as a mass phenomenon arose during my lifetime. It is new. For all the horrors of American history, it is not a historical norm. But now it's regarded as an unsolvable brute fact of life. The memory-hole aspect of it is similar to the shift in college funding. Boomers in most cases literally cannot remember that they could -- and even did -- go to public universities for only a nominal fee, during their own lifetimes. The new approach is fully naturalized.

One interesting aspect of contemporary society is the combination of the following two norms:
1. You should get all your meaning and emotional fulfillment at work.
2. The only reason anyone would seek a romantic relationship at work is if they are a predatory creep. The potential for abuse of power is real and serious, but also, people who spend all their time together and share the same passion are, in some cases, going to wind up forming other kinds of bonds with each other as well.

So the thing with Biden's age is that the older you are, the higher the odds you will die. Remember when people were saying no one has more incentive than RBG to outlive Trump's term, as though it was a matter of willpower? How'd that work out? I just feel like the Democratic Party should have a deeper bench such that Biden doesn't seem like the only option.

I keep seeing a genre of tweet where someone is like "Remember when we criticized Trump and/or the Republicans, and you thought they were exaggerating and weren't that bad, but they totally are bad?" And I keep wanting to respond: no, I absolutely don't remember that. It seems like a perennial one. Like once, many years ago, I said, "I don't think anyone would have predicted that all of American politics would one day be Gamergate," and I got flooded by people saying, "Listen to women!!!" Because they predicted that exact thing, right?

It sucks that mainstream social media companies are letting Trump back in, but it's not up to them to decide whether he's a legitimate political force. The Biden administration, through its dithering and indecision and cowardice, has allowed him to reemerge as such. The fact that Trump was not arrested immediately after Biden was sworn in represents a world-historical crime against democracy. Trump is a unique danger who absolutely must be excluded from power or the prospect of power.

No one who lived through the "what some critics call treatment tantamount to what some might call torture" days can legitimately be surprised at media coverage of literally any right-wing outrage. As Obama so tactfully said, "We tortured some folks." It happens. You don't have to get caught up in all these euphemisms and circumlocutions.

“I feel terrible for the 15 years of teaching that I did before the pandemic when I was unintentionally, but almost certainly, doing harm to students.” Come on. insidehighered.com/news/2023/01/0… "She understands that some students enrolled in face-to-face classes may decide midsemester that attending class is not critical to their learning. Not every faculty member agrees." Yeah, no shit.

What do we have to do today to avoid a scenario where, five to ten years from now, professors are shocked to find that student's can't write on their own but have to start with an AI-generated text? Or would that be fine? One big weakness of academics is that we're idea people. We can always see how something *could* be good, if implemented just the right way. That leaves us unable to unambiguously say no to any new trend or "disruption."

Was democracy at stake when Bush appeared to get the first Electoral College upset and Gore conceded the night of? Was democracy at stake when the Supreme Court went on to steal the election for Bush and Democrats acted like everything was normal? Was democracy at stake when Obama squandered his huge popular mandate and let the Republicans steal the country out from under him by hardly even campaigning in the 2010 elections -- giving them control of redistricting? Was democracy at stake when McConnell stole a SCOTUS seat?

One benefit of my very limited urban stargazing is that I now realize that the planets are among the *brightest* stars. From "knowing" that they're solid masses without their own illumination, I think we expect them to be dim or hard to find, but they totally aren't. Even before the sun had fully set tonight, and with a nearly full moon, I could see Jupiter easily. I could also make out Saturn at the dog park, which has a clear southern view. The only fixed star I could see under the same conditions was the North Star.

[Me, suddenly bolting awake in the middle of the night:] I get it now! I get why I'm a bad person for thinking students should ask me for help if they need help! I will say: I get that not all students can get formal diagnoses; not all students will have success in seeking accomodations; not all professors will abide by accomodations. All of those situations are bad and not the student's fault, nor evidence they're "not ready" for college

Reading Galileo for class, specifically Siderius Nuncius, where he talks about all the cool stuff he saw with the telescope -- the rough surface of the moon, the huge number of stars not visible with the naked eye, and the moons of Jupiter. Not bad for 20 pages! Galileo repeatedly says -- rightly, as far as I can tell -- that he's the first person to observe these things. And I can absolutely guarantee that my students will HATE that. They will zero in on it and mock it. And unlike my complaints about reading endurance, this isn't recent

A little-discussed prerequisite of running a democratic society is having a basic trust that everyone is going to follow the voting rules. Showing up and stating your name, no ID, no further questions, is actually a sign of a *healthier* democracy.

https://twitter.com/Greg_Palast/status/1577685144852275200

I remember once my conservative mom was worried about voting with no ID, and I asked her who was going to come to the polls claiming to be her to steal her chance to vote. When and how would this happen? How would it even enter anyone's mind to do this?

No one but an actual crazy person really does or CAN *believe* abortion is morally equivalent to murder. They can throw it out there as a debating one-up, but when push comes to shove... In a way, it's good that Republicans can be hypocritical about "abortion is murder," because it means they haven't totally lost connection with reality. In another way, it's bad that they keep egging on lunatics.

Proposed response when a student asks: "When am I ever going to use this?" -- "That's up to you, I guess." I could be using trigonometry right now. There are a ton of trees in my neighborhood whose heights I don't know. I choose not to. That's on me.

In discussions of reducing car dependency, one often hears, "What about people in remote rural areas?" And my gut instinct is -- people shouldn't be living there in the first place. The solution is to give them generous grants to relocate among other humans. "But what if they like living in remote rural areas?" Sorry, you can't always get what you want. A lot of people would like to live in dense, transit-rich settings but can't -- either because they can't afford it or it simply doesn't exist where they are.

Bojack Horseman, The Americans, Better Call Saul

https://twitter.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1561172495432130560

I really wanted to answer "Bojack, Bojack, and Bojack." But others I would consider: Station Eleven, Leftovers, Watchmen, Rick and Morty, Star Trek: Lower Decks, The Killing....