The Republican Senator was a gastroenterologist in his previous career. He’s the current chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. He voted for Kennedy.
Adventuring with @laurensmith.bsky.social. Cyclist, reader. On the side: professor of Comm Studies and Sports Communication and Media. Formerly: reporter, news anchor, producer, exec producer, adviser. https://www.kennysmith.org
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The Republican Senator was a gastroenterologist in his previous career. He’s the current chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. He voted for Kennedy.
Hey friends! I realize this is a weird time for a “personal news” drop, but things have been wild and I’m bad about sharing updates. This week I began working with CBS Sports as their Women’s Sports Lead! I’ll be writing and editing on the website, primarily women’s basketball. Very excited.
People should be challenged more often to identify the “they” in their most spirited proclamations. Speak precisely. Blame who you mean. Let that be your soundbite. Who is they?
Yup.
I’m sorry I did not give you the chance to show me the light on this. 😘
At the end of today’s quick, and fast, evening bike ride. #bikes #cycling #LetsGoRideBikes
It’s safe to say that the Yankees have had the more embarrassing week in New York baseball but the Mets aren’t gonna lose without putting up a fight. bsky.app/profile/base...
Be better than social media.
Apparently selling out all their home games. (Caitlin Clark did not play in all of those games.) valkyries.wnba.com/news/valkyri...
In a few counties anyway. The ruling prompts a lot of other causal, and important, questions.
UPDATE: At least 19 states have issued orders to protect COVID vaccine access including AZ, CO, CT, DE, IL, KY, MA, MD, ME, MN, NC, NV, NJ, NM, NY, PA, RI, VA, WA. Almost all orders allow pharmacies to give vaccines without a prescription, some states have taken steps to ensure insurance coverage.
I had an economics professor ages ago talk at great length about the vital and narrow part of the hourglass that is the trucking industry. He had it figured that it was always a 72-hour proposition.
All I saw was cheesecake boat and ocean for at least 5 minutes
And directions to the nearest complimentary group of people? I wonder what starter kit I would have chosen at 13. Hmmm.
Every so often I get to trot out the message missed from 1994’s “The Paper.”
Yeah. No.
"There are worse things in this world than getting beaten on a story," a former top WSJ editor used to say when someone wanted to rush out an unconfirmed bit. He was right about that.
To the point below, this is absolute required reading. From 11 years ago, still on point.
I’ve been rewatching the Coen Bros filmography this month and while drawing a Barton Fink illustration, it struck me how much their films feel like Far Side cartoons: funny, strange, clever, yet frequently inscrutable. Anyway here’s a thread!
Some days it is obvious why they insisted we study ontology and epistemology.
In #Chile, where trust in news is low, women act as info curators & guardians 📰💡 A new study (N=2,117 + focus groups) shows they filter news to protect their own & their families’ well-being. journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1... #commsky @profdimitrova.bsky.social
This is terrible and particularly galling given the enormous amount of money donated to the College of Communications in recent years. Our students (current and future) at University Park will be worse off for this, esp since they stopped publishing print copies of the student newspaper last year.
WPSU in Pennsylvania becomes the first public media outlet to shut down as a result of the rescission of federal funding. WPSU TV and radio serves one of the largest geographic coverage areas in the nation, stretching across 24 counties of central Pennsylvania.
Let’s watch everyone walk this back, he said, hilariously.
Howard Kurtz’s “Spin Cycle” comes back to mind for some reason.
The White House is clearly talking about criminalizing political speech it doesn’t like, and WaPo does stenography. Not even a mention of the First Amendment. Shameful. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
Leaving that platform was an easy decision, too. We have the benefit of our values.
Confirmation bias and selection bias run rampant online, social media and beyond.
Causality? Correlation? No one can say.
Mulching in Memphis.
The football coaches that taught history and civics across the country have A LOT to answer for.
So @laurensmith.bsky.social is doing a crossword and said “What is a Star Trek … D … S … N … changeling?” She didn’t ask what any of that meant, or how I could tell her the answer before she said, “Three letters,” or who Odo is. There’s a lot of injustice in the world. This is on the list.
Roger Dorn Eddie Harris Chet "Rocket" Steadman Moonlight Graham(!!!) Ty Cobb, in Cobb Jimmy Dugan
The football coaches that taught history and civics across the country have A LOT to answer for.
At least seven historically Black colleges and universities across the South received threats Thursday that caused lockdowns and closures. via @wwno.org
Superb oped by @bratskoff.bsky.social in the LA Times: www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...
In Center City, protests, including one Friday night, continue to advocate for better planning and protection for cyclists. But, in areas beyond those limits, bike safety can fall into a blind spot.
Store clerks! The heroes we don’t deserve.
New research estimates that as many as 2.2 million more people could die of tuberculosis if U.S. cuts to foreign aid become permanent.
And will be looked upon as the before times, somehow. Or the Biden times, since no one can seem to keep years and administrations straight anymore.
Yeah, I’m clear on the both, it’s just the timeline of when Welsh came over from his former office. So if they are spoiling to get at him, what do they want? That’s basically rhetorical. I’ve seen boards and other power players do their thing.
Plus, when we do away with elections we won’t need campaign spending anymore. Broadcast media will be the second largest industry hurt there.
And he comes into office after the nightmare with Dr. McElroy, right? All of this begs a certain series of questions.
“Standard since Columbine.” This being one of the main things we’ve done in … 26 years. Reunion locales and bulletproof backpacks. We should do ‘I remember where I was when that happened’ memory links. I was home from classes in undergrad. Almost my entire adult life has been post-Columbine.
Unsolicited reference: Thomas does GREAT work. If you need professional caliber graphic design, this is your first call.
Comedians and their audiences shouldn’t have to be in the business of propping up our teachers, but here we are.
i wrote this post in july two years ago when blue sky had around 200,000 total users and i thought i would ask again tell me what u are doing be proud of what u do and share it here
Turns out it was @cyclelicious.bsky.social Look to just off the front left. bsky.app/profile/cycl...
I saw a video once — was it yours? I don’t think it was yours? — where someone had a white light set up on the inside of the wheel rim. Looked like futuristic white walls, nite walls, or you will. I want that to go with my blinkies.
When you realize that it is possible to not have an opinion about everything, and that it is possible that not everyone’s opinion requires a response, life is just that much better. Social media has tricked us into forgetting that.
One of the many social plagues of our time is the decline in literacy. I don't just mean people's ability to read, but that so few read good literature anymore, even in schools. The study of literature helped create a shared moral reality. We could sure use some of that now.
That’s a pretty great view.
So … who won the information sphere? And who won the reactionary discourse space? And how did these things come to pass?
Legal and accessible prop bets on college sports were and are a bad idea, part the infinity. www.espn.com/mens-college...
Two models of Amazon smart glasses—one for hip consumers who can order products on the go, and one for wage workers, whose efficiency and whereabouts will be tracked continuously. One is a luxury item, one will be mandatory. Both ensure nonstop surveillance. Both are extractive. Both are handcuffs.
Cable talk shows were a bad, bad idea. Not as bad as this idea, but, ya know, anything that platforms this is regrettable.
I asked ChatGPT to tell me about what all happened during an exciting opening weekend week of college football. ChatGPT is also just putting together random words in sport. Come laugh and roll your eyes with us, too. notjustagame.substack.com/p/a-cautiona... #NCAA #cfb #ChatGPT
Just say you’re not interested in that post. I’m sure the algorithm will take care of it from there.
It doesn’t much matter what briefings or phone calls he’s actually had, putting that out like a Seinfeld bit is bad business.
Feels like a crying shame that this is a historical first. Also … There are a lot of alsos here.
Whooo, buddy.
I HATE when people compare AI to the printing press, it's so disingenuous. The printing press was opposed by the elites because it put power in the hands of everyday people, and popularized a vernacular. AI does the opposite, by allowing elites to bypass artists and laborers.
I was told five pencils was enough. This seems like an extravagance. Other people might call it the price of a dinner. Potaytoe, potahtoe.
Embarrassed is but one of the verbs one ought to be in that particular circumstance.
Just in time for next week's discussion of compelled speech, a really interesting case out of Virginia...
There might be more brain worms out there than we think.
With students heading back to the classroom, a group of cognitive scientists and AI researchers has published one of the most forceful and evidence-backed calls yet to reject the "uncritical adoption of AI" in academia:
What’s happening to CBS News is neither complicated nor subtle. www.mediamatters.org/cbs/how-cbs-...
There’s a Bluesky feed of just this, and inflation posts, right? Oughta be.
I’m coming up for seconds.
Watching the weather back home. Deep South storms. People go to shelters. The poor meteorologist was left to discuss the emergency expediency of a potentially deadly storm and a potentially deadly illness. Also, some epidemiologists take an actuarial view of risk.
Not sure what just happened, but I’m out and about and this place has Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris” on and when John gets to the “bleed just to know you’re alive” part people on other side of me just started singing along. This is not an Oasis concert, but everyone felt good for a moment, I guess.
There have always been monsters among us. We know that. Individually. Collectively. What will shock polite society, what will leave it dismayed, is just how many people will cover for, and protect, monsters. Collectively, we’ll ask, “What does that make those people?” We’ll ask, but we’ll know.
There have always been monsters among us. We know that. Individually. Collectively. What will shock polite society, what will leave it dismayed, is just how many people will cover for, and protect, monsters. Collectively, we’ll ask, “What does that make those people?” We’ll ask, but we’ll know.
There’s not a hot dog costume big enough
Look, I don’t know why this is so complicated for people When a man says violence against women isn’t a crime, they told you who they are, and you can believe it or you can explain it away, but then you know who you are, too The misogyny was always a core point
To put this another way: you can't stop it from making things up because *literally all it does is make things up* It just generates likely text. Sometimes what's likely is also true. Sometimes it's not. This means it has the same relationship to truth as a magic 8-ball. Literally.
Soldier Field’s capacity is 62,500. Amazing, with the state of things* in #Chicago, that that many people feel safe around one another. We were in downtown Chicago this spring for several days. Great visit. Wonderful place. *Despite what you’ve heard reality is reality. #NFL #MNF #Vikings #Bears
The thing about the bubble popping imagery is that economic bubbles don’t disintegrate uniformly and immediately. And that’s most certainly going to be a consideration, with real ramifications, in this case.
Sometimes a good possibility.
I’m always torn on rides like this evening’s little 20-miler. Should I take more photos or keep my phone in my pocket and try to go faster? Neither answer ever satisfies both ideas. Oh well, guess I’ll just have to ride tomorrow and try to figure it out again. #bikes #cycling #LetsGoRideBikes
But are they really surprises? I mean, really surprises? And if you’re settling in, @nbcnews.com, to the comfortable notion that they are surprises then you need to have some uncomfortable realizations about why these are surprises.
Everyone on social media is becoming a handwriting analyst now is probably a strong signal to step away for a while.
Let’s settle in and watch Southerners go in on this nonsense from a dude from Illinois. Being from Illinois, he isn’t expect to know this, but let me just tell y’all, you don’t mess with Ms. Harper Lee.
"The group brings together hundreds of grandparents nationwide who lived through diseases such as polio, tuberculosis and measles — illnesses once thought eliminated in the United States..." www.kgw.com/article/news...
I dunno, maybe the Supreme Court majority could have the decency to bestir themselves to write an actual, you know, opinion, with their names on it, explaining their endorsement of using race and ethnicity as part of a national policy of harassing and intimidating non-white Americans.
Reads like hyperbole but is not
The post I just wrote and then didn’t send …
I am teaching a media criticism course this term and whoa boy.
Not surprising in a culture that views art as cheap 'content' & is anti-intellectual to the extent that learning about & analyzing anything is deemed performative or useless, given that most folks also fancy themselves astute Culture Understanders (who robustly debate if Starship Troopers is satire)
The Crimson, scooping every news outlet not run by undergraduates working in between classes, gets into how court orders mandating return of research funding have been flaunted, and makes a clear case for contempt proceedings against DOGE officials. www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
The city was lying about numbers when the city was in control, see. And now the city is lying when the mulchers and fence painters are on the march. And it’s OK, of course, if a man smacks around his wife a little. None of it surprises, but it’s still callous and indecent and surprising, somehow.
Release the Meta files, too.
"The report is part of a trove of documents from inside Meta that was recently disclosed to Congress by two current and two former employees who allege that Meta suppressed research that might have illuminated potential safety risks to children and teens on the company’s [VR] devices and apps..."
Harry Fenton was a longtime advocate for safer roads. Then he was killed on his bike in a hit-and-run. Now those who knew him hope his death brings renewed attention to bike safety in Philadelphia.
Slightly diminish a book: The Popguns of August
The NFL writers are jumping the shark this season. #nfl #snfonnbc #ravens #bills #ravensvsbills
If the marketplace is to have a voice in this we all know what (not) to do.
Ravens looking like they were finally built to win right now.