—Kimberly Blaeser, “Haiku Journey”
Archaeologist, anthropologist, once upon a time blogger. Author “The Future of Nuclear Waste”, “Ancient Bodies, Ancient Lives”, “Sites, Traces and Materiality”. Distinguished Professor Emerita of Anthropology, UC Berkeley, Honorary PhD, Leiden Univ
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—Kimberly Blaeser, “Haiku Journey”
turkey vulture feeds mechanical as a red oil rig head rocks down up down stiff-legged dog rises goes grumbling after squirrel old ears still flap snowy egret—curves, lines, sculpted against pond blue; white clouds against sky banded headed bird this ballerina killdeer dance on point my heart
Abbey, evo-anth is a specific thing in the US. It isn’t just anthropologists looking at evolution. Associated with specific universities (named in the thread!) and its own journals, it is determinist, essentialist, and yes, sexist and heteronormative. Allied with evo psych it slides toward eugenics.
—Joseph Millar, “Labor Day”
Shadows gather inside the sleeve of the empty thermos beside the sink, the bells go still by the channel buoy, the wind lies down in the west, the tuna boats rest on their tie-up lines turning a little, this way and that.
No one lays a flat bead of flux over a metal seam or lowers the steel forks from a tailgate.
Even the bosses are sleeping late in the dusty light of September. The parking lot’s empty and no one cares. No one unloads a ladder, steps on the gas or starts up the big machines in the shop, sanding and grinding, cutting and binding.
I did three and a half of my four things! And still read my novel!! (Of course I officially retired a year ago but still, I have a list of things and they have dates to be done and I 3.5/4’d them!)
Brava!
I know I shouldn’t be surprised at this point but I’m somehow still surprised
yes. tasting fabrics is one of the easiest ways to test fiber composition. natural fabrics, such as wool, cotton, and linen, breakdown in the digestive tract. synthetics such as polyester will not. so to test fiber composition, eat the garment. if fibers appear in your poop, it was synthetic.
This is utter, complete nonsense: "The mystery behind the plague has now been solved: researchers believe it was caused by Yersinia pestis, the same bacterium responsible for later outbreaks, including the Black Death in 1346." This "mystery" was solved 12 years ago!
“Prasad’s comments still appeared on anti-vaccine social media accounts, suggesting Prasad was directing his removal demand only at a critic and not anti-vaccine influencers. In the past, Prasad has complained about censorship by social media companies.” Yeah, cause he is an antivaxxer and a fraud.
“people that I find personally annoying are the reason the other side wins elections” is the laziest possible form of political analysis
[Guy who constantly posts on the fascism app]: The problem is the anti-fascism app
Concern over low birth rates was what the theocracy in Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale used to come to power.
These plots make me want to cry they are so beautiful. We have such powerful tools to improve our lives if only we chose to use them
Moderna vaccine (www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1... ) 2/2
Yes, it was carefully hidden in the New England Journal of Medicine. Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine (www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1... ) 1/2
Results so stunningly clear they inspired this classic xkcd (xkcd.com/2400/):
Agree that it's heterosexist! It's used to explain SO MANY things, and ALWAYS to put women down in the present!
heterosexist! I mean provisioning theory as explanation for bipedalism is what you said plus saying males had to have hands free to carry stuff back to shelter for weak female and offspring. As an explanation for bipedalism, a massive restructuring of bodily form.
Not to mention sexist! At least 90% of evo-psych/ evo-anth is designed to show how big strong cavemen and their simian ancestors hunted and brought home the meat to their pregnant wives huddled around the fire that the big strong men had kindled.
Anthropologist here! A lot of the evo-anth people are two steps from eugenics and some are already there.
In Chicago, thousands protest against threat of ICE, National Guard deployment reut.rs/4newN2y
i met anubis in the realm of the underworld, big strong guy by the way, had a dog’s head, i’m not so sure about that. and he said to me, mr president, you’ve got the heaviest soul we’ve ever weighed down here. can you believe it? they’ve never seen a soul that heavy in all of duat
We’ve spent more time talking about nonexistent crime in 🇺🇸 cities in the last month, even as we’ve totally erased actual political violence from the National Conversation™️. Hard to overstate how disheartening & deeply unserious this has been.
dawg what are we doing here
HEY NYC! The great @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social dancing on the @jcod3.bsky.social float at the West Indian Day Parade! #CuomoCouldNever
Mamdani at the @nywfp.bsky.social float at the West Indian Day Parade!
I think getting Democratic officials and consultants off X as their primary social platform should be a priority for activists. At this point, it is acting to inoculate them against their own voting base, which is insane and self-destructive but also resembles an addict approaching rock bottom.
Schatz cooking his brain on Vichy Twitter. many such cases.
Kilmar got just one weekend with his family before he was again arrested. His attorney said agents would not say why they were detaining the Maryland father. “Suddenly, the singing shifted into a chant of ‘Shame! Shame! Shame,’” Religion News Service reported. #FreeKilmar
“To all those families who have been separated or threatened with family separation, I want to tell you something,” Kilmar told a crowd of supporters. “God is w/us. God will never leave us. God will bring justice to all the injustice we are suffering." open.substack.com/pub/americas... #FreeKilmar
Exactly. The rear view mirror second guessing is part of the way people deal with the real trauma we all experienced. We need to remember for the next time. I had students who lost multiple family members. We were facing huge risks of unknown dimensions. Shopping for groceries was terrifying.
She is an immigrant herself, born in Trinidad and Tobago. She will be menaced by the extremists; add courage to her timeliness www.lawyerscommittee.org/civil-rights...
I remember 2020 and the deaths. The US never locked down; ask anyone from Italy or Spain what that looked like. Closing schools was necessary to protect teachers and staff, as well as children. The US failed by not being organized to improve air filtering in schools. Protecting people wasn’t wrong.
I feel like he stayed on Twitter too long. He thinks he’s seeing popular opinion there.
And what is most likely: the next zoonotic pandemic.
—James Oppenheim, “Bresd and Roses”
As we go marching, marching, we’re standing proud and tall. The rising of the women means the rising of us all. No more the drudge and idler, ten that toil where one reposes, But a sharing of life’s glories, bread and roses, bread and roses.
As we come marching, marching, un-numbered women dead Go crying through our singing their ancient call for bread, Small art and love and beauty their trudging spirits knew Yes, it is bread we. fight for, but we fight for roses, too.
As we come marching, marching, we battle too, for men, For they are in the struggle and together we shall win. Our days shall not be sweated from birth until life closes, Hearts starve as well as bodies, give us bread, but give us roses.
As we go marching, marching, in the beauty of the day A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses For the people hear us singing, bread and roses, bread and roses.
She was arrested on the morning of Feb. 20 at her home in Charlotte while caring for her three younger siblings — the youngest of whom has autism — while her mother was at work.
The undermining of science and the incalculable value of vaccines is scary to watch - effects will be global due to the huge influence of US 💉⚕️🧪 www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Okay. I just came back to this and you aren’t calling these efforts resegregation yet, you absolutely should be
A little before midnight, Ensign reported that three of the four children are back with ORR. Once the final child and another child newly a part of the class (who was not on a plane on Sunday) are with ORR, Ensign says DOJ will file another status report. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
After Ensign's latest, Sooknanan orders a fourth status report "when all putative class members are returned to ORR custody."
And, we have a briefing schedule on a forthcoming preliminary injunction request in the case, with arguments set for 2p Sept. 10. The TRO will remain in place in the interim.
Per the latest DOJ status report, "all but four" of the 76 children have been "returned" to the Office of Refugee Resettlement's custody. The remaining four are to be returned "at approximately 11:00pm EDT."
Federal judges shouldn’t need to do this with DOJ, but thank god they are doing it.
And, to my point about Judge Sooknanan, she just said, “OK, you said by 10:30p, then given me an update by 10:45p saying they actually did it.”
I'm not sure, however, if there were more children already back with ORR earlier today — I'm thinking about the flights that never took off — or if no one other than the 76 ever left ORR's custody today.
For people asking about the 600 number, that appears to have come from the original CNN report — www.cnn.com/2025/08/29/p... — and was in the complaint. But, per the DOJ's status reports, it appears only 76 children were involved in today's stopped flight(s). As such, they are being returned to ORR.
And, it shouldn't go unnoted that Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, who has done her job at all hours today over a holiday weekend, was one of the final Biden appointees confirmed to the bench. Each one of those lame-duck confirmations very much matter.
This was incredible, important lawyering from National Immigration Law Center (@nilc.org) over the past 24 hours. Here's their case page: www.nilc.org/litigation/l... Here was the statement from Efrén Olivares, NILC VP of litigation, from earlier today regarding the TRO:
NEW: DOJ reports that 76 children are involved, with 16 back with the Office of Refugee Resettlement and the 60 remaining to be with ORR by 10:30 p.m. (split as detailed). storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
And, in response to DOJ's status report, Sooknanan orders a further status report to be filed by 8:30p. It "should address whether all putative class members are in ORR custody," and, if they are not, say when that is expected to have been accomplished.
And, this is helpful context —>
Note —>
BREAKING: DOJ tells the court that "that all of the class members that were on planes today have been deplaned and are in the process of being returned to ORR custody." The delay, Ensign says, was because he hadn't entered an appearance so hadn't gotten notice of the status report order.
Minor update, but I know people are watching closely: DOJ's Drew Ensign has entered an appearance in the case, so I expect a filing from him shortly.
After the hearing concluded, w/ DOJ's Drew Ensign allegedly clear of what Judge Sooknanan had ordered, DOJ failed to file its req'd 4p status report. Sooknanan orders DOJ to show cause why they failed to do so—and to file. She also orders plaintiffs to file a status report by 6:30p. (corrected)
This thread documents heartbreaking abandonment of morality and the fight against it.
Reminder: the apparent plan was to spirit these children away in the middle of the night without them ever seeing the inside of a courtroom to challenge their deportation. Children.
Hi. I’m the executive director of the organization that had the honor of hosting the FEMA Katrina Declaration and I can confirm this is a lie. NICE TRY, KRISTI! @standupforscience.bsky.social @atrupar.com
Religious studies scholars are helpful in countering this approach (which requires analysts to presume believers are simpler in their reactions). Anthropologists of religion today as well. Faith community members vary in their trust; there can’t be a religion people will follow without question. 6/6
I think Sebeok was motivated to imagine a religion to counter doubt: the common followers would not question the inner circle which preserved the texts. This idea is a staple of earlier sociology and anthropology of religion where scholars who mostly weren’t believers studied faith communities. 5/
The other piece of science fiction I drew on, Vonda McIntyre’s “Dreamsnake”, puts a point on the fetishization of text: in it the person from the technological society (where information was preserved) doesn’t trust the information (about radiation danger!) and so is injured. 4/
A religious cult modeled on Christian soldier priests would presumably use written texts, recopied, to preserve information. That’s why in my 2020 book I cite “A Canticle for Liebowitz” as one of the counter-narratives. Recovering text didn’t prevent disaster. Information isn’t wisdom. 3/
The Sebeok proposal for a cult (a “Knights Templar”) with the secret knowledge rests on an implicit view of the masses as unreliable in some way; incapable of passing on reliable information. This may reflect an unquestioned view of reliability of print vs oral culture. 2/
Absolutely agree that religion isn’t required to have a ritual. As Martin knows, am writing about an artist who proposed an art work that requires an annual repeated ritual of removing a piece and reciting the story as a way to pass on knowledge. Ritual, not religion. 1/
Elie’s comments are giving me life rn
"The state’s intent here is to reduce the members of Congress who represent Black communities, and that, in and of itself, is unconstitutional," says NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson.
as a DC resident I cannot overemphasize how much less safe I feel
RFK Jr: “If you’ve ever compared an unvaccinated kid to a vaccinated kid… you see the bright eyes, the engagement, the social interactions, the curiosity. And you compare them to the child who even had one or two vaccines, and they’re completely different.“ This man is an existential threat.
I'm old enough to remember seeing young people every day in my neighborhood and school struggling with what would be lifelong disabilities from polio, and to remember our strange excitement, as kids, to get a polio #vaccine, the one on the little sugar cube developed with the Soviets. This is evil.
It's often said he sounds terrible because he has spasmodic dysphonia but that's not the whole story. He's had that for decades but his voice used to be much better; the dumbass didn't "trust the experts" so stopped his approved Botox treatment that was working and got an unapproved useless implant.
Pritzker out here giving a master class in countering the right wing propaganda machine’s efforts to justify further federal invasions and occupations of American cities: he’s effectively reframing the discussion (beyond debates re: crime rates) to one of rising authoritarianism & federal overreach.
Trump/RFK are decapitating our public health system, a pillar of American greatness. So Dem Govs should scour every corner of the law for creative new ways to defend their people from this madness. Dems should polarize this debate to the max. Thoughts on this here: newrepublic.com/article/1998...
I am opposed to the rampant militarism of the US (which long predates this regime). But I taught students whose route to higher ed led through service; their motivations were honorable. This action dishonors that service.
BREAKING: Judge Sooknanan says the children are being removed right now so has advanced today’s hearing to 12:30pm. www.politico.com/news/2025/08...
MORE: This is reminiscent of the emergency fight over Alien Enemies Act — an overnight lawsuit alleging abrupt deportations and violation of due process, quick restraining order by a judge, hearing set for the afternoon. We'll learn more at 3pm. www.politico.com/news/2025/08...
NEW: Judge Sooknanan acted quickly to block as many as 600 Guatemalan children from being deported by the Trump administration without due process. A judge in Illinois took a similar step for 4 children whose lawyers sued Saturday. w/ @joshgerstein www.politico.com/news/2025/08...
BREAKING: A federal judge has *blocked* the Trump administration from abruptly deporting 600 unaccompanied Guatemalan children — perhaps within a matter of hours — granting an emergency restraining order after advocates called the plan illegal + dangerous. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
unaccompanied. children.
It's hard not to see US actions and tariff overuse as creating conditions that push other countries into China's orbit. www.reuters.com/world/china/...
credit:
🤦 www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcn...
This is how I feel every time I talk to someone about these cuts and feel this implicit expectation that I have to convince them by defending the importance of language learning. Just because the world has gone mad doesn’t mean I’m the one who has some explaining to do.
Boasting about his power over the baseball hall of fame by reminding everyone he got a “promise” that wasn’t fulfilled is…[chef’s kiss]
If it were possible to be more complicit in genocide this would cement that.
My entire career before 2015 and the hundreds of students I taught are a delirious mirage.
The sun was actually invented in 1543 by Nicolaus Copernicus. It simply wasn’t a thing before that.
Race Isn’t Biological — So Why Do So Many Still Think It Is? @kevinlala.bsky.social and @kztwyman.bsky.social blog about their recent paper in the journal Evolutionary Human Sciences www.cambridge.org/core/blog/20...
There's an AnaÏs Nin quote somewhere in her diaries about how she hated the United States' intellectual culture of rhetorical domination and winner/loser debate.
And it’s not even remotely close.