Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social)
Old person I am going to turn into. Except much shorter
Professor of History, sometimes administrator at big public university in Midwest. Writes about money, French Revolution, restaurants. Friend to vert paleo. ex UCL History; Yale SOM Visiting Fellow; Guggenheim and New America Fellow. once/future Mainer
12,133 followers 2,282 following 3,423 posts
view profile on Bluesky Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social)
Old person I am going to turn into. Except much shorter
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
Indeed, the “funniest” thing anyone ever said about France!
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
“As Maine goes, so goes the nation” never sounded so important or so ominous!!
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social)
“With curiosity and humility” would be my motto for any research or higher education institution.
The Bulwark (@thebulwark.com) reposted
"'You need to say, ‘This is what we think we know, but this may change tomorrow,’ and just be really clear about risk communication,' Daskalakis said. 'You need to approach everything with less confidence and hubris.'" That wasn't enough.
Silverman on Security (@silvermansecurity.bsky.social) reposted
🧵!!!!
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social)
V good by @timothysnyder.bsky.social Trump & Trumpists like destruction, but they're not likely to get a popular war. So they're left with death that...is indirect and passive-aggressive: from destroying government functionality" --wish it wasn't on Substack! snyder.substack.com/p/look-on-my...
your #3 source for absurdist true crime 🔨 (@davidgerard.co.uk) reposted
the big 4 sewing pattern brands are being sold off for parts. if you want patterns, get them *now*. (if you're secretly a zillionaire who likes sewing patterns, call the liquidator immediately with your chequebook) craftindustryalliance.org/parent-compa...
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social)
The population of the entire state is only 1.4 million! 10% of Mainers might have been there?
Seth Cotlar (@sethcotlar.bsky.social) reposted reply parent
Anyway...Dems need to break out of the impulse to see 200 white people protesting against Covid restrictions as "the voice of the people which we must heed" while seeing 10X as many people protesting racist police violence as "a niche special interest group that's out of step with real Americans."
Tim Onion (@bencollins.bsky.social) reposted
Lisa See Bradley (@jrand1970.bsky.social) reposted
@bmeiselas.bsky.social @meiselasb.bsky.social @meidasjordy.bsky.social @50501movement.bsky.social Marching in Bloomington, IN
Rake (@rakishcowboy.bsky.social) reposted
“The Trump family notched as much as $6 billion in paper wealth on Monday after its flagship crypto venture opened trading of a new digital currency. “ www.wsj.com/finance/curr...
AFT (@aft.org) reposted
The Chicago Labor Day march is getting started. #WorkersDeserve
Collins Watch (@collinswatch.bsky.social) reposted
Quite the image from a Labor Day rally in Ellsworth. (Hard not to notice that Susan Collins is the only member of Maine's four-member federal delegation not to have posted anything on social media today about Labor Day, the importance of honoring workers etc etc.) tinyurl.com/yb26uc7w #MEpolitics
SmilingMooseMainah (@smilingmoosemainah.bsky.social) reposted
Labor Day protest in #Bangor, ME. We had some great speakers including the incomparable Dr. Nirav Shah! #resist #mepolitics
Third Act Maine (@thirdactmaine.bsky.social) reposted
Third Act members from our Central Maine Hub helped organize a Labor Day Rally to celebrate greater Waterville's rich labor and immigrant history and today's diverse and thriving community. #Indivisible #WorkersOverBillionaires #OldAndBold @thirdactorg.bsky.social
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social)
Impossible things happening every day
Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) reposted
Today is the first day of public trading for Trump’s crypto scam.
MKBinPA (@mkbinpa.bsky.social) reposted
Solid turnout for today's #LaborDay rally in Doylestown, PA (Bucks County), powerful speakers and music. Impressive haul in the collection of food, personal care, and household items for locals in need, too! #WorkersOverBillionaires #DoylestownActionLeague @50501movement.bsky.social
Andrea Junker (@strandjunker.com) reposted
On this Labor Day, let us remember that it wasn’t the CEOs and billionaires who saved us during COVID-19. It was the janitors, nurses, cleaning crews, grocery and food workers with their hard, often invisible labor.
Present & Correct (@presentcorrect.bsky.social) reposted
The Full Moon this month is known as Stationery Moon. Traditionally the time of year for harvesting notebooks, pens and pencils.
Brian Goldstone (@brian-goldstone.bsky.social) reposted
A Labor Day reminder: today there isn't a single city, metro area, or state in the U.S. where a full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a modest 2-bedroom apartment. Millions of people with jobs—even multiple jobs—aren't safe from homelessness in this country.
United Farm Workers (@ufw.bsky.social) reposted
Join us in celebrating the people who labor in the fields to put food on our tables. Únase en celebrar a la gente que trabajan en los campos para poner comida en nuestras mesas. #WeFeedYou #LaborDay
Adam Keiper (@adamkeiper.com) reposted
A Labor Day classic: www.thebulwark.com/p/labor-day-...
Adam Keiper (@adamkeiper.com) reposted
FDR: "Labor Day...belongs to all of us....Anyone who calls it a class holiday challenges the whole concept of American democracy." www.thebulwark.com/p/labor-day-...
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
Eastport is SO post-city. History matters. There’s citiness lingering in Eastport, Millinocket, even Belfast.
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
And maybe there are other categories?
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
One of my sisters had her house broken into by someone throwing a pheasant through the window! Did this really happen? It did, but it still seems like it couldn’t have.
Andrew Hickey (@andrewhickey.500songs.com) reposted
Gender began in 2015 (Later than it might have been) Between the end of Ed Miliband And Minions on the big screen
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
I’m so old, I remember when the Bangor Mall was new and VERY buzzy. In MSAD 22 (as was), Newburgh was “rural.” Hampden and Winterport definitely were not.
Jess Piper (@piperformissouri.bsky.social) reposted
40% of Missourians vote for Democrats, and this is the Congressional map the Republicans are pushing for.
Sarah J. Jackson (@sjjphd.bsky.social) reposted
Okay. I just came back to this and you aren’t calling these efforts resegregation yet, you absolutely should be
Scott Horton (@robertscotthorton.bsky.social) reposted
Nurses say that RFKJr must be removed from office immediately before he kills again. www.nationalnursesunited.org/press/nation...
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
Nice to know that someone out there gets research impulses similar to my own!
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social)
Oh please tell me that somebody out there is completing a biography of Ignatzius Heinz: subject of the Emperor, resident of Manhattan, and cruller shaper extraordinaire! [from a patent application filed Sept. 26, 1913]
Greater Lafayette Indivisible ❌ 👑 (@lafayetteindivisible.com) reposted
This is a big ask for #Indiana, maybe. But we say: If your dreams don't scare you, they aren't big enough! 💪 🌊🗽
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
* “one”!
Trumpflation Tracker (@trumpflationtrkr.bsky.social) reposted
Normally they've booked 40% of their fall soybean sales to China at this point. This year, they are at 0% booked, and no, that's not a typo. www.farmprogress.com/soybean/us-s...
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
I do worry about that Bun!!!
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
Oh the trees!!!
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
I think it’s about boss-ism. Experts and facts only yield to more of same (“peer review”) and these third-rate cranks want everything and everyone to yield to them.
Governor JB Pritzker (@govpritzker.illinois.gov) reposted
Why don’t you send everyone proof of life first? (Either way, Chicago doesn’t want you here)
Emily Hahn, MD (@ehahnmd.bsky.social) reposted
These are my patients. Kids dying of brain cancer. Kids and families desperate for treatment and hoping to find a cure through experimental therapies. Trump is dismantling science and children with brain tumor are the victims. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/w...
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social)
“Nothing in the middle of the road but yellow lines and dead armadillos” is a genius turn of phrase.
Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) reposted
Hungary is also a unicameral state without hard federalism that is the size and has the rough economy of Indiana. There is no comparison. None.
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
“Economy of Indiana” isn’t a phrase on sees very often!
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social)
Trump take restaurants
Dr. Peter Paul Rubens (@peterpaulrubens.bsky.social) reposted reply parent
2/2 My Coronation of Marie de' Medici which was of course the model for Jacques-Louis David's Coronation of Josephine. And mine had dogs. Just to point that out!
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social)
We can't take public schools for granted any more. MAGA hates public education because it teaches children to be part of a public, something bigger than themselves, something that has rules and regulations designed to enhance the greater good.
Thomas M. Keck (@tmksyracuse.bsky.social) reposted
This whole thread is good, but this is the part that I’m most worried about over the next 18 months
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
yep. And the same corporations must have big shares in pet insurance schemes. I've never seen the point of pet insurance before, but when I get a puppy I'm going to!
Julia Lynch (@jlynch13.bsky.social) reposted
Excellent thread on where we’re at right now by political scientist @dhnexon.bsky.social .
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
Hilarious if it weren’t so dangerous…
Gil Durán (@gilduran.com) reposted
"In a hotel-turned-campus on a reclaimed island in Malaysia, crypto and tech entrepreneurs are building software, chomping down Australian prime ribeye, hitting the gym — and getting schooled in a radical blueprint for creating new sovereign states from scratch." 🎁 www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
Maybe they'll have something choice to say about football the next time you see them!
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
I don't think rainbow wearers/flyers think of themselves as a team IN COMPETITION WITH another team in the same way. But I'm no expert
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
See Bernard Harcourt’s Illusion of Free Markets
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social)
I am incurably fond of old newspapers and mass-market periodicals, ALWAYS get distracted in them. So I give you from the Dayton Daily News (May 6, 1924) news of Chicago former mayor and U Chicago zoologists sailing for South America in search of a "tree climbing fish"
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
thanks! As a Europeanist venturing into USA history, I'm learning all sorts of things....
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social)
That MAGA _is_ so much more a "team" than a political position explains the difficulty/impossibility of taking adherents away from it on the basis of logic or examples. White socks [sic], win or lose!
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
Did the daytime sale of check, solid, pinstripe suits, overcoats, ulsters, etc. support costs associated with lynching, terrorizing, etc.? Was it "you're here for your robes, don't you want something to wear under them?" Was it a "buy American... no immigrant labor" move? I know nothing about it!
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social)
Today in things I didn't know about 1920 Cincinnati--things I can fathom but that I didn't expect to be QUITE so "in your face." Ku Klux Klothes sold ordinary men's suits, overcoats, etc., but clearly only to a certain sort of customer. No Germans! stories.cincinnatipreservation.org/items/show/40
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
Columbia does too
mialong.bsky.social (@mialong.bsky.social) reposted
As drug deaths hit a 5-year low, Trump continues to cite fentanyl as major threat www.npr.org/2025/08/30/n...
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
Private equity bought up veterinary practices. I think I saw somewhere that vet care costs have risen more than any other category (!) in the last 10 (?) years
Climate, Ecology, War and More by Dr. Glen Barry (@bigearthdata.bsky.social) reposted
In Far Northeastern Maine, a Native Community Fights to Adapt to Climate Change ->Inside Climate News | #ClimateChange | More info from EcoSearch
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social)
Meanwhile….
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
Palm Beach Story!! I’ve only seen it once but I remember it SO fondly. Lady Eve is actually the only one I have seen repeatedly and I would gladly watch it again right now.
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reposted reply parent
Student said to me yesterday: “I’m sick of hearing about AI all the time.” 🫧 📍
Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) reposted
$DJT
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
The better to bully you, my dear!!
Silverman on Security (@silvermansecurity.bsky.social) reposted
Very important 🧵!!!!
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social)
We are going to need very clear messaging about why produce prices have increased 50-100%. Or maybe not? Let consumers blame it on “Republicans.” That explains much of it!
Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24.bsky.social) reposted
It is less a mass deportation regime as it is a mass kidnapping and indefinite detention regime
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social)
Policy and planning can change human behavior! Paris is SO much more pleasant now than it was 15-20 years ago.
Stanford University Press (@stanfordpress.bsky.social) reposted
WE'RE HAVING AN END OF SUMMER SALE! Labor Day weekend is the perfect opportunity to stock up on your favorite SUP titles Take advantage of 50% off of all in-stock print and ebooks sitewide 8/25, through 9/8. #ReadUP www.sup.org/about-our-en...
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
I think that is exactly what it is, but the authors would probably never admit it (or, probably, even be able to see it that way). My own experience with co-authoring w a scientist was similar: I didn’t think we had anything new, he wanted a publication. In that case, tho, method was much more new.
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
I agree, it's not AS intrinsically annoying as I expected it to be. On the other hand, it is *totally* not revelatory. It's "we took all these words and put them into programs that drew maps, etc." and then the maps matched the words. --It seems Parent has elsewhere praised Elster's work.
Colin Carlson (@colincarlson.bsky.social) reposted reply parent
But by far and away, the biggest priority for a Heritage Foundation-captured CDC is going to be using the agency's legal frameworks for access to medical data, and weaponizing them to control women. *Most* of the Project 2025 plan for CDC is a witch hunt against abortion on an unprecedented scale.
Boston Tom Levenson (@tomlevenson.bsky.social) reposted
To be clear: RFK Jr. is a sociopath, killing people at home & abroad, & whose anti-vaccine campaign is only part of the greatest threat to American public health in memory. But this is Trump & the GOP's doing. DJT continues to back Kennedy. This is on him & the party he leads. They're killers too.
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social)
"Workers/Everybody against Billionaires" rallies and protests on Monday, Labor Day. Local event is noon-3:00 on the Square. I'll be there unless this bad head cold turns out to be COVID. bloomingtonian.com/2025/08/25/w...
Mark Copelovitch (@mcopelov.bsky.social) reposted
"In the political economy of shitcoins, fundamentals are vibes, governance is Discord mods, and demand is pure FOMO." "What Pepinsky & Copelovitch make explicit—and what we’ve always implicitly modeled—is that shitcoins are less a financial product than a politico-cultural coordination game." 😆
Gregg Levine (@greggjlevine.bsky.social) reposted
t’s The Apprentice made flesh. Just like the TV show gave us simulacra of Trump as wealthy, powerful capitalist by amplifying the most cliche & nasty aspects of capitalism, down to building a phony boardroom, Trump’s minions present a pastiche of dictatorship, but where ppl are actually hurt.
Ferric Fang, MD (@fangferric.bsky.social) reposted
More than 9 of 10 physicians say that prior authorization is bad for patients. 78% say it often causes patients to abandon a recommended treatment. “It’s really surprising that we are taking the most unpopular part of Medicare Advantage and applying it to Medicare,” said a former Medicare analyst.
Ana Marie Cox (@anamariecox.bsky.social) reposted
This story has it all: aquaculture, Black Flag, Bernie Sanders, Star Trek as policy, John Hodgman, male tears, and a candidate citing Luthen’s monologue from Andor. Meet Graham Platner, the Maine oysterman trying to crack the senate. @grahamformaine.bsky.social newrepublic.com/article/1996...
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
Thanks!
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
!! My brother and I both tried SPILT before getting the correct answer (he in 4, I in 5). Says something about us, I think.
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
Student said to me yesterday: “I’m sick of hearing about AI all the time.” 🫧 📍
Greg Jaffe (@gregjaffe.bsky.social) reposted
The Pentagon is restoring a portrait of Gen. Robert E. Lee, which includes a slave guiding the Confederate general’s horse in the background, to the West Point library three years after a congressionally mandated commission ordered it removed, officials said. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/u...
Greg Pak (@gregpak.net) reposted
Al Sharpton at the National Action Network rally today: "I don't endorse candidates, but I take attendance. Let's hear from Andrew Cuomo. Oh he's not here. Let's hear from Mayor Adams. Oh he's not here. Let's hear for Zohran Mamdani!" youtu.be/eznxz7ZA5Yc?...
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
Sure enough. Many many victims. And more goons on the way. But I feel as if “dying guys into the appearance of strength” accounts for WAY more than it should be able to.
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reposted reply parent
That’s the thing. This regime only knows/cares about the “look”/spectacle of authoritarianism. Previous totalitarianism certainly had a look and the look mattered—but it wasn’t all there was.
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
Hiding that from them….
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
That’s the thing. This regime only knows/cares about the “look”/spectacle of authoritarianism. Previous totalitarianism certainly had a look and the look mattered—but it wasn’t all there was.
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
Oh yes. I assign the first chapter of Darnton’s book so this is perfect
Rebecca Spang (@rlspang.bsky.social) reply parent
Thanks!