Any link here between early vaccination and the fact that Hillsdale's President was also head of Trump's 1776 Commission? How a Bounty of Vaccines Flooded a Small Hospital and Its Nearby College khn.org/MTI1MTcxNA via Kaiser Health News

"All I know about grammar is its infinite power." Joan Didion, 1976

Dr. Biden is awesome: she grades papers on Air Force One!: "(At the time, Dr. Biden said she spent her time on the [Air Force One] flight grading papers.) nytimes.com/2021/02/05/us/…

Is that a stuffed Bald Eagle perched on the cabinet?nytimes.com/2021/02/07/us/…

Whenever a writer uses the word "praetorian" instead of thuggish or "étourderie" instead of carelessness, I begin to think that writer a trying a bit too hard. Biden’s First 100 Days Would Make Trump Jealous nytimes.com/2021/04/30/opi…

The title of this piece is a little misleading, for its not really the students, but the general outlook of those who run the university who are leading what the piece helpfully criticizes. Opinion | How Students Are Furthering Academe's Corporatization chronicle.com/article/how-st…

I was this morn, before the terrible news of her death, re-reading Lauren Berlant. I’ve spent much of my professional life returning to Berlant because whenever I start a new project a voice in my head says “what would Lauren say.” I hope that voice is always there.

For about thirty years now, the very first thing I do — I do it automatically without thinking — with a new issue of the New Yorker or the New York Review of Books is scan the author names on the table of contents looking for the words “Joan Didion.”

As a resident of Massachusetts I advocate for sending the illegal guns trafficked into my state from Florida back to Florida. We can just put little parachutes on them. bostonherald.com/2022/07/07/maj…

CEO of this nonprofit hospital outfit made 6 million in 2020. — now we know why: How a Hospital Chain Used a Poor Neighborhood to Turn Huge Profits nytimes.com/2022/09/24/hea…

Helpful piece on how high use of contingent faculty makes good teaching difficult (no fault of teachers). Also, teaching evaluations contribute to problem. How to do better evals ? nytimes.com/2022/10/05/opi…

How the New York Times Covers Black Writers | Public Books pwne.ws/3Ct7OTc

I love the conversion of art in one form into art in a different form. I should teach a whole class where all we do is convert from one form to another. Andrew Bird Duets With Phoebe Bridgers on New Song “I Felt a Funeral, In My Brain” pitchfork.com/news/andrew-bi… via Pitchfork

"The obscene and glorious embodiment of a fool's errand" is a great description of one of the art genres I love most. Nick Cave: theredhandfiles.com/learn-how-to-p…

Alas, terrible news that bookforum is going under

My dog Moe’s response when told that the issue of Bookforum he’s reading is the last.

This piece tries to muddle the discussion of banned books, but the difference between the sides remains clear: one is OK with censorship and the other is not. nytimes.com/2023/10/01/opi…

I often find myself wondering how many students a given college president knows on a first name basis. The number is often low, I suspect. Do they have office hrs? Do they have lunch in the cafeteria? Or are they about as remote from students as the president of Bank of Am.

Career Advice | Why I Invited #AI to Dinner Asking students to converse with chat bots can help them see academic inquiry as a conversation, Michael Millner writes. bit.ly/4eO22g7

Seems important to mention in this moment that I just finished up teaching Marx’s Manifesto in my GenEd course Perspectives in American Culture. Students very engaged