Michelle Watson

Just walked by a colleague's classroom after my class finished and he was talking about Elvis, getting blank stares and so he had to ask "Does anyone know who Elvis Presley is?"

It's rough out here on these teaching streets.

Here's a thread featuring clips of key moments from the DC Metropolitan Police body camera footage of the March 17, 2025 DOGE raid on the US Institute of Peace that I obtained as a result of my FOIA lawsuit:

NEW: I got my hands on a Palantir-Department of Defence contract that outlines how the Trump-aligned tech company has embedded staff in Defence, leaves a carve-out for training on Australian data, and has a number of quite generous contract conditions.

www.crikey.com.au/20...

States could do us all a big favor and write product liability laws that make car companies liable for self-driving accidents no matter how many "waivers" they make customers sign.

If car companies don't like it, they can keep their products off the market until they are actually safe.

I’d rather the most basic, created in PowerPoint using a generic template image than something created with AI.

The danger to my job from AI isn't that AI can do my job, it's that my job is made even more precarious by the way AI is shaping ideas of the value of work. It can't do my job, but it can be part of convincing people (incorrectly) that my job isn't necessary.

The DOJ released evidence, which the FBI deemed credible, that the President of the United States sexually and physically assaulted a 13 year old girl AND she was afraid to talk about it because Trump would kill her—and it’s somehow not the biggest scandal in American history?

Picture of a panel in a conference center. There is a dias with a black curtain at the front, and a gray podium. Behind the dias sits Carmen Maria Machado, a fair-skinned femme wearing glasses with dark hair, Umair Kazi, a brown masc with dark hair, Alex Hanna, a brown butch trans woman with short brown hair, and Vauhini Vara, a brown woman with long black hair wearing a red blouse.

There were 250 people in the audience, at the biggest available room for our #awp26 panel, Resisting AI in Writing and Teaching.

It was invigorating; hearing about how writing instructors are pushing back against their institutions was inspiring. Thanks to my co-panelists Carmen and Umair.

The Saint John’s Bible Original Manuscript to be Bound - Saint John’s Bible While the pages of The Saint John’s Bible were completed in 2011, they have since been left unbound. Donald Jackson, Artistic Director of The Saint John’s

It's time to bind the St. John's Bible: The team originally "planned to secure the father of modern conservation binding, Christopher Clarkson, to bind the seven volumes of the Bible...His passing and [that] of Fr. Michael Patella...served as a wake-up call." saintjohnsbible.org/posts/2026/0...

the whole purpose of the post-menopausal woman is to prevent the rise of generative AI

Hello Bluesky! I am looking for anyone who cares about/writes about/thinks about Rebecca West.

I've been on a 10 year mission to get her a blue plaque in London and am finally allowed to re-apply after it was last turned down.

I'd welcome help building a strong application.

Thank you 💙🙏

damn, if the Childcrusher 5000 GTX pickup truck owners can’t afford gas, how are they going to be able to tote their massive loads of a single loaf of bread and a canned Starbucks latte

More than 180 authors quit writers' week. Many returned for a DIY replacement Constellations emerged from the ashes of Adelaide Writers' Week, which was cancelled after authors withdrew over censorship. Organisers share how it came together and lessons for the future.

We stood together against anti-Palestinian racism and they cancelled our festival. So we organised our own.

Very tired now, but very proud of Constellations!

Great in depth coverage from Hannah Story here

www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03...

I would love non-AI tools. When given the choice I will ALWAYS pick the non-AI tool. I think not having AI will become a plus for many products.

If you're doomscrolling, guess what? So far there are 51 kākāpō chicks hatched and thriving this season, the same number of birds as we had in TOTAL in the 90s! Only one chick has died and there are still fertile eggs waiting to hatch!

Learn to do your own work.

It. It’s a machine not a person.

Limp binding for the win!!!!!

Slavery used to be legal, moral and right. Disney is in charge of modern USA copyright. Bye.

Dude, cult deprogrammers can help you.

Billy Yank & Johnny Reb Letters For the past sixteen years following my retirement, I have dedicated myself to the transcription of letters—encompassing thousands of Civil War era correspondence and diaries that have remained unp…

Some of the most engrossing 19th century prose I know of can be found on a website run by a retiree who has spent the last 16 years transcribing thousands of letters, almost all of them in private hands, written by Civil War soldiers. billyyankjohnnyreb.wordpress.com/2015/12/05/l... #19thCentury

I’m not you’re friend. Legal doesn’t mean right or moral.

Hypothetically, because someone has proof, probably photos…

Why in 15 years has neither of them done any back up to a hard drive????? He’s in IT ffs.

Don’t be too hard on genealogists. You’ve obviously missed todays post from an academic in which he boasts how much he uses AI and that AI can write better social sciences work than PhD’s.

The whole article is written by AI. That says it all.

Any use of AI for a paying client needs to be declared up front and in any written reports. Anything less is unethical.

Honestly, the discussion needs to be even broader than that as the current state of black box commercial GenAI means it can’t be used ethically for anything.

It will be over by Christmas…

All the books, articles, poems etc stolen to train the models.