Erik Strobl

Alright it's officially over. I sat on the toilet looking at my phone too long this morning and I've had a day long neck pain

I keep circling back to that line from the Mishnah Sanhedrin, "whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world" and wondering what it means to live at the mercy of men who are equally indifferent to any individual life, to millions of lives, and to the world itself

David Berman, I’ve never needed you more

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yesssss

Oh, yeah? Would a dying empire do THIS?!

Mr. Trump’s failure to articulate either goals or a strategy for a potential military intervention has created shocking levels of uncertainty about this attack. Americans do not know whether the president has ordered an attack in their name mostly to set back Iran’s nuclear program — or to go so far as toppling the government of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

It seems absurd to lock in, as growing number of commentators seem to be doing (NYT clip below), on Trump’s failure to articulate a casus belli in Iran. Asking “why?”, presuming a satisfactory explanation is out there, ignores the sense of unreality that perpetuates endless war in the first place.

A color portrait of Italian-American character actor Armand Assante, who made a career for himself in the 1980s and 90s playing various mobsters, gangsters, and tough guys. Patrick “Dutch” Dugan has questions about the provenance of this particular clipart. It’s obviously from 1995, a full year before Assante’s breakout role as John Gotti. So how did Corel know that Assante was going to be a worthy subject of clipart, and was the Gambino family involved? Dutch isn’t afraid to dig. If only Dutch were still around today to tell us what he found.

ASSANTE1.BMF

I went Luigi Mode yesterday (ate alone at a McDonalds in a distressed former industrial town in Pennsylvania)

scorcher of a syllabus!

Very cool 👍

thinking of who else is equally creepy in so little screen time. Maybe John Huston as Noah Cross? Pretty good company quo

Tom Noonan in “The Pledge” may be the most unsettling second-for-second performance in history. R.I.P. to a king

nooooooooooo

Josh Shapiro sued this company for wage theft. Now, they’re endorsing his opponent Glenn O. Hawbaker was sued in 2021 for more than $20 million for stealing from their employees over the span of three decades.

Criminal who stole 20 million dollars supports Garrity for PA Governor

keystonenewsroom.com/2026/02/17/s...

straight fire from Melinda Cooper as usual

probably corny but very true! Don’t make me get sentimental on social media!

ha, just wait!

for what it’s worth, you definitely set me on the right path.

I teach at a mid-sized public university in Pennsylvania. Every day, I see students who aren't Humanities majors benefit from the critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity that is fostered in my classrooms. And I see Humanities majors with their eyes on the future.

The ending of this book is one of the most absolutely bleak things I've ever read.

Red Riding quartet is perfection. I’ll talk Peace anytime if you’re reading him straight through

It’s so funny to think about the fact that there’s people out there deferring every life decision to this

the absolute minimum required for my vote, in 2026 and 2028, is a firm commitment to putting these people in prison. I don’t care how good you are on other issues. I don’t care if it’s a purity test. if I don’t see a hard commit to imprisoning these people, you don’t get my vote, plain and simple

you can think this without typing it

Opinion | U.S. universities have lost sight of their core task It’s time for higher education to get back to educating the workforce of the future.

Dear universities, big tech and neo-liberalism would like to inform you that your faculty are too invested in students, your curricula are fluff, your culture wars are outdated, and you aren’t spending enough on AI.
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

I really want people to think about this. After all the insane lawsuits, all the threats, all the bullshit weve seen from this admin and the targets who kneeled in fear, an average Joe called the president a Pedophile protector to his face and didn't get touched. That's the Power of a union.

I have zero bandwidth to develop the idea, but the last decade has given rise to a gulliblity style, where a source’s statement is treated as the story regardless of whether it’s true or plausible. It creates stories that are technically true but functionally misinformation. You see it everywhere.

I've never been a conspiracy theory guy, but you're never gonna convince me that there hasn't been a specific cabal of ultra-rich dullards trying to buy, strangle, and bring to heel all of the most important reality-shaping machines since the uptick in power labor had during COVID

need confirmation from @lkremmel.bsky.social