Rebecca M. Townsend

An open letter to Grammarly and other plagiarists, thieves and slop merchants To everyone at Grammarly, I am writing a book right now, a really challenging endeavor that no doubt someone in Silicon Valley will think it’s fine to steal the day it’s published. I’ve been a profes...

I finally lost my shit about so-called AIs, LLMs, enshittification & everything fucking evil that @officialgrammarly.bsky.social is doing. I'm fucking furious, and not just about what 1 company has done. An open letter to Grammarly & the rest of the LLM hype machine www.moryan.com/an-open-lett...

Photo of UMass campus on a sunny day with students outside

I am at @umassamherst.bsky.social for tomorrow's ##TownMeeting symposium. It is such a wonderful place and I could think of no better place for this event, to our knowledge the first of its kind.

As long as we're on the subject of small local bookstores, among the best--though dealing only in used (which is my preference anyway)

1) Gray Matter in Hadley
www.greymatterbooks....

Closest thing to a mini-Strand we have here

A+ photo editor choice. No notes.

Comment from me:
The entire architecture of the future world will depend on when&how the wars in Iran&Ukraine end.These wars are undoubtedly interconnected.

The first circuit breaker is probably going to trip before they're even done with the ceremony. Poor Rosie Rios was the Treasurer under Obama and deserves better than this certain ignominy. Her signature is literally on a whole bunch of money that's about to lose a lot of value.

Fuzzy memories and hard facts: An SC accuser's claims against Epstein, Trump examined An alleged victim of Jeffrey Epstein gave FBI agents true accounts of her time growing up in SC. Claims she made about Donald Trump remain unsubstantiated.

Breaking: SC newspaper verifies portions of Trump accuser's story. Textbook journalism. Local journalism. Support your local news outlets. www.postandcourier.com/news/epstein...

That's 6%

A handful of Republicans in Congress & Supreme Court can end this nightmare any time they choose, and history will remember them as saviors of the republic, no matter what terrible things they did to US in last 10 years: insane we cannot find a few volunteers for this plum deal!

Markets are *very* unhappy about developments in Iran.

Trading Suspended on KOSPI for 20 Minutes Following 8% Plunge

Oh. I learned about circuit breakers in March 2020, when they were triggered four times. At the time, it hadn’t happened since 1997. www.marketplace.org/story/2020/0...

Generations had never experienced inflation. Generations have never experienced the energy crisis we grew up with in the 1970s.

Interesting

Fox News apologizes for showing old video of a hatless Donald Trump at a dignified transfer ceremony Fox News has apologized for airing old video of a hatless President Donald Trump at a dignified transfer ceremony as part of its coverage.

Fox News apologized for airing archival video of a hatless President Donald Trump during coverage Sunday of his attendance at the dignified transfer ceremony for U.S. soldiers killed in the Middle East war.

🤯

This is exactly what they would say. And with some justification! It's not my country!

In first, CIA acknowledges 1953 coup it backed to overthrow leader of Iran was undemocratic While other American officials have made similar remarks in the past, the acknowledgment by the CIA in a podcast about the agency’s history comes as much of its official history of the coup still rema...

I wonder what percentage of Americans knows that the CIA helped overthrow a democracy in Iran in 1953, installing a brutal dictator who tortured and murdered people. Republicans keep citing the 1979 Islamic Revolution as if that was the start of U.S.-Iran hostilities. Go back 26 years earlier.

Homemade Bomb Thrown at Protest Near N.Y.C. Mayor’s House, Police Say

1/ Today in pardoned Jan 6 rioter news: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/07/n...

I've never seen a cat do this. Congratulations on the talent in your home.

The Last Gatekeepers Why the Trump administration wants to neutralize state bar discipline.

My latest on the complicity of lawyers in dismantling democracy and the Justice Department's attempt to thwart the ability of state bars to hold them accountable open.substack.com/pub/asharang...

Editorial: March 6, 2026: Audit Wars Open the books. That was the overwhelming message Massachusetts voters sent to Beacon Hill in 2024.

www.wcvb.com/article/edit...

Boston honors first casualty of American Revolution - The Boston Globe Mayor Michelle Wu said Crispus Attucks embodied the struggle of freedom long before the nation formally declared independence.

Honoring Crispus Attucks Day matters. It reminds us that the fight for justice has always required courage and sacrifice.

Read the full story at shorturl.at/aKft7.

#mapoli #bospoli

3/3

International Women's Day | United Nations The purpose of the day is to uphold women’s achievements, recognize challenges, and focus greater attention on women’s rights and gender equality to mobilize all people to do their part.

Today is International Women's Day www.un.org/en/observanc...

This is very very good news

I’m sorry, doing this in a baseball cap sold by your campaign store is deliberately disrespecting the dead.

When DOGE Unleashed ChatGPT on the Humanities

"Even an effort to catalog and digitize the papers of Thomas Gage, a British general in the American Revolution, was guilty of “promoting inclusivity and diversity in historical research.”

+ Important update on the lawsuit fr AHA, MLA, ACLS etc. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/07/a...

I can imagine the students find it fascinating!

As an aside, I'd like to encourage the people of Maine to maybe not vote for the guy who has Nazi ties, and vote for the little old lady who yelled at Trump instead.