Wow, this whole section.
10.03.2026 07:32
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Wow, this whole section.
"Earnings inequality has contributed to Social Security’s current trust fund shortfall, according to recent research from the Roosevelt Institute, a liberal think tank, student network and nonprofit partner to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum."
www.cnbc.com/2026/03/09/m...
“A recurring theme across histories of the Red Scares period is that if the faculty had shown solidarity, with a meaningful share of faculty within an institution refusing to sign things like loyalty oaths, the damage to academic freedom could have been averted or greatly lessened.”
“Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding.”
-- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, writing about the unfortunate director of the local paper factory
mannerofspeaking.org/2010/05/12/s...
not different, the article points out Iowa already has a 5-year standards review cycle.
Screenshot of article which reads: Let’s talk about the value of solidarity. Recently, senior leaders at the University of California, Los Angeles, made overtures to work with the Trump administration after receiving a settlement proposal that required the university to restrict freedom of speech and expression on campus and to pay $1.2 billion to the federal government. The UCLA Faculty Association and the Council of University of California Faculty Associations, along with the American Association of University Professors and other unions, sued the administration. The judge issued a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration, writing that the administration used a “playbook of initiating civil rights investigations of preeminent universities to justify cutting off federal funding, with the goal of bringing universities to their knees and forcing them to change their ideological tune.” (A ProPublica and Chronicle of Higher Education investigation detailed how the administration tasked lawyers to “rapidly ‘find’ evidence backing a preordained conclusion” at UCLA.)
Screenshot of article which reads: Last month, the Trump administration dropped its appeal of that ruling. While the case itself proceeds, this means that unions were the ones who protected academic freedom at UCLA, not the institution’s senior leadership. Faculty unions can provide some scaffolding to make it easier for faculty members to find ways to act together. But if you can’t join a union at your institution (seriously, join your union!), it can be just as important to join organizations like local chapters of the AAUP (which has already shown a willingness to fight government repression that directly contradicts their past actions during the Red Scares). United Academics of Maryland at the University of Maryland, College Park (affiliated with the AAUP), which is not an official bargaining organization, still worked collectively to win nearly $9 million for workers at risk of losing their jobs due to canceled federal contracts.
Unions are by no means perfect (anyone who's ever been in one can tell you). But I would rather be part of one and push for change than be trying to go it alone.
Screenshot of article which reads: I particularly call on people with the (limited) protections of tenure. We have seen a world where the people with the most power do nothing while people in the most precarious positions put their literal bodies on the line. A corollary in our past is that Harry Keyishian—the lead plaintiff in the SCOTUS case that bears his name and eventually enshrined faculty’s right to academic freedom—was a contingent lecturer at the University at Buffalo who had not yet completed his dissertation when he challenged the state of New York’s loyalty oath. His co-plaintiffs included other lecturers, untenured professors and a staff member. It may seem obvious, but I’ll be explicit: Faculty with tenure should summon the same level of courage as an all-but-dissertation lecturer or untenured assistant professor to fight against attacks on academic freedom.
The people who push back on silence-as-protection moves are usually the people with the least job security, which remains wild to me. Maybe we should use tenure to do something good?
You ever write something and there are so many parts you hope people engage with that you can't figure out which ones to quote?
I'll do a wee thread on the 3rd, and final, essay from my Red Scares series
www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...
they don’t read
I was just teaching about medieval europe in social studies standards in florida. Their big goal: Make sure people know about the development of private property as a core feature of western civilization.
Just one month ago I learned this new term “action civics”... little did I guess it would be coming to a state near me so soon, but I should have known because an IA legislator copy and pasted all Civics Alliance’s model anti-ed bills this year... bsky.app/profile/loui...
Here’s an article about the bill: mandated coverage to include "civics, the nation’s founding documents, Western civilization, and what the bill describes as the “exceptional and praiseworthy” history of the United States.” + free-market economics. www.thegazette.com/news/state/b...
This great assignment is an example of what would likely be banned under IA House Study Bill 714, which mandates civics content while “prohibit[ing] civics courses from including requirements related to political activism or “action civics.”
![Screengrab from Wikipedia: "Women on the Market"
In "Women on the Market" (Chapter Eight of This Sex Which is Not One), Irigaray draws upon Karl Marx's theory of capital and commodities to claim that women are exchanged between men in the same way as any other commodity is. She argues that our entire society is predicated on this exchange of women. Her exchange value is determined by society, while her use value is her natural qualities. Thus, a woman’s self is divided between her use and exchange values, and she is only desired for the exchange value. This system creates three types of women: the mother, who is all use value; the virgin, who is all exchange value; and the prostitute, who embodies both use and exchange value.[12]
She further uses additional Marxist foundations to argue that women are in demand due to their perceived shortage and as a result, males seek "to have them all," or seek a surplus like the excess of commodity buying power, capital, that capitalists seek constantly. Irigaray speculates thus that perhaps, "the way women are used matters less than their number." In this further analogy of women "on the market," understood through Marxist terms, Irigaray points out that women, like commodities, are moved between men based on their exchange value rather than just their use value, and the desire will always be surplus – making women almost seem like capital, in this case, to be accumulated. "As commodities, women are thus two things at once: utilitarian objects and bearers of value."[12]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:l3k4ivyknlg4yv4as4b6anmt/bafkreiaqlkdubbgy5fkh6gbydtrc4qdc2toy67brqudqn5agbhwixsqcn4)
Screengrab from Wikipedia: "Women on the Market" In "Women on the Market" (Chapter Eight of This Sex Which is Not One), Irigaray draws upon Karl Marx's theory of capital and commodities to claim that women are exchanged between men in the same way as any other commodity is. She argues that our entire society is predicated on this exchange of women. Her exchange value is determined by society, while her use value is her natural qualities. Thus, a woman’s self is divided between her use and exchange values, and she is only desired for the exchange value. This system creates three types of women: the mother, who is all use value; the virgin, who is all exchange value; and the prostitute, who embodies both use and exchange value.[12] She further uses additional Marxist foundations to argue that women are in demand due to their perceived shortage and as a result, males seek "to have them all," or seek a surplus like the excess of commodity buying power, capital, that capitalists seek constantly. Irigaray speculates thus that perhaps, "the way women are used matters less than their number." In this further analogy of women "on the market," understood through Marxist terms, Irigaray points out that women, like commodities, are moved between men based on their exchange value rather than just their use value, and the desire will always be surplus – making women almost seem like capital, in this case, to be accumulated. "As commodities, women are thus two things at once: utilitarian objects and bearers of value."[12]
this summary of her essay in that book called Women On The Market feels especially prescient today. Looking at Epstein, the Alexander brothers, the Tate brothers, hell everything gender, through this lens makes a lot of things more clear.
A dramatic image with bold text about Idaho House Committee's passage of a social transition ban, set against a grayscale domed ceiling background. Transcribed Text: BREAKING Idaho House Committee Passes Extreme Social Transition Ban HB 822 is alarming government overreach that would allow Idaho politicians to decide how youth dress and act.
BREAKING: An Idaho House Committee passed HB 822. This dangerous and unconstitutional bill would require trusted adults, such as teachers and counselors, to monitor children for signs that they are not conforming to gender stereotypes. Learn more about the bill: buff.ly/7kw0CXu
I am always glad to see Black women being centered in our own stories about the workforce and the workplace.
One thing I want to note is that across multiple sectors, the net employment loss Black women have experienced is closer to 216,000 from 2024-2025 according to @epi.org.
Wait THIS is the same guy www.dispatch.com/story/news/e...
UNC spent $1.2 million, over 6 months, to investigate its School of Civic Life. It won’t release findings. 🤔
@ncaaup.bsky.social
From William Bunge's Nuclear War Atlas.
Map of Iowa watersheds (8 digit HUC?) by @theswinerepublic.bsky.social . Each watershed is labeled with the city sewage production equivalent to the pig waste nitrogen input into each river system. For example, the Upper Iowa River Basin (NE corner) has hog waste equivalent to Prague (Czech Republic) sewage.
I always liked @theswinerepublic.bsky.social 's map of iowa watersheds and the pig waste/city sewage equivalents:
actually bsky.app/profile/rest...
the model is already here—it’s the “human-in-the-loop” tech critics have been writing about for years: underpaid global human piecework validating the supposedly-amazing artificial output.
the already-disparate burden of reviewing will continue to stratify into one group producing high volumes of word-salad manuscripts and the other group, peer reviewers, expected to spend more time trying to make the papers make sense then the first group spent writing them.
I will never ever forget the dirty looks and chastisements I got in my accounting, finance and econ courses in grad school when I would force historical contexts into discussion and ask gov’t policy questions.
Another thing I like about it is that it identifies *WHY* CC is running out of water—because a bunch of companies took it all.
“It’s a surprise to me that none of those refineries and industries down there have their own desal plants,” said McConnell, who worked 31 years for the chemical manufacturer Praxair in Houston. “They’re using municipal water, for Christ’s sake!”
Also, ex-Obama official asking a question I have a lot—if desal (and water recycling) are so great, why isn’t it industry, rather than humans, using these alternatives?
This story has everything, a focus on desal that led to overlooking other water sources, a city manager making $400K/yr saying don’t panic, a former water system manager saying residents should absolutely panic, and magical thinking: “The last hope to avert disaster was a 20- to 30-inch rainfall.”
Desalination is something that sounds cool and future-y until you start reading about how it actually works in the present, and how much gets loaded onto the *idea* of it working.
Is this bad?
“City officials expect to reach a ‘water emergency’ within months and run out of water next year.“
“The region’s largest industrial users, which collectively consume the majority of the region’s water, remain exempt from emergency curtailment.”
www.texastribune.org/2026/03/08/t...
CNN’s Frederik Pleitgen says black, oil-contaminated rain is falling over Tehran after strikes on oil facilities by U.S./Israeli airstrikes.
