Epically disastrous for higher education. Maybe something that the country's leading university presidents wanted to bother speaking up, loudly & collectively about, at any point in the past 15 months 🤷♂️
Trump post on Truth Social: The Iran National Soccer Team is welcome to The World Cup, but 1really don't believe it is appropriate that they be there, for their own life and safety. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP 641 ReTruths 2.59k Likes 3/12/26, 8:00 AM
Pains me to say it, but the world should definitely boycott the World Cup. Would be great if U.S. soccer players and institutions took the lead in calling for this.
#BoycottWorldCup
A cartoon: a man in a ragged suit tells some children huddled by a fire, with an apocalyptic cityscape in the background, "Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of frisson of transgression."
Iran will not take part in the 2026 World Cup.
Iranian sports minister Ahmad Donyamali on state television:
"Considering that this corrupt regime [the US] has assassinated our leader, under no circumstances can we participate in the World Cup”.
www.theguardian.com/football/202...
Political philosophers who try to introduce Wilt Chamberlain to young people in lectures already know about this lack of video 🙁
An old "Far Side" comic captioned, "Through a gross navigational error, the Love Boat streams into the Strait of Hormuz." The comic shows the Love Boat ocean liner, a few mines, a gun boat, and a destroyer.
I'm seeing another tweet from the Energy Secretary. Markets please adjust accordingly.
Even as a cynical scholar of rape culture, I'm shocked that this isn't the headline story on domestic politics everywhere right now. It's just an unfathomable abuse of power, in clear violation of the law.
If recent trends continue, former Jet QBs will win every Super Bowl, so the Jets might as well have a former Jet QB.
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Really sorry about that.
You are correct that this is the content we crave.
Congratulations!
The article also points to the corruption of the selection process for new NEH grants.
Qutoe: “I see few world leaders standing up for the rule of law in the face of blatant lawlessness. That is a great tragedy, and it is that failure that may ultimately spell the end of the postwar legal order.”
The US–Israeli war against Iran is “clearly and unequivocally unlawful.”
We spoke with OONA A. HATHAWAY (@oonahathaway.bsky.social), Professor at Yale Law School, about the international legal order and Europe’s reluctance to call the attack on Iran illegal.
verfassungsblog.de/the-unwillin...
I believe this means Doc Rivers has joined more public statements calling for the defense of higher education against the Trump Administration than has the President of the University of Chicago.
I hate that I know this, but this right-wing talking point says that WWII, including in Japan, was awesome *because* the US bombed (etc.) indiscriminately. The idea is that later wars like Vietnam and Iraq only went badly because the wokes jailed real soldiers like William Calley.
The "Tell Cersei" meme, but with the face of a German wirehair pointer photoshopped over Oleanna Tyrell's face, with the caption reading, "Tell Kristi. I want her to know it was me."
RIP Cricket
I don't speak for Barney, but that has been discussed on the pod many times.
Excellent new piece in the @nytimes.com on how inequality happened in a small Wyoming town with obvious lessons more broadly for the republic.
JOB
Assistant Professor of Political Theory
University of Cambridge
@thecambridgeschool.bsky.social
www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/univers...
A still from the Simpsons, with Mr. Burns at his desk, telling Homer, "I'm sure the manual will indicate which lever is the velocitator and which the deceleratrix."
Mr. Burns is in luck!
"He [Trump] is losing control of the decision to escalate... He can cut his losses now, pay a political price, try to stop the war, even though it would be a failure. Or he play for the long run and become Lyndon Johnson in the Vietnam War and face a more disastrous political outcome." - Robert Pape
"No stupid rules of engagement"
We just bombed a school and killed dozens of children.
That's right. Worse than Pointless
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/o...
The strikes on Iran are blatantly illegal. I explained in June why the strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities were unlawful under US and international law. Everything I wrote then is true today, but this is a far larger assault with far graver consequences.
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/23/o...
I taught mid-career military at the Kennedy School. They were great to have in class, not least because the other students learned so much from them. For Hegseth to suggest these impressive men and women are at risk of being "indoctrinated" is demeaning and insulting to them.
Indeed. New grants are not getting funded, already funded grants are not getting paid, and non-competitive renewals are being held up.
Focusing on the top line budget, instead of looking at what is really happening on “the ground” is deeply misguided.
oooo excited to read this
In my talk for The Royal Institute of Philosophy this evening - Social Equality: Then and Now - I compared the views of RH Tawney, GDH Cole, Harold Laski and Arthur Lewis with positions in debates about equality in recent decades. Available online March 9th.
Very sorry to hear that. My condolences.
