I understand why everyone is so alarmed by the "shock gloves" that police are using against American children, but have a lot of sympathy for my peers who were tased in school back in the 90s and 2000s and no one believed us because such things were only happening to kids and prisoners, not adults out in the world.

Like, from my perspective, that's what changed: the tools used in schools, hosptials, and prisons, now get used on the streets, against workers, and that caused some more solidarity with folk who were already experiencing these things.

There are not enough monuments or obsequious tributes in the world to save Trump from what he fears most. His mortality and impermanence loom over everything, and he projects that anxiety onto the nation in myriad ways. It’s a scramble to refurbish, remodel, and shore up what he fears is crumbling and to protect the body politic against every perceived threat. Dangerous invaders must be repelled. Vandals are around every corner. We must gild with gold all that could be tarnished.

“As we learned, Mahalia’s faith, her politics and her music were inseparable … We did not set out to write about Mahalia’s civil rights work, but our research found it at the center of her life for four decades.”

Timothy B. Tyson on Mahalia Jackson:

https://nofencesreview.substack.com/p/timothy-b-tyson-on-mahalia-jackson?ref=thetonearm.com

You’re going to need to start to ask yourself, ‘what am I willing to do to save my Country and the Constitution’.

A man talks to a therapist. Says he’s depressed. Says the world feels hollow and unreal. Says he no longer knows whether anyone truly understands him.

The therapist says, ‘The remedy is simple. Talk to ChatGPT. It’s endlessly patient, reassuring, and always knows what to say.’

The man bursts into tears.

‘But doctor,’ he says. ‘You ARE ChatGPT.’

The therapist nods. ‘You’re absolutely right to feel that way.’

"Country radio gatekeeps more than most genres, and it's cultural as much as it is musical. If they believe that you are not one of us, they won't play it, and they are very wary of carpetbaggers."

Don't miss Lawrence Peryer's conversation with Chris Molanphy on The Tonearm:

https://www.thetonearm.com/a-beat-of-his-own-making-chris-molanphy-chart-analyst-and-pop-critic/

Some very good 'news' among all the bleak and worrisome stuff:
Because of my hiatus, I completely missed the news re 700TB of #CulturalHeritage data from the Smithsonian.
Last September, the Library Innovation Lab at Harvard Law School came trough (again) <3
https://lil.law.harvard.edu/blog/2025/09/18/expanding-our-public-data-project-to-include-smithsonian-collections-data/

Some of you may remember me (unsuccessfully) trying to get Institutions in Europe to host a copy.
Seeing this news has removed yet another thing still gnawing on me.

"Romanticizing plantation life is a less dominant theme of pop culture now than it was a hundred years ago, but the trope persists right on up to the present."

I decided what song I'm going to start my History of 20th Century American Popular Music class with:

https://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2026/i-decided-what-song-im-going-to-start-my-history-of-20th-century-american-popular-music-class-with/?ref=thetonearm.com

“Davis, the government says, has attended and facilitated meetings about protests and discussed his “anti-authoritarian” ideology with other activists. He is not accused of violent acts, taking any specific actions at protests nor having any encounters with ICE agents.

He is facing six years in prison.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jul/28/ice-protests-antifa-minnesota?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

As tech backlash hits the mainstream, the ‘Summer of Ludd’ proves we don’t need social media to hang out and have a good time.

https://www.404media.co/luddite-events-nyc-off-tech-summer-of-ludd/

My newest Citation Needed project made an appearance on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver! It’s a work in progress, but you can see the new interactive version of my map of the Trump family’s crypto ventures at https://map.citationneeded.news/.

The map contains hundreds of business entities and links to the Trump family (with more being added!), augmented with data from the president’s most recent financial filings to estimate how much money is flowing in. It will be queryable by other researchers/journalists.

@pluralistic

“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:

There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind,
alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

There is nothing more or else to it,
and there never has been."

~Frank Wilhoit, composer
https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288

#Meme #Memes #Quote #Quotes #WilhoitsLaw

Sometimes you come across something that fascinates, and you wish you’d written yourself . Here’s one such.
https://thegrimhistorian.substack.com/p/has-america-crossed-the-asshole-threshold?r=pt3y9&utm_id=97758_v0_s00_e0_tv4_a1dennhb6uf2c4&triedRedirect=true

@stux

It was once anyone's right to touch the water in that pool.

Photo from 1963 March on Washington.
Demonstrators sit with their feet resting in the Reflecting Pool.
From Library of Congress photo collection.

https://www.loc.gov/resource/ds.00834/

RIP Carlo Ginzburg

#histodons

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jul/01/carlo-ginzburg-obituary

This month marks *18 years* of A Working Library. I will have more to say about what it means to blog for this long, and what I'm building towards, but for now I just want to thank everyone for reading. https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/umyazu

He graduated from high school with honors. The next day, ICE detained him. The Los Angeles Times reports that he and a family member are now in removal proceedings and have been fitted with ankle monitors, and that one of them worries about losing her job over the days she has to miss. These are the everyday consequences of enforcement that rarely make the headlines.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-06-17/he-graduated-high-school-with-honors-ice-detained-him-next-day

Doing another round of my course, "Relics in Antiquity and the Middle Ages," Jul. 23-Aug. 27

This will be my 5th time teaching it, 3rd time online, and every time I learn as much from the students as I hope they learn from me. If you're interested in religion or medieval history, check out my course page!

https://kentnavalesi.neocities.org/RelicsHome

I do all my advertising on the fediverse, so boosts appreciated!

@medievodons @histodons #history #ReligiousStudies #Catholicism #education #Christianity

We present: AI in Schools Bingo.
Next time there's an announcement, play along at home!
#noai #ai #education #edtech #school #bcpoli #canada

[dot]gov means it's a government domain, right?

Right???

Yeah no. So [dot]gov domains are being created...

on PRIVATE SERVERS

Meaning *NOT* under Congressional oversight

Domains like passports, voter registration, an FBI tip line...

Oh and they're all under, you guessed it, the Executive Office.

It's called the National Design Studio

Drey (The Drey Dossier) tracked all this via TLS Certificates

Short video:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DY5h9gYBshP/

Long video:
https://open.substack.com/pub/thedreydossier/p/i-found-a-second-votegov-and-its

#infosec

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