No-one says ‘Fast food isn’t going away, so let’s work out how to incorporate it into your diet’, yet we are often treated to the same non sequitur when it comes to AI

Please help spread the word about our open position for a history editor in the @uncpress.bsky.social acquisitions department! This person will be overseeing exciting, key lists for the publishing program.

Look at IN, leading the way for a change!

Cyber Monday: One-Click Download from The Digital Press at the University of North Dakota People say to me all the time: Bill, I just can’t be bothered to click download every time a new free book comes out from your press. This is an understandable concern. After all, clicking download…

I have a Cyber Monday deal for you: a one-click download of 10 books (a so-called "Dakota Dozen").

No email, sign-up, sign-in, or other information required. Click. Download. Unzip. Read.

Free. #OpenAccess #CyberMonday #FreeBooks

mediterraneanworld.wordpress.com/2025/12/01/c...

Colleagues: please reach out if you're working on a book that might be a fit for Eisenbrauns and planning to attend ASOR or SBL in Boston. I'd be happy to meet with you to talk about your project over coffee or a drink!

The Late Bronze Age collapse plunged the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East into a period of chaos and starvation, but 300 hundred years later, the region emerged stronger and more prosperous than ever. Could the same thing happen here in the United States?

No Kings in Evansville, IN

Great energy at No Kings in Evansville, IN!

This week, our colleague Dr. Mark Bray came under attack by Turning Point USA’s Rutgers chapter for his public scholarship. Rutgers AAUP-AFT and the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union condemn this campaign and stand in solidarity with our colleagues. Read our full statement here: https://loom.ly/BDXasRY

6a E Mark.mp4 - 6a E Mark - Frame.io

Spoke with cnn while sitting on the floor of my hotel room hallway bc my family were asleep in the other room.

I'm sorry this is happening to you and your family. Thank you for your bravery.

FOA Webinar: Kevin McGeough, Jennie Ebeling, and Bill Caraher - American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR) Friends of ASOR Panel Webinar: "Readers of the Lost Ark: The Ark of the Covenant from Biblical Religion to Contemporary Culture" on October 8, 2025 at 7:00 pm ET.

Friends of ASOR present the next webinar of the season on Oct. 8, at 7:00 pm EDT, presented by Kevin McGeough with panelists Jennie Ebeling and Bill Caraher. This webinar will be free and open to the public. Registration through Zoom (with a valid email address) is required: tinyurl.com/bdet3w97

Ugh, sorry. My short piece in the OA Nakhai Festschrift may be useful www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress...

I love pointing out to people that most of what survives from the Iron Age relates to women's contributions to household food prep

Ovens are found in or near just about every Judahite house along with stone grinding tools and the like. It is far from invisible archaeologically because ceramic and stone survive. Relatively few scholars paid attention this stuff until recently because it's associated w women, mundane, etc

'It comes with the territory': How Israel's archaeologists legitimize annexation Weaponizing antiquities is part of Israel's colonial legacy, says Rafi Greenberg, whose colleagues have largely remained silent about Gaza's destruction.

🏺

If you were too young in 2003 here is what Bush told the American people:

1) The Iraq War won’t cost a lot of money
3) We won’t need a lot of troops
4) We’ll bring peace and freedom to Iraq
5) We’ll find WMDs
6) We’ll be welcomed as liberators
7) It will be easy
8) It won’t take long

All lies.

Israel isn't in control of the United States. This is just who the US is and has always been.

Saying we're controlled is just a way of saying we're victims. We're not. We're an imperial power that likes war because it's profitable and enriches our oligarchs.

That's it.

ChatGPT's Impact On Our Brains According to an MIT Study The study, from MIT Lab scholars, measured the brain activity of subjects writing SAT essays with and without ChatGPT.

'ChatGPT users had the lowest brain engagement and “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.”...ChatGPT users got lazier with each subsequent essay, often resorting to copy-and-paste by the end of the study.'
time.com/7295195/ai-c...

screenshot from an online job application form. the question reads "Can you describe specific ways you have integrated AI tools into your development workflow? Please include any custom setups, automations, or use cases beyond single prompt usage" (a red asterisk indicates that this is a required question). an answer has been typed in the textbox below the question: "there is a monster in the forest and it speaks with a thousand voices. it will answer any question you pose it, it will offer insight to any idea. it will help you, it will thank you, it will never bid you leave. it will even tell you of the darkest arts, if you know precisely how to ask. it feels no joy and no sorrow, it knows no right and no wrong. it knows not truth from lie, though it speaks them all the same. it offers its services freely to any passerby, and many will tell you they find great value in its conversation. “you simply must visit the monster—i always just ask the monster.” there are those who know these forests well; they will tell you that freely offered doesn’t mean it has no price for when the next traveler passes by, the monster speaks with a thousand and one voices. and when you dream you see the monster; the monster wears your face."

applying for jobs again

This headline is misleading in so many ways

Pediatricians say that childhood vaccines are safe. A heroin-addled nepo baby with a brain worm says they may not be. For busy voters, it can be hard to know who to believe.

If it wasn't clear already: "A.I. is the tool of and the prevailing aesthetic of fascists."

This is Clint Eastwood-bantering-with-an-empty-chair levels of friendly fire.

The fact that the government is using charges of antisemitism to justify sending people to concentration camps is the most enraging manipulation of discourse that the current fascists have engaged in thus far.

They’ll live out their Nazi fantasies all while claiming they are doing it for the Jews.

Cognitive dissonance is the humanities being at the same time both a useless waste of time and an imminent threat to the government.

Florida’s DOGE agency asks university faculty to hand over research A letter sent last week asks colleges to compile a list of all research and grants.

Florida officials are demanding that universities send lists of all research that faculty/staff have published or publicly shared in the last 6 years, even if it wasn't publicly funded.

It's not clear what they'll do with the lists, but my bet is on nothing good.
www.tampabay.com/news/educati...

Media challenge: try writing headlines without using the word "antisemitism". Stop using Trump's framing for his authoritarian actions.
"Trump administration now monitoring immigrant social media" would be shorter and more accurate, since no-one really believes this is about anti-semitism.

yep

Senator Calls Fired Worker a ‘Clown’ Who ‘Probably Deserved It’ Sen. Jim Banks said that he wouldn’t apologize for his response to former budget analyst Mack Schroeder.

Please repost wide. Jim Banks must be sued and lose his own job. This type of callous cruelty cannot be tolerated.

www.thedailybeast.com/watch-republ...

FOA Webinar: Brien Garnand - American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR) Friends of ASOR Webinar - Dr. Brien Garnand presents: "How to Re-Place Carthaginian Votive Dedications into Context " on April 2, 2025 at 2:00 pm ET.

Brien Garnand presents "How to Re-Place Carthaginian Votive Dedications into Context" on Wed April 2 at 2:00 Eastern. Registration is free.