The thing is that this has been true for a long time. Thinking that liberal arts degrees are impractical is received wisdom that collapses under the slightest scrutiny. This claim is only "counterintuitive" if you have bad intuition about higher ed, and, accidentally and on purpose, most people do.
The "death" of English departments and other liberal arts fields is not about their obsolescence but about the fact that they're being actively *killed* by institutions that don't value them on principle, not because of any evidence. Glad ppl are catching up. www.nybooks.com/online/2023/...
There’s nothing Oakland landowners love more than a fenced off vacant lot.
I can appreciate the hustle it took even to get paid to develop a plan for twenty-floor towers in Rockridge. That lot will remain vacant for years sooner than Oakland greenlighting that. The neighborhood itself is already bookended by two.
Got a b2b order from a place literally next to another indie bookstore. That’s gotta be a spite order, right?
Announcing Independent Bookstore Day on Saturday, April 25th
There's simply so much happening, isn't there? So many demands for action and attention that even their visible affects feel unevenly distributed. Fury needs the counterweight of patience; patience needs the prodding of urgency; and both sadness and joy require perspective. People used to call this balancing act wisdom. Maybe they still do. It's hard to tell sometimes over the clamor of nonsense and information. It's become so much, in fact, that they're promising to build yet more and better machines to do the work for us. Which might in theory be great if they weren't a more algorithmically complex, energy inefficient cacophony.
Speaking of defiance, this Saturday, April 25th is Independent Bookstore Day. As if the volume of life wasn't bad enough, it's pitch and tenor is ever yet controlled by fewer people whose primary motivations are not always creative. Consolidation across all forms of media, unfortunately including publishing, increases the stakes for those who see this as a problem. Independent Bookstore Day is a celebration, yes, but in my eyes it is also a declaration.
New newsletter went out this morning. TLDR: never stop rabble rousing.
us16.campaign-archive.com?u=a0d5650803...
Lunch with my former bosses, who effectively turned me into whatever I am today professionally, and they agreed: “Balancing not giving a shit and caring too much must be exhausting.”
There’s simply so much happening, isn’t there? So many demands for action and attention that even their visible affects feel unevenly distributed. Fury needs the counterweight of patience; as patience needs the prodding of urgency; and both sorrow and joy require perspective. People used to call this balancing act wisdom. Maybe they still do. It’s hard to tell sometimes over the clamor of nonsense and information. It’s become so much, in fact, that they’re promising to build yet more and better machines to do the work for us. Which might in theory be great if it wasn’t itself a more algorithmically complex, energy inefficient cacophony.
Okay. I think it's happening.
The future of being people being social pariahs, sure.
I’m going to write this goddamn store newsletter today, after three days of attempts, if it kills me.
A half day at work, a scoop of ice cream and an old fashioned. Not a bad birthday.
Not surprising, but happy that this turned out as cool as it sounded.
ebbooksellers.com/item/YU0xhUH...
It’s a pity he was forced to be a landlord.
Had an idea for a play I'd write if I was a writer of plays, about three apparent strangers postponing their own deaths in various ways in order to bear witness to / celebrate the death of someone else ... the same person as the others.
It’s pretty wild that “idea” has nearly as many syllables as letters.
In an early birthday present to myself I snaked an ungodly entity from my bathroom sink. Took a long time, but I’m now helpful.
Your fifties is, it seems, one physical indignity after another. I trust it sets up full mortal acceptance in your sixties.
I did no prior reading about this shingles vaccine, & was quite unaware how fully it would kick my ass.
It is very appalling and sometimes quite frightening to see how trans-exclusionary feminists have allied with rightwing attacks on gender. The anti-gender ideology movement is not opposing a specific account of gender, but seeking to eradicate "gender" as a concept or discourse, a field of study, an approach to social power. Sometimes they claim that "sex" alone has scientific standing, but other times they appeal to divine mandates for masculine domination and difference. They don't seem to mind contradicting themselves. The Terfs (trans exclusionary radical feminists) and the so-called gender critical writers have also rejected the important work in feminist philosophy of science showing how culture and nature interact (such as Karen Barad, Donna Haraway, EM Hammonds or Anne Fausto-Sterling) in favor of a regressive and spurious form of biological essentialism. So they will not be part of the coalition that seeks to fight the anti-gender movement. The anti-gender ideology is one of the dominant strains of fascism in our times. So the Terfs will not be part of the contemporary struggle against fascism, one that requires a coalition guided by struggles against racism, nationalism, xenophobia and carceral violence, one that is mindful of the high rates of femicide throughout the world, which include high rates of attacks on trans and genderqueer people. The anti-gender movement circulates a spectre of "gender" as a force of destruction, but they never actually read any works in gender studies. Quick and fearful conclusions take the place of considered judgments. Yes, some work on gender is difficult and not everyone can read it, so we have to do better in reaching a broader public. As important as it is, however, to make complex concepts available to a popular audience, it is equally important to encourage intellectual inquiry as part of public life. Unfortunately, we are living in anti-intellectual times, and neo-fascism is becoming more normalized.
The section that the Guardian censored…
By Prof Judith Butler
Fruitvale street tacos will more than suffice. “Bring me extra radish!” I hollered like a baby.
I’m rolling feverishly into my shingles vaccine side effects, & want nothing but Taco Bell.
I enjoy being in a group chat where we'd all just as likely push the others under an oncoming bus as leap in front of it.
If the current problem isn’t so much lack of funds as immoral appropriation, I have my doubts more funds will correct the latter.
As much as I want billionaires to be taxed appropriately, I’m also not totally unsure that extra money wouldn’t be mostly used all the more for this country’s frenzied addiction to militarism.
After losing their warehouse in Amsterdam to a fire, Idea Books projects they’ll be back up and shipping in the matter of a few weeks.
Back from the doctor for my semi-annual check-up, and by all accounts I’m still alive.
I’m screaming at my phone as I read various comment threads about this story, esp the ones along the lines of “the restaurant should’ve known and had time to figure it out.” But that’s the thing. In most such operations there is no “figuring it out.” There’s just more or less access to capital .
