This is the same man who has been begging to be given the Nobel Peace Prize.

I think it is both important and really difficult for folks to distinguish between 'rampant war crimes' of the sort that Russia, for instance, does in Ukraine as opposed to reduced but still very horrible amount of civilian suffering that a war waged according to law and custom entails.

You’d think “went to Athens, 13, 599e” would be a red flag!

Post from Andrew A.N. Deloucas @aandeloucas.com: In line with discussion about the job market, the latest majors being closed at Syracuse University: Nine majors "sunsetting": • Classical civilization • Classics (Greek and Latin) • Digital humanities • Fine arts • German • Latino-Latin American studies • Middle Eastern studies • Modern Jewish studies • Russian ALT

The First University in the Nation to Build a Center Dedicated to the Creator Economy Syracuse University is creating something that doesn't exist anywhere else in higher education. The Center for the Creator Economy is the first academic center of its kind on a U.S. college campus. Led jointly by the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and the Martin). Whitman School of Management, the center reinforces Syracuse University's commitment to bold, forward-looking academic leadership. By aligning strengths in entrepreneurship, media, communications, athletics and digital infrastructure, the University is charting how higher education can prepare students for the 21st-century economy.

Another university getting rid of things you could only ever do at a university and replacing them with stuff a 13-year-old can do on a phone

Ms. Ungaro was a 17-year-old model when she arrived in New York for the first time in 2002, flying on Mr. Epstein’s plane from Paris with her French agent. She never saw Mr. Epstein again, she said in an interview. But later that year, she met Mr. Zampolli, then 32, at a Manhattan nightclub. Mr. Zampolli wooed her as a client, she said, persuaded her to move to the United States and began a romantic relationship with her that would last two decades. Mr. Zampolli said this didn’t happen until Ms. Ungaro was 19.

At the tail end of Mr. Trump’s first term, Mr. Zampolli was appointed to the board of the Kennedy Center. He moved to Washington for a short time with Ms. Ungaro and their son. But by 2023, she was fed up. Mr. Zampolli had made headlines for his boisterous parties filled with younger women, and for passing around explicit text messages between himself and a woman he claimed was a sex worker. Ms. Ungaro left Mr. Zampolli, moved to Florida and married a doctor from Brazil. Their son went to boarding school and then lived with her, and the former couple fought over custody of him. Then, last June, Ms. Ungaro and her husband were arrested.

This story is fucking insane:
*A Trump crony pursued a teen model who flew to US on the Epstein plane
*When the relationship went sour as he pursued other women, and she married someone else, the crony set ICE on her.
*Now she is deported.

Trump saying things has no probative or epistemic value whatsoever, including as to his own state of mind and intentions

We all know this, by now. And yet somehow the lesson does not sink in

They are literally trying to convince you that starting a war is ending a war.

I've radically revised and expanded this piece to try to keep up with the torrent of bullshit coming from the administration.

The key point remains: there was no imminent threat to America. This is a war of choice lacking a single compelling justification.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-reason...

Thing is, I don't really believe that Israel forced the US's hand here, no matter what Rubio may say. The US just doesn't take actions it does not want to take. What is actually happening here is much darker - Rubio is using Israel as a scapegoat to avoid taking US responsibility for the war.

-Zero Congressional consultation or approval.
-Zero preparation of public for need/consequences of war.
-Zero evidence of thought about "OK, what might the other side do?" Next month. Next year.
-Zero mention of anti-nuke agreement Trump voided, or Trump claim last year that nukes "obliterated."

Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) stepped down from his position as Senate Minority Leader position after praising Strom Thurmond’s 1948 Dixiecrat presidential campaign in 2002.

Today Republicans are defending and deflecting the president’s post of a video depicting a Black President and First Lady as apes.

5 Classes from College:

* Early Christian (Greek) Literature [1-on-1, 3 hrs once / week, chose my own syllabus]
* Vergil and the Hellenistic Tradition [English readings, but revelatory on intertextuality]
* Pagans, Christians, and Jews
* Dead Sea Scrolls
* Indigenous Languages of the Americas

ΔΕΛΦΙΚΟΣ ΛΟΓΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΑΓΓΕΛΟΥ ΣΙΚΕΛΙΑΝΟΥ in English translation

Angelos Sikelianos - The Delphic Word / ΔΕΛΦΙΚΟΣ ΛΟΓΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΑΓΓΕΛΟΥ ΣΙΚΕΛΙΑΝΟΥ (1927) YouTube video by pseudepigraphon

Angelos Sikelianos, “The Delphic Word” (1927), translated by Alma Reed — parallel Greek and English text, with English narrated by Mischa Hooker: youtu.be/4x-QD2BtpxU?...

This kind of intellectual firepower is usually only found at unaccredited colleges in Austin

BILLY BRAGG - CITY OF HEROES YouTube video by Billy Bragg

I wrote this yesterday about the hero city of Minneapolis

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKOW...

But also: If Dem leaders act like it’s an emergency, the press will *also* not cover it like it’s an emergency.

Opinion | In Minneapolis, I Glimpsed a Civil War

fantastic piece from my colleague @polgreen.bsky.social that gets at something i have been thinking about. what, exactly, is the administration's strategic goal in minnesota? what does "victory" look like for trump and miller?

If the basic project is expanding and straightening the American empire, everything this administration has done - destroy soft power, wreck alliances, abandon shared ideals, withdraw for the intl institutions America built, and general erratic behavior - will have the opposite effect.

Chilling, though: It didn’t end well for Melos either.

I was also wrong in thinking he wouldn't bomb Iran in June. Why? Because Trump has been bluster with the occasional very targeted bomb. Starting wars against countries has not been his style. But with zero constraints on his foreign policy now, his aggressive instincts face no check. 2/

Seeing a lot of people forget what happened with Manuel Noriega.

I would be shocked if Trump did not rely on that as precedent.

Added bonus: after the US was done with Noriega, we sent him to France for more criminal prosecution.

One of the alleged shipments Maduro was involved in went to Paris

While the Senate is asking Trump why they started a war to kidnap a foreign leader perhaps they might also ask why Trump freed a former foreign leader convicted of the same kind of crimes.

fwiw it’s been about six weeks since Trump pardoned the former president of Honduras who had been convicted of trafficking drugs into the US

A more accurate characterization was that Hitler was a remarkably charismatic individual who reflected, in extreme form, the prejudices many Germans already felt, whose ideas and policies were both morally horrible and also prudentially bad, bringing ruin to his country and death to his countrymen.

In a world dominated by AI & disinformation, I expect we will see a major pendulum swing culturally. People will crave authenticity and reality over deep fakes and conspiracist lies

I'm here for it, sharing #RealArchaeology

'Heritage American,' noun.

1) An American insufficiently committed to the founding values of the United States.
2) An American actively betraying those principles.
3) A white supremacist euphemism used by [2] to mean 'white people.'

This is extremely dumb for a variety of reasons but perhaps the most obvious is that the Romans didn't apply their adoption law to grants of citizenship.

I cannot communicate how basic an error he is making here. Staggeringly elementary, a thing you learn in Roman Civ 101.

it really is something that no one affiliated or allied with trump seems to have any sense of how to use power with subtlety and finesse.