American Sociopathy
In the United States in the year 2021, you, as an American citizen, do not necessarily have the right to vote.
You do not necessarily have the right to teach or to learn about matters of race, gender or anything else state lawmakers consider “divisive concepts.”
But you do have one absolute, sacrosanct, inviolate, God-given, self-evident and inalienable right: the right to refuse a coronavirus vaccine — and to infect as many people as you can.
Open Access Article on ‘History of Knowledge’ Blog
A short article I wrote with Kerstin von der Krone about History of Knowledge, the first blog in the German Historical Institute Washington’s scholarly publishing program, is now open access. See “Blogging Histories of Knowledge in Washington, DC,” in “Digital History,” ed. Simone Lässig, special issue, Geschichte und Gesellschaft 47, no. 1 (2021): 163–74.
“Keep Clean” – WPA Poster
The Self
I believe the self is, at least in part, a cleverly disguised deception that allows the social world in and allows us to be “overtaken” by the social world without our even noticing.
—Matthew D. Lieberman, Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect (Crown Publishers 2013)
Browsing Room
Springtime in Glover Park, Washington, DC
Russian Anti-Austrian War Propaganda, 1914–15
Getting the News
Crowds lining up to get their letters and newspapers at the post office on Pike and Clay Streets, San Francisco, California, ca. 1850. This was a decade before the east… Read more Getting the News →
#PandemicDreams
Recurring theme in my pandemic-era dreams: I am in a social situation with many other people, and then I notice none of us is wearing a mask. These scenes used to freak me out, even wake me up. Now my dreaming mind sometimes thinks, “not this again.” Seems the thrill is gone.
#PandemicLife
“I’m a Short Afternoon Walk and You’re Putting Way Too Much Pressure on Me” by Emily Delaney at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.
Leadership Failure
… As senators and House members trapped inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday begged for immediate help during the siege, they struggled to get through to the president, who—safely ensconced in the West Wing—was too busy watching fiery television images of the crisis that was unfolding around them to act or even bother to hear their cries for help.
— “Six Hours of Paralysis”