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robertdaleparker.bsky.social
Here for US &/or Modern fiction & poetry, critical theory, crime fiction. Author of How to Interpret Literature & books on US & Native American literature. Emerging writer of mystery & crime fiction. https://rparker1648.wixsite.com/robert-dale-parker
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Prolific Poster

Are we great yet?

I am deeply grateful to my many international students for the privilege of serving as their teacher. They make life better for US students, for themselves, for the US, and for the rest of the world. #Education #Politics #Universities

“If you don’t write you’re not a writer.” Editors also asleep at the wheel.

Very excited to announce the publication of this special issue at Orbit, on Indigenous Speculative Fiction! Guest edited by Jim Donahue and internally shepherded by Sascha Pohlmann. orbit.openlibhums.org/issue/1426/i...

There are lots of wrong definitions of habeas one could give, but this is just about the *most* wrong definition possible. Imagine a cabinet member being asked to define freedom of speech and answering that it’s the government’s right to stop you from criticizing them. About the same.

Hard to think of a more pernicious and enduring myth in American social policy than the distinction between the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor.

If you are a real social scientist, it is very hard to maintain the claim that all evidence of systemic racism is not real science. Much of it is published in top-ranked peer-reviewed journals in Bhattacharya's field of economics. He can either do MAGA, or science, but not both.

say it again: 4 million people work in higher ed, the largest employer in 10 states, second largest employer in 10 more, and in 60 of the 100 biggest cities ROI for NIH and NSF for local economies is conservatively 4x, often close to 10x demolishing higher education is economic sabotage

Trump has remained silent on the deadly tornadoes, the terrorist attack at a fertility clinic, and the fatal ship crash in New York City. But already this morning, he found time to share 14 posts demanding Comey's arrest.

Margaret Sullivan @sulliview.bsky.social hits key points on the media's irresponsible sanewashing of Trump. What examples would you add? www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... 1/3?

Now that the Magna Carta is in the news (www.npr.org/2025/05/15/n...), it's worth quoting one section of it that resonates with contemporary events: "No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or . . . Part 1 of 2

Clematis. From searching online, I believe these are Clematis florida, also known as Asian virginsbower, passion flower clematis, and Asian clematis. #Bloomscrolling

#Bloomscrolling #Spring

Here's the opening post in a thread from the legendarily conservative Judge J. Michael Luttig. Read the whole thread. bsky.app/profile/judg...

National Literacy Institute: 21% of adults in the US were illiterate as of 2024. 54% of US adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level (20% are below 5th-grade level). Worldwide the US ranks 36th in literacy. This is horrifying. It also explains a lot.

I mean, don’t all libraries have $400 million luxury jets in their collection?

Not that this needs to be said, but bribery out in the open is still bribery.

More upsetting news from the continued destruction of IMLS.

The cost of the 4 F-18 planes lost in the Red Sea ($240 million) is now greater than the 2025 NEH Budget ($200 million)

From Poetry Daily, a poem by Janice N. Harrington, from The Kenyon Review, about the contemporary world of Brooklyn, Illinois, which calls itself the oldest Black town in the U.S. poems.com/poem/through...

Directly downstream of recasting college as a work credential than a site of learning.

Don't concede an inch to these people unless they have an actual warrant signed by an actual judge.

On 4 May 1961, the Freedom Riders left Washington, D.C., in two buses and headed to New Orleans. They faced violence, resistance, and arrests. This interracial group aimed to challenge segregation in interstate bus travel and public facilities. 💙 #MomSky #Voices4Victory

Don't miss PEN America's updated list of words banned from federal websites and documents by the Trump administration: pen.org/banned-words...

Around 35% of SpaceX’s revenue comes directly from the federal govt. Less than 1% of NPR’s budget comes from the federal govt.

Hey fellow terminated #NEH fellows @nehgov.bsky.social @altnehgov.altgov.info Sharing my #NEH Appeal of Termination, which I uploaded into the eGMS system. Mine is for an individual fellowship. Another example below. It is recommended that if you were terminated you get an appeal in today.

‘Kennedy told reporters that there were "many, many good ways to treat measles and doctors need to know that and to know those methods.’ One problem; there is no treatment for measles. Signed, a doctor who’s been forced to deal with measles because of this stupid fraud.

Here it is. A timetable of 100 days of corruption. Breathtaking. Heartbreaking. We cannot let this stand.

“And I’m like, what do you mean, you ‘do your own research’? You running a double-blind study in your living room, dawg?” - A guy walking ahead of me with his friends on a NYC sidewalk in 2021, also my favorite overheard dialogue of the entire pandemic

The Civil Rights Division “persecuted” police departments throughout its long history, precisely *because* they were violating civil rights laws. I’m not sure if Harmeet Dhillon is completely ignorant of that history or just a shameless liar, but this is idiotic. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/28/u...

Thread

Marc Elias on US journalism's feeble resistance to Trump: #Journalism #Trump #Democracy

We need the best educated workforce in the world. We need the best teachers in the world. We need to pay our teachers fairly for the important work they do. No teacher in America should begin at less than $60,000 a year.

Pritzker calls for mass protests and disruption - “Republicans cannot know a moment of peace,” he says, swaying their portraits will one day be put in museums “reserved for tyrants and traitors”

#ChampaignUrbana, join us in lining Florida/Kirby Ave from Blair Park to Hessel Park as part of the #MayDayStrong movement. May 1, 7-8:30 pm. Bring signs for before sunset, a candle or similar for after, and your hope for change.

Kingsley Wilson has apparently been promoted to Pentagon Acting Press Secretary, seems like the administration's efforts to "combat anti-Semitism" are going well

Act Blue responds to Trump's attack.

No one should serve on a fake peer review panel. Don’t stain your reputation by helping the authoritarian state.

Your coverage of the Trump Administration's "pronatalist" agenda should at least make glancing reference to Trump slashing funding to reproductive health care providers and eliminating Head Start.

Elon Musk has cut somewhere between 0% and 3% of what he promised—and most of what was cut was not waste or fraud or abuse, but simply expenditures Mr. Musk did not personally favor for partisan reasons. DOGE is the biggest program failure in the history of American government.

It’s worth responding to this drivel with two observations: 1) this is very obviously not the standard they use for right wing protests, which get wide coverage; and 2) consumers rely on the news to tell them about things, so refusing to cover something is abdicating a core ethical duty.

Personally, I think it should be front page news for at least a month if a sitting US President is using falsified evidence to try and deny due process to a man who has committed no crime, but that’s just me

there should be a movie about pickett's charge and in that movie, the confederates should be portrayed as simply being the dumbest, most arrogant, most strung-out troops in the history of conflict. lee should be talked about like not just a racist but one who coached an 0-17 NFL team

Friendly reminder. In the United States, criminals are entitled to due process. Even if you pay hush money rig an election, steal top secret documents, or incite a mob to overthrow the government; no matter how egregious your crimes, you’re entitled to due process.