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asherelbein.bsky.social
Freelance writing about the wild, old and dead. (Plus comics.) Bylines in The New York Times, SciAm, Undark, Texas Monthly, and lots of other places. Repped by @desir.ee at Looking Glass Literary.
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Posts 27 Comments 22

Corporate/institutional diversity efforts are often like HR departments, in that they are (a.) often ineffectual and there to more to protect the institution than you, but (b.) anyone who complains about needing to have them warrants *extremely* close watching

submitted 16 hours ago • 6 comments

I hate to be that guy, but this is the five-alarm fire, and every elected Democrat and frankly, every Washington reporter should be ringing the bell. If it can happen to him, it can happen to anyone. Nobody with a voice should give this administration a moment’s peace about it.

submitted 9 hours ago • 101 comments

initial reports made this sound like a minor failed attempt

submitted 8 hours ago • 228 comments

Shockingly, the pronatalism conference in Austin did not ask me (or the many experts here) to attend. But I will say what is obviously about pronatalist forces is that they don't like children. Children are private responsibility. Sometimes punishment to their mothers. Always property of parents

submitted 13 hours ago • 1 comment

Always and everywhere, ideological diversity means being obligated to make way for people from the center and right. There are anarchists here. There are Blue No Matter Who Dems. There are whole worlds of disagreement between. People have vicious fights on here every day. Doesn't matter.

submitted 16 hours ago • 44 comments

not only is hanania a literal turner diaries racist, but he's a terrible writer! like, genuinely bad at the craft of putting together a sentence for the purpose of expressing an idea. he certainly believe he is part of some cognitive elite, but the actual truth is that he's a no-shit dumbass.

submitted 16 hours ago • 26 comments

For example: Benioff and Weiss. HBO's decision to run those little featurettes with them after every episode of late-season GOT did more to sour people on the show than most want to admit

submitted 16 hours ago • 5 comments

And here it is, our second Cambrian formation piece! This time we visited the even older Surius Passet from Greenland, our first real deep sea deposit. #paleostream

submitted 16 hours ago • 4 comments

Corporate/institutional diversity efforts are often like HR departments, in that they are (a.) often ineffectual and there to more to protect the institution than you, but (b.) anyone who complains about needing to have them warrants *extremely* close watching

submitted 16 hours ago • 6 comments

"There was intense social pressure" is generally code language for "people around me were doing something I thought was stupid, and got annoyed when I told them so"

submitted 17 hours ago • 2 comments

Two things worth keeping in mind 1.) Trump lies all the time about his own health 2.) People are *extremely* attached to the idea that fatness is in some way associated with sin (and weight loss with health/virtue!) such that commentors are rejecting the idea that Trump lost weight out of hand

submitted 17 hours ago • 3 comments

if the reality is worse, then the claims weren’t hyperbolic were they

submitted 17 hours ago • 11 comments

We don't know yet who tried to set fire to the Pennsylvania governor's mansion and we don't know why they tried to do it. Anyone trying to assert what sort of person likely did it is acting off the same amount of information, which is to say: none

submitted 17 hours ago • 2 comments

More substantively, I'd challenge Bruenig to flip the equation around. Natalists have somehow managed to alienate everyone outside their clique despite having the easiest layup (children are good). Maybe cause for reflection!

submitted 1 day ago • 14 comments

Swing by the Museum of Living Art at the Fort Worth Zoo and am now obsessed with these Chuckwallas

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Chag pesach sameach, everybody!

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

you'll never be rid of him

submitted 1 day ago • 81 comments

One little goat, one little goat

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

Yeah she’s cooked

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

needed respite from the world so Gryposaurus monumentensis it is

submitted 2 days ago • 4 comments

His even more pointed insight was understanding how many people in elite spaces who identify socially or professional as liberal share his gutter bigotry and appreciate having someone to say it out loud

submitted 2 days ago • 18 comments

This is absolutely not what the corporate line has been

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

The left is forever critiqued for two things: remembering things and being correct too soon

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

I’m not kidding; this is DOGE at work; multiple US citizens getting notices that they just leave the country because USCIS is revoking their humanitarian parole. www.politico.com/news/2025/04...

submitted 2 days ago • 147 comments

FYI: if you're in the mid Atlantic, the US Geological Survey has a list of native plants you can plant that will be good for native pollinators (which includes blueberry bushes...). you can get seed packs that include perennials so you don't have to replant all the time www.usgs.gov/centers/eesc...

submitted 2 days ago • 12 comments

George R.R Martin being listed as an author here is really beyond parody

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

This era of mass grift—driven by one of the most corrupt administrations in American history—isn’t just a crisis. It’s a massive opportunity for the Democratic Party to lead an unapologetic, system-wide anti-corruption campaign.

submitted 2 days ago • 694 comments