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Geoff Wisner

@geoffwisner.bsky.social

390 followers 270 following 1.2K posts

Author of A Basket of Leaves (2007). Editor of African Lives (2013), Thoreau's Wildflowers (2016), Thoreau's Animals (2017), A Year of Birds (2024), and George Templeton Strong: Civil War Diaries (January 2026!).

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Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 3h

[By "blowing of rocks" I think Thoreau means blasting rocks with gunpowder or other explosive. See Nov. 17, 1860, "How they do things in West Acton," for the story of how Thoreau was almost blown up himself by someone doing just that.]

Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 3h

Oct. 15, 1852. The flight of a partridge, leaving her lair (?) on the hillside only a few rods distant, with a gentle whirring sound, is like the blowing of rocks at a great distance. Perhaps it produces the same kind of undulations in the air. [Ruffed grouse by Barry Van Dusen]

Reposted by Geoff Wisner

蓮猫 Lotuscat @lotuscat.bsky.social · 5h

I took my cat to the vet today. He fought fiercely. He so thick he doesn't have a neck so I couldn’t grab him by the scruff of neck. Lots of (human) blood were spilt. I imagine same is going on at the vet…. I named him Mimaki. The red smudge on the sketch is (human) blood.
みまきちゃん。

Sketch of a cat. Mackerel stripe patches on head, back, and tail.

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Reposted by Geoff Wisner

George Conway 🇺🇸🚫👑🐸 @gtconway.bsky.social · 18h

It's really not about politics anymore. The apparatus of the Republican Party has simply become a haven for bad people.

www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

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Reposted by Geoff Wisner

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 5h

Cody Balmer, the man accused of firebombing the official residence of Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania in April, agreed to a plea deal on Tuesday that would send him to prison for 25 to 50 years. Read more: nyti.ms/47a7tEj

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Reposted by Geoff Wisner

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · May 29

SCOOP: The State Department's new reorganization plan includes the opening of an "Office for Remigration," a term popularized by far right extremists and neo-Nazis in Europe. The office will coordinate directly with DHS "to advance the President’s immigration agenda."

My report:

State Department set to launch ‘Office of Remigration’

The concept of remigration has explicitly neo-Nazi roots and has been popularized in Europe.

www.thehandbasket.co

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Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 17h

Crowded day on the Hudson.

Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 17h

Broadway Bridge.

Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 17h

Mysterious blue tent near the Strauss mansion site in Inwood Hill Park.

Reposted by Geoff Wisner

Senator Chris Van Hollen @vanhollen.senate.gov · 17h

Trump is saying the quiet part out loud: he sent a $20B taxpayer-financed bailout to help his far-right buddy Milei cling to power.

Meanwhile our government is shut down, public servants aren't getting paid & we're barreling toward a Trump-made health care crisis. Sounds like Argentina First to me.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 21h

Trump on Milei: "If he loses, we will not be generous with Argentina."

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Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 23h

...& amid the red isolated blueberry bushes in Beck Stow's Swamp. A thousand white woolly heads, 1 to 2 inches in diameter, suggesting winter.

Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 23h

Thoreau, Oct. 14, 1852. It is apparently the Eriophorum Virginicum, Virginian cotton-grass, now nodding or waving with its white woolly heads over the greenish andromeda...

Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 1d

Agreed.

Reposted by Geoff Wisner

Brian Tyler Cohen @briantylercohen.bsky.social · 1d

Multiple airports are now announcing they will refuse to play Kristi Noem’s government-funded video blaming “Democrats” for the government shutdown.

“We believe the Hatch Act clearly prohibits use of public assets for political purposes and messaging,” one airport said.

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Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 1d

High water in the park.

Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 1d

...or that they would erect the Antarctic Continent into a “Missionary Diocese” & put him in charge of it. He is a Southern sympathizer & work near the South Pole would suit him."

[Young did in fact become Bishop of Florida later in 1867.]

Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 1d

G.T. Strong, Feb: 21, 1867. Thursday. Long letter from Rev: Young of S. John’s about his poverty & his salary. I wish they would make him Bishop of Florida (as I hear they talk of doing), or of Nineveh in partibus infidelium,

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Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 1d

We considered whether I should be instructed to buy this defunct bog-trotter with certain monies in my hands, & decided at last to refer it to the Faculty to enquire whether this would be the most useful application of the money. A judicious decision.

Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 1d

G.T. Strong, Feb: 4th, 1867. Monday. Newberry told me Sat: night of a very perfect specimen of the Irish fossil Elk, which Agassiz had told him could be got from Sir Philip Something or the Earl of Enniskillen for £30.

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