Boston 's Leslie Knope
archifydd.bsky.social
Boston 's Leslie Knope
@archifydd.bsky.social
Former Local Government Archivist now in the Ivory Tower. MBTA green and blue line commuter. Once described as "insane in a great way"
Reposted by Boston 's Leslie Knope
On November 7, 1872, the Great Fire of Boston ignited in the basement of a downtown warehouse. By November 10, the fire had destroyed 776 buildings over an area of 65 acres and killed between 20 and 30 Bostonians. 🧵 @universalhub.com @hubhistory.com
November 10, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Reposted by Boston 's Leslie Knope
Tom’s quote below belies the simple, hopeful lessons in the second half of this piece (and I am paraphrasing)…. Be responsible. Be clearheaded. Call out the lies and horrors. But above all BE KIND. Kindness is what will save us.
Trump’s voters have become like the members of the administration, delighting in the crassness and obscenity that pours out of the president and his circle whenever they are challenged. But policies suffer and the public is poorly served.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
A Confederacy of Toddlers
The Trump administration is a regime of troubled children.
www.theatlantic.com
November 10, 2025 at 4:16 AM
Reposted by Boston 's Leslie Knope
It is almost impossible to emphasize how unprofessional this is. Immigration enforcement agents pepper sprayed a car driving in the opposite direction, which was in no way a threat to them, hitting a toddler.
www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/09/c...
Pepper-sprayed Berwyn family rattled after getting caught up in federal blitz
Southwest Side politicians condemned Saturday’s pepper spraying and the federal sweep of Little Village as “state-sponsored terrorism” at a news conference Sunday.
www.chicagotribune.com
November 10, 2025 at 4:02 AM
Reposted by Boston 's Leslie Knope
On November 6, 1911, American Sally Fairchild wrote about her front row seat to the Xinhai Revolution, a revolution marking the end of China’s last imperial dynasty.🧵
November 6, 2025 at 7:40 PM
Reposted by Boston 's Leslie Knope
Democrats have to stop bailing out Republicans from facing the consequences of their own policies. And yeah, that means they have to stop sparing voters from experiencing what GOP government truly means.

Every time Dems step in, it only emboldens the GOP & they make it even worse the next time.
So Democrats get:

1. A CR that will prevent the GOP from facing the wrath of Americans for a shutdown over the holidays

2. A coupon for one (1) meaningless ACA vote that will fail

3. An end to the illegal RIF/SNAP moves that are already before the courts

Those all seem like wins for the GOP.
November 10, 2025 at 12:28 AM
Reposted by Boston 's Leslie Knope
1/ The US Government has quietly removed a memorial to Black soldiers who died in World War II from the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, South Limburg. The move follows a complaint from the right-wing Heritage Foundation to the American Battle Monuments Commission. ⬇️
November 9, 2025 at 9:23 AM
Reposted by Boston 's Leslie Knope
Panera’s moderately caffeinated lemonade was loosely associated with 2 deaths before it was taken off market.

This article alone has 4 examples of ChatGPT encouraging young people to commit suicide, and OpenAI’s own public stats estimate over a million users discuss suicide with ChatGPT each week.
November 7, 2025 at 10:56 PM
Reposted by Boston 's Leslie Knope
UPDATE: Reached out to the Rev. Hannah Kardon, a United Methodist minister who was there that day and has been active in religious demonstrations at Broadview.

“They are making it clear that they are scared of prayer … it speaks the truth that what they are doing in that building is evil.”
November 8, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Savage
I think this bag is fake.

Hermes's flagship products are handsewn using a saddle stitch. A worker marks the leather using an awl and then threads two needles through from both sides.

This results in a tight stitch with no holes between the stitches. The holes here suggest the bag was machine sewn.
November 8, 2025 at 3:46 AM
Reposted by Boston 's Leslie Knope
Did women ruin the workplace?
November 7, 2025 at 3:33 AM
Reposted by Boston 's Leslie Knope
Researching history of immigration & surveillance and came across this ledger kept by a N. CA justice of the peace ca. 1880-1930, who took it upon himself to photograph & surveil every Chinese person in town. (It's a heavy thing to see.) digitallibrary.californiahistoricalsociety.org/object/22481...
digitallibrary.californiahistoricalsociety.org
November 7, 2025 at 5:48 PM
"extra" things that are lovely to donate are coffee, tea, spices/herbs, sauces, and dessert mixes. Coffee, in my experience, was especially nice for our clients.
I used to volunteer regularly at a food pantry and drop offs weren’t that useful unless they were things like spices, feminine hygiene products, herbs, salad dressing. Things that make food taste just a little bit better and people never think to donate.
November 7, 2025 at 1:25 AM
Reposted by Boston 's Leslie Knope
THIS IS AMAZING. ALSO WHAT, IF ANYTHING, DID WE FORGET TO RUIN?
A List of Things Said to Have Been Ruined by Women

🧵
November 6, 2025 at 9:19 PM
I feel both insulted and also deeply seen
BlueSky shoutout on Abbot Elementary!
November 7, 2025 at 12:57 AM
This is absolutely spot on
the women in the workplace discourse is very funny because a man who can act normal in an office environment that's predominantly female is absolutely on easy street. it's maybe the best gig anyone in history has had. and yet for many guys it is utterly impossible
November 6, 2025 at 5:03 PM
Reposted by Boston 's Leslie Knope
Johnson City, TN: University Archivist, Archives of Appalachia at East Tennessee State University
Johnson City, TN: University Archivist, Archives of Appalachia at East Tennessee State University
archivesgig.com
November 6, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Reposted by Boston 's Leslie Knope
They Lay In Anonymity In Cedar Grove Plots: Who Are These Women? A group of neighbors are leading to charge to find out.
www.dotnews.com/2025/they-la...
They lay in anonymity in Cedar Grove plots: Who are these women? - Dorchester Reporter
More than 45,000 people have been buried at the Cedar Grove Cemetery in Dorchester since 1870, but not all of them have been memorialized in the same way when it comes to gravesites. In 2021, while wa...
www.dotnews.com
November 6, 2025 at 1:21 PM
Reposted by Boston 's Leslie Knope
“Puryear recalls a recent meeting that consisted entirely of her colleagues announcing they'd had to halt their studies related to H5N1 in humans because of the administration's funding cuts.”
npr.org NPR @npr.org · 4d
Migrating wild birds are spreading the virus to domesticated flocks, increasing the risk of eventually seeing a human outbreak. Scientists are troubled by the muted federal response. n.pr/4913a0E
Bird flu surges among poultry amid a scaled back federal response
Migrating wild birds are spreading the virus to domesticated flocks, increasing the risk of eventually seeing a human outbreak. Scientists are troubled by the muted federal response.
n.pr
November 6, 2025 at 12:16 PM
I'm in
Stop saying 40 is the new 30.

Let’s make it the new 50. The new 60. The new 75. Let’s all eat dinner at 4pm and turn off our hearing aids when we are tired of dealing with people and spend all day looking at birds.
November 6, 2025 at 3:21 AM
Reposted by Boston 's Leslie Knope
here is my story about how Zohran's focus on community amid the loneliness epidemic helped young people connect their politics to an organizing infrastructure, that interviewed ZM, and does not use the NYT's framing of "they don't know how to make friends" :-) and also ran 4 days before NYT's lol
Zohran Mamdani's Establishment-Fighting Campaign Built Community for Young People
“What Mamdani has done is not only inspire and mobilize young people, but he has exposed the establishment and some of their calcified views of participation and inclusion.”
www.teenvogue.com
November 5, 2025 at 2:14 PM
This is fun
This person took this when they called the race
November 6, 2025 at 3:20 AM
Reposted by Boston 's Leslie Knope
The Communist Manifesto was published in 1848.
Trump: "For 1,000 years, communism has not worked"
November 5, 2025 at 11:31 PM
Reposted by Boston 's Leslie Knope
Getting new details on this now:

As the arrest unfolded, teachers pleaded with the agents telling them the teacher had a work permit. The agents went into multiple rooms looking for teachers while children were present. One teacher hid with a child in her care while the agents stormed the facility.
November 5, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Reposted by Boston 's Leslie Knope
Since 2016, we've seen a collapse in the US's bipartisan consensus that active duty soldiers and veterans* are a priority constituency

*except if you pay attention to housing policy and mental healthcare access
NEW: The US Army website for its bases in Bavaria, Germany told its soldiers and employees that it might need to obtain free food from the German government during the US government shutdown.

The Army later altered publication to remove a list of food banks, but we have the original text here:
US Army Tells Soldiers to Go to German Food Bank, Then Deletes It
The initial 'Shutdown Guidance' for the US Army Garrison Bavaria included instructions to go to German food banks.
www.404media.co
November 5, 2025 at 11:46 PM