Michael J. Taylor
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drmichaeljtaylor.bsky.social
Michael J. Taylor
@drmichaeljtaylor.bsky.social

Associate Professor, University at Albany SUNY
Greek and Roman History
PhD UC Berkeley

Economics 30%
History 25%

Has this staffer been identified and fired?

What did the dinosaurs do with those water molecules after they drank them…..?

I noticed it today trying to embed a Preview into a BMCR review I was writing---a guideline that assumes Google books was a stable thing!

I served alongside the Danish army in Kosovo. As an American veteran, I am personally outraged by this affront to our brave allies.
In Copenhagen, over 10,000 Danes led by veterans assemble to protest against the disrespect of fallen Danes by Trump and his hand-picked ambassador. They stared at the embassy in silence. “We are not losing anything. It is the Americans who are losing something. They are losing us.”
Tusinder stirrede på ambassaden i stilhed. »Vi er ikke ved at miste noget. Det er amerikanerne, som er ved at miste noget. De er ved at miste os«
Lørdag holdt danske veteraner og tusindvis af demonstranter fem minutters stilhed foran den amerikanske ambassade i København. I en verden af larm brugte de deres tungeste våben.
www.berlingske.dk
Alex Pretti was an ICU nurse serving veterans. He died trying to protect protestors being assaulted. A group of anonymous & masked men fired chemicals into his face, beat him, disarmed him, and shot him in broad daylight in front of witnesses. Then his government smeared him & defended his murder.
Alex Jeffrey Pretti was an ICU nurse at a VA hospital. His life, through his profession, was dedicated to serving his community and our country.

As so many have now seen on video, his final act before he was killed by federal agents was doing everything in his power to protect his community.
Also, may I say that I don’t agree with people saying ICE and CBP need “more training.” They’re doing exactly what this administration has trained them to—impose a reign of fear in blue cities. They don’t need more training. They need to be ripped up root and branch.
They shot Renee Good in the face.
They kidnapped Liam Ramos.
They just executed a man on the street.

Unmask them. Prosecute them. No more secret police.
This looks like an execution. There must be an investigation. There must be accountability.

Joining ICE does not give you license to murder.

The President is escalating the situation—and I have no faith he will stop. The Republican Congress must join us to end this. Enough.
Live: Man shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis this morning, police chief says
A video appears to shows federal agents wrestling a man to the ground then shooting him. The Department of Homeland Security said the man was armed with a gun.
www.startribune.com

Reposted by Michael J. Taylor

Oh my God, there is video.

They had the man down on the ground, with half a dozen agents holding him down, beating him, when they shot him, multiple times. They were *holding him down and beating him.*

All the charges. Everyone of those agents should be in prison.

www.reddit.com/r/Minneapoli...
From the Minneapolis community on Reddit: Another ICE murder in front of Glam Doll Donuts
Explore this post and more from the Minneapolis community
www.reddit.com
ICE has now carried out two summary executions of innocent people in the streets of an American city.

If you work for ICE, there's no denying that's the mission you're supporting now. You don't get to claim in one year or ten or twenty that you didn't know what ICE was doing. You're complicit.

Root and branch. Must be destroyed.

Not bad for a vehicle that's only designed to launder a bribe.

Reposted by Michael J. Taylor

This week on the blog: training hoplites!

It strikes a lot of folks as unbelievable, but the evidence really does suggest that, apart from physical fitness (and even then) hoplites don't seem to have trained much at all!

acoup.blog/2026/01/16/c...
Collections: Hoplite Wars, Part IVb: Training Hoplites?
This is, at long last, the last part of our four-part series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, Intermission, IVa). last time we looked at the social status of hoplites and the implications that had for the polit…
acoup.blog

Reposted by Michael J. Taylor

GIFT article

Trump's Letter To Norway Should Be The Last Straw

Will Republicans in Congress Ever Step In?

by Anne Applebaum

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
Trump’s Letter to Norway Should Be the Last Straw
Will Republicans in Congress ever step in?
www.theatlantic.com
A joke for the history buffs:

Germany’s satirical newspaper @der-postillon.com titles: “Vienna Academy of the Arts offers Trump admission as a student — They don’t want to get blamed again“

Virginia *today* inaugurated a Democratic governor who won election by huge margins three months ago.

There were just special elections last Tuesday (five days ago) in AL, CT and VA.

The US is in a very bad and dangerous place, but elections have not been canceled.

And yes, I suspect this would have been obscure to most casual viewers.

But Trajan, part of a very new dynasty, summoned the Republican past, claiming to foster a more open political environment. He commanded his armies in person. The horse is a sort of secret symbol, private code for "I think I'm a Republican general"

Trajan's column harkens back to an old tradition of Republican triumphal painting, lithified in the Pydna monument. It had fallen by the wayside as emperors preferred vague and allegorical victory celebrations for battles often won by subordinates.

Just like the riderless horse at Pydna. Here we know why it's there: the battle in 168 BC had developed out of a skirmish over an escaped horse.

A curious, very visible scene on Trajan's column features a man who has fallen off his horse. Not clear what is going on, but seemingly a real incident that took place early in the campaign. Maybe seen as an omen. But notably, a riderless horse

I am increasingly convinced that Trajan's column is in conversation with the reliefs of the Pydna monument.

Reposted by Michael J. Taylor

Incredible shot of the Hellenic Navy's new frigate Kimon being welcomed yesterday by the trireme Olympias and the armoured cruiser Averof (photo by Nick Dendris)

Seems like AL was just standard down-ballot spread for that district?

Prima facie, seems like ICE abused a baby?

Obscene
Weird to be commemorating the 250th anniversary of the Am Rev while living under a government that has a) sent armed troops to occupy cities perceived to be too rebellious, b) rendered largely irrelevant the representative branch of government, and c) claimed imperial right to rule other countries.