Mark D. White
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profmdwhite.bsky.social
Mark D. White
@profmdwhite.bsky.social

Professor, author, editor, and fan of comics, movies, and music

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-d-white-4a568730a/

See my books here: http://amzn.to/2aFC66M

Economics 50%
Political science 10%
Pinned
Say "yes chef" and join me on my latest project for the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series! andphilosophy.com/2025/10/01/t...
The Bear and Philosophy Call for Abstracts
Call for Abstracts The Bear and Philosophy Edited by Mark D. White The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series Please circulate and post widely. Apologies for cross-posting. To propose ideas fo…
andphilosophy.com

Reposted by Mark D. White

Me: I'm so tired. I'll go to bed early so I get lots of sleep!

Brain after two hours of sleep: how about we wake up though?

Me: and then go back to sleep?

Brain: AWAKE FOREVER
Q: Officials say the suspect in the DC shooting was vetted & it came up clean

TRUMP: He went cuckoo. He went nuts. There was no vetting

Q: Actually, your DOJ IG says there was thorough vetting of Afghans. So why blame Biden?

TRUMP: You're just asking questions because you're a stupid person

Reposted by Mark D. White

Asked what Afghanis in the US legally should be thinking, Trump talks about how Somalis are allegedly taking over Minnesota

Reposted by Mark D. White

The Trump Administration’s smear of immigrants and asylum seekers because of one sick man’s horrific acts - a man who was trained by the CIA, it is worth noting, to fight an American war - is disgusting.

We are so much better than this racist regime.
Exclusive: Surrendering land to Russia to end the war is off-limits, Zelensky’s chief negotiator tells Simon Shuster. “As long as Zelensky is president, no one should count on us giving up territory.”
Ukraine Says It Won’t Give Up Land to Russia
Ukraine’s chief negotiator, in an exclusive interview, says conceding sovereign territory is off-limits in peace talks
bit.ly

Reposted by Mark D. White

Imagine paying a large monthly fee to shop at a supermarket, then paying again for the actual groceries, then getting an extra charge months later because one ingredient in an item you bought came from a farmer associated with a different store.

This post is about healthcare.

Reposted by Mark D. White

Between tearing babies from their parents' arms and traumatizing countless children, abandoning climate action and environmental protection, and loosing RFK on public health, the Trump Administration is engaging in quite a bit of child sacrifice. To their right-mania goals.
Vance loves to deploy fabricated racist fearmongering. First Haitians are eating the pets, now Indigenous people sacrificed children?! Sheesh.

Reposted by Mark D. White

What if thinking doesn’t begin in the brain, but in the ceaseless labour of our cells? Today’s essay rethinks the question of how we become minds, arguing that cognition begins not in the mind but in the collective processes that keep a body alive @annaciaunica.bsky.social
Why you need your whole body – from head to toes – to think | Aeon Essays
Contemplating the world requires a body, and a body requires an immune system: the rungs of life create the stuff of thought
buff.ly
It didn’t even take 6 hours.
It's not just that the United States has stopped trying to promote liberal democratic ideas internationally. It's that the United States is actively trying to promote the contrary. It's trying to turn more countries into Hungary.

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/u...
U.S. to Press Europe and Other Allies on ‘Mass Migration,’ Document Says
www.nytimes.com
The Myth of a Rightward Realignment

Let’s discard some stubborn misconceptions about Trump’s support and what happened in the 2024 election that are obscuring our understanding of a profound de-alignment of the established order.

New piece:
The Myth of a Rightward Realignment
Let’s discard some stubborn misconceptions about Trump’s support and what happened in the 2024 election that are obscuring our understanding of a profound de-alignment
steady.page

Reposted by Mark D. White

This is nuts!

Why is WAPO writing up anyone’s speculation about who the suspect might be?

I get that Laura’s statements and actions are at times newsworthy given her influence on Trump, but no one’s speculation — outside of a government official’s — should be written up this way.

Reposted by Mark D. White

"If film history has taught us anything, it’s that credits, dedications and acknowledgments are not enough to keep women both trans and cis, genderqueer and nonbinary people from disappearing from memory and history." culturalgutter.com/2025/11/20/f...
From the Archives: (Some of) The Women Who Wrote Hitchcock
Hitchcock gets a lot of credit for his mystery and suspense films, rightfully so, but sometimes that credit goes as far as erasing the writers who came up with the mysteries, twists, dark jokes, th…
culturalgutter.com

Ooh, I didn't know of this, thank you.

You come at the king you best not miss, Charlie Brown.

Groucho: "The first part of the party of the first part shall be known in this contract as the first part of the party of the first part."

Philosopher: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
How can the first order come first? - Philosophical Studies
If new evidence brings your metaethical view in conflict with a dearly held first order moral belief, what are you to do? Recent arguments in metaethics incorporate opposing claims about the methodolo...
link.springer.com
I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.

They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

Reposted by Mark D. White

I got the opportunity to share my thoughts on @jhppl.bsky.social’s 50th birthday, how health policy scholars can face this difficult moment, and my aspirations for the journal.
Today on the blog:

A Q&A with Sarah Gollust, editor of the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law in celebration of 50 years of the journal: buff.ly/5rp6FVJ
@jhppl.bsky.social

Reposted by Mark D. White

He literally tweeted this out.

“SHOULD ORDERS AND THE LAW EVER CONFLICT, OUR OFFICERS MUST OBEY THE LAW.”

This plaque is displayed at West Point. It’s the law. Not sedition.

Reposted by Mark D. White

Meanwhile on Twitter.

Reposted by Mark D. White

Breaking news: Jimmy Cliff, the Jamaican reggae star whose lead role in the 1972 cult-movie sensation “The Harder They Come” helped introduce the genre to a global audience, has died. He was 81.
Jimmy Cliff, Jamaican reggae star with global following, dies at 81
His lead performance as a singer-turned-outlaw in the 1972 film “The Harder They Come” helped introduce reggae to the world.
www.washingtonpost.com

Reposted by Mark D. White

“President Trump embraced a billionaire’s strategy to try to wring ideological concessions from universities. He blessed another’s role as Harvard University’s emissary for negotiations… Yet another billionaire helped steer cuts at the Department of Education — which a different billionaire leads.”
Wealthy People Have Always Shaped Universities. This Time Is Different.
www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Mark D. White

"If film history has taught us anything, it’s that credits, dedications and acknowledgments are not enough to keep women both trans and cis, genderqueer and nonbinary people from disappearing from memory and history." culturalgutter.com/2025/11/20/f...
From the Archives: (Some of) The Women Who Wrote Hitchcock
Hitchcock gets a lot of credit for his mystery and suspense films, rightfully so, but sometimes that credit goes as far as erasing the writers who came up with the mysteries, twists, dark jokes, th…
culturalgutter.com

Reposted by Mark D. White

#BREAKING: A student intern at Rhode Island Superior Court was briefly taken into custody by ICE this afternoon before a judge intervened, 12 News has learned. Story by @jusolyn.bsky.social and @timwhiteri.bsky.social: ⤵️
RI judge intervenes after ICE mistakenly detains Superior Court intern
A teenager was nearly taken into federal immigration custody in Providence Thursday afternoon before a Superior Court judge intervened, according to the Rhode Island Judiciary.
www.wpri.com
I asked grok who was the better role model for humanity, Jesus Christ or Elon Musk. GUESS WHAT.
Judge Ellis derides Greg Bovino as a serial fabulist who brazenly lied on the stand and seemingly considered it funny to perjure himself. cst.brightspotcdn.com/49/34/daecfb...

Reposted by Mark D. White

This book! Always conceptually fascinating, but here - not only an interesting take on the mess time-resetting multiverse crises would create, but such a powerful exploration of the experience of losing someone to their loss of memory. beautiful & sweet
@denizcamp.bsky.social @ericxyz.bsky.social