Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Beth DeSombre @bethdesombre.bsky.social · 5h

Fantastic news -- congratulations (and well deserved) @hahrie.bsky.social !

Filipe Campante @filipecampante.bsky.social · 6h

Super happy for the awesome @hahrie.bsky.social and her MacArthur fellowship -- couldn't go to a more deserving scholar and person... www.macfound.org/fellows/clas...

Hahrie Han

Analyzing the organizations and movements that equip people to participate in public life and solve problems together.

www.macfound.org

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Reposted by Beth DeSombre

Musicology Duck @musicologyduck.bsky.social · 22h

anyway if i ever strike it rich, I'm going to start a foundation that just pays the salaries for small non-profits to have full time staff members with benefits, because that is what they actually need most of the time

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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 1d

Happy Anti-Prime Day! Free shipping today and tomorrow at Bookshop.org -- support bookstores, not billionaires!

Bookshop: Buy books online. Support local bookstores.

An online bookstore that financially supports local independent bookstores and gives back to the book community.

Bookshop.org

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Reposted by Beth DeSombre

Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 1d

Flying cars are the perfect example of a point solution: trying to solve a systemic problem (traffic) with an individual product (fly over the traffic).

But traffic is not a technology problem; it's a social problem. Remote work, congestion fees, and dense transit-connected housing solve it better.

ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 1d

which then begs the question of why you want flying cars instead of whatever mass transportation equivalent you imagine

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Garrett M. Graff @vermontgmg.bsky.social · 1d

How do you find a compromise budget that reflects the priorities of 535 members of the House and Senate when Trump will just withhold any money he doesn't want to spend? A representative democracy cannot function as Trump has broken the US system this year. www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/there-is-n...

There is no budget "deal" to be made

President Trump has so broken the constitutional framework as to make joint normal, responsible government impossible.

www.doomsdayscenario.co

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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 1d

Under the Third Reich, most Germans generally lived in the law-bound normative state, while Jews and other disfavored people were victims of the arbitrary and violent prerogative state.

The dual state is characterized by the facade of normalcy obscuring the fact of an authoritarian state.

The “dual state” theory was invented to describe Nazis. The Supreme Court could take us there.

Authoritarianism—but make it look like the rule of law.

www.motherjones.com

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Beth DeSombre @bethdesombre.bsky.social · 2d

Can I just say you totally DON'T need to do sedation for a colonoscopy?! I've done THREE, and none of them were with sedation. It's even kind of fascinating to watch. It doesn't hurt (there are no nerve endings there), though occasionally it can be a little uncomfortable (not bad, though!).

Reposted by Beth DeSombre

Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 3d

I was told not to teach a class on the intellectual histories of Zionism and Anti-Zionism next year - not because they doubted I could teach it fairly, but because it would attract too many politicians scrutinizing the syllabus.

A society where that is a valid fear is no longer fully democratic.

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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 3d

All I ask is that you watch and listen for 2 mins.

youtu.be/AxZDE8PBhFk

Amazing Grace

YouTube video by Save America Movement

youtu.be

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Beth DeSombre @bethdesombre.bsky.social · 3d

Grading quizzes. The fact that many of my students seem to think that corruption is an inherent aspect of democracy may say something about the country they've been growing up in . . .

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Beth DeSombre @bethdesombre.bsky.social · 4d

A minister, a music therapist and a college professor walk into a cafe . . . and play beautiful, powerful, songs for you. Tonight in Somerville MA!
www.facebook.com/events/18266...

Schuyler Kitchin, Susan Levine, Beth DeSombre

Event in Somerville, MA by Somerville Songwriter Sessions on Saturday, October 4 20257 posts in the discussion.

www.facebook.com

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Zoe Tillman @zoetillman.bsky.social · 4d

The largest federal employees union filed a lawsuit accusing the Department of Education of violating the First Amendment by inserting partisan language into the out-of-office emails sent from accounts of furloughed workers during the government shutdown
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

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City Nolan @ndhapple.bsky.social · 5d

Dean of the UC Berkeley Law School has seen the Trump Administration’s “compact” for universities to receive preferable consideration for federal funding and says it amounts to First Amendment violations in blistering op-ed — www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o...

Opinion | Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Just Extortion

www.nytimes.com

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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 5d

I appreciate the clarity of this statement on Trump's attempt to further strongarm 9 universities, including my employer, from Penn faculty:
"When an invitation is accompanied by consequences for not accepting it, it is in fact a threat, not an invitation." aaup-penn.org/statement-by...

Statement by the AAUP-Penn Executive Committee on the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education | AAUP–Penn

October 2, 2025 (updated 4:15pm) All members of the Penn community are invited to sign this petition urging the administration to say no to the Compact. We were alarmed to read reports that Penn has b...

aaup-penn.org

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Reposted by Beth DeSombre

ann hedonia 👻 @lyctor.space · 6d

Back in the heyday of Usenet and mailing lists, I remember a form letter someone had created for “why your solution to spam will not work” or something similar. One of the checkboxes was to the effect of “you have proposed a technical solution to a social problem”

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Asha Rangappa @asharangappa.bsky.social · 7d

I can’t believe I’m watching interviews of city mayors talking about how they are coordinating with other mayors to discuss how to protect their residents FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

I know we are “used to it” but it is absolutely insane

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Sarah Taber @sarahtaber.bsky.social · 8d

US farmers are saying they "just need temporary help, until things get better."

Here's the thing. US farm exports- which are mostly soy- CANNOT get better.

Other countries expanded their soy industries to fill China's demand.

We've walled ourselves out of the global market, folks. This is it.

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Lilian Edwards @lilianedwards.bsky.social · 7d

I do not want to provide feedback after!

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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · 8d

this! and most importantly, I do not want to download your app

Stone Cold Jane Austen @grayathena.bsky.social · 8d

I do not want to enable location services. I do not want to create an account. I do not want to sign up for special offers and news about your product. I would like to engage in a simple transaction where I give you money in exchange for a good.

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Reposted by Beth DeSombre

rahaeli @rahaeli.bsky.social · 8d

Hey remember when the CDC dropped 6 of the 8 foodborne illnesses from the nationwide monitoring system in July and one of them was listeria? Mentioning for no particular reason www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...

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Barack Obama @barackobama.bsky.social · 9d

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. Except it doesn’t bend on its own—it bends because we pull it in the direction of justice. What keeps me hopeful during times like these is being surrounded by people who are doing just that.

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Maia @maiamindel.bsky.social · 8d

The "liberals have to learn how to live with people we diagree with" line kinda stops making sense in a world where the central disagreement is whether disagreeing with them should be allowed at all

Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 8d

“We are under invasion from within, no different than a foreign enemy, but worse—they don’t wear a uniform.”

This is the President of the United States, who ordered the entire leadership of our military to sit and listen to him, speaking a few minutes ago.

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Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 9d

The real generational divide is people who refuse to watch a video if it could be an article versus people who refuse to read an article if it could be a video

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Karin Wulf @kawulf.bsky.social · 9d

I do not want the video. I will never watch the video. I usually won’t even give the video the effort of complaint.

I just want to read the news story. Give me the text. This would be my Ted Talk but that would be text too.

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Kate Marvel @drkatemarvel.bsky.social · 10d

my takeaway from climate week nyc is that "climate storytelling" is a little too much "we must reimagine our deepest souls in relationship to mother nature and the moral abyss of the polycrisis into which we must now stare" and not enough "ok but get a heat pump"

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