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Caroline Dodds Pennock

@carolinepennock.bsky.social

13K followers 1.3K following 3.1K posts

Historian and human-sacrifice enthusiast (she/her). Author of On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe

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Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · Nov 15

Genuinely overwhelmed that #OnSavageShores has been shortlisted for the Pen Hessell-Tiltman Prize. Supporting writers facing persecution and censorship, @englishpen.bsky.social’s work is sorely needed right now, & I’m honoured to be in such wonderful company. 🗃️ #history

PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2024 shortlist - English PEN

www.englishpen.org

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Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 1h

LOL. You're not the first to say that ;-)

Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 1h

Ha. You're not the only one to say that!

Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 1h

LOL

Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 4h

Got to love the wild variation in people's reading of the word 'pervert' here. Some of the quotes on this post are absolutely bananas, while others are like 'My secret vice is that I enjoy hotdogs with ketchup.'

Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 1d

What foods do you love that you fully acknowledge make you a pervert for loving them?

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Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 4h

I completely understand why a person might still choose to wear a mask to the supermarket nowadays. What I don’t understand is why you’d choose to wear a mask under your nose to the supermarket.

a man with a beard is holding a cup of coffee

ALT: a man with a beard is holding a cup of coffee

media.tenor.com

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Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 8h

You get a lot of odd requests as a public historian, but this (from a Venezuelan teacher) is definitely one of the weirdest I’ve had.

Dear Dr. Caroline Dodds Pennock.

I am a History teacher at high school.

I would like to know if you can send me
a donation of postage stamps.

The postage stamps will be useful with
my students, in order to learn history.

If you can help, the postal address is:

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Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 8h

I mean, I remember talking about brunch with that meaning in the 1980s. So it’s definitely not a new coinage. (I’m all for linguistic pedantry. These are the conversations that we need to prioritise in these challenging times.)

Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 9h

And, in the spirit of the Académie… Surely it’s ‘elevenses’? ;-)

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Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 9h

And on Christian terms. It's perfectly pitched for their audience.

Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 9h

God bless The Church Times for their ongoing insistence on responding moderately but forcefully to the Reverend Canon Nigel Biggar’s nonsense. www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/202...

Even given all that Biggar writes about the universality of slavery and the complicity of Africans, three things might be said. First, Britain played a key part and, however others may want to respond to their own history, it is morally responsible to face up to our own heritage. Second, as a Tory, he might have made more of Burke’s view that society is a partnership not just between the living, but between the living, the dead, and those still to be born. Third, guilt is not the only spur to action. There are the obligations that we owe one another irrespective of any personal responsibility for atrocities in the past.

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Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 20h

A couple of people have said they liked it, but the consensus is not good…

Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 23h

Maybe I've been made impatient by the pace of social media, but we're onto episode 4 and I'm losing the will tbh.

Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 12d

I liked the first series of Severance, but we're onto the second episode of Series 2 and I'm beginning to get strong Lost 'we don't really want you to understand what's happening, that's the point' vibes...

a woman is surrounded by mathematical equations and the word trendizisst is on the bottom left

ALT: a woman is surrounded by mathematical equations and the word trendizisst is on the bottom left

media.tenor.com

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Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 1d

a woman is giving a speech in front of a group of people while another woman applauds .

ALT: a woman is giving a speech in front of a group of people while another woman applauds .

media.tenor.com

Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 1d

Ha. I don’t think this will have quite the reach of the leopards, but I appreciate the vote of confidence 😊

Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 1d

Amused and rather reassured by how much this has resonated! But I have to give credit to the person who described this moment, less technically but much more evocatively, as ‘crossing the troll bridge’. 😆

Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 2d

Ah, I see this post has crossed the Bad Faith Threshold: that indefinable moment on social media when people stop behaving as if you’re a normal human person who, say, loves your child and is making a mildly humorous observation, and start responding with wild criticisms and imagined slights.

Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 3d

Yesterday my eleven-year-old daughter claimed that Taylor Swift had embraced a range of genres which included punk. The retribution was swift and included considerable mockery and a lesson on punk which probably took longer than she would have liked.

Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 1d

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS.

Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 1d

I agree with every word Zelda Williams says. And this at the end from OpenAI makes me want to go full Ned Ludd. Creators can’t have a blanket opt-out on copyright infringement of their work and have to fill out a form appealing to OpenAI’s mercy every time? Fuck off into the sun

OpenAI told the Guardian that content owners can flag copyright infringement using a “copyright disputes form” but that individual artists or studios cannot have a blanket opt-out. Varun Shetty, OpenAI’s head of media partnerships, said: “We’ll work with rights holders to block characters from Sora at their request and respond to takedown requests.”

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Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 2d

Wikipedia informs me they are post-hardcore. So you might like it!

Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 2d

I’m assuming Lower Definition count though? 😊

Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 2d

Oh FFS. So stupid! I am now being accused of ‘cruelty’, which really is pushing it 😆

Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 2d

Oh fuck off. I wasn’t cruel to my daughter. We teased her and talked to her about music. It seems we’re definitely not past scolding strangers on the internet in the guise of ‘kindness’ though. How very punk of you.

Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 2d

I feel like this is really a question for @corporategorillajp.bsky.social 😊

Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 2d

I can’t work out if this is a joke about Pearl Jam having no idea who Neil Young was, or your neighbour, or…? Because they’d toured and played with him a row of times before Mirrorball. And Young was massive. Maybe I’m just being dim. Very likely!

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Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 2d

I remember it well! 😆

Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 2d

Aah. That makes more sense. And thanks for the apology. As I said this morning, this post appears to have crossed the Bad Faith Threshold! She rarely embraces her dad’s preferred music, but she doesn’t hate all of it… Mike Watt is a god in our house so she has been exposed from a young age ;-)

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Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 2d

I shall put it in my bio immediately ;-)

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