Category: UNCATEGORIZED
Recommended reading / viewing / listening
This week: Cranberries as a Thanksgiving classic / Watch the history of presidents / 2025 hurricane season enters history books / Texas men planned to invade Haitian island and enslave women / MAGA singles look for love / Potential 2028 presidential candidates aren’t shy about ambitions
Most of these items come from my social media networks. Follow me on BlueSky, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism. Learn more about my academic background here and about me here.
1. 2025 Atlantic hurricane season marked by striking contrasts
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration | November 2025
“The 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, which officially ends on November 30, was notable for its striking contrast — wavering between periods of relative calm and bursts of intense activity, generating very powerful storms. Overall, the season fell within the predicted ranges for named storms, hurricanes, and major hurricanes issued in NOAA’s seasonal outlooks.”
2. How are Americans using AI? Evidence from a nationwide survey
By Malihe Alikhani, Ben Harris, and Sanjay Patnaik | Brookings | November 2025
“The rapid emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has heightened the need to better understand its adoption across various aspects of social and economic applications. In this essay, we present new evidence on the extent of AI adoption across a host of dimensions, including use in households, by employees in the workplace, and by owners and workers in small businesses.”
3. The botany behind why cranberries became a Thanksgiving staple
By Serina DeSalvio | The Conversation :: PBS Newshour | November 2023
“Cranberry cultivation began in 1816 in Massachusetts, where Revolutionary War veteran Henry Hall found that covering cranberry bogs with sand fertilized the vines and retained water around their roots. From there, the fruit spread throughout the U.S. Northeast and Upper Midwest.”
Also see, from the Associated Press: Remember to give thanks to yourself during the holidays and beyond
4. How food assistance programs can feed families and nourish their dignity
By Joslyn Brenton, Alyssa Tindall, and Senbagam Virudachalam | The Conversation | November 2025
“Food is not just a matter of survival. What and how you eat is also a symbol of your social status. Being unable to reliably feed your family healthy and nutritious foods in a way that aligns with your values can feel undignified. It can make people feel unseen and less important than others.”
5. Texas adds new ID restrictions on vehicle registrations and renewals
By Ayden Runnels and Alex Nguyen | The Texas Tribune | November 2025
“The restrictions, which went into effect on Nov. 18, could upend the ability of many undocumented residents to legally own vehicles.”
6. ‘The blight seeped into your soul’: How ‘Seven’ reflected fears in the US in the 1980s
By Tom Joudrey | BBC News | November 2025
“David Fincher’s gritty thriller commented on the urban blight and religious conservatism of the Reagan era. But it also predicted our obsession with true crime today.”
7. The Vanquishing of Military.com
By Liam Scott | Columbia Journalism Review | November 2025
“Former staffers say a new owner dealt the respected publication a death blow when service members and veterans needed it most.”
8. How Gabbard’s ‘hunters’ pounced on secret CIA warehouse for Kennedy files
By Phil Stewart and Jonathan Landay | Reuters | November 2025
“The case casts new light on the tension between two forces in Washington, the CIA and Gabbard’s ODNI, as Trump appointees sought to act on the president’s orders to swiftly release the full accounting of Kennedy’s murder in 1963, as well as the high-profile 1968 assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.”
9. Texas men indicted in plot to take over Haitian island and enslave women and children
By Kristin Wright | NPR | November 2025
“Gavin Weisenburg, 21 years old of Allen, and Tanner Thomas, 20 years old of Argyle, along with other co-conspirators planned to murder all men on the Haitian territory before taking over the island, and enslaving the women and children as ‘sex slaves.’ “
10. McCarthyism Is Back. You Can Thank This Woman.
By Joshua Kendall | Politico Magazine | November 2025
“History has overlooked the real architect of Joe McCarthy’s purges: his wife.”
11. US leaders are erasing Black history. That threatens our future
By Stacey Abrams and Esosa Osa | The Guardian | October 2025
“DEI is being used as a smokescreen to roll back progress and consolidate power. The goal is to rewrite our nation’s story”
12. Potential presidential candidates are less coy about 2028 plans: ‘Of course I’m thinking about it’
By Jill Colvin | Associated Press | November 2025
“With no clear party leader and Democratic voters raring for a fight, some could-be candidates are being far more transparent about their intentions, doing away with pretensions as they try to gain maximum visibility at a time when authenticity is in high demand.”
13. Texas’s Water Wars
By Rachel Monroe | The New Yorker | November 2025
“As industrial operations move to the state, residents find that their drinking water has been promised to companies.”
14. A ‘win-win’ partnership brings a surge of reporting firepower to hyperlocal news outlets around Boston
By Sarah Scire | Nieman Lab | November 2025
“The Boston University Newsroom has published nearly 400 news articles in hyperlocal outlets in and around the city.”
15. The Encyclopedic Genius of Melville’s Masterpiece
By Suzanne Conklin Akbari | LitHub | August 2019
“Time is not the principle of order in this book; it is a manifestation of chaos. Instead, the principle of order in Moby Dick is that of the encyclopedia, foreshadowed in the book’s first pages and then bursting forth exuberantly in the classification and the anatomy of the whale.”
16. MAGA singles are looking for love in Washington. It’s a challenge.
By Jesús Rodríguez | The Washington Post | October 2025
“The politics of trying to find a partner in an overwhelmingly liberal city can be tricky: ‘My partner can’t think I’m a fascist. That’s crazy.’ “
17. Mariners Wanted: Six-Figure Salaries and Months at Sea
By Peter Eavis | The New York Times | November 2025
“There are few American mariners today because only a small proportion of international commercial shipping is done with vessels flying under the American flag, meaning they are registered in the United States, follow the Coast Guard’s regulations and employ American citizens. The jobs pay well but often require people to be away from home for months at a time.”
18. The Presidents
American Experience :: PBS | 1990-2025
John and Abigail Adams | Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided
Ulysses S. Grant | Murder of a President (James Garfield) | TR
Woodrow Wilson | FDR | Truman | Eisenhower | The Kennedys and JFK
LBJ | Nixon | Jimmy Carter | Reagan | George H.W. Bush | Clinton
George W. Bush
Also see: The American Vice President | Eleanor Roosevelt | Kissinger
(Many of these films are also available on YouTube.)
19. Midnight Cowboy: On the Fringe
By Mark Harris | The Criterion Collection | May 2018
“As a New York movie, as a barrier breaker in terms of adult content, as a representation of a new, more daring Hollywood, as a buddy film, and most complexly as, if not a gay movie, a movie that at least helped to make the notion of a gay movie possible, the film represents a true dividing line, albeit not one that everybody immediately recognized.”
20. An Intoxicating 500-Year-Old Mystery
By Ariel Sabar | The Atlantic | August 2024
“The Voynich Manuscript has long baffled scholars—and attracted cranks and conspiracy theorists. Now a prominent medievalist is taking a new approach to unlocking its secrets.”
Interested in more like this? Since June 2011, Stillness of Heart‘s “Recommended” series has accumulated a magnificent collection of articles, essays, music, podcasts, historical analyses, cultural reflections, and documentaries. Scroll through the offerings here.
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Recommended reading / viewing / listening
Exploring how animals keep us healthy / Meet the people who love killer plants / Dogs and dating apps / Studying a tsunami in real time / Mocha Dick, the whale that inspired ‘Moby Dick’ / Most emails between Greg Abbott and Elon Musk are redacted
This week: Exploring how animals keep us healthy / Meet the people who love killer plants / Dogs and dating apps / Studying a tsunami in real time / Mocha Dick, the whale that inspired ‘Moby Dick’ / Most emails between Greg Abbott and Elon Musk are redacted
Most of these items come from my social media networks. Follow me on BlueSky, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism. Learn more about my academic background here and about me here.
1. People are tired of dating apps. Can dogs help?
By Maggie Penman | The Washington Post | November 2025
“A new dating app matches people through their shared love of dogs. There’s even an option to make a profile for your pup.”
2. ‘The American Revolution’
By Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt | Florentine Films :: PBS | November 2025
“Thirteen American colonies unite in rebellion, win an eight-year war to secure their independence, and establish a new form of government that would inspire democratic movements at home and around the globe. What begins as a political clash between colonists and the British government grows into a bloody struggle that will engage more than two dozen nations and forever change the world.”
Also see, from The Hollywood Reporter: Who Plays Who in Ken Burns’ The American Revolution
3. Gov. Greg Abbott was ordered to release emails with Elon Musk. Most of the 1,400 pages are blacked out.
By Lauren McGaughy | The Texas Newsroom | November 2025
“The heavily redacted emails reveal little of the two men’s relationship.”
4. Want to build a sustainable local newsroom? These 21 steps will help you get there, a new report finds
By Sophie Culpepper | Nieman Lab | November 2025
“Having dedicated staff to generate revenue was transformational to an organization’s chances of sustainability.”
5. Welcome to the killer plant club
By Ashley Stimpson | The Washington Post | October 2025
“Inside the passionate fellowship of carnivorous plant enthusiasts.”
6. ‘It sounded kind of crazy:’ How ripples in the high atmosphere warned scientists of a tsunami in real time
By Chris Baraniuk | BBC News | November 2025
“Tsunamis are notoriously difficult to spot on the open ocean as they race towards shore. But in the summer of 2025, scientists watched one unfold as it happened.”
7. What is the role of native bees in the United States?
U.S. Geological Survey | June 2025
“Some of the native bees are specialists on the very plants that we use for food, including squashes, pumpkins, gourds, and the annual sunflower.”
Also see, from The Washington Post: Species That Save Us
8. On ‘Mocha Dick,’ the White Whale of the Pacific that Influenced Herman Melville
By Tim Queeney | LitHub | August 2025
“Initially sighted off the coast of the Chilean island of Mocha in the Pacific, the powerful whale was dubbed Mocha Dick. (Dick was a generic name used at the time like Joe is today — Herman Melville follows this convention by naming his literary whale Moby Dick.)”
9. Why people trust influencers more than brands – and what that means for the future of marketing
By Kelley Cours Anderson | The Conversation | November 2025
“Rooted in celebrity culture but driven by digital platforms, the influencer economy represents a powerful force in both commerce and culture. I’m an expert on digital consumer research, and I see the rise of influencers as an important evolution in the relationship between companies, consumers and creators.”
10. ‘Showgirls’ Nearly Killed Her Career. Now She’s Touring the World With It
By David Canfield | The Hollywood Reporter | November 2025
“Elizabeth Berkley’s biggest year onscreen in more than a decade — with a role in Ryan Murphy’s soapy legal drama ‘All’s Fair’ — happens to coincide with the 30th anniversary of her most infamous performance. She’s seizing the moment.”
11. How the Web Was Lost
By James Gleick | The New York Review of Books | December 2025
“The Internet was not meant to suck.”
12. Up and Then Down
By Nick Paumgarten | The New Yorker | November 2025
“The longest smoke break of Nicholas White’s life began at around eleven o’clock on a Friday night in October 1999.”
13. Why I Run
By Nicholas Thompson | The Atlantic | October 2025
“I took up the sport to be like my father. I kept going because he stopped.”
14. Leaf-Peeping in Texas Is a High-Risk, High(ish)-Reward Activity
By Amanda Albee | Texas Monthly | October 2025
“We set off on a quest for fall foliage at three state parks in East Texas.”
15. Scrutiny grows over Trump competence – but can an unfit president be removed?
By Adam Gabbatt | The Guardian | October 2025
“Impeachment and 25th Amendment offer routes for removal – but experts say the system is set up to protect the president.”
16. An Army of Robot Telescopes in Texas Makes the Stars Feel Closer Than Ever
By Kenneth Chang | The New York Times | October 2025
“Starfront Observatories allows amateur astronomers to rent a spot for their telescopes and photograph the cosmos over a high-speed data connection.”
17. It’s Pedro Pascal’s World Now
By Dave Holmes | Esquire | April 2023
“After years of grinding away, the suddenly-everywhere actor is enjoying fame and near-universal adulation thanks to his dual streaming blockbusters The Last of Us and The Mandalorian.”
18. The Boys of ’36
American Experience :: PBS | August 2017
“In the summer of 1936, nine working class young men from the University of Washington took the rowing world and the nation by a storm when they captured the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Berlin … giving hope to a nation struggling to emerge from the depths of the Great Depression.”
19. Scientists say North Atlantic right whale population slowly increasing
Associated Press | October 2025
“Once hunted to the brink of extinction, the most venerable of the leviathans now numbers 384, up eight from past year.”
20. The Tree of Life: Let the Wind Speak
By Kent Jones | The Criterion Collection | September 2018
“I think that for Malick the imitation of nature is intensified and purified to such a degree that it becomes a devotional act.”
Interested in more like this? Since June 2011, Stillness of Heart‘s “Recommended” series has accumulated a magnificent collection of articles, essays, music, podcasts, historical analyses, cultural reflections, and documentaries. Scroll through the offerings here.
Tell your friends!
Recommended reading / viewing / listening
The Gaza war transformed the Middle East / The Special Forces culture / The vivid animated version of Beethoven’s ‘9th Symphony’ / Robot rabbits used to capture pythons in the Everglades / The risks and rewards of cold-water immersion
This week: The Gaza war transformed the Middle East / The Special Forces culture / The vivid animated version of Beethoven’s ‘9th Symphony’ / Robot rabbits used to capture pythons in the Everglades / The risks and rewards of cold-water immersion
Most of these items come from my social media networks. Follow me on BlueSky, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism. Learn more about my academic background here and about me here.
1. Gold futures rise above $4,000 per ounce for the first time
By Wyatte Grantham-Philips | Associated Press | October 2025
“Gold sales can rise sharply when anxious investors seek secure investments for their money. Even before the shutdown, the asset — and other metals, like silver — had seen wide gains over the last year, as President Donald Trump ’s barrage of tariffs cause uncertainty around the outlook for the global economy. More recently, the prospect of lower interest rates has also made gold a more attractive investment than interest-bearing investments.”
2. After two years, Israel’s Gaza war has reshaped the Middle East
By Ishaan Tharoor | The Washington Post | October 2025
“Israel’s hard power preeminence in the Middle East seems paramount. But the country’s leaders — and the entire region — still face an array of political challenges.”
3. The American Experiment
By Jeffrey Goldberg | The Atlantic | October 2025
“At 250, the Revolution’s goals remain noble and indispensable.”
4. What is Insurrection Act, could it help Trump deploy troops to US cities?
By Sarah Shamim | Al Jazeera | October 2025
“The threat to invoke the Insurrection Act comes amid protests in Portland and legal challenges against his anti-immigration crackdown.”
5. Cold-water immersion may offer health benefits — and also presents risks
By Stephen Wade | Associated Press | October 2025
“Claims about the benefits of cold-water immersion date back centuries. Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and the third American president, wrote toward the end of his life about using a cold foot bath daily for 60 years. He also owned a book published in 1706 on the history of cold-water bathing.”
6. America’s Vigilantes
By Matthieu Aikins | The New York Times Magazine | October 2025
“A four-part investigation of the culture of impunity in the U.S. Special Forces.”
Part 1: A Green Beret’s Confession | Part 2: Nine Bodies on a U.S. Base
Part 3: A Culture of Secrecy | Part 4: Lawlessness Comes Home
7. Doing almost anything is better with friends, research finds
By Richard Sima | The Washington Post | October 2025
“You might be leaving some happiness on the table by doing your everyday activities all by yourself.”
8. Octopuses prefer to use different arms for different tasks, scientists find
By Nicola Davis | The Guardian | September 2025
“Creatures favour front arms for most tasks, study suggests, despite fact all eight arms are capable of all actions.”
9. How Not to Get a Progressive Party off the Ground
By Arash Azizi | The Atlantic | October 2025
“The British left needs a strategy that can win elections instead of throwing them to the right.”
10. Stupidology
By William Davies | n+1 | Fall 2025
“The outsourcing of judgment.”
11. Going Beyond War’s Cliches
By Alisa Sopova | Nieman Lab | September 2025
“A collaborative project records Ukrainians’ day-to-day lives since the Russian invasion.”
12. See Beethoven’s entire ‘9th Symphony’ visualized in colorful animations
Open Culture | October 2025
“In a sense, ‘Ode to Joy’ is a natural choice for a musical representation of Europe, not just for its explicit themes, but also for the obvious ambition of the symphony that includes it to capture an entire civilization in musical form.”
13. JFK Wanted You to Watch This Movie Before He Was Assassinated
By Gordon F. Sander | Politico Magazine | February 2025
“The president had a hand in the making of a Cold War blockbuster.”
14. With ‘drug boat’ strikes, Trump leans into war on terror tactic against cartels
By Ryan Lucas | NPR | September 2025
“The administration has provided few details on the scope of its anti-cartel campaign, but it has adopted — at least in part — the blueprint of military strikes from the global war on terrorism that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.”
15. Robot rabbits the latest tool in Florida battle to control invasive Burmese pythons in Everglades
By Curt Anderson and Cody Jackson | Associated Press | August 2025
“They look, move and even smell like the kind of furry Everglades marsh rabbit a Burmese python would love to eat. But these bunnies are robots meant to lure the giant invasive snakes out of their hiding spots.”
16. The Art of the Impersonal Essay
By Zadie Smith | The New Yorker | September 2025
“In my experience, every kind of writing requires some kind of self-soothing Jedi mind trick, and, when it comes to essay composition, the rectangle is mine.”
17. When Mexico’s richest man threw ‘The New York Times’ a lifeline
By Rick Edmonds | The Poynter 50 | April 2025
“Before the bundles, the podcasts and the 10 million digital subscribers, there was a $250 million loan with a sky-high interest rate.”
18. The Book That Taught Nonna to Cook Is Coming to America
By Kim Severson | The New York Times | September 2025
“An English translation of Ada Boni’s The Talisman of Happiness, an indispensable guide for Italian home cooks since the 1920s, is finally on its way.”
19. The Fisher King: In the Kingdom of the Imperfect
By Bilge Ebiri | The Criterion Collection | June 2015
“Trauma and kindness. These are the two elements that govern The Fisher King, and they re represented by the two mythical figures that haunt the film.”
20. Augustine’s Confessions
By Melvyn Bragg | In Our Time :: BBC 4 | 2016-2018
Also see: Justinian’s Legal Code | Four Quartets | Purgatory | The Battle of Salamis
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Recommended reading / viewing / listening
The culture war over Texas history / A controversial vision for the U.S. military / The history of ‘woke’ / Is this the golden age of biography? / The landline is back / The Gibson Girl lives on
This week: The culture war over Texas history / A controversial vision for the U.S. military / The history of ‘woke’ / Is this the golden age of biography? / The landline is back / The Gibson Girl lives on
Most of these items come from my social media networks. Follow me on BlueSky, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism. Learn more about my academic background here and about me here.
1. Through their eyes: Donald Trump and his actions, as seen by leaders from around the world
By Jennifer Peltz | Associated Press | September 2025
“Here’s a sampling of quotes by leaders and luminaries from around the world this past week at the United Nations talking about Trump and his administration — positive, negative and in between.”
2. Trump and Hegseth spark alarm about domestic use of military
By Blaise Malley | Salon | September 2025
“At an unprecedented gathering of the nation’s top military brass, Trump and Hegseth spoke of using force in America”
Also see, from NPR: Trump defends use of the U.S. military against the ‘enemy within’
Also see, from The Atlantic: Hundreds of Generals Try to Keep a Straight Face
Also see, from The Washington Post: Hegseth wants to return the military to 1990 — a dark time in its history
3. The federal government has shut down. Here’s what will be affected across the country
By Caitlyn Kim | NPR | October 2025
Air travel, mail delivery, safety net programs, paychecks, and FEMA funding may be impacted.
4. An Annual Blast of Pacific Cold Water Did Not Occur, Alarming Scientists
By Sachi Kitajima Mulkey | The New York Times | September 2025
“The cold water upwell, which is vital to marine life, did not materialize for the first time on record. Researchers are trying to figure out why.”
5. How ‘woke’ went from an expression in Black culture to a conservative criticism
By Terry Tang | Associated Press | September 2025
“‘Wokeness’ originated decades ago as African American cultural slang for having awareness and enlightenment around racism, injustice, privilege or threats of white supremacist violence.”
6. This Diplomat Saw the Fall of the Shah Coming. Jimmy Carter Ignored Him.
By Scott Anderson | Politico Magazine | August 2025
“The Carter administration overlooked a dissenting voice on Iran. It almost cost him his life.”
7. With ‘One Battle After Another,’ Paul Thomas Anderson Captures the Shortcomings of His Generation
By Richard Newby | The Hollywood Reporter | September 2025
“Though Leonardo DiCaprio’s Bob, Anderson explores limits and frustrations of a revolutionary in an America where the disenfranchisement of Black and Latino populations has grown beyond his generation’s ability to combat.”
8. The Pueblo Revolt of 1680
By Christopher Rose, Joan Neuberger and Henry Wiencek | 15 Minute History :: UT Department of History | 2014-2020
Also see: The Succession to Muhammad | Darwinism and the Scopes Monkey Trial | Monumental Sculpture of Preclassic Mesoamerica | Ezra and the Compilation of the Pentateuch
9. The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates: Capturing the Kennedys
By Thom Powers | The Criterion Collection | April 2016
“Around the world, other nonfiction filmmakers were also experimenting with handheld styles, from those in England s Free Cinema movement to the members of the National Film Board of Canada. In New York City, the motivation to get out on the streets was felt strongly among the nascent community of independent filmmakers, a loose group whose interests spanned fiction, documentary, and experimental work.”
10. How Scholars Lost the Culture War over Texas History
By Ty Cashion | Texas Observer | September 2025
“And how they could still start winning it.”
11. Citizen historians document Smithsonian exhibits under White House scrutiny
By Jeffrey Brown | PBS News Hour | September 2025
“The Smithsonian Institution is the world’s largest museum, education and research complex. It’s a public-private trust that has long operated at arm’s length from the White House, but now finds itself under unprecedented scrutiny from the Trump administration. “
12. Are We Entering a New Golden Age of Biography?
By Megan Marshall | LitHub | September 2025
“As I enter my fifth decade in the genre, I’m happy to number the brilliant younger biographers whose careers I’m following in the dozens. Nicholas Boggs, Francesca Wade, and Lance Richardson are just three who happen to be stepping out in the same season with sumptuous new biographies of 20th-century literary giants: James Baldwin, Gertrude Stein, and Peter Matthiessen.”
13. What Happens When a Bad-Tempered, Distractible Doofus Runs an Empire?
By Miranda Carter | The New Yorker | June 2018
“Some of Trump’s critics suppose that these escalating crises might cause him to loosen, or even lose, his grip on the Presidency. The real lesson of Kaiser Wilhelm II, however, may be that Trump’s leaving office might not be the end of the problems he may bring on or exacerbate—it may be only the beginning.”
14. How to future-proof your knees
By David Cox | BBC News | September 2025
“Our knees are arguably one of our most important joints, but also one of the most poorly looked after. Science tells us putting in some work now pays dividends later.”
15. Parents are bringing back the landline
By Caitlin Gibson | The Washington Post | September 2025
“Looking to steer kids away from screens and social media, more families are going analog.”
16. A friend’s advice to cut my tortured prose unlocked my career as a novelist
By Andrew Martin | The Guardian | September 2025
“What he said was simple, but it achieved a kind of sorcery. For the first time, my dream of becoming a writer seemed possible”
17. Queering the museum
By M. Quechol | Ojala | September 2025
“In early 2003, Peruvian philosopher, drag performer, and activist Giuseppe Campuzano created the Travesti Museum of Peru. For the next ten years, Campuzano carried this deliberately mobile project in suitcases and public spaces, leaving a legacy of a defiantly impermanent museum. A living counter-archive.”
18. How Originalism Killed the Constitution
By Jill Lepore | The Atlantic | September 2025
“A radical legal philosophy has undermined the process of constitutional evolution.”
19. The Undimmed Appeal Of The Gibson Girl
By Agnes Rogers | American Heritage | Summer 2025
“She was forever a girl — forever young and beautiful, feminine without being (in today’s terms) sexy.”
20. The Almoravid Empire
By Melvyn Bragg | In Our Time :: BBC 4 | 2015-2018
Also see: Circadian Rhythms | The Empire of Mali | The Battle of Lepanto | The Salem Witch Trials
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Recommended reading / viewing / listening
This week: Take a reading vacation / Why is Buc-ees thriving? / How to heal from burnout / Tony Blair returns to the Middle East’s political battlefields / Trump’s war on the Library of Congress is not new
Most of these items come from my social media networks. Follow me on BlueSky, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism. Learn more about my academic background here and about me here.
1. Business is booming for the Beaver – but why?
By David Brown and Kaye Knoll | Texas Standard | October 2025
“A YouTuber investigates Buc-ee’s, the travel stop staple, and what makes it so successful.”
2. My First Murder
By Skip Hollandsworth | Texas Monthly | October 2025
“A legendary true crime writer revisits the case that launched his lifelong obsession.”
3. What the O.J. Verdict & Its Aftermath Revealed About Race in America
By Patrice Taddonio | Frontline :: PBS | October 2025
“Millions of households across the U.S. had tuned in to wall-to-wall coverage of onetime American icon O.J. Simpson’s trial for the brutal double murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman. Then, on Oct. 3, 1995, came a televised verdict, watched by more than 150 million people, that shook the country along racial lines — sparking both consternation and celebration, and raising profound questions about the criminal justice system, fairness and America’s racial divide.”
4. Trump Is Waging a Culture War on the Library of Congress. It’s Been Done Before.
By Rebecca Brenner Graham | Politico Magazine | May 2025
“Thomas Jefferson wanted to donate his personal collection of books to the Library of Congress. But critics thought those books were un-American.”
5. Fool me once: the magical origin of the word ‘hoax’
By Scott Neuman | NPR | October 2025
“How did hocus pocus transform from the stage name of a magician … to a byword for the entire craft?”
6. Trump’s welcome message to new citizens isn’t very welcoming
By Chauncey DeVega | Salon | September 2025
“His message to naturalized citizens is part of an effort to redefine American identity and patriotism”
7. Tony Blair’s long experience in the Middle East is both his strength and his weakness
By Jill Lawless and Danica Kirka | Associated Press | September 2025
“Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has returned to the forefront of Middle East peace efforts after a U.S. peace plan on ending the Israel-Hamas war cast him in a leading role in overseeing the post-war administration and reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. It’s familiar territory for Blair, who spent eight years working to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians as the international community’s envoy to the Middle East.”
8. I’m exhausted but am surviving. How can I heal from burnout without expensive time off?
By Eleanor Gordon-Smith | Leading Questions :: The Guardian | September 2025
“So many burnout books and blogs seem to assume a second income is present to take care of all the stuff that will still need doing if I take a break, but it’s just me. How do I take an actual break?”
9. The Graduate: Intimations of a Revolution
By Frank Rich | The Criterion Collection | February 2016
“[I]t straddles both the old and the new. It survives not just as a peerless Hollywood entertainment but as a one-of-a-kind cinematic portrait of America when it, like Benjamin Braddock at the edge of his parents swimming pool, teetered on the brink.”
10. How artists and musicians are responding to Trump’s 2nd term
By Jeffrey Brown | PBS News Hour | September 2025
“Rock legend Bruce Springsteen publicly blasted President Trump and his policies, saying ‘we’re living through particularly dangerous times.’ As Trump increasingly targets the arts, artists are faced with the question of whether to speak out or keep their heads down.”
11. Something Very Tiny Is Following Earth Around the Sun
By Robin George Andrews | The New York Times | September 2025
“The object, the latest ‘quasi-moon’ detected by astronomers, could be with us for almost another 60 years.”
12. The Borderlands War, 1915-20
By Christopher Rose, Joan Neuberger and Henry Wiencek | 15 Minute History :: UT Department of History | 2014-2020
Also see: The Rise and Fall of the Latvian National Communists | Slavery and Abolition in Iran | The Amateur Photography Movement in the Soviet Union | The Russian Empire on the Eve of World War 1
13. Beyond the beach read: The new wave of bookish travel
By Lizzie Enfield | BBC News | September 2025
“Forget the solo beach paperback: travellers are now joining structured reading retreats that mix books, place and community.”
14. How to Build a Dictionary: On the Hard Art of Popular Lexicography
By Ilan Stavans | LitHub | September 2025
“This conversation concentrates on the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as a Platonic model not only within the English language but in countless other linguistic ecosystems. It looks at Samuel Johnson as the cathartic figure whose lexicographic work shaped modern English dictionaries. And it ponders the sprawling OED products and compares the enterprise to its American counterpart, Merriam-Webster.”
15. What Teen Novels Are Capable Of
By Isabel Fattal | The Atlantic | September 2025
“These books can help young people come to terms with the thoughts that feel too scary to say out loud.”
16. ‘Warrior ethos’ mistakes military might for true security – and ignores the wisdom of Eisenhower
By Monica Duffy Toft | The Conversation | September 2025
“In the aftermath of World War II, U.S. leaders wanted to emphasize a defensive rather than aggressive military posture as they entered the Cold War, a decades-long standoff between the United States and Soviet Union defined by a nuclear arms race, ideological rivalry and proxy wars short of direct great-power conflict.”
17. The parlance of pilots
By Mark Vanhoenacker | Aeon | September 2025
“High above London, Tokyo and Cairo, the language of the cockpit is technical, obscure, geeky – and irresistibly romantic”
18. The night the skies over Baghdad were illuminated, the 24-hour news cycle took over
By Tom Jones | The Poynter 50 | March 2025
“CNN’s live coverage of Operation Desert Storm launched a new era in television news”
19. Should College Get Harder?
By Joshua Rothman | The New Yorker | September 2025
“A.I. is coming for knowledge work, and yet college seems to be getting easier. Does something need to change?”
20. Persepolis
By Melvyn Bragg | In Our Time :: BBC 4 | 2015-2018
Also see: The California Gold Rush | Sappho | The Earth’s Core | The Science of Glass
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Recommended reading / viewing / listening
This week: A new history of Robert McNamara / 40 TV shows to watch / The wisdom of a human stain remover / Protest music survives Iran’s theocracy / More women choose to go makeup free / The Booker Prize shortlist unveiled
Most of these items come from my social media networks. Follow me on BlueSky, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism. Learn more about my academic background here and about me here.
1. The War Hawk Who Wasn’t
By Philip Taubman and William Taubman | The Atlantic | September 2025
“Newly discovered documents reveal Robert McNamara’s private doubts about Vietnam.”
2. So You Want a Civil War? Let’s Pause to Remember What One Looks Like.
By David Blight | The New Republic | September 2025
“[Sept. 17] marks the 163rd anniversary of Antietam. Those who say they’re ready for civil war should stop and think about what happened there.”
3. 40 Shows to Watch This Fall
By Mike Hale | The New York Times | September 2025
“A Ken Burns documentary on the birth of the American Republic, the end of ‘Stranger Things,’ a new series from Sterlin Harjo and much more.”
4. After Martha
By Paul Laity | The London Review of Books | September 2025
“It was immediately clear when Martha, my 13-year-old daughter, died of septic shock that serious errors had been made.”
5. The human stain remover: what Britain’s greatest extreme cleaner learned from 25 years on the job
By Tom Lamont | The Guardian | September 2025
“From murder scenes to whale blubber, Ben Giles has seen it – and cleaned it – all. In their stickiest hours, people rely on him to restore order”
6. The Trump Administration Is Quietly Curbing the Flow of Disaster Dollars
By Jennifer DeCesaro and Sarah Labowitz | Emissary :: The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace | September 2025
“The current administration is deploying three different strategies to slow-walk the flow of disaster dollars to state and local governments: stalling disbursements, delaying FEMA’s emergency response function, and suspending mitigation funding.”
7. Birding by ear: How to learn the songs of nature’s symphony with some simple techniques
By Chris Lituma | The Conversation | September 2025
“A simple way to start bird-watching is to buy a feeder, a pair of binoculars and a field guide, and begin watching birds from your window. However, one of the most rewarding ways to identify birds is to listen to them and learn to recognize their songs.”
8. The world needs peasants
By Maryam Aslany | Aeon | September 2025
“Far from being a relic of the past, peasants are vital to feeding the world. They need to be supported, not marginalized.”
9. Dr. Strangelove: The Darkest Room
By David Bromwich | The Criterion Collection | June 2016
“Human beings for Kubrick possess something of the quality of mobile dolls or mannequins. … Human actions, in his view, are governed by determinations beyond our grasp.”
10. Protest music thrives in Iran, three years after young woman’s death sparked grassroots uprising
By Joy Hackel | The World :: PRI | September 2025
“The death of Mahsa Amini — a young Kurdish Iranian woman who was arrested and beaten in police custody — sparked widespread protests across Iran in September 2022. Protest songs became a powerful unifying force for the movement.”
11. New evidence proves North Sea asteroid impact
BBC News | September 2025
“Scientists have found proof that an asteroid hit the North Sea more than 43 million years ago causing a huge tsunami and leaving a 1.9 mile (3km) wide crater under the seabed.”
12. RFK Jr’s war on vaccines is about shaming women, not helping kids
By Amanda Marcotte | Salon | September 2025
“The MAHA movement regards all childhood ailments as a sign that moms are failing.”
13. Pamela Anderson leads the way for women who choose to go makeup free
By Leanne Italie | Associated Press | September 2025
“It’s a look, especially for older women, that serves to plague and perplex. Do we chase youth (and relevancy) with a full face, or do we foster radiant skin and march on makeup free?”
14. From looms to laptops, Afghan women lose lifeline in Taliban internet ban
By Mohammad Yunus Yawar | Reuters | September 2025
“Local government officials confirmed a ban on fibre-optic services in five northern provinces — Balkh, Kunduz, Badakhshan, Takhar and Baghlan. Officials said the ban is to prevent ‘immoral activities.’ Residents in other provinces, including Kandahar, Herat and Parwan have reported disruptions, though these have not been formally acknowledged by authorities.”
15. Introducing the Booker Prize 2025 shortlist!
The Booker Prizes | September 2025
“Find out which six books are in the running for the world’s most significant award for a single work of fiction.”
16. A look inside the AI strategies at ‘The New York Times’ and ‘The Washington Post’
By Joshua Benton | Nieman Lab | September 2025
“Digiday held the most recent edition of its Digiday Publishing Summit in Miami last week, and it’s been rolling out highlights from many of the sessions.”
17. New Black Hole Measurements Show More Ways Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein Were Right
By Clara Moskowitz | Scientific American | September 2025
“Spacetime ripples from a black hole collision across the cosmos have confirmed weird aspects of black hole physics”
18. Scott Glenn on Gene Hackman, Saving Coppola’s Life and Still Having ‘Gas Left in the Tank’
By Scott Roxborough | The Hollywood Reporter | September 2025
“The character actor’s character actor plays a rare leading role in ‘Eugene the Machine,’ which is opening the 2025 Oldenburg Film Festival.”
19. Lincoln As Commander in Chief
By James M. McPherson | American Heritage | Summer 2025
“Even though he had no military training, Lincoln quickly rose to become one of America’s most talented commanders.”
20. Roman Slavery
By Melvyn Bragg | In Our Time :: BBC 4 | 2015-2018
Also see: Saturn | Josephus | Frederick the Great | Frida Kahlo
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Recommended reading / viewing / listening
This week: The resilience of U.S. democracy / Preparing for death out of a love for life / The magic of kokedama / Amanda Shires builds her post-divorce life / ‘Platoon’ was Charlie Sheen’s Vietnam
Most of these items come from my social media networks. Follow me on BlueSky, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism. Learn more about my academic background here and about me here.
1. Six Ways to Start Early and Lift Your Mood
By Arthur C. Brooks | The Atlantic | September 2025
“Try my protocol for a happy start to the day and see what works for your own well-being.”
2. Transform your houseplants into art with this Japanese gardening technique
By Jessica Damiano | Associated Press | September 2025
“The Japanese method of growing plants in a living planter made of a moss-covered ball of soil, is a simple, DIY project that elevates common houseplants into works of art. They make great gifts, too.”
3. Amanda Shires Tells Her Side of the Story After Divorce From Jason Isbell: ‘I’m Not Scared’
By Natalie Weiner | Texas Monthly | September 2025
“The Lubbock-raised singer-songwriter-fiddler’s new album, Nobody’s Girl, is a raw and revealing look at falling out of love and finding resilience.”
4. I Tested How Well AI Tools Work for Journalism
By Hilke Schellmann | Columbia Journalism Review | August 2025
“Some tools were sufficient for summarizing meetings. For research, the results were a disaster.”
5. American Democracy Might Be Stronger Than Donald Trump
By Jonathan Schlefer | Politico Magazine | September 2025
“Yes, Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. But the country has a few attributes that make it more resilient than you might think.”
6. We Are Watching a Scientific Superpower Destroy Itself
By Stephen Greenblatt | The New York Times | September 2025
“We are currently governed by a leader indifferent to scientific consensus if it contradicts his political or economic interests, hostile to immigrants and intent on crippling the research universities that embody our collective hope for the future. The menace now is within. And with very few exceptions, the leaders of American universities have done little more than duck and cover.”
7. ‘I love life:’ The man who has scheduled his death so he can enjoy living
By Amandas Ong | Al Jazeera | September 2025
“Despite Alzheimer’s, Alex Pandolfo leads a full life. But when his health declines, he plans to have an assisted death.”
8. Historian Jill Lepore explores the Constitution and its interpretations in ‘We the People’
By Geoff Bennett | PBS News Hour | September 2025
“Originalism is often countered by the idea that the Constitution is a living, breathing document meant to be interpreted and changed along with the times.”
9. What If the Next Democratic President Governs Like Trump?
By Matt Ford | The New Republic | September 2025
“Between a permissive Supreme Court and his own governing innovations, the president has greatly expanded executive power. Liberals, take note.”
10. Cats and Dogs in History
By Christopher Rose, Joan Neuberger and Henry Wiencek | 15 Minute History :: UT Department of History | 2014-2020
Also see: Indian Ocean Trade and European Dominance | Indian Ocean Trade from its Origins to the Eve of Imperialism | Ukraine and Russia | Urban Slavery in the Antebellum United States
11. Charlie Sheen’s Lifestyle Couldn’t Kill Him. ‘Platoon’ Nearly Did.
By Charlie Sheen | The Hollywood Reporter | September 2025
“In 1986, well before the sex scandals, the crack and the tiger blood, the 20-year-old actor embarked on the most intense shoot of his career. In an excerpt from his explosive new memoir, Sheen reveals how Oliver Stone’s epic Vietnam War film changed him forever.”
12. Theaters bet big on massive screens, booming sound and recliners to lure movie fans
By Harshita Mary Varghese and Dawn Chmielewski | Reuters | September 2025
“Auditoriums with enhanced visual and video formats, such as IMAX, Dolby Cinema, and ScreenX, account for a record 14.9% of all tickets sold in the U.S. and Canada this year, up from 9.8% in 2019, according to data from research firm Comscore exclusively compiled for Reuters.”
13. Orchid Fever
By Susan Orlean | The New Yorker | January 1995
“How seductive are orchids? Connoisseurs spare nothing for a rare bloom — the issue in a battle between Florida, the Seminoles, and a man with a passion.”
14. The South’s Inner Civil War
By Eric Foner | American Heritage | Summer 2025
“The more fiercely the Confederacy fought for its independence, the more bitterly divided it became. To fully understand the vast changes which the war unleashed on the country, you must first understand the plight of the Southerners who didn’t want secession.”
15. 6 More Things E.R. Doctors Wish You’d Avoid
By Jancee Dunn | Well :: The New York Times | September 2025
“Stay out of the emergency room with these tips.”
16. Strawberries in Winter
By Adrienne LaFrance | The Atlantic | September 2025
“Most Americans do not want civil war. Anyone who is declaring it should stop.”
17. Why your nose could be the perfect window into your mental state
By Gillian Forrester | New Scientist | September 2025
“Diagnosing mental health conditions like anxiety and depression can be difficult, but it turns out that your nose could help doctors understand when you are feeling the strain.”
18. ‘We wanted to make it real:’ How ‘Goodfellas’ reinvented the gangster film
By Myles Burke | BBC Culture | September 2025
“Martin Scorsese’s crime epic was released 35 years ago. In 1990, the director and his stars, Robert De Niro and Ray Liotta, revealed its secrets to the BBC.”
19. Laughing in Hell: How We Tell the Stories of Other Peoples’ Suicides
By Sarah Adler | LitHub | September 2025
“I was drawn to memoirs about suicide even before Rebecca’s death, probably because when someone you love travels often against the thin curtain between life and death, these stories can feel like windows.”
20. Echolocation
By Melvyn Bragg | In Our Time :: BBC 4 | 2016-2018
Also see: Animal Farm | Agrippina the Younger | The Sikh Empire | The Gettysburg Address
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Photographs of Los Voladores de Papantla at HemisFair’68 added to the General Photograph Collection
Special Collections recently acquired photographs by San Antonio CPA and hobbyist photographer James F. Bartlett (1920-2004), gift of Gerron Hite. Bartlett made the photographic prints, dating from the 1960s and 1970s, in his darkroom. Subjects include the missions and other local tourist sites, North Star Mall, and HemisFair’68. Of special interest is a series of images of the performance of Los Voladores de Papantla at HemisFair’68.
Totonac men from Papantla, Veracruz, Mexico, performed the ancient Mesoamerican Danza de los Voladores (Dance of the Flyers) as part of the Frito-Lay / Pepsi-Cola entry at the fair. The ritual took place in an amphitheater with a 410-foot pole from which four of the participants, with ropes tied to themselves, descended headfirst to the ground in a ceremony created to appease the gods and bring rain. In addition to Los Voladores, there was a reenactment of an Aztec ritual human sacrifice by another…
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In Our Time: Classics podcasts
Magnificent.
Last update: 28 March 2022
I thought I would make a list of Radio 4 In Our Time podcasts which are relevant to Classics, as a handy shortcut. Here it is. Much recommended – real experts and real discussions. Particularly good as an introduction for school students or others looking for a taste of Classics! Please let me know if I have missed any out, or if any of the links don’t work. [edit] I have also added some further BBC programmes where they are available on each topic.
Greek Literature
- The Trojan War – with Edith Hall, Ellen Adams and Susan Sherratt (31 May 2012)
- The Iliad – with Edith Hall, Barbara…
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Stillness of Heart 
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