Journalist – Historian – Speaker
Yesterday, Pacific Standard published a piece of mine on medieval brewing and lack of gender diversity at Google. I mostly talked about medieval history and the Bennett-thesis on patriarchal equilibrium. But as I reached the end of the draft, I started doing a little research into contemporary brewing, tipped off by a friend that there had …
When the anti-diversity memo by (now former) Google employee James Damore went viral, all I could think of was medieval brewing. In the memo, Damore argued that women as a gender just aren’t as mentally fit as men to be good programmers. Appropriately, the rebuttals to Damore have focused on two issues. First, he’s wrong on the science. …
Yesterday, two different but familiar stories emerged from the New York Times. In one, a Trump voter said he was sorry, but didn’t say what he was going to do about it. In another, Trump voters declared that they would stand with him no matter what, and that they were unpersuadable. At least 60% of …
This is well-known (I gather, not my world) cosplayer Alisa Kiss and her boyfriend at Charlottesville Nazi rally, chanting “Jews will not replace us.” Note his Templar shield (which is what caught my interest). A gif of the white supremacist march in Charlottesville. A white man holds the hand of a white woman. He has …
Yesterday, Pacific Standard published a piece of mine on Naming Nazis. Please read and share! One general theme I’m noting a lot in the Trump era is a question of how we defend our principles. I wrote: Over the last few days, I’ve been struck by the ways in which the debate over naming Nazis mirrors …
Sen Johnny Isakson blames ADHD on bad parenting. As a constituent and parent of an ADHD child, I demand an apology from @SenatorIsakson . pic.twitter.com/g5xA09tjR3 — Suzy Kale (@suzettekale) August 15, 2017 Just putting this link up here as I try to find out more. Apparently not only is this ableist in terms of its …
Historian Kevin Kruse has an important thread on the way that segregationists linked the Klan to the NAACP. Trump is pulling an old move here. During the 1950s, segregationist politicians often condemned the “extremists on both sides.” By that, they meant the Klan & the NAACP. — Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) August 15, 2017
A little thread on laptop bans. What’s your pedagogical plan for tattoo computers? Eyelid computers? Fingernail computers? https://t.co/mxv3k3YXEx — David M. Perry (@Lollardfish) August 15, 2017 I’ve written against the ableism of laptop bans plenty. I want to add this thought today: We are barely, barely, still in an era of tech when we can …
As you know, a Nazi killed a protester named Heather Heyer and injured many others. What you may or may not know is that over the last year, many different state GOP lawmakers have been proposing decriminalizing running over protesters. Here’s a thread. In North Carolina, the GOP voted to protect drivers who run over …
Kudos to “Surrey Medieval” for pulling this together. Not comprehensive, they make clear, but a great collection.