The idea that there is a neoconfederate senator from Arkansas named “Tom Cotton” admittedly strains credulity, but otherwise Adam Serwer’s analysis is sharp: Tom Cotton has never seen a left-wing protest he didn’t want crushed at gunpoint. On Monday, the Arkansas senator demanded that President Joe Biden send in the National Guard to clear out the student protests at Columbia University against the Israel-Hamas war, which he described as “the nascent pogroms at Columbia.” Last week, Cotton posted on X,  “I encourage people who get stuck behind the pro-Hamas mobs blocking traffic: take m ..read more

A gaggle of indicted folk in Donald Trump’s attempt to cheat the vote in Arizona. All those willing to serve as fake electors and a bunch of national figures. Washington Post gift link: Those indicted include former TrumpWhite House chief of staff Mark Meadows,attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman and Christina Bobb, top campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn and former campaign aide Mike Roman.They are accused of allegedlyaiding an unsuccessful strategy to award the state’s electoral votes to Trump instead of Biden after the 2020 election. Also c ..read more

Time for an NBA open thread. I watched the two astounding games on Monday–New York over Philly and Denver over the Lakers. This was one of the best double headers I’ve ever seen. Two great comebacks. But what bugged me about it is something bugging me generally–all the whining about the refs. Both Joel Embiid and LeBron James went in on the refs screwed us deal and Darvin Ham joined LeBron on that. Just shut up and win the game. It’s one thing if the referees are consistently terrible or geared toward one side. But we are a long ways from the 1999 and 2000 Western Conference Finals where the ..read more

Epidemiologists have long been concerned that a type of influenza that mainly infects birds, called H5N1, could develop into the next pandemic. So far it has infected relatively few humans but has been devastating to wildlife in local incidents. So far it lacks the ability to attach easily to most human cells and to be transmitted human to human. But it is an influenza virus, and its cousins have those abilities. Now it is being found in dairy cows in the US. The map above shows the states in which it has been confirmed. Additionally, virus particles have been found in milk in stores. Emphasi ..read more

John McWhorter has taken some time away from his busy schedule of decrying the Threats to Free Speech on Campus to argue that free speech on his particular campus is bad because it deprives him of the use of a very common and important pedagogical technique: Last Thursday, in the music humanities class I teach at Columbia University, two students were giving an in-class presentation on the composer John Cage. His most famous piece is “4’33”,” which directs us to listen in silence to surrounding noise for exactly that amount of time. I had to tell the students we could not listen to that piec ..read more

I don’t know how many of you subscribe to the New York Review of Books, but let me support Cheryl’s position that the NYRB has improved dramatically in the last couple of years. Hell, I’ve even had friends who have had their book reviewed in it! Related to this, while most of the coverage of Israel and Gaza is terrible, NYRB has been publishing the astounding analysis of David Shulman, a pro-Palestine Israeli who puts the lie to the idea that Israelis naturally would at least acquiesce to this war if not actually support it. His work has been really great in fighting against settler violence ..read more

Good thing Bari Weiss and the Crew of People Who Fake Concern about Principle have spent as much time on the mass murders in Gaza as they have on a few idiots saying dumb things at Columbia University. A mass grave with more than 300 bodies has been uncovered at a hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, Gaza Civil Defense workers said, following the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the area earlier this month. Col. Yamen Abu Suleiman, Director of Civil Defense in Khan Younis told CNN that 35 bodies had been discovered at the Nasser Medical Complex on ..read more

Shawn Fain smacks back at these southern politicians and employers whining about the UAW organizing campaign. Will it shock you that he has no time for their bullshit? At Mercedes, rank-and-file workers, not UAW officials, have taken the lead in organizing the plant. “Workers at Mercedes have literally run this campaign with very little help from us,” Fain said. “They wanted it that way. It’s great to see those workers feeling their power and being able to exercise their power.” He scoffed at attacks from corporate executives and southern politicians that the UAW is a third party. He said th ..read more

Nine years ago I said Donald Trump had a good chance of winning the Republican presidential nomination, and eventually the presidency, at a time when this opinion was considered self-evidently ridiculous by the Wise. Now not even the Wise can see all ends, and I’m no prophet, and I don’t know nature’s way, but with those characteristically academic caveats out of the way: I think that Donald Trump is on the verge of collapsing as a political force in America. I’m NOT saying that his political collapse is inevitable. I’m arguing for the OPPOSITE of complacency. At this most perilous moment, th ..read more

This is the grave of Bob Crane. Born in 1928 in Waterbury, Connecticut, Crane grew up in Stamford as a kid mostly interested in jazz. He was a drummer in local bands. He graduated from high school in 1945, joined the state’s National Guard in 1948, and was discharged in 1950. Soon after, he went into the radio. He had a good voice for it. He started working at a little New York station, but moved to bigger stations in Connecticut and soon was regionally known as a host. That got the attention of CBS, who hired him in 1956 to go to Los Angeles and work at KNX. He was really very good here. He ..read more