Andrew Tobolowsky

@andytobo.bsky.social

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Professor of Religious Studies, lies about it on planes. Lies about it in person. Isn't that religious. Studies the ancient world, historical memory, the NBA, these takes. Interested in getting off these takes.

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Hmmm yes

While I'm glad to see Biden mulling good ideas, I hope it works, and I'm sure it'll help normalize them, I also think it reveals what I believe to be his main DOMESTIC problem - that nobody's got a plausible theory of power where conservatives control the courts and are favored in the Senate map

I love the Wheel of Time and was so excited for the show but the thing they did to Perrin's back story immediately turned me off and it's a great example of this. Being afraid of losing control bc you're big and strong was perfectly fine as expo!

It's hard to convey how dead-on this essay is unless you watch a metric fuckton of television. But if you do, oh baby, reading this is like putting on the glasses from They Live.

Bluesky is, for me at least, the epicenter of the view that Biden's age being a huge liability is a media obsession and not a real electoral issue. I don't, but it does for the moment seem like the shooting is, for Trump.

As soon as we learned that Crooks was a registered Republican it was clear that the assassination attempt was going to be a two-day story.

It's such a thing with these weirdos. Literally in Trump's truth social post he brags about Vance's academic pedigree. The success of his dumb book relies on it. They don't want to give up the prestige they just think they can keep it while turning schools into MAGA factories

I also want to point out that Vance's whole "professors are the enemy" schtick came after he profited enormously from universities. Nowhere was "Hillbilly Elegy" pushed more than on college campuses. He cashed in with six figure speaking fees to talk about Appalachian poverty.

The liberal impulse to value the rush of being seen being understanding over being uncompromising in protecting the people who really need understanding is - bad!

I'm not normally vengeful, but I want to point to Vance's nomination and ascension as the product of every purported liberal who touted his book as "revolutionary" over the objections of all the folks who knew better. That shit is partially on them, and they need to own that.

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Andrew Tobolowsky

for Parapraxis I wrote about AI video, André Bazin, and Godard's 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her www.parapraxismagazine.com/articles/ind...

Index’s Limit — Parapraxiswww.parapraxismagazine.com

This, btw, is the real reason the freakout about Biden's chances is happening on capitol hill, whatever we might say about why newspapers are stoking it. Nobody thinks this level of ticket splitting is actually going to happen.

This is my only talking point, everyone would be really bored of it if anyone knew who I was. Yes, but - we can't just keep ignoring the fact that the people we elect, who have more power than us, seem essentially powerless to do anything but slow it a little.

I woke up thinking about the fact that virtually all media discourse on what divides us has the unexamined assumption that one side CAN'T be right. Like we're never divided bc they actually WANT horrible things, just bc of the rhetoric

I have never read anything more credulous than Axios’s thing about Trump this morning. Like…

Except when it's kids, I never even mind that much when I read this kind of story. It's in theory part of the job but no one wants to die. But what IS maddening about it is this is the reason there should be gun laws, which the police used to support but are now against. Instead they want more guns

of COURSE

I like the latest discourse about how we talk to each other on sosh meeds - I often think a lot of the problems for people with similar views is that the fundamental fact of SOCIAL media - that every opinion you have can be scrutinized - has made people really really bad -

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Andrew Tobolowsky

Hi! Here are 50 free copies of my new article on blindness and labor in ancient Mesopotamia! It works without institutional access, so if you have it, please use the link in the next post. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/eprint/42XQKHQBKUW3VZGZWHUK/full?redirectUri=/doi/epdf/10.1086/730403

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Andrew Tobolowsky

I can't remember a tech campaign this relentless.

He can win if Mike Pence has the courage

Every screenshot people bring over from twitter these days is like "here's the simple nine-step process by which Michael Dukakis becomes president" maybe we don't need these all that badly

I'll say one more thing and then stop because who needs the anxiety but - first of all, it is just true that places like NY have moved to the right. We knew that. It's why the Dems don't have the House right now, and it's why the governor race was really close. But I don't understand -

Here's what I would like to see from Biden. I think he and his circle seem to have been interpreting "you need to go out and make your case" literally - which has resulted in a lot of spots where he talks, literally, about why he should still be the nominee, often in alienating ways

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We are excited to welcome @mikemotia.bsky.social to the @ancientjewreview.bsky.social team, which will platform his "New Books in Late Antiquity" podcast. Check out the recent episode, discussing "Gospel Thrillers" with Andrew Jacobs (@drewjakeprof.bsky.social). newbooksnetwork.com/gospel-thril...

Andrew S. Jacobs, "Gospel Thrillers: Conspiracy, Fiction, and the Vulnerable Bible" (Cambridge UP, 2023) - New Books Networknewbooksnetwork.com

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Andrew Tobolowsky

Read with great pleasure.

I wrote an essay about the Tunisian Jewish anti-imperialist / pro-Zionist writer Albert Memmi, and the thin line between national liberation and fascism: abrahamriesman.com/the-jewish-p...

The Jewish Pessimist — Abraham Josephine Riesman // Writerabrahamriesman.com

I've found bluesky really disappointing in the wake of the latest Biden controversy, in part because it really is a much more "civilized" app than Twitter and Facebook, at least in terms of my own day-to-day experience. It has nothing to do with the unanimity on the point that Biden should stay in

I will say, without having any reason to pretend to know what option would be better, I wish the people who were convinced that the push to replace Biden is MAINLY media manufactured could admit that it still wouldn't be happening with different polling

A recent hobby of mine is using analogies from quantum physics very badly in my scholarship on ancient traditions. They're bad because I don't understand quantum physics, but they're good because I deserve a little treat

Fascinatingly, Bluesky is the only social media app I'm engaged with where there's a lot of enthusiasm for Biden staying on. Though, this may be an artifact of who I follow on here vs. others

Absolutely right. A lot of people think the president feeling constrained by law in such a way that they can't stop any of this won't hurt them politically because it wouldn't be fair if it did. But it does tremendously and that has to be part of the calculus

Voters just blame whoever is President for whatever happens during their Presidency, which is a major reason why allowing the situation where the Supreme Court absurdly gets to make policy across whatever issue they want to persist is so deadly to Democrats

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Andrew Tobolowsky

July 4th is very rough on my dog (he is a royalist and considers George Washington a traitor)

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NYT Opinion | Why I Don't Drink From Our Only Canteen While We're Stranded in the Desert by A Completely Quenched Guy

I use at least one of these skills in the classroom every day

Some personal news

Anyone who says they know what the best strategy is is lying to themselves. But of course I think the people who are really freaking out, which I guess includes me, are not doing it because of a terrible debate performance, but because of doubt that Biden can consistently HAVE good TV appearances

I actually think people are getting a bit over their skis on freaking out over Biden! We're talking about one terrible debate performance, something that can be turned around with a few good TV appearances. And bowing out could hurt Dem polling more than it helps. bsky.app/profile/bikm...