Dave Thomer

@davethomer.bsky.social

Followers

214

Following

857

Posts

I teach kids about history and I hang out with my family. Still brainstorming on the profile pic and header. He/him

Posts Replies Media

Reposted by

Dave Thomer

This is also a nice reminder that when conservatives say, "Judeo-Christian" they mean "Christian," because you know nobody at Project 2025, including the person who wrote "Judeo-Christian" below, means anything but Sunday when they talk about deciding what people can & should do on the Sabbath.

Tired: Project 2025 wants to bring back the Sabbath. Wired: Project 2025 will ban Sunday sportsball games and forget about getting beer.

Reposted by

Dave Thomer

in light of today’s results, this quote from last week stands out

THE sentence of the day: A Macronist incumbent in the Marseille region came in 3rd in her seat. She just dropped out to support the left. She said, about why she's maneuvering to block the far-right: "Defeats happen, but you can never recover from dishonor."

When @straczynski.bsky.social is cooking, I don't think any TV writer writes a better speech.

"To save our people, we must sacrifice our people. We must sacrifice ourselves, our pride, our vengeance. Be willing to die by the thousands, by the millions for one another. The more we fight for ourselves, the more we will lose ourselves..."

If there were a textbook for writing television series, the Londo and G’Kar arcs would warrant their own chapter.

Londo Mollari is consistently one of the best characters on Babylon 5. Just extraordinarily well written and well acted by Peter Jurasik.

I am currently trying to organize the stuff in my basement rec room (wreck room?) and I feel this in my bones.

Went through a big old cardboard box marked “FRAGILE!” filled with dozens of balled-up, newspaper-wrapped— —nothings. Literally nothing in that box but newspapers; wrapped around thin air.

I've been fascinated that in the UK, parliamentary elections seem to be much more of a team effort than a series of parallel individual projects. This story mentions that candidates in some constituencies are being asked to stop campaigning for themselves and go help other candidates w/ better odds.

Tories in election retreat as resources diverted to defend ministers’ seatswww.theguardian.com Activists and candidates sent to campaign for Cleverly, Dowden and Barclay, who all hold 20,000-plus majorities

A hundred years later, and we’re still trying to figure out how to actually create that mode of living. The sad thing for me is that 2024 Dave feels farther from it than 2004 Dave did.

“A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experiences.” — John Dewey, Democracy and Education #philosophy #philsky

Reposted by

Dave Thomer

Reply to

John Scalzi

(Also, luck is real, but the adage "luck favors the prepared" is also real, i.e., if you've prepped yourself to capitalize on that luck, that luck can last a lot longer than it might otherwise.)

Reposted by

Dave Thomer

Luck is real and sometimes you're in the right place at the right time (and sometimes - more often, really - you're not). For every successful creative person there are dozens if not hundreds of creatives of equal or better competence who didn't get that one bit of luck.

ok i have another quote tweet prompt. what's something, big or small, related to your job or hobby, that most people don't know that you would like to have them know? it can be a concept, a piece of history, some vocabulary, or something else.

Reposted by

Dave Thomer

Love that CBS has posted online their full 40+ minute interview with the members of R.E.M. tied to last night's induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Loved hearing Mills compare "Losing My Religion" to a bumblebee: "They, they shouldn't be able to fly. That song shouldn't have been a hit."

youtu.be

Reposted by

Dave Thomer

it's late and you're tired you turn off the TV, preparing to haul yourself up so you can go to bed the TV does not shut off "Just one more thing," says Columbo, pushing the test pattern bars to the side inwardly, you start screaming you will never be able to stop

I love analog horror

In honor of George Pérez’s 70th birthday. Grateful for the stories and joy that he shared with the world.

Reposted by

Dave Thomer

George Pérez would have been 70 years old today, June 9. Put on your brightest colored shirt, draw something great, and do something nice for one of your friends.

Reposted by

Dave Thomer

Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata, Unknown Artist, 1670-1750, 📸 via @AlexCarrMLB

Reposted by

Dave Thomer

I hope the University of the Arts survives in some form.

During the last gasp protest to save our beloved University of the Arts here in Philly..and I noticed this sign quoting @neilhimself.neilgaiman.com from his beautiful speech at 2012 graduation-which I was privileged to hear live

Reposted by

Dave Thomer

Holy fucking shit. The US Cricket team just beat Pakistan. To put that in perspective, it would be like the Pakistan National Cricket team beating the Lakers. In basketball.

I reached a point in my career teaching kids where I wanted to observe my own process of trying to understand a text when I lacked a lot of background knowledge of the subject. I decided to start reading cricket articles. My goodness, it's like learning a whole new language.

Team USA just took Pakistan to the equivalent of overtime in the cricket World Cup (there is a cricket World Cup) and the coverage is everything I want it to be

Xed out again. :) "When We Were Young and Just Like Heaven both launched in 2022 and target elder-millennial audiences. They are the people with disposable income who find themselves ageing out of the reflex of keeping up with new music. There are boomer-fied nostalgia festivals, too, though."

As Coachella struggles, nostalgia festivals are booming: ‘We never stopped listening to these bands’www.theguardian.com Events like Lovers & Friends, with big R&B names from decades past, sell out immediately while Coachella sales plummet

Reposted by

Dave Thomer

Fordham is hiring in comparative politics with a regional focus on the Middle East/North Africa. Areas of potential substantive expertise are outlined in the ad—the position is at the assistant level & located at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus; application’s due Sept 10 apply.interfolio.com/147081

Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio apply.interfolio.com

Sometimes I show my students the Jason Alexander McDLT commercial to help me explain the hole in the ozone layer.

I don't know a thing about this but I do know that if you think we're stuck having to use everything the smartest engineers can design, I'll remind you that we still have but don't use the technology to keep the hot side hot and the cool side cool.

Reposted by

Dave Thomer

The UK general election as told through the medium of push notifications from the most important news app: the BBC News app. Been doing this on Twitter given this place is in general more chatty, but here goes: 🧵

Reposted by

Dave Thomer

oh my god

I get the newspaper delivered to my school every day. Got to give my students a lesson in advertorial content today!

Reposted by

Dave Thomer

Democrats gained full control over Minnesota govt in 2022. With a one-seat Senate majority, they’ve passed voting reforms including: A state Voting Rights Act Automatic voter registration Restoring voting rights to people after prison The National Popular Vote Compact Expanded early voting And more

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) has signed this legislation that creates a state-level Voting Rights Act, ends prison gerrymandering, & adopts other democracy protections www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/bill.p...

HF 4772 Status in the House for the 93rd Legislature (2023 - 2024)www.revisor.mn.gov

Reposted by

Dave Thomer

I have a joke about George Perez, but it won't fit into the Bluesky 300 character limit...

I have a joke about Alan Moore but everyone on the internet will take it too seriously and get mad about it for days

Reposted by

Dave Thomer

Arguing civil rights had nothing to do with political realignment is utterly wrong, but the idea there was no economic exploitation in the South prior to Walmart is insisting the sky is green

Every single one of these threads is a guy with no training in political history hand waving away decades of research grounded in the archives with a Map I Discovered on Wikipedia

Reposted by

Dave Thomer

NPR Codeswitch’s Gene Demby is from Philly and has a great series of pieces on this - will drop them in order here

#tdih [T]he Philadelphia Police Department dropped a C-4 bomb on the home of the MOVE organization, killing eleven people — including five children — and wiping out 61 homes in two city blocks. (The mayor of Philadelphia was Black.) www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/mo...

May 13, 1985: Philadelphia Police Bomb MOVEwww.zinnedproject.org The Philadelphia Police Department dropped a C-4 bomb on the home of the MOVE organization, killing eleven people (including five children) and wiping out half a city block.

I'm From Philly. 30 Years Later, I'm Still Trying To Make Sense Of The MOVE Bombingwww.npr.org Philadelphia native Gene Demby was 4 years old when city police dropped a bomb on a house of black activists in his hometown. Thirty years later, he's still trying to make sense of it all.

Maybe your friend should tell his childhood self "Apple" instead of "Yahoo," though.

The geomagnetic storm seems to be winding down, so if you still need to communicate across time with your dead father via ham radio to solve your mother's murder, now's the time!