I never met Gordon Wood, but I have a story about him.
In one of my grad school seminars, we read Wood’s Creation of the American Republic. The sheer erudition and evidentiary depth of the book bowled me over.
Back then, before kids and before life accelerated to warp speed, I used to call my mother every Sunday to catch up. Lots of times, we ended up talking about what I was reading that week in my grad seminars or for leisure. Mom had an omnivorous mind, and she was always looking for something else to read. She was a true intellectual—curious about almost everything, always eager to integrate new arguments or ideas into her existing schemas of how the world worked or to have those schemas challenged and changed.
When we talked that particular Sunday, I think I tried to describe to her part of Wood’s argument about the relationship between the state constitutions during the Articles of Confederation era and the federal Constitution. Maybe I was tired, maybe I didn’t completely understand her questions, but the end result of the conversation was that Mom had questions about Wood’s argument that I didn’t answer satisfactorily. I told her that she should probably just read the book, and we said goodbye.
She did eventually read the book, but the next Sunday, Mom started our conversation by saying, “Well, I had a lovely conversation with Gordon Wood this week.” For a split second, I thought she was joking, but then I remembered who I was dealing with. I started to sweat. “How?” I asked. A whole variety of unlikely scenarios in which the foremost historian of the American Revolution and my mother, who lived in Wichita, Kansas, might have met ran through my mind. “Oh, I just looked up his office phone number on Brown’s website and called, and he picked up!” Mom said. I decided I would have to find another profession.
As it ended up, Gordon Wood spent about an hour on the phone with my mother answering her questions about the Constitution. Ever since, I’ve had a soft spot for the man when I imagine him picking up the phone in Providence and finding Becky Elder from Wichita on the other end of the line. His generosity in that moment spoke very well of him.
Rest in peace, professor.
Trump lässt 900 Tiefseesensoren aus dem Atlantik und Pazifik herausziehen – ein 370-Millionen-Dollar-Netzwerk das seit 2016 läuft.
Es sollte 30 Jahre laufen. Es wird nach 10 Jahren gestoppt. Was diese Sensoren messen: Meerestemperaturen. Strömungen. Salzgehalt. CO₂-Aufnahme. El-Niño-Früherkennung. AMOC – den Atlantischen Umwälzstrom der Europas Wetter reguliert. Ozeanograph Ed Dever: „Es ist ein lähmender Informationsverlust."
Project 2025 hatte das Netzwerk explizit als Quelle von „Klimaalarmismus" bezeichnet und seine Abschaltung gefordert.
Der Kongress hatte die Finanzierung zweimal gerettet.
Die NSF zog es trotzdem durch. Die Folgen werden Jahrzehnte dauern. Daten die wir nie mehr bekommen werden. 1/2
🇺🇸🇪🇺
"Pete Hegseth’s D-day speech on immigration condemned as ‘grotesque stupidity.’ Historians and campaigners accuse US defence secretary of desecrating memory of soldiers who fell in Normandy"
https://t.co/VFtZCfZKJS
This is really stupid, and it’s not getting enough attention.
The Trump administration is pulling a working $368 million ocean monitoring system out of the water, equipment taxpayers already bought, built, and sank into the deep ocean.
And they are doing it right when the oceans are behaving in ways that alarm the scientists who study them.
Record-breaking temperatures.
A system of Atlantic currents that may be lurching toward collapse.
The response?
Yank out the instruments and walk away.
That is not budgeting. That is smashing the gauges while the engine is on fire and calling it efficiency.
For what? The Trump administration dressed it up as a “nimbler approach” and “smart lifecycle management,” which is fancy nonsense for “we shut it off and hoped nobody would ask why.” There is no return-on-investment analysis. They cannot show taxpayers save a dime, because the gear is already paid for and the science it produces protects real money and real lives.
The kicker: the same people killing the monitors want to mine the deep sea for minerals. So they are destroying the only tools that could measure what that mining does. That is not an accident.
That is the point. You cannot see the damage if you break the instruments first.
https://t.co/MzE4AW1QBv
Sky's @cathynewman interviewed Reform's Zia Yusuf about the murder of Henry Nowak, then faced a deluge of online abuse, including misogyny and death threats.
She looks at a small sample of the posts and explains why journalists should "call it out" ⬇️
@hannahspierMD 1/Hannah, we have now almost 500,000 peer reviewed published research into long covid now. “Fatigue”, “post exertional malaise (PEM)” “Brain Fog” “difficulty concentrating” are not psychiatric symptoms. They have a pathological basis and clear demonstrable abnormalities 1/
🧵"Desidero che la Papamobile venga trasformata in una clinica mobile e donata ai bambini di Gaza"
Questa è una delle ultime volontà di Papa Francesco prima di morire.
Ad eseguire la disposizione di Papa Francesco, il Vaticano incarica il cardinale svedese Anders Arborelius che a sua volta incarica la Caritas svedese per la trasformazione del veicolo.
Quando la stampa dà la notizia dell'incarico alla Caritas svedese di trasformare la Papamobile in clinica mobile per i bambini di Gaza, scatta la solidarietà dei cittadini svedesi che in pochi giorni inviano alla Caritas cospicue donazioni.
Grazie alle somme raccolte, la Caritas, non solo riesce a trasformare la Papamobile in una clinica mobile fornita di attrezzature mediche di ultima generazione, ma acquista altre 12 ambulanze da inviare a Gaza.
A novembre dello scorso anno, quando i lavori sulla Papamobile sono ultimati, per celebrare l'evento e assolvere all'ultima volontà di Papa Francesco, il Vaticano sceglie Betlemme, la città simbolo per eccellenza della cristianità, la città dove nacque Cristo.
In Piazza della Mangiatoia, il cardinale Anders Arborelius benedice la Papamobile e le ambulanze in partenza verso Gaza.
La Papamobile viene rinominata "Veicolo della Speranza".
Passano giorni, settimane e poi mesi ma gli occupanti israeliani non consentono alla Caritas di fare entrare il Veicolo della Speranza a Gaza.
I rappresentanti del Vaticano e della Caritas chiedono più volte spiegazioni ma Israele si prende gioco di loro inventando storie assurde.
"Non è pervenuta alcuna richiesta di autorizzazione"
E poi ancora: "I materiali sanitari all'interno della Papamobile potrebbero finire nelle mani di Hamas ed essere usati come armi".
E intanto la Papamobile, trasformata in un gioiello della tecnologia medica, in grado di curare 200 bambini al giorno, è ancora lì, dopo sette mesi, sotto una teca in un parcheggio a pochi metri da Piazza della Mangiatoia in attesa di raggiungere i bambini di Gaza.
In uno stupendo articolo scritto dal cardinale Arborelius su ICN, Independent Catholic News (*link nel primo commento) il cardinale si rivolge alle autorità israeliane, chiede, quasi supplica, di lasciare entrare il Veicolo della Speranza ma non rinuncia a scrivere: "Negare le cure mediche ai bambini significa oltrepassare un limite morale che dovrebbe turbare tutti".
Limite morale che non turba i leader politici occidentali che ostentano senza ritegno la loro fede cristiana ma restano in un vile silenzio mentre la colonia di plastica denominata Israele umilia il Vaticano prendendosi gioco delle ultime volontà di un Papa.
Che schifo!
Polite reminder. Trump & Brexit are not 2 different things. They are the same thing. Same companies. Same data. Same Facebook. Same Russians. Same Cambridge Analytica. Same Robert Mercer. Same Steve Bannon. Same Breitbart. Same Alexander Nix. Same Donald Trump. Same Nigel Farage.