@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

Zeb_Larson

@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us

Hello! I'm a former #academic who still considers himself a #historian. While I've left #academia behind, I still work as a #writer, mostly of essays and history pieces. Some of my pieces can be found in Jacobin, Teen Vogue, Smithsonian, and Belt. My PhD is in #history, and I studied the anti-apartheid movement in the United States. Today, I write about a variety of topics. When I can, I listen to #music and play #games.

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petrillic, to random
@petrillic@hachyderm.io avatar

Teen Vogue continuing to do the work the NY Times, WaPo, and others refuse. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/second-ku-klux-klan

Zeb_Larson,
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

@MayInToronto @petrillic You're out here spreading the word about my piece! I gotta step it up.

And yeah, TV really does fight the fight. I never thought there would be any appetite for these pieces but I think this was my 6th explainer for them, and I have more I plan to pitch.

Zeb_Larson, to random
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

Mastodon is a community divided between enjoyable weird nerds who know that they’re weird and proud of it and unlikeable weird nerds who insist that they’re normal and also you’re wrong.

Zeb_Larson, to history
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

Anyway, I wrote this about the rise of the Second KKK for Teen Vogue, and I guess I’m going to be getting fan mail about it?

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/second-ku-klux-klan

Zeb_Larson, to random
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

Somebody has strong feelings about our upcoming travel.

SrRochardBunson, to random

A "2nd civil war" wouldn't be Meal Team Six lining up against the army.

It would be JimBob taking out that immigrant couple on their street or family with the trans kid, that they've been pissed at for years. All it takes is some sign or assurance that they might get away with it.

Zeb_Larson,
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

@SrRochardBunson People tend to underestimate just how much violence in a civil war is people settling scores and getting even (as they see it).

pvonhellermannn, to random
@pvonhellermannn@mastodon.green avatar

Half thinking of starting an hashtag here, about the dire, dire state of UK (global?) higher education. Sharing nuggets of senior management decisions, neoliberal language, and overall slow collapse.

Won’t work of course because most of us can’t risk honesty, but honestly: the everyday reality of what is happening deserves recording in all its depressing and damning detail.

Zeb_Larson,
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

@pvonhellermannn I left academia three years ago. At first, I thought I’d come back and adjunct just because I like teaching and would appreciate the extra money — but that died so quickly. Actually being paid a fair salary ruined me on ever coming back to a university, and I already have freelance side hustles in addition to my salary.

Higher education is broken.

Zeb_Larson, to random
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

A misinformation researcher was effectively dismissed from Harvard because Zuck offered the school millions of dollars as part of an AI research grant.

"It also denies that she was fired, saying she 'was offered the chance to continue as a part-time adjunct lecturer, and she chose not to do so.'"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/12/04/joan-donovan-harvard-dismissal-complaint/

Zeb_Larson, to random
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

Democrats being sunk on judicial appointments (one of the few areas where the party can take tangible, meaningful action) because an aged member of the party can't physically make it to any of the votes but also refuses to simply treat her situation with grace and resign is such an apropos thing for where the country is right now. The arguments against Feinstein's resignation are so dumb as to verge on bad faith.

https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/dianne-feinstein-resign-calls-arguments-17910730.php

Zeb_Larson, to random
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

Watching this guy (the assistant chief of the NYPD) accidentally pepper spray himself is only topped by his fellow cops trying to wash oil-based pepper spray off with water…on his forehead. Straight into his eyes.

https://www.amny.com/news/nypd-chief-pepper-spray-manhattan-bridge-protest/

rvawonk, to politics

I wrote about the rise in political violence in America, and how our fractured reality is making it hard to see the perilous path we’re heading down.

https://weaponizedspaces.substack.com/p/americas-fractured-reality-paves

Zeb_Larson,
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

@rvawonk @seachanger I talked about this a bit in something I wrote last year, that a good model for what a civil war really looks like in the 21st century is The Troubles in Northern Ireland. People think it will look like 1860 and men in blue or gray uniforms lining up to fight, but I think in reality it’s stochastic violence and acts of terrorism and state security services that really should not be trusted.

It’s scary because we’re very close to that.

Zeb_Larson, to random
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

"An IDF official says one of its soldiers saw the hostages emerging from a building without shirts on, holding a stick with a white cloth on it. The soldier felt threatened and opened fire, declaring that the men were terrorists, the IDF official says."

I don't think this speaks well to how the IDF treats Palestinians trying to surrender.

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-67732895

Zeb_Larson, to random
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

Thinking about Sinead O'Connor's death and something is sticking with me. It was really, really, really normalized that you could be astonishingly cruel to public female figures in the '90s and just get away with it. Lewinsky jokes eclipsed Sinead O'Connor jokes at a certain point, but the most vicious sexism was open season if you stepped out of line.

And of course, she was completely correct about calling out abuse in the Catholic Church -- which nobody gave a shit about.

Zeb_Larson, to random
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

I have a very simple protocol for dealing with people online. If you're annoying in somebody else's thread or mentions, I mute you. If you're annoying in mine, I block you. And if you're a racist or a bigot, I just skip step one.

Zeb_Larson, to history
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

The fish pepper is one of those stories that seems too good to be true: an almost-disappeared foodstuff is brought back from the brink and makes an incredible recovery. It doesn't hurt that it's fun to cook with.

Anyway, I wrote about its here. A fun story.

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240216-the-us-pepper-that-was-nearly-lost

Zeb_Larson, to music
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

I'm rarely proud of my own writing; this piece is an exception. I'm proud of this one. It''s a topic I'd wanted to write about for a long time and it rested on a partnership with an incarcerated author, David Annarelli. I couldn't have written it without him. This is part of a series, one of which will be by him.

Please share; I'd like to get this one out in the world, along with its siblings.

https://scalawagmagazine.org/2023/06/southern-prison-music/

seachanger, to random
@seachanger@alaskan.social avatar

can anyone explain to me why I’m so dang emotionally invested in the success of the fediverse?

Zeb_Larson,
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

@seachanger Thinking it through too, it's honestly nice to also feel like I have a corner of the internet where the stakes are low. I don't produce "content" here; I don't give a shit how many likes or boosts something gets. (Ironically, my published pieces tend to do well here). The best way to converse with people is just saying something, not replying to the big accounts and hoping you get picked up.

And the discoverability functionality is actually good here.

Zeb_Larson,
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

@seachanger I think what keeps me here and maybe what helps invest you is that it really feels like the internet without the suffocating commercialism of so much of the rest of it. It's people with their interesting, dorky hobbies (which I love) and oddball thoughts and weird community. Warts and all, limitations and all, it's an experiment worth fighting for.

Zeb_Larson, to random
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

I come back to this piece again and again because I think it gets at so many Americans’ blind spots about dictatorship. There’s an implicit faith that “it can’t happen here” because people would find it to be intolerable, but for a lot of us (those who tend to be more privileged) it would be tolerable. There were white Republicans in the South during Jim Crow: they were gerrymandered into meaninglessness and grumbled about their lack of power, but they got by fine.

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/1/9/14207302/authoritarian-states-boring-tolerable-fascism-trump

Zeb_Larson, to random
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

This is a very well-written piece, but nestled in here is a humbling fact: Israeli military action has killed more hostages than it has saved. Most of the hostages who have been saved were through negotiation, ceasefire, and prisoner transfers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/12/opinion/israel-icj-genocide-south-africa.html?unlocked_article_code=1.NU0.3yfi.VkCcLHsw5kdK&smid=url-share

Zeb_Larson, to random
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

NBC offering Ronna McDaniel an analyst position is perhaps the clearest proof you could summon that mainstream institutions have no idea how to understand our current historical moment. Thinking that they'll actually protect us is a fantasy.

Zeb_Larson, to random
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

Oof, too true to academic life. https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/class-is-canceled-until-further-notice-while-i-do-my-job

Zeb_Larson, to history
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

I went to give a talk tonight (something I rarely do anymore and was starting to miss) about the of mental healthcare. And as I was driving home, it hit me how much working in that sector radicalized me. I’d always been a progressive Democrat, but three years in community mental health really disabused me of pretty much all my faith that society as currently organized can provide care to marginalized people.

Zeb_Larson, to random
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

The strongest argument I’ve heard for monkey wrenching data centers. https://www.ft.com/content/1f93b9b2-b264-44e2-87cc-83c04d8f1e2b

Zeb_Larson, to random
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

Great to see my alma mater frantically reversing itself and admitting that yes, the guys on the roof did have "long-range firearms." It really feels like we're seconds from escalation into a true nightmare.

https://www.thelantern.com/2024/04/university-says-officers-had-readied-firearms-directed-toward-protesters-from-ohio-unions-roof-once-arrests-began/

eeyam, to palestine
@eeyam@med-mastodon.com avatar

I hope people realize what this means for our future.. It’s looking bleak if they get away with this.

Israel destroyed Shifa Hospital 🤬

@palestine

Zeb_Larson,
@Zeb_Larson@zirk.us avatar

@eeyam @DocCarms This is gutting to see. All the handwringing about hospitals in October of last year was just theater. The moment deaths couldn’t be blamed on Hamas, so much of civil society (let alone government) started treating things like this as a non-issue.

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