Janet Watson
@janetskwatson.bsky.social
1.9K followers 1K following 2.2K posts
History professor at UConn, mother, knitter, long COVID and cardiac arrest survivor. Author, Fighting Different Wars. Be kind, stand strong, and aim for democracy. Cats. Personal account.
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Reposted by Janet Watson
Long Covid Is Real — And It’s Changing an Entire Generation

Hundreds of thousands of kids in America are struggling with an illness that many doctors and schools refuse to recognize.e

Feature: www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
Reposted by Janet Watson
If you think that professors exist as repositories of knowledge that students ask for answers, you’re missing the entire point of a college education.

We’re here to teach students how to do research, how to analyze and argue, how to think for themselves — how to find the answers on their own.
Wow. Just wow.

"Students pay premium prices for information that AI now delivers instantly and for free. A business student can ask ChatGPT to explain supply chain optimization or generate market analysis in seconds. The traditional lecture-and-test model faces its Blockbuster moment."
When Knowledge is Free, What are Professors For?
Higher Education Must Stop Competing with AI on Information and Start Teaching What Machines Can’t Do
www.forbes.com
Reposted by Janet Watson
Chris Murphy: "This is a country that's falling apart because Trump is in the middle of an authoritarian takeover. We're not on the verge of an authoritarian takeover. We're in the middle of it ... I have no moral obligation to vote for a budget that literally funds the destruction of our democracy"
Reposted by Janet Watson
Reposted by Janet Watson
The @chicago.suntimes.com photographer who risked their personal health and safety to take this photograph is Anthony Vazquez. Please credit photographers and media outlets. In this age of misinformation, a photo with no context could be anything at all.
Please remind us who the domestic terrorists are again.
Photo from Chicago: DHS militarized agent holding a gun up directly in someone’s face as the victim has their hands up, pleading for them not to shoot.
Reposted by Janet Watson
Trump on Charlie Kirk: "He was able to fight people that were enemies. And he didn't necessarily love those enemies so much. You know, I heard 'he loved his enemies' and I said, 'Wait a minute, is that the same Charlie that I knew? I'm not sure.' But I didn't want to get into it."
I was recruited for a long covid research study and the interviewer kept talking about “older people” and I finally asked about their definition of “older” and it actually turns out that I’m too young.

I mean, not by a lot, but I’ll still take it.
Reposted by Janet Watson
It is to the shame of all the male reporters in the room that they do not immediately leave
Trump ignores a question from a woman reporter but says, "I just like to watch her talk. Good job. Thank you darling."
Reposted by Janet Watson
POLITICO: “.. They referred to Black people as monkeys and ‘the watermelon people’ and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies .. and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.

@politico.com
www.politico.com/news/2025/10...
Reposted by Janet Watson
The National Guard’s mostly quiet walks through Washington, D.C., are expected to cost a little more than $200 million, USA Today reported, and that’s the figure just for the D.C. National Guard, not for the eight states that have sent troops.
A Very, Very Expensive Way to Reduce Crime
The Trump administration’s National Guard deployments are highly inefficient.
www.theatlantic.com
I miss Vin Scully so much
Did you know that on 10/12/49 Vin Scully called his 1st game?

It was atop the roof of Fenway Park. It was college football, not Major League Baseball.

The generational voice of the Dodgers called the U of Maryland beating Boston University 14-13 on CBS.

#BaseballandtheLaw 418
Reposted by Janet Watson
RIFs were a choice, and that choice was made BEFORE the shutdown

The shutdown was indeed an excuse.
Re-upping this piece on news that Vought is firing federal employees:
*Vought lying that shutdowns compel layoffs, never have before.
*Layoffs are a choice, the shutdown is an excuse.
*Comes on top of existing RIFs, will make restoring govt services harder post-shutdown.
substack.com/home/post/p-...
Shutdown hostage taking
Russ Vought's threatens more mass firings; SCOTUS blesses his de facto impoundment
substack.com
Reposted by Janet Watson
Just in case the dramatically low Leni Riefenstahl-style angle was too subtle, they used a word from her most famous movie
Time magazine cover featuring a photo of Trump from a dramatically low angle 

HIS
TRIUMPH
by ERIC CORTELLESSA
THE LEADER ISRAEL NEEDED
by EHUD BARAK
HOW GAZA HEALS
Reposted by Janet Watson
Reposted by Janet Watson
If red state schools accept this we are going to get a two-tiered system of higher ed. One set of states will be based in empirical reality and the other will be subject to the whims of a conspiratorial movement that is increasingly detached from facts.
Reposted by Janet Watson
Adelita Grijalva & Theft of Democracy:
"In essence, Mike Johnson is refusing to certify a democratically held election because his party’s candidate did not win, and unlike the House speaker the woman who did win is no coward when it comes to taking on Trump."
-Our latest column
tinyurl.com/yvkmk7nc
At least hemming is possible!
We taller types don’t have any options with the opposite problem.
Reposted by Janet Watson
People need to start highlighting that Miller is actually the shadow President and the one calling the shots. When it was Musk who was doing it, it caused a rift between them so big that after he was out, Musk was bashing Trump claiming he is in the Epstein files.
Reposted by Janet Watson
And who also waited until Trump got into power to retire.
Justice Anthony Kennedy tells @npr.org's @ninatotenberg.bsky.social "very worried" about our country, and that "Democracy is not guaranteed to survive."

Kennedy wrote Citizens United and was the fifth vote in the rest of the Roberts Court's anti-democratic decisions.

www.npr.org/2025/09/27/n...
Reposted by Janet Watson
Something that's so hard with reading history second-hand is to remember that no one knew what was going to come next. Which is archives magic.

Nobody at *this exact moment* knows that Nurse Cavell will become a tragedy and a cause celebre. They just know what she has done, and her family.
On this day nurse #EdithCavell and #PhilipeBaucq were shot at dawn for helping allied soldiers to escape Belgium during the First World War. This is a letter from one of those soldiers.
Reposted by Janet Watson
Personally I prefer a society whose members feel some pressure to signal virtue over one where vice is continually rewarded