Brian Hawkins
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brianhawkins.bsky.social
Brian Hawkins
@brianhawkins.bsky.social
710 followers 450 following 4.2K posts
Formerly: Durham, NC Presently: Winnipeg, MB Canadian in training
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I’m just appalled and heartbroken for what is happening to higher ed and research in the US and grateful to the people determined to hold the line
Reposted by Brian Hawkins
Not enough of you believe me right now, but "Rebuild The White House" is going to become one of the most popular slogans in American political history
Maybe there were guys my age talking like this but I really don’t think so
There are two dudes in this bar discussing the role of oxytocin in pregnancy and early baby time and how cool it is that helps both parents bond with their kids and each other. I have no idea if this is true or not but it’s adorable.

Some people worry about younger generations but I really don’t.
I was incredibly pleased and frankly surprised to see my PhD alma mater (U of A) reject this.

I’m also grateful for President Kornbluth’s leadership; I think she gave a lot of cover to her colleagues.
Reposted by Brian Hawkins
Graduate seminar did a deep dive on Thomas Paine’s Common Sense yesterday. At the line, “in America the law is king,” they (14 students from 6 countries) burst out laughing. I've been doing this for 35 years and this is the first time that was a laugh line.
Reposted by Brian Hawkins
the president has destroyed the east wing of the white house without so much as a word of input from anyone else to build a royal ballroom paid for with bribes
NEW: After The Washington Post reported Monday on the demolition of the "East Wing facade," a new picture obtained by Law Dork that was taken on Tuesday shows that a substantial portion of the entirety of the East Wing has been demolished.
In a perverse (and self centered) way I’m actually grateful for the prominent terribleness of the New Atheist types happening as I was still figuring this stuff out, because it clarified for me the type of nonbeliever I *didn’t* want to be.
I have never been evangelized as rudely and as condescendingly by Christians as I have by militant atheists. (I was agnostic until 2013 or so.)

I did Real Time at some point after I wrote about my new faith and Bill Maher spent the entire afterparty *preaching* at me and making fun of me.
Making no excuses for anyone but the US polity doesn’t select for virtue so much as a ruthlessness in managing one’s public image. That tends to keep people who speak their mind and are honest about their growth and evolving views out.

I’m not convinced that is good.
Yep
Like you know a whole machine is going to mobilize against you and you are not able to withstand the oppo research? That’s incompetence, even if I decide to believe that stuff doesn’t represent who you are anymore
Reposted by Brian Hawkins
The Jays have the chance to do the funniest thing Canada has done since 1814
Imagine winning the World Series. You'd get to visit the ruins that used to be the White House
I just got hugged by a random guy I feel very validated
I’m at our local having beer and poutine and rooting for the Jays I AM ASSIMILATING
Actually it’s pretty great!
I am sorry to report I am watching this game
I’m almost 48, rather overweight (though less so, recently) with bad joints and I am 100% sure I could pass this test
Lecturing active soldiers about being too fat while dropping standards so low for the ICE deportation force that a third of their recruits can't handle the easiest PT test I've ever heard of www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...
Just a healthy reminder that you are about 1000x more vulnerable on the land side at US airports because of guns than you are to anything that can happen to you in the air
So uh…how we gonna cook for them if we don’t know who they are
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Monday criticized the media and politicians, including Gov. JB Pritzker, for “trying to demonize” federal immigration agents and she urged citizens to thank law enforcement officers and “cook a meal for their families.”
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem accuses Gov. JB Pritzker and media of ‘trying to demonize’ immigration officers
Speaking in Florida, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem criticized Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and the media, and she urged citizens to thank law enforcement officers and “cook the…
trib.al
Oh I see it’s funded by private corporate donors. Which is arguably even worse

bsky.app/profile/yona...
This is being brought to you by the president, as well as his personal donors, including, according to reports, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Google, RJ Reynolds, Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin, Palantir, and NextEra Energy www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
Scoop: Trump has started demolishing the White House's East Wing facade to build his ballroom. The president had claimed construction of the $250 million building wouldn’t ‘interfere’ with the existing White House structure. /W @ddiamond.bsky.social wapo.st/4hqBNiU
Reposted by Brian Hawkins
The biggest renovation of the White House -- the so-called Truman Reconstruction of 1949-1952 -- came about only because the building was in such a state of disrepair that inspectors decided it was unsafe for occupancy.

Not because the president just decided he needed a big fancy ballroom.
Reposted by Brian Hawkins
I can't really explain fully why this is the thing of all things that got my jaw on the floor but I guess it's such a literal symbol and also such a jaw dropping amount of money while small businesses are struggling to survive the tariffs

Such a visible "go fuck yourself"
Scoop: Trump has started demolishing the White House's East Wing facade to build his ballroom. The president had claimed construction of the $250 million building wouldn’t ‘interfere’ with the existing White House structure. /W @ddiamond.bsky.social wapo.st/4hqBNiU
White House begins demolishing East Wing facade to build Trump’s ballroom
The president had claimed construction of the $250 million ballroom wouldn’t ‘interfere’ with the existing White House structure.
wapo.st
I realize this sounds laughably naive at this point, but...while I am sure the Exec Branch has a discretionary budget for facilities stuff this seems like a line item that congress ought to approve, no? Are we even pretending constitutional separation of powers exists anymore?
Scoop: Trump has started demolishing the White House's East Wing facade to build his ballroom. The president had claimed construction of the $250 million building wouldn’t ‘interfere’ with the existing White House structure. /W @ddiamond.bsky.social wapo.st/4hqBNiU
White House begins demolishing East Wing facade to build Trump’s ballroom
The president had claimed construction of the $250 million ballroom wouldn’t ‘interfere’ with the existing White House structure.
wapo.st