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Geoff Wisner

@geoffwisner.bsky.social

390 followers 270 following 1.2K posts

Author of A Basket of Leaves (2007). Editor of African Lives (2013), Thoreau's Wildflowers (2016), Thoreau's Animals (2017), A Year of Birds (2024), and George Templeton Strong: Civil War Diaries (January 2026!).

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Reposted by Geoff Wisner

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · May 29

SCOOP: The State Department's new reorganization plan includes the opening of an "Office for Remigration," a term popularized by far right extremists and neo-Nazis in Europe. The office will coordinate directly with DHS "to advance the President’s immigration agenda."

My report:

State Department set to launch ‘Office of Remigration’

The concept of remigration has explicitly neo-Nazi roots and has been popularized in Europe.

www.thehandbasket.co

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Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 26m

Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 27m

Crowded day on the Hudson.

Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 29m

Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 30m

Broadway Bridge.

Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 32m

Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 33m

Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 34m

Mysterious blue tent near the Strauss mansion site in Inwood Hill Park.

Reposted by Geoff Wisner

Senator Chris Van Hollen @vanhollen.senate.gov · 54m

Trump is saying the quiet part out loud: he sent a $20B taxpayer-financed bailout to help his far-right buddy Milei cling to power.

Meanwhile our government is shut down, public servants aren't getting paid & we're barreling toward a Trump-made health care crisis. Sounds like Argentina First to me.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 4h

Trump on Milei: "If he loses, we will not be generous with Argentina."

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Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 7h

...& amid the red isolated blueberry bushes in Beck Stow's Swamp. A thousand white woolly heads, 1 to 2 inches in diameter, suggesting winter.

Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 7h

Thoreau, Oct. 14, 1852. It is apparently the Eriophorum Virginicum, Virginian cotton-grass, now nodding or waving with its white woolly heads over the greenish andromeda...

Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 8h

Agreed.

Reposted by Geoff Wisner

Brian Tyler Cohen @briantylercohen.bsky.social · 1d

Multiple airports are now announcing they will refuse to play Kristi Noem’s government-funded video blaming “Democrats” for the government shutdown.

“We believe the Hatch Act clearly prohibits use of public assets for political purposes and messaging,” one airport said.

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Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 21h

High water in the park.

Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 1d

...or that they would erect the Antarctic Continent into a “Missionary Diocese” & put him in charge of it. He is a Southern sympathizer & work near the South Pole would suit him."

[Young did in fact become Bishop of Florida later in 1867.]

Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 1d

G.T. Strong, Feb: 21, 1867. Thursday. Long letter from Rev: Young of S. John’s about his poverty & his salary. I wish they would make him Bishop of Florida (as I hear they talk of doing), or of Nineveh in partibus infidelium,

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Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 1d

We considered whether I should be instructed to buy this defunct bog-trotter with certain monies in my hands, & decided at last to refer it to the Faculty to enquire whether this would be the most useful application of the money. A judicious decision.

Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 1d

G.T. Strong, Feb: 4th, 1867. Monday. Newberry told me Sat: night of a very perfect specimen of the Irish fossil Elk, which Agassiz had told him could be got from Sir Philip Something or the Earl of Enniskillen for £30.

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Reposted by Geoff Wisner

Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 1d

Who doesn’t love their new trump taxes

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Reposted by Geoff Wisner

matthew @pahuski.com · 1d

Happy Columbo’s Day

Screenshot from Columbo. He his talking to his dog, which is sitting is the drivers seat of a car. “Okay, I’m gonna put you in charge. You take care of the car. You’re a responsible dog. When I get back, if the car’s okay, I’ll give you another cookie.”

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Reposted by Geoff Wisner

Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 1d

Front page of Scottish newspaper The National today.

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Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 1d

Ray Angelo explains that of the five species lumped under S. Eriophorum in Thoreau's time, only S. cyperinus (COMMON WOOLGRASS), S. atrocinctus (DUSKY WOOLGRASS), and S. longii (LONG'S WOOLGRASS) are known in Concord.

[S. cyperinus by UMFS, S. longii by J. Garrett.]

Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social · 1d

Oct. 13, 1852. That handsome kind of sedge (?) which lasts through the winter must be the Scirpus Eriophorum, red cotton-grass of Bigelow, and wool-grass (under bulrush and club-rush) of Gray.

[S. atrocinctus by Jean-Marc Vallieres,]