Matt Kavanagh
@mattkavanagh.bsky.social
college professor / contemporary American novel / film noir / financial fiction / writer and reviewer / 🇨🇦 / personal account
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Matt Kavanagh
@mattkavanagh.bsky.social
· Nov 14
Since I’m new here, I thought I’d repost myTwitter thread from 2018 on #HannahArendt and #Trumphasia: a topic that is unfortunately still relevant today. 1/
Reposted by Matt Kavanagh
Putin picking his own US negotiator is the kind of thing you’d get called a hysterical conspiracy theorist had you predicted it
Putin calling all the shots. Witkoff either doesn’t understand Putin’s goals or doesn’t want to and doesn’t care. Ukraine deserves better. And so do we. www.wsj.com/world/putin-...
How Putin Got His Preferred U.S. Envoy: Come Alone, No CIA
The Kremlin fueled the rise of Trump’s friend Steve Witkoff with a prisoner release, sidelining career diplomats.
www.wsj.com
December 20, 2025 at 9:54 PM
Putin picking his own US negotiator is the kind of thing you’d get called a hysterical conspiracy theorist had you predicted it
Reposted by Matt Kavanagh
Trump literally characterized this test, which he "aced," as "not easy."
December 20, 2025 at 11:06 PM
Trump literally characterized this test, which he "aced," as "not easy."
Reposted by Matt Kavanagh
Exactly. If people want to understand why secretly recording professor’s lectures is generally problematic (despite who was recorded in this instance, and why) they might want to consult the faculty at Texas A&M.
www.cnn.com/2025/11/22/u...
www.cnn.com/2025/11/22/u...
Texas A&M committee rules professor’s firing over gender identity lesson was unjustified | CNN
A Texas A&M committee agreed that the university was wrong to fire a professor earlier this year after a controversy over a classroom video that showed a student objecting to a children’s literature l...
www.cnn.com
December 19, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Exactly. If people want to understand why secretly recording professor’s lectures is generally problematic (despite who was recorded in this instance, and why) they might want to consult the faculty at Texas A&M.
www.cnn.com/2025/11/22/u...
www.cnn.com/2025/11/22/u...
Reposted by Matt Kavanagh
Reposted by Matt Kavanagh
tangent but: "your style being formed by what you cant do" is the base philosophy of a course im teaching in the fall about the creative use of freeware and using software defaults as productive constraints.
The great old comedy writer Larry Gelbart said that your style is formed by what you can’t do. I wish more people understood that. That and the Martha Graham quote about keeping the channel open.
December 20, 2025 at 6:41 PM
tangent but: "your style being formed by what you cant do" is the base philosophy of a course im teaching in the fall about the creative use of freeware and using software defaults as productive constraints.
Reposted by Matt Kavanagh
I’m sorry, but it is disgraceful to be an academic who uses this technology to conduct research. It should be prohibited in all of our scholarly institutions, including universities and journals.
December 20, 2025 at 12:35 PM
I’m sorry, but it is disgraceful to be an academic who uses this technology to conduct research. It should be prohibited in all of our scholarly institutions, including universities and journals.
Reposted by Matt Kavanagh
😳 On 12/18/25, Senator Mike Lee posted:
“Would you like to seize cartel assets as a privateer?
My bill would allow the president to issue you a letter of marque.
Time to take these pirates down. 🏴☠️” 1/ x.com/senmikelee/s...
“Would you like to seize cartel assets as a privateer?
My bill would allow the president to issue you a letter of marque.
Time to take these pirates down. 🏴☠️” 1/ x.com/senmikelee/s...
December 20, 2025 at 5:47 PM
😳 On 12/18/25, Senator Mike Lee posted:
“Would you like to seize cartel assets as a privateer?
My bill would allow the president to issue you a letter of marque.
Time to take these pirates down. 🏴☠️” 1/ x.com/senmikelee/s...
“Would you like to seize cartel assets as a privateer?
My bill would allow the president to issue you a letter of marque.
Time to take these pirates down. 🏴☠️” 1/ x.com/senmikelee/s...
Reposted by Matt Kavanagh
“If this was supposed to be a plausible release, they have mishandled it…Some documents are simply 100 pages or more of totally blacked out content. The DoJ’s search tool for the release is so bad that it would deliver zero results if you simply typed “Epstein” in the search box.”
The Epstein files were meant to close the case - but questions still remain
While the files don't imply any wrongdoing, questions remain over Trump's absence from the release
inews.co.uk
December 20, 2025 at 5:02 PM
“If this was supposed to be a plausible release, they have mishandled it…Some documents are simply 100 pages or more of totally blacked out content. The DoJ’s search tool for the release is so bad that it would deliver zero results if you simply typed “Epstein” in the search box.”
Reposted by Matt Kavanagh
We live in a weird time. It’s only right to get weirder yourself
December 20, 2025 at 5:56 AM
We live in a weird time. It’s only right to get weirder yourself
Reposted by Matt Kavanagh
Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵
Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...
Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...
December 19, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵
Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...
Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...
I’m seeing this sort of fabrication, too.
Academics and technologists are sounding the alarm about a growing crisis in scholarship as we know it: AI-generated citations of nonexistent papers that have infested real journals. Despite being fake, the sources are widely assumed to be authentic the more they appear in published literature.
AI Is Inventing Academic Papers That Don't Exist -- And They're Being Cited in Real Journals
Academic articles from authors using large language model are creating an ecosystem of fake research that threatens human knowledge itself.
www.rollingstone.com
December 20, 2025 at 8:25 AM
I’m seeing this sort of fabrication, too.
Reposted by Matt Kavanagh
Jason Reynolds and Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom join Urban Consulate in Detroit for a live conversation with Orlando P. Baile @ "Daring Ideas for the Future Series" Nov 2025
Video by JP Leong of Afrochine.
youtu.be/UwwnjdXMhco?...
Video by JP Leong of Afrochine.
youtu.be/UwwnjdXMhco?...
December 19, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Jason Reynolds and Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom join Urban Consulate in Detroit for a live conversation with Orlando P. Baile @ "Daring Ideas for the Future Series" Nov 2025
Video by JP Leong of Afrochine.
youtu.be/UwwnjdXMhco?...
Video by JP Leong of Afrochine.
youtu.be/UwwnjdXMhco?...
Reposted by Matt Kavanagh
"This promise of an AI future, is really just a collective anxiety that wealthy people have about how well they're gonna be able to control us in the future."
- @tressiemcphd.bsky.social with an absolute mic drop moment about AI bullshit.
Incredible words.
Listen to all of it!
- @tressiemcphd.bsky.social with an absolute mic drop moment about AI bullshit.
Incredible words.
Listen to all of it!
December 19, 2025 at 12:24 PM
"This promise of an AI future, is really just a collective anxiety that wealthy people have about how well they're gonna be able to control us in the future."
- @tressiemcphd.bsky.social with an absolute mic drop moment about AI bullshit.
Incredible words.
Listen to all of it!
- @tressiemcphd.bsky.social with an absolute mic drop moment about AI bullshit.
Incredible words.
Listen to all of it!
Reposted by Matt Kavanagh
Nebuchadnezzar, by William Blake, 1795-1805 (flipped) #NetflixPartner
December 20, 2025 at 5:39 AM
Nebuchadnezzar, by William Blake, 1795-1805 (flipped) #NetflixPartner
Reposted by Matt Kavanagh
after trump dies the megachurches will have something like this about him and they will complete their metamorphic change into a pre-christian roman imperial cult
Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas...$70 per ticket.
December 20, 2025 at 6:42 AM
after trump dies the megachurches will have something like this about him and they will complete their metamorphic change into a pre-christian roman imperial cult
Reposted by Matt Kavanagh
Incredible reporting by WSJ. Putin's role in Witkoff's ascent. gift link. www.wsj.com/world/putin-...
Witkoff’s Other Backer in His Unlikely Diplomatic Ascent: Putin
The Kremlin release of an American prisoner and a Saudi backchannel bolstered the rise of Trump’s longtime friend.
www.wsj.com
December 20, 2025 at 4:05 AM
Incredible reporting by WSJ. Putin's role in Witkoff's ascent. gift link. www.wsj.com/world/putin-...
Reposted by Matt Kavanagh
Three years and one month from today, I’m going to grab a pickax and pull those letters off that building, but I’m going to need help holding the ladder. Are you in? Applying for my carpenter’s card today, so it’ll be a union job!!!
December 19, 2025 at 8:03 PM
Three years and one month from today, I’m going to grab a pickax and pull those letters off that building, but I’m going to need help holding the ladder. Are you in? Applying for my carpenter’s card today, so it’ll be a union job!!!
Reposted by Matt Kavanagh
The New School owns about a billion dollars worth of art, most of which is not on display. They could sell the two Warhols they own and raise $100 million tomorrow. But they’d rather close academic departments.
New School “administrators have started to implement a plan to close, overhaul or merge about 30 academic programs or majors; pause nearly all admissions to doctoral programs; and offer buyouts or early retirement to what professors say is about 40 percent of the full-time faculty.”
Falling Enrollment, Money Woes: The New School Seeks a Path to Survival
www.nytimes.com
December 19, 2025 at 11:24 PM
The New School owns about a billion dollars worth of art, most of which is not on display. They could sell the two Warhols they own and raise $100 million tomorrow. But they’d rather close academic departments.
Reposted by Matt Kavanagh
This is just brutal.
The father and son whose separation at 26 Federal Plaza last month drew widespread outrage have been deported to China.
www.thecity.nyc/2025/12/19/f...
www.thecity.nyc/2025/12/19/f...
Father and Son Separated by ICE Deported Together to China
After his arrest on Nov. 26, Fei Zheng was held at the Orange County Jail upstate. His son was in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
www.thecity.nyc
December 20, 2025 at 2:32 AM
This is just brutal.
Reposted by Matt Kavanagh
What are they hiding?
![This Is Just To [REDACTED]
BY W[REDACTED] C[REDACTED]
I have REDACTED
the REDACTED
that were in
REDACTED
and which
REDACTED were probably
REDACTED
for REDACTED
REDACTED me
they were REDACTED
so REDACTED
and so REDACTED](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:nywb5oene54cllowkfwouxzz/bafkreih3uet4qc3slylouhu5pnwf2dcqsr2mvlt3vleijxjmdqurjp7huu@jpeg)
December 20, 2025 at 2:40 AM
What are they hiding?
Reposted by Matt Kavanagh
Reposted by Matt Kavanagh
Congratulations to everyone who wrote an op-ed about how he just wants americans to eat better
BREAKING: RFKJr directs that the US instantly stop recommending all vaccinations for children. www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...
Under RFK Jr., U.S. plans to stop recommending most vaccines, defer to doctors
The plan, which is not finalized, suggests children get fewer shots and shifts to a model telling parents to consult doctors to make their own vaccine choices.
www.washingtonpost.com
December 19, 2025 at 11:56 PM
Congratulations to everyone who wrote an op-ed about how he just wants americans to eat better
Reposted by Matt Kavanagh
Reposted by Matt Kavanagh
