Patrick Fessenbecker
@pfessenbecker.bsky.social
Teaching writing and ethics to engineers, writing a book on George Eliot.
Pinned
So I write a weekly newsletter for our indivisible chapter, and each week I profile a left journalist operation. If you’re struggling to build an audience for your thing and think you can speak to a lefty ex-hippie inner-ring Madison suburb that’s very into good apples, get in touch.
Reposted by Patrick Fessenbecker
Overheard in the supermarket. Two teenagers.
1: 'Where's Dad?'
2 (with ineffable weariness): 'In the cheese aisle, having the time of his life.'
1: 'Where's Dad?'
2 (with ineffable weariness): 'In the cheese aisle, having the time of his life.'
December 15, 2025 at 11:35 AM
Overheard in the supermarket. Two teenagers.
1: 'Where's Dad?'
2 (with ineffable weariness): 'In the cheese aisle, having the time of his life.'
1: 'Where's Dad?'
2 (with ineffable weariness): 'In the cheese aisle, having the time of his life.'
The three eras of history, according to evolutionary psychologists:
Today
1980-2000ish
Prehistory
Today
1980-2000ish
Prehistory
December 15, 2025 at 2:13 AM
The three eras of history, according to evolutionary psychologists:
Today
1980-2000ish
Prehistory
Today
1980-2000ish
Prehistory
There’s no group the UW Madison campus hates as much as people turning left, and I have to say I support it.
December 14, 2025 at 8:38 PM
There’s no group the UW Madison campus hates as much as people turning left, and I have to say I support it.
the trouble with critiquing “faculty lounge” politics is that by 2026 it’s going to make you act and sound like an apologist for mass deportation, and that’s going to be the kiss of death in any dem primary.
i am once again asking who the "leftist extremists in the faculty lounge" shaping democratic party priorities are, and what policies it is that they are instituting
December 14, 2025 at 8:12 PM
the trouble with critiquing “faculty lounge” politics is that by 2026 it’s going to make you act and sound like an apologist for mass deportation, and that’s going to be the kiss of death in any dem primary.
Real giveaway how much Solana he’s reading.
December 14, 2025 at 1:59 AM
Real giveaway how much Solana he’s reading.
I kinda want to write a philosophy/civil engineering paper about the virtue of situational awareness while in transit. It’s a pretty important virtue for modern life and not one for which classical sources have much help—Aquinas not knowing much about road rage.
December 13, 2025 at 2:00 PM
I kinda want to write a philosophy/civil engineering paper about the virtue of situational awareness while in transit. It’s a pretty important virtue for modern life and not one for which classical sources have much help—Aquinas not knowing much about road rage.
There's been occasional chatter about right populism as a death cult, and one symptom of the transition has been that the paranoid fear has changed from "they might turn your kid to suicide or murder" to "they might turn your kid trans, and wouldn't death be better than that?"
It's so fucked up to have been a kid during the D&D is the devil freakout and the Tipper Gore dirty lyrics freakout and live to see the teen suicide machine get such a pass.
December 12, 2025 at 6:05 PM
There's been occasional chatter about right populism as a death cult, and one symptom of the transition has been that the paranoid fear has changed from "they might turn your kid to suicide or murder" to "they might turn your kid trans, and wouldn't death be better than that?"
Something Hegel understood and that more journalistic norms could internalize is because money insulates you from problems, wealth is inversely proportional to a lived understanding of reality. I've never had a better understand of transportation infrastructure than when I couldn't afford parking.
This article is great for schadenfreude, but I do wish that folks would stop taking every utterance that rich people make as valid. You’re allowed to skeptically raise an eyebrow and say “Really?”
Rich New Yorkers Threaten to Leave. Then They Find Out How Hard That Is.
www.nytimes.com
December 12, 2025 at 4:30 PM
Something Hegel understood and that more journalistic norms could internalize is because money insulates you from problems, wealth is inversely proportional to a lived understanding of reality. I've never had a better understand of transportation infrastructure than when I couldn't afford parking.
Reposted by Patrick Fessenbecker
Historian here he is right and regrettably the AHA is wrong on AI and its classroom use www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...
I Set A Trap To Catch My Students Cheating With AI. The Results Were Shocking.
"Students are not just undermining their ability to learn, but to someday lead."
www.huffpost.com
November 25, 2025 at 2:34 PM
Historian here he is right and regrettably the AHA is wrong on AI and its classroom use www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...
I don’t know what anyone expected, his name isn’t LeTimid
An academic disliked an Oxford Very Short Introduction (145 pages) in his field so much that he wrote a 200 page book review attacking it. www.pierre-legrand.com/ewExternalFi...
December 12, 2025 at 11:44 AM
I don’t know what anyone expected, his name isn’t LeTimid
Reposted by Patrick Fessenbecker
The University of Nebraska is closing their statistics department. Especially if you're all in on AI this is so short-sighted. It's like launching the first spacecraft into outer space and being like "welp time to close astrophysics and rocketry and only teach classes on buckling up your seat belts"
December 11, 2025 at 7:46 PM
The University of Nebraska is closing their statistics department. Especially if you're all in on AI this is so short-sighted. It's like launching the first spacecraft into outer space and being like "welp time to close astrophysics and rocketry and only teach classes on buckling up your seat belts"
[sigh] an otherwise good thread, but this canard.
Someone should test this hypothesis, because I submit it's possible English professors are actually more virtuous—more self-aware, more critical of their culture, less dismissive of differences—because they've forced themselves to read more.
Someone should test this hypothesis, because I submit it's possible English professors are actually more virtuous—more self-aware, more critical of their culture, less dismissive of differences—because they've forced themselves to read more.
But I don't think it makes you a *morally* better person. It might be one of the ways your morality is shaped or the language you use to express it, but it's a vessel, not the substance. We do not, after all, think of professors of English Literature as an unusually virtuous bunch.
December 10, 2025 at 6:31 PM
[sigh] an otherwise good thread, but this canard.
Someone should test this hypothesis, because I submit it's possible English professors are actually more virtuous—more self-aware, more critical of their culture, less dismissive of differences—because they've forced themselves to read more.
Someone should test this hypothesis, because I submit it's possible English professors are actually more virtuous—more self-aware, more critical of their culture, less dismissive of differences—because they've forced themselves to read more.
Reposted by Patrick Fessenbecker
I just really don't think you can spend time talking with a trans person and then time talking with a transphobe and emerge believing that they have equivalent concerns about how things work.
December 10, 2025 at 6:16 PM
I just really don't think you can spend time talking with a trans person and then time talking with a transphobe and emerge believing that they have equivalent concerns about how things work.
Reposted by Patrick Fessenbecker
“These political parties, they’re like shipwrecks: metal structures, they’re dead. Street protests, youth politics come into them like shoaling fish, to turn them into living reefs.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
We asked activists from authoritarian regimes what they wish they’d known sooner. Here’s what they said
Activists from Hungary, El Salvador and Turkey offer advice to the US about what they’ve learned about authoritarians
www.theguardian.com
December 9, 2025 at 12:59 PM
“These political parties, they’re like shipwrecks: metal structures, they’re dead. Street protests, youth politics come into them like shoaling fish, to turn them into living reefs.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Has any article every undermined itself so immediately?
December 9, 2025 at 2:51 PM
Has any article every undermined itself so immediately?
For anybody who doesn’t remember this guy, dude‘s a mensch: won a tough seat, took a tough principled vote for Obamacare, and lost because of it. Would that every legislator in the party cared this much about their principles.
Former Rep. Tom Perriello, a Virginia Democrat who won his sole term in a huge 2008 upset, unexpectedly announces campaign against GOP Rep. John McGuire. Trump carried the current version of #VA05 56-43, but it could look a lot different if Democrats convince voters to approve a new map this spring.
Tom Perriello For Congress Launch Video
YouTube video by Tom Perriello
www.youtube.com
December 9, 2025 at 2:13 PM
For anybody who doesn’t remember this guy, dude‘s a mensch: won a tough seat, took a tough principled vote for Obamacare, and lost because of it. Would that every legislator in the party cared this much about their principles.
Reposted by Patrick Fessenbecker
It's not sustainable to pay for every newsletter and Patreon you want to support. I subscribe to MANY and I am going to have to unsubscribe to some because it is costing me thousands of dollars a year (over $3000). More collectivist options need to be developed.
December 9, 2025 at 1:09 AM
It's not sustainable to pay for every newsletter and Patreon you want to support. I subscribe to MANY and I am going to have to unsubscribe to some because it is costing me thousands of dollars a year (over $3000). More collectivist options need to be developed.
There is a great realist novel that‘s begging to be written!
Periodically I ask if anyone has seen MAGA portrayed in fictional Hollywood movies and shows. Or maybe even a new play you've seen.
Unlike Nazi Germany's film industry, America's so far seems very shy about portraying the regime and its cult as they are.
Unlike Nazi Germany's film industry, America's so far seems very shy about portraying the regime and its cult as they are.
December 8, 2025 at 11:34 PM
There is a great realist novel that‘s begging to be written!
The good news is that the only thing Trump voters hate more than immigrants is being forced to go even one mile below 85 mph on the interstate.
December 8, 2025 at 1:06 AM
The good news is that the only thing Trump voters hate more than immigrants is being forced to go even one mile below 85 mph on the interstate.
Getting high on your own supply is the defining social-psychological problem of the 21st century.
your fair share of taxes: an unconscionable ripoff at best, and theft at worst
$1,500/month to live in a Singapore hotel with the most unfuckable greedheads imaginable: an exciting opportunity to experience true freedom (with Singaporean characteristics)
$1,500/month to live in a Singapore hotel with the most unfuckable greedheads imaginable: an exciting opportunity to experience true freedom (with Singaporean characteristics)
December 7, 2025 at 10:24 PM
Getting high on your own supply is the defining social-psychological problem of the 21st century.
I do sometimes think the word “culture” was a mistake, since by bringing together aesthetic life and ethical life it lets people assume he’s talking about like NCIS depctions of trans people and not any real consequence anyone has to suffer.
California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Thursday that the Democratic Party needed to be “more culturally normal” and “less judgmental.”
December 7, 2025 at 2:49 AM
I do sometimes think the word “culture” was a mistake, since by bringing together aesthetic life and ethical life it lets people assume he’s talking about like NCIS depctions of trans people and not any real consequence anyone has to suffer.
taking a female celebrity‘s voice and likeness against her wishes is, in my guess, part of the appeal. it’s an imaginative enactment of a physical process at the core of their fantasy life.
I don't really know what the administration hopes to gain by picking fights with the most well-liked pop artists in the United States. You're just generating backlash for no discernible reason outside of owning the libs.
Sabrina Carpenter ratioed the White House after it used her song in an ICE video.
The WH deleted the post…but now it’s back with a new ICE video, this time using an altered clip from Carpenter’s SNL monologue.
The WH deleted the post…but now it’s back with a new ICE video, this time using an altered clip from Carpenter’s SNL monologue.
December 7, 2025 at 2:34 AM
taking a female celebrity‘s voice and likeness against her wishes is, in my guess, part of the appeal. it’s an imaginative enactment of a physical process at the core of their fantasy life.
How precisely are we defining “toaster”? I mean, I could toast bread with my car, my firepit, or a server bank at the local data center.
December 5, 2025 at 6:46 PM
How precisely are we defining “toaster”? I mean, I could toast bread with my car, my firepit, or a server bank at the local data center.
There’s a world where this money funds the Green New Deal, your house runs on MetaThermal energy, and Zuckerberg is president. instead we have…this.
Mark Zuckerberg’s gamble on the "Metaverse" has lost his company more than $77 billion.
December 5, 2025 at 5:34 PM
There’s a world where this money funds the Green New Deal, your house runs on MetaThermal energy, and Zuckerberg is president. instead we have…this.
Okay a student has a radio show where he plays what his professors are listening to and A) this is the best idea, and B) he asked me for my picks and I haven't felt this kind of pressure since the job market.
December 5, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Okay a student has a radio show where he plays what his professors are listening to and A) this is the best idea, and B) he asked me for my picks and I haven't felt this kind of pressure since the job market.