James [November] Harbeck
@sesquiotic.bsky.social
Louche left-wing nerd. Words, food, music, beverage alcohol. MA linguistics, PhD theatre. jamesharbeck.com, sesquiotic.com
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
Bong Joon Ho hit me up for the squad you legend deadline.com/2025/11/bong...
November 29, 2025 at 12:49 PM
Bong Joon Ho hit me up for the squad you legend deadline.com/2025/11/bong...
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
I'm also surprised that Roger went with a Hong Kong factory (I called the factory today to confirm). If MAGA is about making America great again through reindustrialization, why not use a US factory? Over at O'Connell's, you can find MiUSA tailoring for half of Roger's prices
November 29, 2025 at 8:08 PM
I'm also surprised that Roger went with a Hong Kong factory (I called the factory today to confirm). If MAGA is about making America great again through reindustrialization, why not use a US factory? Over at O'Connell's, you can find MiUSA tailoring for half of Roger's prices
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
New Yorkers BLOCK ICE from leaving their parking garage ahead of a flopped mass raid attempt on Canal Street
November 29, 2025 at 4:39 PM
New Yorkers BLOCK ICE from leaving their parking garage ahead of a flopped mass raid attempt on Canal Street
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
I love whenever articles like this are all “SEE THE UNREASONABLE ANGRY DEMANDS OF THIS SJW TEACHER” and the teacher’s comment are always “please actually cite sources and try not to call your classmates demonic”
November 29, 2025 at 4:27 PM
I love whenever articles like this are all “SEE THE UNREASONABLE ANGRY DEMANDS OF THIS SJW TEACHER” and the teacher’s comment are always “please actually cite sources and try not to call your classmates demonic”
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
As a prof, I am grateful that TP published both the essay itself and the response!
Thank you so much, TPUSA, for showing the public the quality of the writing we have to grade so tactfully and impartially. I don’t think people realize just how bad it is lol
Thank you so much, TPUSA, for showing the public the quality of the writing we have to grade so tactfully and impartially. I don’t think people realize just how bad it is lol
The fact that TPUSA posted the entirely reasonable comments from the instructor here as coming from the “TRANS PROFESSOR” gives away the game.
They’re not defending students, they’re targeting faculty — as always
They’re not defending students, they’re targeting faculty — as always
idk not to mention how very nuanced and normal the actual response here was
November 29, 2025 at 5:22 PM
As a prof, I am grateful that TP published both the essay itself and the response!
Thank you so much, TPUSA, for showing the public the quality of the writing we have to grade so tactfully and impartially. I don’t think people realize just how bad it is lol
Thank you so much, TPUSA, for showing the public the quality of the writing we have to grade so tactfully and impartially. I don’t think people realize just how bad it is lol
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
Tom Stoppard, playwright of dazzling wit and playful erudition, dies aged 88
Tom Stoppard, playwright of dazzling wit and playful erudition, dies aged 88
A theatrical sensation since the 1960s, whose dramas included Arcadia, The Real Thing and Leopoldstadt, Stoppard also had huge success as a screenwriter
The playwright Tom Stoppard, whose playful erudition dazzled the theatregoing world for decades, has died aged 88.
One of a select band of writers from any discipline to earn his own adjective – “Stoppardian” – in the Oxford English Dictionary, he delighted in the most improbable juxtapositions: philosophy and gymnastics in Jumpers (1972); early 19th-century landscape gardening and chaos theory in Arcadia (1993); rock music, dissident Czech academics and the love poetry of Sappho in Rock ’n’ Roll (2006). Continue reading...
www.theguardian.com
November 29, 2025 at 5:17 PM
Tom Stoppard, playwright of dazzling wit and playful erudition, dies aged 88
One of these days those boots are going to walk all over him.
Greg Bovino calls NANCY SINATRA "a main cause of violence"
November 29, 2025 at 4:16 PM
One of these days those boots are going to walk all over him.
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
Airspace we don’t control. Are we going to start shooting planes out of the sky now like Putin?
November 29, 2025 at 2:53 PM
Airspace we don’t control. Are we going to start shooting planes out of the sky now like Putin?
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
My company recently unveiled in-house AI tools. Management's encouraging everyone to use them (to justify the probable eyewatering costs)
Meanwhile the database that everyone does constantly use is held together with gum and the development team's tears
Meanwhile the database that everyone does constantly use is held together with gum and the development team's tears
A study by Dayforce shows 87% of executives use AI for work, compared to 57% of managers and just 27% of employees.
I think this explains the massive disconnect we see in how CEOs talk about AI versus everyone else. It also raises the question of how useful it truly is for frontline work?
I think this explains the massive disconnect we see in how CEOs talk about AI versus everyone else. It also raises the question of how useful it truly is for frontline work?
Execs are embracing AI more than their employees are, new research suggests
Research from HR software company Dayforce suggests that executives are leaning into AI far more than their employees.
www.businessinsider.com
November 29, 2025 at 4:03 PM
My company recently unveiled in-house AI tools. Management's encouraging everyone to use them (to justify the probable eyewatering costs)
Meanwhile the database that everyone does constantly use is held together with gum and the development team's tears
Meanwhile the database that everyone does constantly use is held together with gum and the development team's tears
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
Admin are continually pressuring us to make the course "more accessible," by which they mean "devastatingly easy to complete," but it's not about access. Many students refuse to read or write in any capacity that isn't tech-aided, no matter how simple the assignment, no matter how process-based.
November 28, 2025 at 11:33 PM
Admin are continually pressuring us to make the course "more accessible," by which they mean "devastatingly easy to complete," but it's not about access. Many students refuse to read or write in any capacity that isn't tech-aided, no matter how simple the assignment, no matter how process-based.
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
It's only a matter of time before humanities departments will be forced to accept AI-authored assignments, as part of revised university policy to cooperate with these billionaires. It's already happening, and our response needs to be decisive. Because our students' ability to *think* is at stake.
November 28, 2025 at 10:37 PM
It's only a matter of time before humanities departments will be forced to accept AI-authored assignments, as part of revised university policy to cooperate with these billionaires. It's already happening, and our response needs to be decisive. Because our students' ability to *think* is at stake.
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
I've never encountered more students who say they hate reading. Students who want to be teachers, writers, or both. I wonder if "hate" means "I have trouble reading," but I also talk with so many students who write in a genre but refuse to read in it. They can't see themselves in relation to others.
November 28, 2025 at 10:29 PM
I've never encountered more students who say they hate reading. Students who want to be teachers, writers, or both. I wonder if "hate" means "I have trouble reading," but I also talk with so many students who write in a genre but refuse to read in it. They can't see themselves in relation to others.
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
An issue we're seeing at all levels of university is that many students are simply refusing to do *anything*. They aren't reading the syllabus, aren't following assignment guidelines, aren't engaging with material, ignoring deadlines. And this might seem like old news, but it truly has ramped up.
November 28, 2025 at 10:15 PM
An issue we're seeing at all levels of university is that many students are simply refusing to do *anything*. They aren't reading the syllabus, aren't following assignment guidelines, aren't engaging with material, ignoring deadlines. And this might seem like old news, but it truly has ramped up.
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
I've had similar experiences both in MFA and community-based classes. What used to not require teaching--punctuating dialogue and other manuscript formatting--shifted to requiring it in 2022 and now I have to go over it every week, and to no avail.
We're seeing possibly the worst attendance in history. Even in creative writing classes, where students generally want to participate and have their voice heard--they're not showing up, ignoring guidelines and feedback, and either describing expectations as "unclear" or simply refusing to comply.
November 29, 2025 at 3:57 PM
I've had similar experiences both in MFA and community-based classes. What used to not require teaching--punctuating dialogue and other manuscript formatting--shifted to requiring it in 2022 and now I have to go over it every week, and to no avail.
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
At the MFA program, sometimes the issue was slightly different. I was told that knowing how to punctuate dialogue in fiction was "colonialist."
November 29, 2025 at 4:05 PM
At the MFA program, sometimes the issue was slightly different. I was told that knowing how to punctuate dialogue in fiction was "colonialist."
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
― H.L. Mencken
― H.L. Mencken
November 29, 2025 at 1:59 PM
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
― H.L. Mencken
― H.L. Mencken
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
the oval office now looks like a clearance table at hobby lobby
A video of all the gold adornments Trump added to the Oval Office
November 29, 2025 at 12:53 AM
the oval office now looks like a clearance table at hobby lobby
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
President Hernandez was serving 45 years in prison for a plot to distribute 400 tons of cocaine before Trump pardoned him. Meanwhile, Trump is murdering fishermen in small boats for allegedly smuggling far smaller amounts.
“Additionally, I Will be granting a Full and Complete Pardon to Former President Juan Orlando Hernandez who has been, according to many people that | greatly respect, treated very harshly and unfairly.”
November 29, 2025 at 12:52 AM
President Hernandez was serving 45 years in prison for a plot to distribute 400 tons of cocaine before Trump pardoned him. Meanwhile, Trump is murdering fishermen in small boats for allegedly smuggling far smaller amounts.
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
I think that somewhere along the way something in Stephen Miller got fundamentally damaged. This is neither an excuse nor a mitigating factor; the dude is genuinely fucking evil and he and everything he stands for should be fought against and stopped. But he is something beyond mere sociopathy.
Since Stephen Miller is in the midst of another of his Aryans-only trantrums, we should note that his family are 20th century immigrants from the shtetl of Antopol (Антопаль) then in the Hrodna gubernia of Russia. Applying his immigration rules, they would all have perished in the Holocaust.
Stephen Miller Is an Immigration Hypocrite. I Know Because I’m His Uncle.
If my nephew’s ideas on immigration had been in force a century ago, our family would have been wiped out.
www.politico.com
November 28, 2025 at 6:57 PM
I think that somewhere along the way something in Stephen Miller got fundamentally damaged. This is neither an excuse nor a mitigating factor; the dude is genuinely fucking evil and he and everything he stands for should be fought against and stopped. But he is something beyond mere sociopathy.
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
caving to a weak president with a 60% disapproval rating implies you AGREE with him
Fuck, Northwestern just caved. Reading the deal now. ( www.northwestern.edu/president/do... )
www.northwestern.edu
November 29, 2025 at 12:32 AM
caving to a weak president with a 60% disapproval rating implies you AGREE with him
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
WHOA. Trump says he will pardon Juan Orlando Hernandez, who once said that he wanted to “shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos.” He had people killed as part of his narco-trafficking ring, which he at times operated directly out of his presidential office.
November 29, 2025 at 12:05 AM
WHOA. Trump says he will pardon Juan Orlando Hernandez, who once said that he wanted to “shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos.” He had people killed as part of his narco-trafficking ring, which he at times operated directly out of his presidential office.
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
Ordering no quarter, as Hegseth effectively did, isn't a newfangled modern war crime. It was understood as a crime as far back as the Revolutionary War. Washington threatened to do reprisals over it. The bad guy in 'The Patriot' is (very loosely) based off a British officer who was notorious for it.
November 28, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Ordering no quarter, as Hegseth effectively did, isn't a newfangled modern war crime. It was understood as a crime as far back as the Revolutionary War. Washington threatened to do reprisals over it. The bad guy in 'The Patriot' is (very loosely) based off a British officer who was notorious for it.
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
So, Hegseth illegally ordered everyone killed in the first alleged drug boat strike on Sept. 2, prompting a second hit to finish off survivors in the water. — This is the real reason why Trump & Hegseth absolutely freaked out about the video against illegal orders.
November 28, 2025 at 7:21 PM
So, Hegseth illegally ordered everyone killed in the first alleged drug boat strike on Sept. 2, prompting a second hit to finish off survivors in the water. — This is the real reason why Trump & Hegseth absolutely freaked out about the video against illegal orders.
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
Reposted by James [November] Harbeck
“I was just following otters.”
November 28, 2025 at 9:09 PM
“I was just following otters.”