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David Sewell

@davidsewell.bsky.social
464 followers 390 following 758 posts

Native southern Californian, Swarthmore alum, former Tucsonan, retired UVA, live in Charlottesville. Interests include the greater Southwest, Lebanon/MENA, immigration policy/support, Quaker concerns.

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Reposted by David Sewell
WIRED @wired.com · 01/10/2026
Traverse barriers and checkpoints in the occupied West Bank—your choices reflect the reality of nearly 3.5 million Palestinians who live there. www.wired.com/story/experi...
wired.com
Experience What It’s Like to Travel in the Occupied West Bank
Traverse barriers and checkpoints in the occupied West Bank—your choices reflect the reality of nearly 3.5 million Palestinians who live there.
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Reposted by David Sewell
Internet Archive @archive.org · 29/09/2026
What's on your bookshelf that the Internet Archive doesn't have? There's an app for that. Scan a book's barcode or ISBN to see whether the Internet Archive needs it for preservation and digitization. Scan your shelves. Save a book. help.archive.org/help/donate-... 🧵
Four "Tools You Can Use" Upload campaign tiles arranged in a 2x2 grid. Top left, a cream and yellow tile with a folder icon reading "Upload" and "Contribute digital materials that you have the right to share." Top right, a cream tile with bold black text: "Upload digital materials to help preserve and share knowledge with people around the world." Bottom left, a cream tile with a screenshot of the Internet Archive's Upload files page, with the "UPLOAD" nav link and "Choose files to upload" button circled in red. Bottom right, a cream tile with bold black text, "Contribute digital materials that you have the right to share," and a small multicolor line-art icon of the Internet Archive's columned building.
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Abby Sewell @sewella.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Hamas, Islamic Jihad and powerful ex-Fatah official Mohammed Dahlan have formed an unlikely electoral alliance to challenge Fatah's dominance of the PA - if Palestinian legislative elections go forward as scheduled in November, which is a big if: apnews.com/article/pale...
apnews.com
Hamas, Islamic Jihad and a powerful ex-Fatah official form an unlikely electoral alliance
Islamic Jihad and Hamas have agreed to form an electoral alliance with a former top Fatah official who is close to the United Arab Emirates.
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Chip Thomas won a MacArthur! Nice profile in the opening of the NYT story. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/a...
nytimes.com
MacArthur Foundation Announces 2026 ‘Genius Grant’ Winners (Gift Article)
The 20 fellowship recipients across the arts, humanities and sciences will each receive an $800,000, no-strings-attached stipend for their work.
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Reposted by David Sewell
Quakers in Britain @quaker.org.uk · 28/09/2026
"Here, everyone listened as though potatoes were one of the accepted routes to God." A newcomer shares the experience of their first Quaker meeting thefriend.org/article/first-light-a…
thefriend.org
First Light: An anonymous enquirer at a Quaker Meeting | The Friend
‘I found myself unexpectedly moved.’| The Friend
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
cnewa.org/season-of-cr...
cnewa.org
Season of Creation: Fire and Herbicides as Weapons
Explore the impact of fire and herbicides as weapons in the ongoing conflict affecting agriculture in South Lebanon.
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
An important report from the AIC—the ICE policy change has been covered by major media outlets in the past week, but the AIC goes into detail about the effects of and probable reasons for ICE's move. www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/ice-ele...
americanimmigrationcouncil.org
ICE Begins Electronically 'Disappearing' People in Custody: What You Need to Know - American Immigration Council
People held in ICE detention who are subject to final orders of removal will no longer be listed in the Online Detainee Locator System.
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Diesel prices are at an all-time high, half of all families with children in Virginia have experienced food insecurity in the past year, but at least the grocery stores are fully stocked with pumpkins. 🤨 🤷🏼‍♂️
Many large boxes of pumpkins extending the length of a grocery store. Crates and boxes of pumpkins and gourds extending along the front entrance of a grocery store.
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Rev. Benjamin Cremer @brcremer.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Those who ban the press and start state run media are never the good guys in history.
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Hannah Davis-Reid @hannahdavisreid.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I’m working on a story about the impact of upcoming changes to Medicaid in Charlottesville. I'm looking for people who'd be open to talking with me about how new work requirements will impact them. Feel free to DM me or shoot me an email at hdreid@vpm.org!
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The Contrarian @contrariannews.org · 18/09/2026
On the ground at the Kennedy Center where people are gathering ahead of tonight’s “Hands Off the Arts” protest. Activists are expected to hold hands to form a human chain around the center, and musical performances are expected.
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Center for Biological Diversity @biologicaldiversity.org · 18/09/2026
Another cruise ship has docked in Alaska with a dead endangered fin whale on its bow. 💔 Ships can kill these swimming giants in an instant as they hurtle through their habitat, and these collisions are one of the most frequent causes of premature death for several highly endangered marine mammals.
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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
A Philadelphia family just bought their first home with a $10,000 first-time homebuyer grant funded by a group of Quakers It’s part of the congregation’s racial justice plan to redistribute wealth to Black residents in the Germantown area as a form of reparations
inquirer.com
A Philly family bought their first home thanks to reparations from Quakers in Germantown
Green Street Friends Meeting, a Quaker congregation in Germantown, pledged to spend $50,000 a year for 10 years as part of its reparations work. It’s helping Black Philadelphians become homeowners.
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Emily Bregel @emilybregel.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
After more than 4 months imprisoned at a decommissioned hotel in Equatorial Guinea, a deported Phoenix man was arrested there Friday, in what attorneys are calling retaliation for his speaking out about abusive, dangerous conditions for dozens held at the hotel. tucson.com/news/local/b...
tucson.com
Arrest of Arizona man deported to Africa called retaliation for speaking out
After more than four months imprisoned at a decommissioned hotel in Equatorial Guinea, a deported Phoenix man was arrested there Friday, in what attorneys are calling retaliation for his speaking
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Reposted by David Sewell
Chris Schelin @chris-schelin.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Gerrard Winstanley, who died 350 years ago today: “Was the earth made to preserve a few covetous, proud men to live at ease, and for them to bag and barn up the treasures of the earth from others, that these may beg or starve in a fruitful land; or was it made to preserve all her children?”
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
One advantage of ordering direct from the publisher (U of Chicago Press in this case): Gary Nabhan's latest arrived nearly a month before the official pub date. This should be a fun read: it mixes natural history with--well, let's just say there's an entry for Sand Trout and another for La Corua.
Book cover. "Gary Nabhan and Robert J. Long, Sonoran Desert Bestiary: A More-than-Natural History". Illustration: a horned lizard sleeping on a rock pile. On closer inspection, it is emerging from the rock as if carved.
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Lois Beckett @loisbeckett.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
At San Diego's Natural History Museum, I saw a small sign suggesting they had a ....scientific specimen lending library?? For the general public? This couldn't be real. But it's so real. Aisles of taxidermy, bones, and fossils--and you can take them home. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
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Quakers in Britain @quaker.org.uk · 08/09/2026
We welcome today’s announcement of a “new approach” in UK policy towards Israel in response to its violations against the Palestinian people. This marks a fundamental shift. We welcome this change as a long-awaited and positive step towards a broader reset. www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...
quaker.org.uk
Quakers welcome UK’s “new approach” to Israeli occupation of Palestine
Quakers in Britain has welcomed a raft of measures announced by the UK government today as it seeks to reset British policy towards Israel.
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Who knew that Lucy van Pelt was a pre-Socratic philosopher? One of the fragments of Heraclitus, as preserved by Aristotle, is ὁ ἥλιος νέος ἐφ’ ἡμέρῃ ἐστίν, "the sun is new every day". Which naturally followed from his doctrine of change (cf. "you cannot step into the same river twice").
Two cartoon panels from "Peanuts". In the first, Lucy says "I've been counting the suns, Charlie Brown. Every day I count a new one. I've got twelve so far. It's very interesting work. ... They all look different." Charlie Brown replies, "What would you say if I told you there was only ONE sun?" "I'd say you were crazy!" Lucy responds. "That's what I thought," says Charlie Brown as he walks away. Lucy, gazing at the sky, says "I'm anxious to see what the one tomorrow looks like." In the second, an angry Charlie Brown says to Lucy, "You think you're counting a new sun every day, don't you? Well, You're NOT. It's the same sun. DO YOU HEAR ME?" (Shouting with his mouth wide open) "THE SAME! THE SAME! SAME! SAME! SAME!!". In the last frame he is kneeling on the ground with his face in his hands saying "OH, BOO HOO-HOO-HOO-HOO" while Lucy calmly observes, "Poor Charlie Brown. He's so emotional."
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Reposted by David Sewell
James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
This is obscene. No one in the GOP will say a word about it.
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
ICE is purchasing $2M worth of "robot dogs". Contractually they are not supposed to be "weaponized". I wonder if ICE will consider nonlethal tracking to be acceptable use. I suppose instilling terror wouldn't count as "weaponizing". www.wbal.com/ice-to-use-b...
wbal.com
ICE to use Boston Dynamics robot dogs | WBAL Baltimore News
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is set to deploy a new tool in its mass deportation campaign: a fleet of "robot dogs."The Spot robots were created by Boston Dynamics and will be use
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
These Generals Fought for Israel. Now They See ‘Jewish Terrorism’ as the Threat. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/31/w...
nytimes.com
These Generals Fought for Israel. Now They See ‘Jewish Terrorism’ as the Threat. (Gift Article)
A growing number of former Israeli generals, intelligence officials and prime ministers are accusing settlers in the West Bank of committing ethnic cleansing with government support. “Once a society b...
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Reposted by David Sewell
Maria Popova @mariapopova.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
The moving letter James Baldwin received from his childhood teacher at the peak of his fame and his heartbreak www.themarginalian.org/2026/08/26/j...
themarginalian.org
The Moving Letter James Baldwin Received from His Childhood Teacher at the Peak of His Fame and His Heartbreak
In early 1934, a twenty-four-year-old graduate student at Columbia Teachers College took an internship teaching drama and producing student plays at PS 24 in Harlem. Among her young charges at that…
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Hoodlum 🇺🇸 @nothoodlum.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
On 9/11, US airspace closed, Canada launched Operation Yellow Ribbon. Gander, a town of 10,000, received 38 airliners. Residents immediately sheltered, fed, clothed, and supported stranded passengers for days, providing this hospitality free of charge. interestingengineering.com/culture/oper...
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
So Bluesky is doing Appreciation for Canadian Culture today? Count this American in. My offering: the incomparable Acadian folksinger Édith Butler. I might have first encountered her listening to Radio Canada on shortwave in the late '70s. Bought this in NYC or Québec, can't recall.
Album cover: Edith Butler, L'Acadie S'Marie; a smiling Butler wears a peasant blouse.
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
I was just remembering my first "word processor", a thermal electric typewriter/printer with a 16-character LCD screen, the Brother EP-20 sold in the early 1980s. It was small, light, and quiet, perfect for sticking in a backpack and taking to the library. typewriterdatabase.com/1983-brother...
typewriterdatabase.com
1983 Brother EP-20 on the Typewriter Database
From the Virtual Typewriter Collection of Ted Munk: 1983 Brother EP-20 | The earliest incarnation of the tiny Brother...
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Reposted by David Sewell
MRSPOURS @mrspours.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
2026 MN State Fair Crop Art entry "Witness" based on pStar Tribune photograph by Leila Navi with MPR reporter Sam Stroiza.
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
This is infuriating enough by itself (though I'll give the judge some credit for not seeming happy at having to rule as he did), but DHS General Counsel James Percival posting a "Resistance is futile" meme on X is beyond appalling. The O'odham deserve better. www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report...
tucsonsentinel.com
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Declining morale. Suicidal thoughts. Disrupted families. “Moldy showers, broken toilets, no hot water for weeks, meals that came down to half a cup of rice and two tortillas.” Sounds like a floating immigration detention center. www.cnn.com/2026/08/13/p...
cnn.com
Lawmakers demand answers about USS Abraham Lincoln conditions as reports emerge of sailors attempting to jump overboard | CNN Politics
Several Democratic lawmakers are calling for answers after concerns were raised by families of sailors aboard USS Abraham Lincoln about the deteriorating living conditions and worsening mental health ...
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Lebanon abolishes death penalty in landmark parliament vote apnews.com/article/leba...
apnews.com
Lebanon abolishes death penalty in landmark parliament vote
Lebanon's parliament has abolished the death penalty, becoming the first Arab country to replace it with life imprisonment and aggravated hard labor.
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Reposted by David Sewell
St. Simeon the Holy Fool @simeonthefool.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
ME: Shhh, be very quiet, I’m training my horse to think. THEM: What horse? I don’t see a horse. ME: He hasn’t learned to think yet, so he doesn’t exist. THEM: What. ME: That’s logic: He doesn’t think, therefore, he ain’t. THEM: Oh no. ME: What? THEM: You put Descartes before the horse
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Tom Perriello for Congress @tomperriello.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Thank you, Virginia. Now the real work begins.
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Abby Sewell @sewella.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Fringe Israeli settler group is sneaking into Syria to try to claim land for a Jewish outpost Who are the "Pioneers of Bashan"? apnews.com/article/isra...
apnews.com
Fringe Israeli settler group is sneaking into Syria to try to claim land for a Jewish outpost
Right-wing Israeli activists are ramping up their fringe campaign to establish Jewish settlements inside Syria by staging frequent incursions across the border.
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Reposted by David Sewell
Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
What if what is often decried as the self-reinforcing nature of social media might also be functioning for many of us as an accountability mechanism helping us to maintain our values within a larger political environment of unceasing moral injury? Maybe some silos are good, actually.
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Gillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 25/07/2026
Lemme tell you about the angel of history being blown backwards into the future: The shackles these people have been put in are Hiatt brand, same company founded in 1780 to mass produce shackles for slaver ships.
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Brad Johnson @climatebrad.hillheat.com · 25/07/2026
Why does no one care that we're about to put a global private-prison and deportation executive in charge of TSA? It's not mentioned in reporting, not raised by senators, not even in opposition to Cummins
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
I *thought* that photo of the Border Patrol buoys dislodged by recent flooding on the Rio Grande reminded me of something: a high-magnification view of E. coli bacteria. The strain in the CDC photo can cause dangerous hemolytic uremic syndrome. A perfect metaphor for harmful immigration policies.
Dislodged border buoys on the Rio Grande that have clustered apparently in a bend of the river. There are dozens of them bunched closed together, all of them fluorescent orange in color.A colorized (red-orange) electron microscope photograph of E. coli O157:H7 from the CDC, showing clustered cylindrical bacteria that look very similar to the clustered buoys.
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Guess what name of a country is a legal first guess in Wordle? Hint: not Argentina Wordle 1,856 3/6 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Amidst all the intentional damage and destruction caused by the Trump administration, let's not forget the harms caused by poor planning and sheer incompetence: Laredo on Alert as Trump's Buoys Cause Chaos on the Rio Grande www.theborderchronicle.com/breaking-new...
theborderchronicle.com
Breaking News: Laredo on Alert as Trump's Buoys Cause Chaos on the Rio Grande, Close International Bridges
Hundreds of massive orange buoys staged for a controversial DHS floating barrier project broke free near Eagle Pass and are now drifting toward Laredo, threatening bridges, commerce, drinking water su...
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Years ago in California I visited a friend lodging a cousin who had recently defected from Mao's Red Guard and made it to the U.S. We were looking at a clay mug made by my friend's sister, and since I was studying Old English at the time I was inspired to describe Anglo-Saxon drinking horns.
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
The latest in my (very) occasional series of essays on Substack. open.substack.com/pub/davidsew...
open.substack.com
Donald Trump and the Book of Nuggan
In his 2003 comic-fantasy Discworld novel Monstrous Regiment, Terry Pratchett invents a mythical country called Borogravia that resembles some belligerent central European duchy of a few hundred years...
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Rev. Benjamin Cremer @brcremer.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Christian Nationalism looks like seeing Jesus being executed by Romans in broad daylight and saying, “he should have just obeyed the law.”
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
I take the Quaker peace testimony to entail, among other things, not dancing gleefully on the grave of even an enemy, of even those the early Quakers used to call "men of blood". So ... probably a good day to stay off social media.
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
A reminder that early voting helps your candidate, freeing up get-out-the-vote resources.
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
Lebanon, which has not executed anyone since 2004, is poised to abolish its remaining death penalty statutes. Meanwhile Israel recently created a Palestinian-specific death penalty, and in the U.S. executions nearly doubled in 2025 over 2024. today.lorientlejour.com/article/1539...
today.lorientlejour.com
Lebanon announces in Paris its intention to abolish the death penalty
The Lebanese delegation drew attention Tuesday at the 9th International Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, organized by the French association Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort...
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
I’m remembering the scene in the movie “Repo Man” where a character is eating dinner out of a can bearing the generic label “FOOD”. (For folks who weren’t around in the 1980s, for a while back then grocery stores carried generic canned food labeled “Green Beans”, “Sweet Potatoes”, etc.
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Reposted by David Sewell
Tom Perriello for Congress @tomperriello.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
“Don’t shoot the messenger” isn’t just a saying. It’s international law. And for good reason. As a former diplomat, I can tell you that guaranteeing the safety of negotiators is absolutely sacrosanct and essential for not just these peace talks but any effort to resolve conflict
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
Replacing climate.gov, which now redirects to a NOAA page with the Orwellian notice, "UPDATED: June 24, 2025. In compliance with Executive Order 14303 (“Restoring Gold Standard Science”), . . . [and four other orders], you have been redirected to NOAA.gov.
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David Sewell @davidsewell.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
A tidbit for America's 250th: Google Books' frequency graph for the word "tyrant" from 1700 to 2022. One might guess that the rapid rise to a spike around 1780 reflects revolutions in America and Europe. By 1900 we're back to 1700 levels. Rising since 2000. Will 2025-26 show another spike, I wonder?
Graph showing the frequency of the word "tyrant" as a percentage of the Google Books modern corpus. From a low of less than 0.0002% in 1700 it rises to a high of 0.0020% in about 1780, up and down decline until 1825, then a slow decline to the 1700 level around 1910 and staying there. Then roughly doubling from 2000 to 2022.
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elia ayoub @ayoub.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Mona Khalil, Lebanon’s most well-known sea turtle conservationist, died of her wounds today after being injured by an Israeli strike I feel sick
MARINE ECOLOGIST MONA
KHALIL HAS PASSED AWAY
AFTER SUSTAINING INJURIES IN AN ISRAELI AIRSTRIKEMona and a turtle in Lebanon
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