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proffrisch.bsky.social

@proffrisch.bsky.social
529 followers 769 following 1.7K posts

Asst. Teaching Prof of History, Penn State University, Scranton. Late Medieval England and theatre enthusiast. I attempt to study treason and its evolution.

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Reposted by @proffrisch.bsky.social
fesshole 🧻 @fesshole.bsky.social · 51m
I'm half-British and half-Thai. A random right-winger verbally racially abused me in the street for no reason at all. That same man was in my A&E ward a couple of days later due to a cardiac arrest. I was the doctor who saved him. There's a moral in that story somewhere.
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 8h
They don't believe that women have a right to bodily autonomy.
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 20h
Just saw the last episode of TED LASSO, and damn. Those writers deserve all the praise along with the cast for bringing that to the small screen. Simply brilliant.
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I see he is trying to go all George C Scott portraying Patton with that background. George did it better, obviously.
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Michael Warburton @michaelwarburton.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
HEDY LAMARR escaped from her Nazi husband by disguising herself as her own maid, became a top actress in Hollywood, then co-developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes - the principles of which are incorporated into today’s Bluetooth and GPS technology. Helluva lady.
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Does ESPN really have to shove McAfee on everything? I am getting sick of him.
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Jake Wright @bcnjake.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I don’t wanna hear SHIT about woke run amok when protesting genocide gets you banned from campus and sexual assault gets you an apology letter.
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Yeah who needs teachers or social workers?
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Timothy Caulfield @caulfieldtim.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
"Vaccines work" isn't a political statement. "Immigrants do not increase crime" isn't a political statement. "Climate change is real" isn't a political statement. "Genocide is bad" isn't a political statement. Stop neutralizing the power of facts by framing them as "politics." Reality matters.
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Waitman Wade Beorn, PhD, FRHistS @waitmanwbeorn.com · 28/09/2026
No...for reenactments to be...realistic, there need to be people being horribly maimed and killed. Everything else is sanitized cosplay. And you don't need Nazis for cosplay. The Clean Wehrmacht is the cockroach of historical myths.
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Dr. Erika Graham-Goering @jeanneologist.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
And yet again I must trot out the science major in a history of science class when I was an undergrad, who didn't understand why it was useful to know about why people had ideas that had turned out to be wrong. That was the day I learned a lot about why the world is so messed up.
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Can easily be done but strip away all prep courses like English or speech and also eliminate all Gen Ed's. Which many institutions are already trying to do.
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
And...gonna borrow this sucker. Thanks!!!
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
These fraudsters are paying money every month to have health insurance but don't use it? Clearly they are fraudsters, who they are defrauding, is yet to be determined, but we have to stop them, for reasons.
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Catherine Fletcher @catherinefletcher.info · 26/09/2026
AfD and CDU councillors in action
bbc.co.uk
German town bans stumbling stone memorials to Nazi victims
Germany's education minister has branded the ban on the small brass memorial plaques a "scandal".
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Jonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com · 24/09/2026
Yes. I think the consensus among US elite pundits and senior politicians that the way to protect liberal democracy is *not* to punish elite figures who violate its rules is wrong. A norm starting at least with the Watergate pardon. The opposite is true. You need to enforce the law and Constitution.
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Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
When Lucy from Compass Books in Dartmouth, Devon, was victim to shoplifting people told her to install CCTV. Instead she put this ancient book thief curse on the wall from the Monastery of San Pedro in Barcelona so book stealers would be consumed by "the flames of hell" with "their members blasted".
A Curse Against Stealers Of Books
For him that
stealth a book from
this place, let it
change into a
serpent in his hand
and rend him.
Let him be struck with
palsy,
& all his members 
blasted.
Let him languish in 
pain crying aloud for
mercy, & let there be be no surcease to his 
agony till he sink to
dissolution.
Let bookworms gnaw
his entrails in token of 
the Worm that diets not,
& when at last he
goeth to his final
punishment, let the
flames of
hell consume him
forever & aye.
(Monastery Of San Pedro, Barcelona.)
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Add pillage to rape and suddenly it has a certain air of knock-about fun. —David Mitchell (2009) Thinking about adding this amazing quote to my business card.
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Could he be misstating that he wants to do it in OP, or Original Pronunciation and thinks that is Olde English?
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Someone should ask a simple follow up "Can you please explain how insurance works?"
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DrakenKnight @drakenknight.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I swear faculty can be some of the stupidest people at a university. Like, you read an email that says, click this link and tell us if you will do something or not, and instead of doing that you reply all to tell everyone your answer. Really? How stupid are you. The urge to reply is strong.
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
LATERNS is such a good series.
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Effin' Birds @effinbirds.com · 21/09/2026
A painting of a bird beside the text "as a treat for the rest of us, maybe try not being a jackass today"
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I have been in utter pain most of yesterday and especially today b/c my lower back is messed up. What did I do to get here? Well I moved to a different couch yesterday to watch some football. That is it. I have my body so damn much, whoever designed it needs to be fired from their job.
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Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
My whole career the Humanities seem to have been curled up in a defensive crouch trying to justify our meaning/existence. At times it has even seemed a productive thought exercise, but I think generally whatever body has demanded the justification is not really open to being persuaded of anything.
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Effin' Birds @effinbirds.com · 20/09/2026
A painting of a bird beside the text "if you don't want me to judge you, maybe stop doing stupid shit"
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The Serfs (youtube.com/theserfstv) @theserfstv.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
This is the most masculine video on the internet right now
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
US policymakers must avoid the temptation to rebuild US science by mimicking China and going all in on STEM. That would be a mistake. We also need social science and humanities that makes sense of great technological change like AI. Thats part of US scientific tradition worth keeping.
For example, Henry Farrell argues that the social sciences arose from and are designed to make sense of moments of great social upheaval, which is exactly the moment AI is creating right now. Focusing only on investing in AI technology, without understanding the deeper implications of the changes it brings, would be a deep failure of science.

Farrell quotes Alondra Nelson, who has been thinking carefully about the impacts of AI for years:

AI is not an external force acting upon society from outside but an internal phenomenon constituted through social processes, institutional choices, market dynamics, and political struggles. Its effects are neither uniform nor preordained. They vary with context, design, and the distribution of power that determines how these technologies are built, deployed, and contested.
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Joanne Roulston, MSW, JD @ottawakiwi.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Irish President Connolly is saying what the world needs to hear. Decency, clarity, honesty.
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
This afternoon I have to go to the DMV to renew my license, something I had been putting off and dreading to do, since the DMV might be the 8th circle of hell. I was in and out within 5 min. Not sure how that happened, but I will take it.
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
static.klipy.com
Mr Bean Makes a Funny Face and Waves
ALT: Mr Bean Makes a Funny Face and Waves
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Just watched COYOTE VS ACME, and it was soo good. Very nostalgic and done in such a way to make it seem serious and also harken back to the origins of Looney Tunes, which I really appreciate.
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
The White House just announced that if Trump and the GOP retain the House and Senate in Nov they will release the true meaning of the Voynich Manuscript. Vote wisely.
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
After a bit of time thinking about it, I am also leaving Ed Sheeren's tour.
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Can we also give some respect to the amazing work he did on the Carol Burnett Show? Those costumes are iconic and helped to make that show what it was.
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Your regular reminder - despite our neverending National Conversation™️ - that there are <exactly zero> societal institutions that are <more protective> of free speech & viewpoint diversity & the marketplace of ideas than colleges & universities.
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
You know it is Fall when I am editing University Senate Policies while watching football at the same time. Good times to be had. (hint: not really)
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Not sure this is entirely correct
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Don't worry Arch Manning you will still get a ton of undeserved praise and hype next week, not because your are playing well, but b/c of your last name, and the narrative has already been written and that can never change.
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Still trying to figure out how someone at ESPN thought, since people, apparently, were complaining about the scroll at the bottom of the screen, we can get rid of that. But instead replace it with a list of who is broadcasting the game and then highlight their name when they talk. Being a good idea.
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Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 12/09/2026
This is a tax guy. His advice could be the difference between someone having their assets seized & maybe going to jail, or not. Now imagine having to worry about racist shit in every interaction you have with any person in authority. Every doctor & nurse, every cop, every lawyer & judge, every boss
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I don't think this Oregon team is that good.
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Author Myron J. Clifton @deardean22.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Some music for your Saturday
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Vince Mpls @vincempls.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
"There will be no more elections in the future in which we lose even a single vote.” Joseph Goebbels, Dec 4 1932.
Goebbels speaks at a large radio microphone in the Lustgarten, Berlin, 1932
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Konstantin Spork, give me back me legions!!!!
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Anthony Michael Kreis @anthonymkreis.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
The way I’m tempted to purchase…
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
I just fell down a textbook rabbit hole. Since using a new book was cobbling together old slides with new textbook format and there was some discrepancy with a date for the first railroad in England. Old said 1820, new said 1825, even older textbook, 1804. Three textbooks 3 different dates.
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proffrisch.bsky.social @proffrisch.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Today I was prepping to give a big lecture tomorrow at Penn State. Excited about this. To be fair I work there and do this multiple times a week, but still.
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