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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 14h

"I'm getting darn tired of your wanting clean air—and clean government." Herblock, September 1973. From the NYT, 9/5/1973: "The Nixon Administration, in response to a request by industry, will propose tomorrow new regulations relaxing antipollution requirements."

Image shows a man labeled "administration" looming over another man with a clothespin on his nose and a button that reads "US" on his lapel. The administration is holding papers that read "Reduce anti-pollution standards – Nixon."

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 14h

Bill Mauldin on the defensive, secretive Nixon administration, September 1973.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 19h

A very good Halloween passage from the Book of Job: One dies in his full vigor, being wholly at ease & secure, his pails full of milk & the marrow of his bones moist. Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having tasted of prosperity. They lie down alike in the dust, & the worms cover them.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

"The tougher it gets, the cooler I get!" Paul Szep on Nixon lashing out at the press amid his many scandals, October 1973.

Cartoon shows a press briefing room with Nixon taking hold of a member of the press, holding him down on the ground, and shaking him.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

"Following this newest government crisis, we now resume with the latest Administration scandals!" Herblock, October 1973.

Cartoon shows a man and a woman, slumped over in chairs in their living room, watching television. At the man's feet are newspapers with headlines about various Nixon administration scandals.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

"If he loses his grip, he'll have a hell of a fall." Bill Mauldin on Nixon's response to a host of scandals, October 1973.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Paul Szep on Nixon VP Spiro Agnew's culture war on the press, the media, anti-war protesters, Massachusetts... October 1973.

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Reposted by Randall Stephens

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

This is like accusing someone of robbing a bank because they deposited money and never withdrew it

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Gene Basset on the Nixon administration's battle to keep the White House tapes from being released in the face of political, legal, and public pressures, October 1973.

Cartoon depicts District Court Judge John Sirica grabbing Nixon by the tie and swinging his gavel at him as Nixon holds a tape reel and says, "Here, if they mean that much to you."

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

"Prepare to meet thy oil shortage." Jim Berry, October 1973.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Bill Mauldin's editorial cartoon commenting on the ongoing Watergate crisis and following the resignation of Nixon's VP Spiro T. Agnew, October 1973.

Cartoon shows the eagle symbol of the US with a cloud over it and hiding its eyes with its wing.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Trump seeing the real problem with AI as a branding issue speaks volumes.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I've gotta make a little pilgrimage to the grave of Casey Kasem here in Oslo.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Our wannabe authoritarian prez. "Trump complained about the lack of [media] coverage. Then, in front of Xi, Trump said how much he preferred the Chinese press to his own. The Chinese government, of course, has been notoriously repressive toward independent journalists."

npr.org

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

"King Richard sweeps back the waves!" Roy Justus, August 1973.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

"Ghosts out of Pandora's Box." Roy Justus, August 1973.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Paul Conrad on the GOP and what-aboutism during the Watergate era, August 1973.

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Reposted by Randall Stephens

Hilde Løvdal Stephens @hildelstephens.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I'm thinking of ways to show students how AI can help them *sound* like a certain kind of scholarship but still be wildly off, and I might just show them this.

The prompt was: "Write an outline for a[n] academic article on evangelicals on Mars and how they clamor for oysters for lunch."
Proposed title: "Oysters in the Red Desert: Evangelical Foodways, Colonial Longing, and Liturgical Appetite on Mars."

Potential Primary Sources for the Fictional Archive

Sermons from the First Evangelical Habitat Church.
Minutes from the Mars Settlement Council.
Ration cards and weekly lunch menus.
Focus-group interviews with settlers and food-service workers.
Children’s devotional curricula on “God’s Creation on Mars.”
Promotional material from a Martian aquaculture company.
Social-media posts using slogans such as “No Colony Without Cuisine” or “Oysters Are a Creation-Care Issue.”
Letters between settlers and relatives on Earth describing meals, deprivation, and homesickness.

Abstract

This article examines a hypothetical community of evangelical settlers on Mars whose recurring demand for oysters at lunch becomes a focal point for negotiating faith, scarcity, technological dependence, and earthly cultural memory. Drawing on scholarship in religion and food, space humanities, environmental ethics, and settler-colonial studies, it argues that the settlers’ clamoring for oysters is not reducible to culinary preference. Oysters function as a sacramentalized object of nostalgia: a materially scarce food through which colonists reproduce ideas of providence, abundance, status, and Christian dominion in an extraterrestrial setting. The article asks how a seemingly mundane lunch demand becomes a dispute over resource allocation, moral authority, communal identity, and the proper meaning of creation beyond Earth.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

"He'll be ideal for watching the chicken house—he loves chickens." Herblock on Reagan's deregulation agenda and the role of special interests, December 1980.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

"President Donald Trump's approval rating fell to 32% - the lowest of his political career - as his fellow Republicans soured on his handling of the cost of living amid the unpopular Iran ‌war, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found....Trump's overall approval was down from a reading of 35%..."

reuters.com

EXCLUSIVE: Trump approval falls to record low of 32% as high costs bite, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds

The poll found voters leaning away from supporting Republicans in the midterm elections.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

“If the Russians start anything we'll shoot money at them.” Herblock, December 1980.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Don Wright on race, the courts, and signs of the times, November 1980.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Ringo from a 1964 interview with the Beatles about religion: "Seriously, we're in rather a tricky position with religion. I mean, should one of us decide tomorrow, say, to become a Methodist, there would be hundreds, maybe thousands, of our fans converting to Methodism overnight.“

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

"The Reagan environmental program in action!" Ben Sargent, October 1980.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

"Reason for campus unrest: communism..." Don Wright on the far right's answer for everything, March 1969.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Don Wright on Nixon's concessions to southern segregationists, July 1969.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

"My Fresh Approach to Vietnam, by Richard M. Nixon." Don Wright, March 1969.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Don Wright on the reemergence of conservative leaders with Reagan’s election, November 1980.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

"Demonstration we really need." From the right-wing, anti-communist newspaper Through to Victory, January 1968.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

"It didn't work for me, either, Dick. Nobody respects the flag any more." Bill Mauldin on Nixon's use of patriotism and his war on critics/the press, 1969.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Would love for this to turn into a Spinal Tap, Stonehenge situation.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

“Between 2012 and 2025, the humanities fields with the biggest drops in degrees awarded included religious studies (down 56.3 percent), area studies (down 53.2 percent), languages and literatures other than English (50.8 percent), English (43.8 percent), and history (40.6 percent).“

insidehighered.com

Report: Humanities Majors Disappearing

Anxiety about job prospects and heavy reading loads have led to dramatic declines in humanities majors since 2012, according to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Tony Auth on president-elect Reagan’s plans for the environment, December 1980.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Someone is going to have to write a novel now set in the Cold War US that features a bunch of maladjusted millionaires who have nuclear technology and atom bombs.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

“This approach, putting speed and efficiency by way of automation above all other considerations, comes not from the priorities of intellectual inquiry or scientific experimentation but from the business models of corporations.”

thecrimson.com

Artificial Education | The Harvard Crimson

Machine conversation is not free. It comes at the cost of our common life together as teachers, learners, and researchers, colleagues, mentors, and friends.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Me, fixing all the endnotes in an edited volume I'm working on with colleagues. Jerry: “Well, it ain’t government work if you don’t have to do it twice."

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

From a new Fox News poll. “Seven in 10 voters think the Trump administration lacks a clear strategy for ending the conflict, including 95% of Democrats, 83% of independents and 43% of Republicans.”

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

“OpenAI on Wednesday disclosed six new instances in which artificial intelligence systems hid mistakes, made up data and moved files onto the open internet without permission, amid an ongoing industrywide debate about A.I. safety.”

nytimes.com

OpenAI Discloses Six New Incidents of ‘Concerning' A.I. Behavior

The artificial intelligence company also released a framework for reporting when its systems go wrong.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

“As the campaign reaches the turn, in the lead is…” Herblock on inflation and economic matters in the 1980 election, 10/26/1980.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

“Excuse me! I’ve got a tanker full of oil to haul through here. Can you tell me how to find the Persian Gulf?” Don Wright, October 1980.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

"The law-and-order-administration team players." John Fischetti on the Nixon rhetoric vs the Nixon reality, 1973. (25 members of the Nixon administration served prison time.)

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

There are 13 issues of first-gen rock zine Mojo Navigator (San Francisco) up on archive dot org. Interesting to read how Greg Shaw and David Harris were thinking about scenes, subgenres, and the like. archive.org/details/mojo...

archive.org

Mojo Navigator

Missing No. 14.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

"Nonsense...we Republicans aren't against blacks...we're just against busing..." Mike Peters on the real meaning of "busing," November 1980.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

"The European Union has invited Canada to work toward becoming the bloc’s first 'associate member,' a title meant to underscore Canada’s growing closeness to the 27-nation union as both face deteriorating relationships with the United States."

nytimes.com

E.U. Offers to Make Canada ‘Associate Member’ as U.S. Ties Weaken for Both

Canada and the European Union have been confronting an increasingly challenging relationship with the United States under President Trump.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

"Some day all this will be yours..." Wayne Stayskal, December 1980.

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Covering the British Invasion this week in the rock history MA seminar. Reading from Christine Feldman-Barrett, Elijah Wald, John Covach and Andrew Flory, Tom Phillips, Richard Goldstein, & Ellen Willis.

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