iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Saul Tobias @saultobias.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Life in California: the fires will get you in the east; the sea will get you in the west; and earthquakes will get you everywhere.

000

Reposted by Saul Tobias

Rackletang 🧌🦇🕷️ @rackletang.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Alternate headline: Sergey Brin Absolutely Begging For A Billionaire Tax

272

Saul Tobias @saultobias.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Just spent the best part of the day trying to figure out how to deal with a possum that decided to make its home in bag of gardening soil.

Head of a possum sticking out from the opening of a pink plastic bag of gardening soil.

011

Saul Tobias @saultobias.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

'Release the Epstein files or else!' cries Floria Tosca!

Floria Tosca, wielding a knife, as she kneels over the body of Scarpia.

040

Reposted by Saul Tobias

Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

As a non-socialist opera fan, may I say that this seems like…a good idea? www.metopera.org/app/opera-fo...

metopera.org

2724525

Reposted by Saul Tobias

Paul Connolly @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Sibelius died on this day in 1957. #dotd

1171

Saul Tobias @saultobias.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Woke up yesterday in a foul, self-doubting mood but then spent the afternoon reading PG Wodehouse and playing scrabble with my husband and felt much better. Words - they're sneaky, little devils.

040

Saul Tobias @saultobias.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

More excited to start this than anything I've read in a while.

Cover of PG Wodehouse book The Code of the Woosters

020

Saul Tobias @saultobias.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Things I was frightened of as a child: 1. Star trek theme music. 2. Sticking my hands out the window to close it at night. 3. The samurai warrior in the Toyota ad . 4. A movie scene with a bearing heart in box (Thief of Baghdad?) 5. My violin teacher 6. Parktown prawns (iykyk)

010

Saul Tobias @saultobias.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

An approach to engaged student reading in an undergrad interdisciplinary social science class that is succeeding (so far). Every week I start with an introduction to the first half of a chapter ‐ lecture, slides, the while shebang. Next class students are assigned the rest to read before class...

111

Saul Tobias @saultobias.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Classical music has been a real salve lately. Here's Horowitz playing a favorite Schubert piece as near perfectly as I can imagine it being played: youtu.be/FxhbAGwEYGQ?...

youtu.be

SCHUBERT - Impromptu n°3 (Horowitz)

YouTube video by Pianhoro

010

Saul Tobias @saultobias.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

First day of an undergrad political philosophy class students made a list of basic goods/ evils they thought should be priorities for a society. Unprompted, every group said corruption and put it near the top of their list. Doubt that would have happened even a few years ago. Made my week.

021

Reposted by Saul Tobias

Alex Prichard @profalexp.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

A thread on the dispute at Exeter Uni. #ucu #defendexeteruni @ucu.org.uk On 15 June HR called Exeter UCU into a confidential meeting and informed us they would be putting over 500 colleagues at risk of redundancy and expected to loose around 200 staff. The number of c.150 you’ll have seen is FTE.

4130120

Reposted by Saul Tobias

DEAD TEENAGERS out now in paperback @judedoyle.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

ICYMI: The "My Own Private Idaho" that existed in my head, the one that exists in reality, and the terror of watching someone drag all their trauma out into the yard and set it on fire: jude-doyle.ghost.io/children-of-...

jude-doyle.ghost.io

Children of God: My Own Private Idaho (Gus Van Sant, 1991)

Welp, it took me 30 years to be sad about this, and it will take me 30 more years to recover.

2194

Reposted by Saul Tobias

Sam @samd.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

I love Talarico and hope he wins. But he’s already raised $70M On the flipside, control of critical state legislatures will come down to seats where candidates raise 0.1% of that. I’ve researched the highest leverage swing district candidates you should donate to secure.actblue.com/donate/donat...

secure.actblue.com

Donate to the candidates on the front lines of the fight against MAGA gerrymandering

These are anti-MAGA state candidates in *extremely* close races

481563557

Reposted by Saul Tobias

Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Today we observe Porajmos (Roma Holocaust) Remembrance Day. on the night of 2–3 August 1944, 2,897 Roma were murdered at the Zigeunerfamilienlager at Auschwitz-Birkenau. We remember them and the half a million Sinti and Roma murdered by Nazi Germany and fascist collaborators. Na Bistaren.

Monument to the Memory of the Holocaust of the Romani in Borzęcin, Poland

1214100

Saul Tobias @saultobias.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Teaching a small undergrad political philosophy seminar on democracy in the fall and want my students to keep an eye on the election. Planning 4 election watch class sessions (2 before, 2 after election) A short thread: (suggestions, comments, welcome) 1/

130

Reposted by Saul Tobias

Spencer M Ross @srossmktg.com · 29/07/2026

Excited to deliver this part (well, the whole thing). I'm hoping it reaches at least *some* of the congregants.

It’s easy to extend our compassion to immigrants, to fight for gun safety, to promote LGBTQ equality, or to advocate for coffee farmers thousands of miles away. But when distance is multiplied by deep collective trauma, fear, and existential anxiety– raw feelings for all of us in this age of antisemitism– extending that moral map to include Palestinian humanity can feel terrifying. It can feel like a risk to our own Jewish survival.

But Parshat Re’eh demands that we actually see. It reminds us that humanity is not a zero-sum game. That safety, security, freedom, happiness, equality, and dignity cannot be privileged for a core group while forsaken on the periphery for others.

When Moshe allowed Israelites to build community in their own settlements, he decoupled everyday human flourishing from a single, dominant core.

Validating our own Jewish humanity does not require erasing that same humanity for Palestinians. Recognizing their “hereness” on their own terms does not weaken Jewish survival. Rather, it fulfills the highest demand of Torah: that every single human being is created in B’tselem Elohim– in the divine image.

482

Reposted by Saul Tobias

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 25/07/2026

not really surprised to learn that terminal stupidity and racism is the reason i can’t walk into a CVS and just buy a toothbrush without flagging down the one person who might be in the store dannykatch.substack.com/p/we-used-to...

dannykatch.substack.com

We used to be able to buy things in this country

Locking up toothpaste was a warning sign that our executive class was crazy

28459531014

Reposted by Saul Tobias

Dr Ian McCormick @wokestudies.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Please take this 2-minute survey on ARCHAIC ENGLISH ... www.surveymonkey.com/r/Z5VSK26

God Speed! (1900).
Edmund Blair Leighton (1852-1922).
Leighton was an historical painter best known for his medieval and romantic subjects.

437143

Saul Tobias @saultobias.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

A plea to progressives in Higher Ed: don't cede notions like constructive dialogue, civic education, and education for citizenship, to conservatives. This is turf we need to fight for, not give up because reactionaries are trying to recode these terms and use them for their own ends.

030

Saul Tobias @saultobias.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Just learned from a podcast that Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa was 58 when he wrote The Leopard, his first and only novel. So there's hope!

Book cover of The Leopard by Guiseppe Tomaso di Lampedusa

000

Saul Tobias @saultobias.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

The phrase 'my salad days' has taken a much darker turn.

010

Reposted by Saul Tobias

Laura Lippman @lauralippman.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

I still use my double-boiler all the time and I still do not have a microwave in my Baltimore kitchen.

8322

Saul Tobias @saultobias.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

My first celebrity autograph. ☹️ very sad.

000

Saul Tobias @saultobias.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

If Maine Dems select Troy Jackson they get a fierce advocate for workers rights and then get to blame Canada! Sounds like a winner 🏆

Jackson started in politics during the 1998 logging blockade along the Canadian border, protesting the illegal hiring of Canadian workers over Maine loggers, inadequate wages and poor working conditions

010

Saul Tobias @saultobias.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

At the Del Mar Fair in San Diego I: 1. Watched pigs race 2. Petted farm animals 3. Ate huge amounts of funnel cake 4. Won a cow in an arcade game. All in all an excellent 4th of July.

040

Saul Tobias @saultobias.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Just found this. It's light (mostly) and summery and sweet. Highly recommend.

020

Reposted by Saul Tobias

Liesbeth Corens @onslies.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Got there in the end, during the big election shows no less. (and we were once again deemed the entire university, as it should be) But it would have been nice had they kept up that coverage without my badgering them.

141

Reposted by Saul Tobias

Brilliance Proper @brillianceproper.com · 28/06/2026

Some Sunday Black Boy Joy

11849031047

Reposted by Saul Tobias

Peter Sagal @petersagal.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

(1/4) I saw yet another post attacking Jake Tapper for his book on the cover-up/denial of President Biden’s decline while in office, and it occurred to me: considering *only* its immediate and then lasting effects, that scandal might actually be bigger than Watergate. Consider:

1716416

Saul Tobias @saultobias.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Which response by Dem moderates to dem.soc. wins does the GOP messaging for them? 🤔 1. We don't agree with all their positions, but we're a big tent party open to ideas about how to make people's lives better. 2. They are anti-american extremists taking over the party! We must raise the alarm!

000

Reposted by Saul Tobias

Brian Hioe @brianhioe.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Funds are getting tight and margins are thinner for keeping our community space alive, we're putting out a call for donations! We were hit by an unexpected 80,000 NT bill recently which cleared out a lot of what we had in the bank

096

Reposted by Saul Tobias

Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Given the growing evidence on cognitive offloading and skills erosion, this may be very prudent policy. And it will make for an informative social experiment, with much of the US serving as an counterexample

6458155

Reposted by Saul Tobias

Adam Keiper @adamkeiper.com · 17/06/2026

Well now here's something pretty spiffy. New out today from the New York Vocal Collective, a choral arrangement of Paul McCartney's "Blackbird." The first two and a half minutes are fine, but then it becomes…something else entirely. (You know the THX sound effect?) www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9ot...

youtube.com

New York Vocal Collective - Blackbird

YouTube video by NYVC (New York Vocal Collective)

22336124

Reposted by Saul Tobias

Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Breaking News: the algae has agreed to accept $300 billion to consider vacating the reflecting pool

11076281457

Reposted by Saul Tobias

Evan @evansmithhist.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Ooh, I like this! One like, one archive or library I have visited, plus my thoughts/recollections on it

1422

Reposted by Saul Tobias

Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

At the end of the term I asked my college creative wriing students to submit anonymous thoughts on AI. No real surprises: Mood ranges from resignation to despair, capitulation from embittered erosion of standards to total, feelings of betrayal from deep to furious. 1/

7455231988

Saul Tobias @saultobias.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Just learned that Abdullah Ibrahim died. For South Africans of a certain generation, especially those outside the country, one piece of music had the power to capture home to evoke nostalgia like no other, and for me it was this. RIP Abdullah Ibrahim. youtu.be/udBEC15_ALc?...

youtu.be

Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim) - Mannenberg Is Where It's Happening

YouTube video by THE HOUSE OF GOOD MUSIC

000

Reposted by Saul Tobias

Sarah Kay @k-interarma.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

Aerial PARTIAL view of the anti racist, anti fascist crowd in Belfast right now. City Hall to the left for scale. This - this is the real Belfast. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

8488582240