iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

Author scam? I've gotten several emails fr people claiming to be v. popular writers of romance/historical fiction who admire Automating Inequality. The emails feels like AI, tho, & the addresses are suspect. But if it's a con, I can't figure out the angle. Anyone else experienced this? What gives?

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

Items with question marks are stories we've heard *about* the halftime show that we want to factcheck.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

Today, we asked, "Was the halftime show a political story?" based on our reading of Francesca Polletta. Does it have: 1) An identifiable beginning, middle, and end; 2) Setting, character(s) & point(s) of view; 3) A plot; 4) A normative conclusion? Here's our (admittedly incomplete) plot diagram:

A plot diagram on a whiteboard, which reads: Cane field, PR Highlights tour/Jobs & Economy, NYC, Wedding (real?) + Power Lines, Grammy (ICE?), Hawai'i/imperialism/colonialism, Flags. Underneath, in blue ink, the theme reads: "Together we are America."

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

I'm teaching my Political Storytelling class this semester. Thank you Bad Bunny for dropping this performance right between the classes on political identity and the one on stories of personhood - we'll be talking about it for weeks. #PoliticalStorytelling

The final shot of Bad Bunny's Halftime show. He holds a football reading "Together, We Are America" up to the camera while musicians holding the flags of the Americas celebrate behind him. Red white and blue fireworks explode in the background.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

✨ AGTOWL receives a Kirkus Star! ✨ A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving received a starred review from Kirkus! Out August 11, the memoir is the hardest & best thing I’ve ever made, so the honor touches me deeply. www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews...

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

Make sure to share what you write! Inquiring minds want to know.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

My university media office really should have counted the letters on this newsletter headline...

Email headline from a university that reads "UAlbany scientist proposes meth"

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

(3/3): "There’s even evidence that a sense of purpose, strong social connections, and emotional resilience can protect the brain from age-related decline.” www.sciencenewstoday.org/what-is-neur... [I'm thinking about getting a BDNF tattoo.]

sciencenewstoday.org

What Is Neuroplasticity and Why Does It Matter?

Imagine a symphony of electricity and chemistry playing continuously inside your skull. Billions of neurons exchanging signals, firing in patterns,…

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

(2/3): "Physical exercise is also a potent stimulant of neuroplasticity. Aerobic activity increases blood flow to the brain, supports neurogenesis in the hippocampus, and boosts levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)—a protein crucial for maintaining plasticity. ..."

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

Neuralplasticity for the win, at least for an old gal like me (1/3): "Lifelong learning and novelty-seeking are among the strongest predictors of cognitive longevity. ..."

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

Read this morning while exploring feedforward & predictive interneural connections: "The NMDA is a glutamate receptor cation channel that is also widely referred to as a 'coincidence detector'." Down the rabbit hole for sure. But "coincidence detectors"?! What wonderful worlds brains are.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

Reading on PTSD and neural plasticity this month. Looks like there is some interesting preliminary research. Anyone have recommendations for me?

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

"Data centers consume approx 200 billion gallons of water annually in the US alone, w/ cooling systems accounting for 80-90% of demand. ... The WRI classifies 17 U.S. states as experiencing high or extremely high water stress. These states host approximately 40% of U.S. data center capacity."

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

Thinking about universities' promotion of AI from a resource- and labor-extraction angle -- something I'm not hearing come up a lot in conversations about AI and education. But I'm part of the Anthropic class action, and data centers themselves are concerned about their water and energy use... e.g.:

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

My understanding of the book is that they are arguing explicitly that democracy is *best* understood as an information system.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

Here's my latest, a review of Schneier and Sanders' new boo, Rewiring Democracy (with some big thoughts of my own), in Nature. AI has a democracy problem — here’s why www.nature.com/articles/d41...

nature.com

AI has a democracy problem — here’s why

A thorough examination of artificial intelligence’s promise in politics rests on a thorny premise: democracy is an information system.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

The skills I learned in the woods and on the water were surprisingly transferable to surviving violence and traumatic care. What unexpected survival skill do you possess? Comment below, and follow me here on Bluesky, and I’ll DM you an excerpt from the memoir!

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

The happiest surprise of writing the book was how much I learned about staying alive in the wilderness: I studied kayak self-rescue, winter survival, map and compass navigation, bushwhacking, monastic discernment, lifeguarding, wilderness first aid.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

The lesson: Nobody survives the wilderness alone. In love with hazard orange and tranquil blue, the humor and danger all caught up together. Thanks @corraldesign.bsky.social (design) and Giacomo Girardi (art), and everyone at @fsgbooks.bsky.social, for promoting beautiful, true caregiver stories.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

Hi Brian! Amazing to see you. Invite me back to Idaho!!

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

I’m excited to share that I have a reported memoir, *A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving: Lessons on Love and Survival,* arriving in the world on August 11, 2026. Tomorrow, Oct 30, @fsgbooks.bsky.social will reveal the book’s extraordinary cover. Follow FSG (or me) to get the first glimpse.

A mysterious image, in tones of hazard orange and blue. The letters "al" appear on the left. A puzzling image that might be a rock of a turtle, appears in the center.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

@brianmannadk.bsky.social explains why this series? Why now? (Hint: It's not to encourage women to have a bunch more babies) www.instagram.com/reel/DQZfk-k...

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

Excited to be digging into this fascinating new series on worldwide population shifts. www.npr.org/series/g-s1-... Even, meticulous, ambitious reporting has me rethinking so many things that I thought I knew. Kudos to @brianmannadk.bsky.social @sarahmccammon.bsky.social & everyone at @npr.org

npr.org

Population Shift

Examining what happens when families have fewer kids

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

"The Trump administration’s tax and domestic policy bill... is projected to cost the country’s 1,512 community health centers roughly $7.3 billion annually in increased uncompensated care costs as they take on the treatment of new, and newly uninsured, patients." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/22/h...

nytimes.com

‘Medicaid Cut Me Off’: A Rural Health Center Faces New Pressures

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Shteyngart brilliant as always. "Frivolity and absurdity are kryptonite to authoritarians who project the stern-father archetype to their followers. Once the pants are lowered and the undies of the despot are glimpsed, there is no point of return." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | The Rise of the Inflatable Chicken Resistance

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

(8/8) Built from cataclysmic loss and tenacious love, A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving challenges readers to reconsider the networks of care that sustain our lives, reminding us that no one survives the wilderness alone. (us.macmillan.com/books/978037...)

us.macmillan.com

A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving

A spirited, wise, often hilarious, profoundly moving story of one woman's efforts to survive caregiving, trauma, love, and the systems seemingly set up to fa...

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

(7/8) ...her research, and interviews with everyone from neuroscientists to forest rangers. The result is a genuinely moving, hopeful, darkly funny story of two people caught in their own kind of wilderness, trying not just to survive but to truly care for each other.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

(6/8) Inspired by these lessons, she signed up for a series of classes: kayak self-rescue, winter survival 101, map and compass, bushwhacking, wilderness first aid, lifeguarding. In a memoir as disarmingly funny as it is quietly wise, Eubanks draws lessons in kinship from these experiences...

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

(5/8) A reporter and an activist, Eubanks turned to reliable sources to figure out how to heal: scientists, therapists, trauma theorists, social movements. But it wasn’t until she happened on an old lifesaving manual that she found practical advice that actually helped.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

(4/8) ...inadequate medical care, lost income, lost friends, endless paperwork, and a serious case of post-traumatic stress disorder. Then, a second case. In her time tending to him, Eubanks had developed what is known as “collateral” PTSD, common among caregivers but rarely discussed.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

(3/8) One night, Virginia Eubanks received the kind of news we all fear. Her beloved partner had been attacked, brutally beaten just steps from their house. In the weeks, then months and years that followed, they faced a cascade of setbacks: police disinterest, suspended health insurance...

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

(2/8) Only if you are a very able swimmer trained in open-water rescue should you approach drowning victims . . . Reach with a rope or branch, row out and offer the drowning person an oar. Do not get in the water. But also: No one survives the wilderness alone.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

(1/8) A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving Lessons in Love and Survival: A Memoir A spirited, wise, often hilarious, profoundly moving story of one woman's efforts to survive caregiving, trauma, love, and the systems seemingly set up to fail us.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

Author photo options by the extraordinary William C. Gill. What do you all think? Favorites? For context, the cover copy for the book is below. So as you vote, think vibez. 😉

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

4/4: Please, if you're able, help keep the public in public media right now. adoptastation.org It is especially crucial to support rural public media, as it often provides communities with their only local news and provide life-saving weather and emergency alerts. ruralpublic.org

adoptastation.org

Adopt A Station - Rescue Public Media

Help preserve independent journalism and community programming across America by adopting a public media station. Congress has voted to rescind public media's funding.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

3/4: In many ways, it's the model I've been trying to live up to ever since. I see lots of quotes if Timothy Snyder's first rule of defeating tyranny ("Don't obey in advance."), fewer of the second ("Defend institutions.") Public media in the United States is an institution worth defending.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

2/4: Watching college students and local community members rise to the occasion, sleeping on studio couches, caravaning down to LA to cover the aftermath firsthand, and getting information out to a community hungry for factual, accurate, humane stories made an indelible impression on me.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

1/4: I got my start in public media. I still remember when the Rodney King verdict came down my first year at KZSC. We had a remarkably good public affairs department.

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Reposted by Virginia Eubanks

Laura Mauldin @lauramauldin.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

I feel both joyful & terrified: My book is actually on the @eccobooks.bsky.social @harpercollins.bsky.social website now! IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH: Love Stories from the Frontlines of America’s Caregiving Crisis will be out Feb 2026 ✨ eeeeek! www.harpercollins.com/products/in-...

harpercollins.com

In Sickness and in Health

An urgent and deeply affecting account of America's failure to provide meaningful support to its chronically ill and disabled citizens and our resulting...

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

I think I just coined the phrase "tyrannical lifestyle maintenance," and I'm very proud.

On a white background, black text reports no results for a DuckDuckGo search of "tyrannical lifestyle maintenance."

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Reposted by Virginia Eubanks

Kat McGowan @mcgowankat.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

Also, Medicaid isn't just poor-people health insurance. It's the main payer for long-term care. Middle-class people can't afford nursing homes either at ~125k/yr. The typical outcome is that they "pay down" (go broke paying for care) to become eligible for Medicaid.

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Virginia Eubanks @virginiaeeubanks.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Made up a little song for myself today: "You are feeling insecure... Because that's a natural part... Of the process!" #AmWriting #EditingKillsEgo #GuideToOpenWaterLifesaving

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