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Victor Luftig

@vl1959.bsky.social
540 followers 350 following 1.3K posts

he/him. English professor, Democrat (but I can't bear the DCCC), Mets fan. Views expressed are my own and not those of my employer or David Stearns. Liking/sharing doesn't mean approval except when it does. "'We’ll see if it is,' said Rivera."

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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 18h
Not as important as halting administrative bloat, but seems like an obvious ethical thing for higher ed. institutions to do would be to all but stop senior faculty hiring, which moves secure people around on the chess board for prestige, and commit to massive tt hiring of underemployed recent PhDs.
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 18h
A terrific, clear summary of the "countless vital functions in our modern public universities" and the harm that will befall them if their budgets are slashed. "The University of Minnesota cannot do more with less. It will do less with less."
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
What an amazing opening sentence: versify this and you have a poem with diction ("in part," "major," etc) more susceptible to analysis than that of many of Pound's Cantos.
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
"The first suit...was brought by the former commerce secretary Wilbur Ross...and the casino mogul Steve Wynn...Notices from the city indicate that the Rosses would owe roughly $83K and Mr. Wynn about $183K under the tax..." Net Worth of each=approx $3 billion. Not about the money but about power.
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Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The Talmud is dudes in 4th c. whats-now-Iraq nerding out about Torah, + some intern takes notes in the study hall sometimes they fight abt whether or not you accidentally making a furrow in dirt when you drag a bench is Shabbat-prohibited "farming" sometimes they make wang jokes like, chill
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
There are often young Red-Shouldered Hawks at Mint Springs Park, but this is the first one I’ve ever seen in the pond.
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Years ago a football player, one my students, told me that at halftime of the previous Sat.'s game he'd had blood in his urine. He told his coach, who sent him out for the whole 2nd half. Div. 1 sports is predation; do we know that the good done in classrooms and labs is as significant as its harms?
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
UVA Creative Writing hiring a fiction writer apply.interfolio.com/192511
apply.interfolio.com
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Looking for an activity that is free, quick, satisfying, and great for people around you? Vote early for @tomperriello.bsky.social. Can’t recommend it highly enough.
I voted today sticker
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I think this great and timely. As far as I can tell, US fighters for the Republic are memorialized only in SF and at the University of Washington. I think I'll see if I can get UVA to commemorate in some way Bennett Jeffries Doty; he studied lit and econ here before being killed in action in 1938.
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
DC, its people and historical memorials under siege, still exhibits so much evidence of the hard work people have done to honor the heroic and repudiate evil. This remains for now, eg, at the Dept. of Transportation.
A Philip Randolph sign at DOT
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
If this inspires you to donate to the Democratic candidate for governor of Iowa...https://robsand.com/
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
If you're looking for a kids book, the best conceived, written, and illustrated one I've seen for a long while is www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/712601... by #CharnellePinkneyBarlow. I was alerted to it by Lizzo's holding it in the @amlibraryassoc.bsky.social poster now on my office door.
penguinrandomhouse.com
Little Rosetta and the Talking Guitar by Charnelle Pinkney Barlow: 9780593571064 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
A picture book biography of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the woman who invented rock and roll. Author and illustrator Charnelle Pinkney Barlow imagines the childhood of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, whose rural ...
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Reading some excerpts from Andy Beshear's forthcoming book confirmed for me that a buncha Dem pres candidates will run past the middle and straight to the mealy-mouthed right, a bunch of Huntsmans and Lawlers, with the same incoherence, vapidity, and lightly concealed hostility to the vulnerable.
Excerpt from Beshear book ostensibly talking about faith
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
FB suddenly offering me GOP posts, which I keep Xing as "Disturbing" because a) they are and b) it doesn't offer "Amoral," "Idiotic," or "Emetic" as options.
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Looking for an activity that is free, quick, satisfying, and great for people around you? Vote early for @tomperriello.bsky.social. Can’t recommend it highly enough.
I voted today sticker
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Went to a "listening session" today. Run by a consultant. He filibustered, and we faculty suckers who attended didn't have the votes to make him stop. Gods outsource to eagles, lightning, winds; university admins pay folks who know no thing and take pride in their lucrative ignorance.
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Jane Rosenzweig @janerosenzweig.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
"Writing centers should be championed, not dissolved... Colleges are racing to outspend each other with new AI-focused programming. But individualized, human support for student learning should not be sacrificed on the altar of these ambitions." (by Lizzie Hutton, Miami U Ohio's WC director)
cincinnati.com
AI makes college writing centers more important, not less | Opinion
Opinion: AI can generate words. College students still need to learn how to write.
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
So many things to be grateful to John Coltrane and his family for, but on his centenary the luxury of being able to say truthfully that one of my favorite things is called My Favorite Things--a splendid, apt vehicle for feeling gratitude for what is great in the world--seems up there.
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
www.contrariannews.org/p/sports-fan... "This deal will push the cost up, and it will price some fans out entirely, because they cannot justify paying for golf and stock car racing just to watch their team play. It is one more small, relentless increase in the cost of ordinary life."
contrariannews.org
Sports Fans Can’t Boycott. Paramount Is Counting on It.
I learned as a kid what it costs to watch soccer in America. The Paramount-Warner Bros. merger will teach every fan the same lesson.
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
autumn
red leaves
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Today's bigoted moronic NYT op-ed about books doesn't merit reposting, quoting, or attention except if the author is fired, defenestrated, or appropriately otherwise punished for it. Better to post about great authors he despises instead, eg www.harpercollins.com/blogs/author...
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Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Continuously in awe of the fact that all knowledge builds on learned knowledge. If you ever have the chance, watch the patience of an early-childhood educator guiding a kid through a difficult new idea and then consider the entire communal effort of generational education throughout history.
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Alana Hadid: "We are not fighting simply to be heard. We are fighting for the right to tell our own story. We are not asking for permission to exist. We are insisting that we will not be erased.”
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
A reminder that Loudon Co. was an important site of CRT fabrications that helped Youngkin become governor of VA. Went nearly 2/3 for Spanberger last year + has incredible teachers, progressive activists, etc. But also powerful, duplicitous,+ influential reactionaries, incl., evidently, pro-ICE cops.
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
News flash: Google's AI is really stupid and not to be trusted
Google AI apologizing for having given inaccurate information about Tampa Rays' magic number for division title.
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
This disheartening thread seems to me very well worth reading to the end: "shame tolerance is built into the business model. Federal legislation may be the only way to get rid of this unethical & embarrassing ritual..." (State legislation did in UVA's.)
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
it seems to me that CNN can produce poll numbers rather than facts from outside the WH not a big loss they should use the time to listen to HCR and read some books about Franco and both Hoovers www.cnn.com/2026/08/06/p...
cnn.com
Trump claims he’s presiding over the ‘greatest economy we’ve ever had by far.’ Most Americans disagree. | CNN Politics
At a campaign stop in Las Vegas, President Trump pitched his economy to a room full of supporters. The Inside Politics panel breaks down why Americans keep telling pollsters and journalists that the e...
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
@cvilletomorrow.bsky.social has provided clear, concise accounts of all three important Virginia ballot referenda here: www.cvilletomorrow.org/heres-what-t... (This article has links to the other 2.)County and city election pages provide sample ballots that show what they'll look like when you vote.
cvilletomorrow.org
Here's what the ballot referendum on same-sex marriage means for Virginians
The referendum would reverse a 2006 amendment that banned same-sex marriages in the state, which the courts said was unconstitutional.
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
"I get why Republicans want this bill to pass: Republicans always hate labor, and particularly hate Black or women labor getting their fair share of the revenue. But this bill should be a total nonstarter for the Democratic Party."
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
The NYT piece on the MIT report suggests that faculty have not generated, individually or collectively,thoughtful responses to LLMs:there's no reference, eg, to documents such as www.kenyon.edu/academics/de..., making the administrators seem like the only informed and pragmatic ones. And that's bull
kenyon.edu
Statement on AI Use
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Mark Doyle @markdoyle.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Was very happy to beam into QUB today to launch the Africans in Ireland website that I and a number of colleagues have been working on for years. Maps, database, & other resources documenting the African presence in Ireland from the late 16th to early 20th centuries. africansinireland.com
A right-facing silhouette of the Black preacher and seaman John Jea, Methodist preacher and seaman, from his 1816 book The Life, History, and Unparalleled Sufferings of John Jea, the African Preacher
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
One good theme on this site is the importance of thanking and congratulating creators. It's worth giving comparable credit to editors, venue managers, etc who make creation and performance of art and scholarship possible. And folks like this who are buttressing besieged or neglected systems.
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
I think it may be that college-level learning happens most efficiently, profoundly, and reliably, for students at all levels, at writing centers: coming face to face with a reader, testing ideas, being encouraged to reconsider. The 2 I know best--UVA's and Case W's--are miraculous. Shame on Harvard.
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
I wonder how different teaching essay-writing, in the years when I did a lot of it, would have been in the absence of her work: impossible to imagine that canon without her, Walker, White, Woolf. I feel she has not been celebrated sufficiently around here (central VA( as a local treasure. Maybe now
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
I hadn't known this piece, and gosh, it's splendid, with the intensity of the best elegiac poems, the rhythm itself part of the mourning and commemoration, better still for insisting that it is signaling someone whose gifts were both "hidden" and "brought to light perpetually."
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Splendid, terrifying piece--got right under my skin, as I tried to quarrel throughout with its big "Never before" claims, and had to concede its rightness every time, eg, "Never before have seemingly credible and authentic words been mass-produced without the wrenching mental effort of writing."
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
It's a shame there is no handy term, like Brexit, for US self-isolation, self-destruction, and destruction. "Americorpse," maybe. "US Expectoralism." Maybe "Trumpism" is sufficient. Or "American carnage." www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/w...
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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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
If CBS is reporting this, what must the scope of the damage actually be?
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Well worth reading @gillianbrockell.com here but also the UW report she cites jsis.washington.edu/humanrights/... incl "The plane that carried [2 Salvadoran immigrants] to their deaths...has carried basketball teams from the Univ. of Virginia, Penn State, and Syracuse U. to games and tournaments"
jsis.washington.edu
Abuses in the Air: Sports Travel and the Deportation Industry - Center for Human Rights
This report is part of a series of research reports by the University of Washington Center for Human Rights examining Immigration and Customs Enforcement Air Operations nationwide.  Download additiona...
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Ed Sheeran had already proven himself a craven cad. His having proven that he's on board with genocide +oligarchy makes him a much worse craven cad.Never heard of Rowe before today, but have been listening to his songs and think them fine and that it's impressive that he et al are ditching the tour.
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Just a reminder of whom noted plagiarist Ed Sheeran is deferring to... abcnews.com/US/england-p...
abcnews.com
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft charged with solicitation of prostitution: Police
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft has been charged solicitation of prostitution.
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Nothing else can bring me to a meditative state the way conveyor belt sushi can.
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Starbucks Workers United @sbworkersunited.org · 12/09/2026
Why does Starbucks keep failing their baristas? Partners in Ponca City, Oklahoma are organizing a union to demand reasonable and fair improvements to their workplace alongside over 12,000 union baristas across the country!
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
I hadn't known that Harvard's Richard Marius was fired from writing for the Gore campaign for this in a 1992 review in the alumni mag (quote from Wikipedia): "Many Israelis, the Holocaust fresh in their memory, believe that that horror gives them the right to inflict horror on others.
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Richard Chambers @newschambers.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Statement from President Connolly: We are in a world facing the existential threat posed by war and climate change, both of which are inextricably interlinked. I conveyed the strong view of the Irish people that the normalisation of war and genocide can never be accepted.
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
The fine Irish poet and editor Pat Boran just posted this on FB (shared here with his permission): DOONBEG Thoughts and prayers for Trump on his golf course. The record for fascist dictators emerging unscathed from bunkers isn’t always the best.
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
All due commemoration to US dead on 9/11, all due compassion to their survivors. But in proportion, and in context: www.aljazeera.com/news/longfor... I heard yesterday on NPR about www.beyondthe11th.org and will send a donation there today.
aljazeera.com
‘Everything changed’: The human cost of 25 years of US wars
Successive wars launched after 9/11 have killed at least 4.5 million people and displaced more than 38 million others.
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Victor Luftig @vl1959.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
The fascists have ruined everything.
amusement park slide rules
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