Dave Hitchcock

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 03, 2024 at 14:57 UTC

Luckily, when we hear the excuse "we were just following orders" there's nothing horrific that comes to mind.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 17:51 UTC

I mean it's looking pretty solid to me from here, certainly better than that Wollstonecraft statue from the pandemic.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 17:31 UTC

Right in front of the Beaney yeah?

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 12:57 UTC

after all the sh**t they've been through, no small amount of it caused by the incompetence and inattention of others, they roundly deserve to walk down the cathedral center and I'm looking forward to it.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 12:46 UTC

In happier news a young person who I've moved administrative heaven and earth for over a couple of years, including having to reassess an entire year to hang in, is going to proceed to graduation with a 2:1 outcome.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 12:19 UTC

Unconstrained power does not bother to justify itself well, or sometimes at all. In the 17th and 18th centuries the phrase was 'arbitrary and tyrannical', and it could be, and was, applied to monarchs. Robert Filmer would love this ruling, and that says a lot.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 12:01 UTC

Also there's a significant slice of the population which has a pretty big boner for an american dictatorship. So there's that.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 11:59 UTC

Yeah I know. You guys are in deep shit now. And by extension so are the rest of us.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 11:57 UTC

Biden's campaign does have a chance to win the election on the basis of the Supreme Court ruling, by the way. Make everything, *everything*, between now and November about the immense threat of a completely unconstrained and vindictive Donald Trump in charge of the world's deadliest military etc.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 11:49 UTC

Seriously descendants of the Stuarts must have felt a great disturbance in the force(s of arbitrary power) last night.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 11:03 UTC

Yeah I teach the basics of the American revolution like twice a year at best, read about it only peripherally to my own stuff, and even I know this ruling is off the charts bad in terms of the basics of the Constitution, rule of law, and so on. Main prior was a Nixon civil case... I mean, really???

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 10:27 UTC

Literally anyone in any C-suite in the bloody world would be held to higher accountancy standards than this describes to me. Maybe private equity runs this dirty, but a publicly listed company with shareholders? Asking for trouble.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 10:25 UTC

if 'unaccountable power' was to be given a definition by a finance department, this is surely it. Bonus double entendre.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 09:55 UTC

When people ask me how "history" is relevant or important to the world today all I am going to do is point silently at 'Trump v. United States', July 1st, 2024.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 09:51 UTC

People should read the historian's amicus brief on it all, because clearly 6 members of the Supreme Court did not bother.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 09:48 UTC

Man that "Glorious Revolution" document of 1689 entitled the 'Bill of Rights', upon which a rather more famous version from October 1774 was based, is looking remarkably radical all of a sudden.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 09:43 UTC

I was hoping you would write this and you have!

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 09:40 UTC

that elicited a medium sized Yikes from me. How is it these folks get to throw that kind of money around with literally zero visible ROI.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 08:13 UTC

Vultures, the lot of them. I was trying to point out that if the supply of fresh carcass disappears.... Also DataHE do genuinely poor work. We had a "deep dive" pack of info here, it was comically badly put together from HESA returns.... a marmot could do it.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 07:51 UTC

I'm told it made it to Facebook and stuck there for a time. What matters above everything is a shared sense of the state and the stakes. I think we're getting there and late is better than never.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 07:48 UTC

I told the Times higher folks straight up (when being asked about union stuff) that "you really do not want to see what happens when a university goes under". That was like Sept 2023. There's been good pieces since as reporters have cottoned on. Still, it's true. You guys do not want to see it.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 07:43 UTC

Making me wish I'd done the whole story on Medium at greater length. It's a good piece from Will, it doesn't feel like he's been editorially allowed to state what needs to be considered now.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 07:35 UTC

There's a limited number of selective stenographer slots on offer in project 2025s vision of the future. Competition for them seems to be heating up.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 20:31 UTC

It's not an 'extreme hypothetical' if the guy promises to do it in literally every stump speech he gives.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 20:28 UTC

So it's happening, then. A supreme court approved (tm) dictatorial tyranny in America, above the law, brooking no reproach, run on that most american of political fuels: white supremacy and white grievance. Not hyperbole, instead, a likelihood. It must be stopped.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 29, 2024 at 13:04 UTC

Yeah I know how I'd do it in the USA, I think the UK system makes it a particular challenge here.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 29, 2024 at 13:03 UTC

Holding onto a long time range is one of my main goals yes. Then doing work to make the whole range interesting to any given student.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 29, 2024 at 13:02 UTC

Has Leeds Trinity eaten any known consequences for closing the small history dept it had?

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 29, 2024 at 13:01 UTC

Its the reality here now after many years holding on to choice for students.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 29, 2024 at 07:13 UTC

Fellow academic historians I have a question 🗃️ Do you think 'small' history programmes (no optional modules, less than 10 staff) can be sustainable in a UK university? The RHS has its doubts and I well understand them.

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Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 28, 2024 at 16:19 UTC

Aren't these 6 people supposed to hate "judicial activism"? Or, once again, are we talking solely about anyone other than them and their mates.

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