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Boston Tom Levenson@tomlevenson.bsky.social |
1494 followers 987 following 8964 posts
Writer (of science-and books, mostly--science and culture, science and history, etc.). Quondam documentarian (credits at PBS, BBC, etc.) Professing science writing at MIT. Lucky spouse and father, and servant to two tuxedo cats. He/him.
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Melissa Gira Grant
@melissagiragrant.com
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We need more, but credit where due: both The Nation (June 2024 issue) and Boston Review have run a breakdown of the Project 2025 “Mandate for Leadership” document. Media Matters, too. Lots of good work going on digesting this.
www.bostonreview.net/articles/ins...
www.mediamatters.org/project-2025
15 replies 333 reposts 728 likes
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Tiny Brontosaurus
@tinybronto.bsky.social
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the courts knocked down his first attempt at student loan relief and he tried again, and again, and again, long after the news cycle had lost interest. he capped insulin prices and said "trans rights" with his full chest. I want to keep moving in this direction.
1 replies 9 reposts 38 likes
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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That would be like the Boeing-McDonnell Douglas "merger."
3 replies 1 reposts 12 likes
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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That occurred to me after I posted here. Will make a call on Monday.
1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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Thank you. Will do.
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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3/ PS: I didn't even get to Biden's economy. Better results than the rest of the developed world. Record high stock markets. Inflation tamed w/out a recession in a year or less. Unemployment down...and so on. As Lincoln didn't say of Grant: send a case of what he drinks to every general.
0 replies 2 reposts 35 likes
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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2/ Yes: Biden's age is a concern (so is Trump's, though that doesn't make day after day headlines). But the "D-leader" voices leaking to @washingtonpost.com, @nytimes.com etc. look to me to be the wing of the party least happy with that astonishingly good record.
2 replies 2 reposts 40 likes
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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Just going to put this out there: Biden has been the most legislatively effective president since LBJ. The most pro-labor president WW2. He's done more re climate change than any POTUS. He's built an international coalition for Ukraine despite Russia-fueld GOP opposition. And yeah: he's hella old.
8 replies 50 reposts 185 likes
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Jerry Newmark
@jerryn13.bsky.social
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Note the filing date of the document, 4/26/2016. I mean, it's great that this is getting some notice now, but this shit was out there during the 2016 campaign if anyone wanted to amplify it instead of butter emails.
0 replies 1 reposts 5 likes
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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Perhaps, but I think that's what's more dangerous is the unconscious bias I believe is at work, more than an explicit "get Biden" aim.
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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Yes and... The NYT is very much an editors' paper (I've been told; no personal experience). There are story themes & reporting foci that come down from above. Part of it is that when they feel a story has legs they throw a ton of resources at it creating a feedback loop, as we see w. Biden's age.
2 replies 1 reposts 3 likes
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Jim Cook
@jimcook.bsky.social
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18 replies 82 reposts 170 likes
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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That's part of it–but NYT's leaders aren't, not in comparison with WSJ, for example, or Fox or CNN's brass. I have tangled w. a number of NYT peeps. Their issue is that they are unable to hear Oliver Cromwell's plea: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken."
1 replies 0 reposts 3 likes
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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Good to see the early days of Bluesy are still honored.
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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2/2 Elite media folk (not just at NYT) sincerely believe they are doing good and fair work. Its almost impossible to believe otherwise inside the shop. That to me is the real issue: not one of conscious bias but a structural flaw of practice, an inability to see failure modes as they bite.
2 replies 1 reposts 12 likes
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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I was speaking to a friend who once worked at the Gray Lady, and they noted when I suggested imbalanced coverage that the paper has covered Trump's many sins. They have. Just not with the timing and intensity they directed at Clinton or Biden...1/2
2 replies 1 reposts 9 likes
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Warren Terra
@warrenterra.bsky.social
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Or there was the time the NYT dedicated five reporters and 14 months to reporting on the money Trump inherited. They started in Feb 2017 - a year earlier it might have affected the election - and discovered he'd used blatant fraud to duck taxes on a billion dollars. But it was never a lasting story.
1 replies 3 reposts 18 likes
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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Concur.
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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2/ If so, I'm easily found by email (or just reply here). Background: my mum graduated from Cambridge (the older one) in 1949, then got Fulbright and an English Speaking Union (sic!) fellowships to study in the US. So off to Radcliffe it was on the S. S. Newfoundland.
0 replies 1 reposts 8 likes
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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Hey! Historians of American higher ed.: got any use for a visiting graduate student's notes for classes in American history taught at Harvard in 1949-50? I'm going through my mother's papers; she took courses from Schlesinger, Morrison, Albion & others. Took detailed lecture notes. Of interest?
4 replies 18 reposts 29 likes
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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I might now.
1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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Probably impossible suggestion, but if you could get your hands on a hand cycle for a month or so, that would allow biking without involving your ankle. Don't know if there are exercise hand cycles (as in static home machines) but I wouldn't be surprised.
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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This has a Churchill-Lady Astor vibe to it. (Not a comment about your place on the toper spectrum, about which I know nothing. I do love the word "toper," BTW.)
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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Your work here is done. (PS: just finished The Butcher of the Forest. So good. My thanks.)
1 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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Should add: Netanyahu has already made some troubling noises about this and again: nothing is done until it's done. But this is a wedge in the door. A start, not guaranteed to but essential to achieve something vital for every soul in Gaza--and, I'd argue, Israel.
0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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Moira Donegan
@moiradonegan.bsky.social
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#Metoo ruined lives: the women’s. For the summer issue of Bookforum, I wrote about Christine Blasey Ford’s memoir “One Way Back,” the aftermath of disclosure, and what it means to be a public survivor when storytelling has proven futile. www.bookforum.com/culture/disp...
8 replies 166 reposts 614 likes
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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It's worse than that, but I concede this may be part of the issue.
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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To this naive observer this seems like a BFD: Nothing's done until its done, but this is a necessary step to get to the desired end. Seems like sleepy and addled Joe Biden might actually have been doing something on all those exhausting foreign trips.
0 replies 3 reposts 11 likes
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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Yup. My writing day is roughly 9-10 a.m. to 3-4 p.m. Before/after I can read, think, take notes, etc. But not compose useful copy. On days when it's going well lunch is grabbed small bites every hour or two.
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Daniel Gilmore
@gilmored85.bsky.social
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For everyone on here that is worried that voters are as willfully credulous as our news media, the Biden campaign understands that Trumps post about Project 2025 is an admission of vulnerability and they are leaning in harder on tying him to it.
3 replies 20 reposts 59 likes
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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Ooof. What has been heard (in the mind's ear) cannot be unheard.
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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I'm all in favor of moving books.
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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Some of my colleagues teach classes from 7-10 pm. I can't. 1: Any 3 hr writing seminar is bootless. Somewhere betw. 90 min. & 2 hrs, everyone's brains freeze. 2: Goes double in evening classes. That's time for reading, reflection, letting the mind play. Not knife-edge pro/con decision making.
1 replies 0 reposts 5 likes
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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Looking at Amazon's First Reads options for July I encountered a new genre term: Romantasy. I am bemused.
3 replies 0 reposts 9 likes
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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Terry Pratchett is everywhere. (See The Truth)
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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I see you've edited your life down to the bear essentials.
2 replies 0 reposts 9 likes
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Stephen Webb
@stephenwebb.bsky.social
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This is a classic Trump trope, when something might drag him down "I never met the guy" in the face of photos of them bro hugging after a two hour meeting.
9 replies 37 reposts 224 likes
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Cheryl Rofer
@cherylrofer.bsky.social
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The Dobbs decision, now Project 2025. There's more than enough to beat Trump right there, and his campaign staff knows it.
6 replies 48 reposts 169 likes
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Michael P. Breen
@mpbreen21.bsky.social
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Oh look. It is possible for national media to focus on what far-right candidates are saying & doing rather than publishing speculative hit pieces about a candidate who isn’t an existential threat to democracy & the rule of law.
You should try it sometime @nytimes.com @washingtonpost.com @cnn.com
0 replies 3 reposts 9 likes
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Greg Sargent
@gregsargent.bsky.social
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NEWS --> Mark Robinson, the MAGA extremist GOP nominee for governor in North Carolina, appeared to endorse political violence against unnamed foes in a recent speech.
"Some folks need killing!" he shouted. "It's a matter of necessity!"
Video and story here:
newrepublic.com/article/1834...
106 replies 341 reposts 627 likes
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Jerry Newmark
@jerryn13.bsky.social
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Just a reminder, that's convicted felon Donald Trump, who has also been found by a court to have sexually assaulted at least one woman.
2 replies 12 reposts 27 likes
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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I believe Champ has achieved attention-span-zero:
0 replies 1 reposts 15 likes
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Patrick Charlton-O'Shea
@aesonique.bsky.social
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I said this on Imgur the other day. If voting is voluntary, it's much easier and cheaper to demoralise the opposition than it is to convince them to your side. Every "I don't vote" is one less they need to win.
0 replies 3 reposts 9 likes
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Molly White
@molly.wiki
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those arguing that taylor swift can't be a role model because she is an unmarried and childless woman at 34 are doing a great job of arguing that children need more women role models who are unmarried and childless at 34
28 replies 198 reposts 1318 likes
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Marc Elias
@marcelias.bsky.social
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🚨BREAKING: Wisconsin Supreme Court OVERTURNS ban on ballot drop boxes. Congratulations to our client Priorities USA and the voters of Wisconsin.
We are not done fighting for free and fair elections and we are not done winning! www.democracydocket.com/cases/wiscon...
21 replies 275 reposts 1171 likes
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Gayle J. Greenlea
@gjgreenlea.bsky.social
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"You think evil is going to come into your houses wearing big black boots. It doesn’t come like that. Look at the language. It begins in the language." —Joseph Brodsky
0 replies 7 reposts 26 likes
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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As before: just saw that image. Priceless.
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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Just saw that image. Priceless.
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Boston Tom Levenson
@tomlevenson.bsky.social
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Any night that Jacob Rees-Mogg loses his seat in Parliament is a very good night indeed.
2 replies 0 reposts 26 likes
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Kirk Murphy
@kirkmurphy.bsky.social
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I'm a brain doc (Consultation-Liaison psych). For *years* Trump has shown uninterrupted, increasingly severe cognitive symptoms: he's incapable of linear thought *at baseline*. Whatever disrupted Biden's linear thought in the debate is at worst intermittent. Bonus: he's not an overt fascist.
1 replies 4 reposts 23 likes