Ben Gardner
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bengardner87.bsky.social
Ben Gardner
@bengardner87.bsky.social
400 followers 340 following 760 posts
Supporter of voting rights. Striving to live in a democracy. Fan of vinyl records, music, baseball. I have zero time for people who use woke as a pejorative. Thoughts/Opinions my own. All my Phish and Grateful Dead opinions are correct.
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Reposted by Ben Gardner
rbreich.bsky.social
Martin Luther King Jr. understood better than almost anyone that racial justice and economic justice are inextricably intertwined. Watch his powerful call to end poverty from his final Sunday Sermon.
January 18, 2026 at 11:02 PM
bengardner87.bsky.social
The whining from Deadheads about Nancy Pelosi is pretty stupid. Liberal 85 year old woman from San Francisco likes the Grateful Dead. As a powerful leader in her party, she was also friends with a politically active rich bandmember. News at 11.
January 18, 2026 at 3:37 PM
bengardner87.bsky.social
Hey is JRAD ever gonna come to Michigan?
January 18, 2026 at 3:32 AM
bengardner87.bsky.social
Hell of a Blue Note vinyl night.
January 17, 2026 at 5:20 AM
bengardner87.bsky.social
You'll live a life of fear and dread if you listen to the Grateful Dead.
January 17, 2026 at 5:04 AM
Reposted by Ben Gardner
ositanwanevu.com
Apropos of nothing, let's check in with how things are going at Bari Weiss's free speech university. www.politico.com/news/magazin...
Most people didn’t think much of it when the university dean, Ben Crocker, called a student named Dan into his office on Monday, Sept. 9, the first day of classes. But at 7:44 in the evening, they received an email from three administrators saying that Dan had been removed from campus, “transported to his home out of state,” and barred from further access to the university. The nature of the allegations concerned, at their core, a pair of charged statements Dan allegedly made that would be familiar to any Title IX officer. The first was a general statement implying that UATX girls carried themselves physically in a way that invited sexual assault. The second was a suggestion to a specific female student that she had carried herself in a way that invited sexual assault. Dan had already been the subject of some negative attention on campus because of provocative statements he’d made in a UATX-based Discord “introductions” chat. These included a challenge — “If I catch any of you guys in my stuff, I’ll kill you” — which was a reference to the 1981 movie “Stripes” and likely misunderstood by fellow students. In another exchange, a discussion of transgender issues, Dan expressed reservations about hormone treatment and said that he couldn’t wait “to play devil’s advocate for legalizing pedophilia.” Between 8:30 and 9:00 p.m., Crocker visited the dorms, where he hosted a meeting on the roof to discuss the issue with students. Crocker’s message was that Dan’s conduct had been evaluated to be a “credible threat” — a phrase that would be repeated by the administration many times over the following days. Crocker then faced what one student attendee recalled as a “firing squad” of questions. Some students said that Dan had seemed off, but others saw his hasty removal as an example of the very cancel culture to which UATX was supposed to be the antithesis. Several students noted a lack of diversity. Consistent with its emphasis on “merit-based admissions,” UATX doesn’t publish demographic data. The students with whom I spoke said their classmates — and the college’s leadership — were overwhelmingly white, disproportionately came from wealthy families and had an overrepresentation of apparent neurodivergence. They found ideological diversity to be particularly lacking. “I didn’t realize exactly how conservative it would be,” one current student told me. “You know, when I hear free speech and open debate and all that jazz, I assumed that there was going to be a more equal amount of political views, and there wasn’t.” Classes weren’t as innovative as most students expected. “Year one was exceptionally boring,” the student said. “They did great books, they just didn’t do it in a great way,” said another student, who lamented the amount of memorization required. “I thought we were going to be intensely debating,” he said. Several students shared course syllabi with me. Most are easy enough to imagine being offered on any campus — with the notable exception of math and science. “The math classes go over algebra you learned in ninth grade,” a student told me. “There was just nothing there.” He described the offering as “schizophrenic” and described a class he’d taken at University of Texas at Austin as “exponentially more important.” Indeed, the syllabus I reviewed for a class called “Intellectual Foundations of Science II” covered a range of topics unusual for a science class including “The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.” A student who’d taken the course shared a slide with me on “ensoulment” — the principally religious question of when a soul enters the human body — and said that the class had been told that IVF but not abortion could be consistent with the Catholic belief about ensoulment. The poor quality of the science offerings had bothered Heying and Pinker. “Others thought I was the token liberal,” Heying told me, “but I came to understand myself as the token scientist.” In an email, Pinker wrote, “They should have hired a widely esteemed scientist and proven program builder to set up their science division.” Another surprising similarity with other colleges stemmed directly from Dan’s expulsion: The students feared cancellation. “At any moment a frivolous Title IX complaint could be filed against you,” a former student told me. “I’ve never felt my speech was so chilled as it was in the classroom at UATX.” During the many conversations I had reporting this story, two questions came up more than any other. The first: Where was Bari Weiss? Many of the people I interviewed told me about internal conversations and shared internal emails. Weiss, who remains on the board of trustees, was almost never present in the conversations as they were related to me, and while I saw many emails on which Kanelos and Ferguson were copied, I never saw any including Weiss. speaks onstage during an event in New York City, on Nov. 19, 2024. | Noam Galai/Getty Images for The Free Press One person I spoke to, who was present during the early planning stages, told me that Weiss was “very elusive” and almost never present in person. This was ironic since UATX was closely associated with Weiss — a bust of whom now resides in the school library. Weiss, meanwhile, has only risen further during the Trump 2.0 era and is now editor-in-chief of CBS News, where she has been criticized as genuflecting to the Trump administration. A spokesperson for CBS News did not respond to a request for comment from Weiss. One former member of the development team told me that they would routinely ask prospective donors how they got to know UATX. “Eighty percent of the time, the answer was Bari Weiss,” they said. “It was very often referred to as Bari Weiss’ University, or Bari Weiss’ University Project, or Bari Weiss’ University of Austin.” For several people, this was a source of resentment. “I don’t care whether she wants to pretend this is all gone now — she is the reason that this place exists. She was huge, she was held in such high regard, she had such an enormous impact,” the former staffer said. “I want her to be held to account,” she added. “I’m pissed.”
January 16, 2026 at 4:40 PM
bengardner87.bsky.social
This Bob Weir, Phil Lesh and Trey Anastasio set from Radio City Music Hall is amazing.
January 12, 2026 at 3:49 AM
bengardner87.bsky.social
2/28/73 Truckin'->The Other One

#NowPlaying #GratefulDead #BobWeir
January 12, 2026 at 2:32 AM
Reposted by Ben Gardner
bengardner87.bsky.social
Bob Weir is deserving of all the accolades that are pouring in for an extraordinary life well lived. Nobody did more to keep the Grateful Dead flame lit after the death of Jerry Garcia in 1995. Weir shouldered that burden with grit, tenacity and a sense of adventure.
January 11, 2026 at 10:18 PM
bengardner87.bsky.social
Bob Weir is deserving of all the accolades that are pouring in for an extraordinary life well lived. Nobody did more to keep the Grateful Dead flame lit after the death of Jerry Garcia in 1995. Weir shouldered that burden with grit, tenacity and a sense of adventure.
January 11, 2026 at 10:18 PM
Reposted by Ben Gardner
bourgwick.bsky.social
safe travels to bobby weir in the greater weirdness.
Bobby Weir, perched in a window
January 10, 2026 at 11:45 PM
bengardner87.bsky.social
11.21.73 playing> el paso>playing>Wharf rat>playing #bobbyweir #ripbobby
January 11, 2026 at 6:12 AM
Reposted by Ben Gardner
raypadgett.bsky.social
Bob Dylan writing about Bob Weir in The Philosophy of Modern Song
January 11, 2026 at 12:34 AM
Reposted by Ben Gardner
joshsternberg.com
“There's a fear down here we can't forget
Hasn't got a name just yet
Always awake, always around
Singing, "Ashes, ashes all fall down" (ashes, ashes all fall down)”

youtu.be/7kHnoBnsY40?...
Grateful Dead - Throwing Stones (Oakland, CA 12/31/87)
YouTube video by Grateful Dead
youtu.be
January 10, 2026 at 11:46 PM
bengardner87.bsky.social
I like to think of Phil Lesh, Bobby Weir and Donna Jean-Godchaux crushing a Greatest Story Ever Told for all the Deadheads in heaven right now.
January 11, 2026 at 5:46 AM
bengardner87.bsky.social
Man, Bob Dylan and Miles Davis' estate paying tribute to Bob Weir tonight. Not bad. Not bad at all.
January 11, 2026 at 5:24 AM
Reposted by Ben Gardner
self.agency
the grateful dead is one of the great symbols of american freedom. not the semblance of freedom enshrined in the bill of rights that can be stripped away by the state, but true freedom that can be taken by no one—to explore and express one's mind, body, and soul uninhibited, to fly your freak flag.
January 11, 2026 at 2:13 AM
Reposted by Ben Gardner
bizarchive.bsky.social
Trey's thoughts on Bobby's passing
Trey and Bobby Trey's thoughts on Bobby's passing Trey's thoughts on Bobby's passing
January 11, 2026 at 2:17 AM
bengardner87.bsky.social
Okay it's the 2.15.73 Looks Like Rain that brought my first tears after Bob Weir's passing.
January 11, 2026 at 5:08 AM
bengardner87.bsky.social
Might listen to 4 different versions of New Minglewood Blues tonight. Bobby Weir grew into a rock and roll icon when he sang that song.
January 11, 2026 at 5:00 AM
bengardner87.bsky.social
Might write a lot of words about Bob Weir tomorrow morning.

For tonight, just listening and smiling,with a few tears as well.
January 11, 2026 at 4:07 AM
bengardner87.bsky.social
Did a little Bob Weir jukebox takeover.
January 11, 2026 at 4:05 AM
Reposted by Ben Gardner
radiator9987.bsky.social
Shit was tight

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEA5...
Grateful Dead - Help On The Way / Slipknot / Franklin's Tower / The Music Never Stopped (1976)
YouTube video by Wolfgang's Grateful Dead
www.youtube.com
January 11, 2026 at 1:55 AM
bengardner87.bsky.social
For any Deadheads, the Grateful Dead SiriusXM station is live with special coverage with Big Steve Parish, David Gans and Gary Lambert telling Bobby Weir stories.

Thanks for everything, Bobby. Fare thee well. May the four winds blow you safely home.
January 11, 2026 at 1:46 AM
bengardner87.bsky.social
I caught his album release party in Detroit a couple months ago, but I really regret not getting tickets for Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble in Ann Arbor tonight. He has to be taking the stage with a heavy heart tonight.
January 11, 2026 at 1:08 AM