Jeffrey Dean
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jeffreyjdean.bsky.social
Jeffrey Dean
@jeffreyjdean.bsky.social
Music historian (15th–16th centuries), editor/book-designer/typesetter, Quaker; foreign-born naturalized British citizen; ally. He/him/his

NOT the Jeff Dean at Google, or the archeologist, or …

Fediverse: @JeffreyJDean@hcommons.social
Reposted by Jeffrey Dean
Studies of his six servants in the 1750s: masterful oil sketch by William Hogarth, who was born on this day in 1697.
November 10, 2025 at 7:36 PM
Reposted by Jeffrey Dean
Worth knowing the story behind a truly great song
November 10, 2025 at 7:49 PM
Reposted by Jeffrey Dean
Dorothy Vaughan | NASA mathematician, programmer & manager died #OTD in 2008

First Black female supervisor at NACA (precursor to NASA), expert programmer, Scout Launch Vehicle Program contributor & more. #WomenInSTEM

Learn more about this "Hidden Figure:" nasa.gov/people/dorot...
November 10, 2025 at 5:49 PM
Reposted by Jeffrey Dean
The reaction to the Panorama edit has been nothing short of hysterical. Yes the BBC has some impartiality problems. But its biggest isn't the one you think.

New piece from me.

open.substack.com/pub/goodalla...
The truth about impartiality at the BBC
And the hysteria of the current "crisis"
open.substack.com
November 10, 2025 at 7:22 PM
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It ys a such challenging, turbulent, scarye tyme. My greatest wisshe ys that you may fynde sum small moment of peace, delight, mirthe, pleasure, discoverye, connectioun, or fascinacioun that doth make yower day just a litel bettir. Ich wisshe thys for thee wyth all of myne hearte.
November 9, 2025 at 9:16 PM
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SUPERB and angrily unvarnished response, by former BBC chairman, Lord Patten.

"I don't think that we should allow ourselves to be bullied into thinking that the BBC is only any good, if it reflects the prejudice of the last person who shouted at it." ~AA
November 10, 2025 at 6:40 PM
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Charles Schulz letter to a young fan, 1970.
November 10, 2025 at 5:51 PM
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Well, that's quite a lucky shot!
November 10, 2025 at 3:35 PM
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Delightful detail from the Roman “unswept floor” mosaic by Heraclitus, showing a mouse nibbling a walnut.

Superb use of darker tiles for subtle shadow effect!

2nd century AD. Vatican Museums www.museivaticani.va/content/muse...

#MosaicMonday
#Archaeology
November 10, 2025 at 1:07 PM
Reposted by Jeffrey Dean
I *still* believe that the BBC is excellent, despite its ever growing list of flaws.

*When* it's sold off for parts future generations won't know what they missed
There are many subtle and complex arguments one can have about the future of the BBC — but I guarantee you that no other channel or streaming service will be as committed to factual programming, children’s education, history shows, religious discussion, poetry, arts, or state of the nation debate
November 10, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Reposted by Jeffrey Dean
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a call to overturn its landmark decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. https://to.pbs.org/4qSZcNU
Supreme Court rejects call to overturn decadeold same-sex marriage decision
The justices turned away an appeal from Kim Davis, the former Kentucky court clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after the high court's 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges...
www.pbs.org
November 10, 2025 at 3:06 PM
Reposted by Jeffrey Dean
OTD 50 years ago the Great Lakes Freighter Edmund Fitzgerald foundered and sank with all 29 crew lost; Gordon Lightfoot immortalized the tragedy in his 1976 song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, two versions of which are featured on today's @cfrcradio.bsky.social Dark Glasses at 2 pm.
November 10, 2025 at 4:04 PM
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If you've ever needed a reason to rally behind the BBC then this is it.
November 10, 2025 at 4:09 PM
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Mamdani created vision that shamed this cowardice: by having standards, and then showing everyone what his standards are, and then proving that he truly held those standards by standing for something without shame. This tapped into something powerful.

www.the-reframe.com/the-extraord...
The Extraordinary Power of Standing For Something
Winning by creating vision in the positive space of shared standards, and expertly negotiating the negative space of shame.
www.the-reframe.com
November 10, 2025 at 11:32 AM
Reposted by Jeffrey Dean
Whether life has a Deep Inside, whether existence has a Meaning we did not create & cannot control, is a first order issue, which goes to the very heart of our coherence as a community. Quakerism cannot be itself and be anything someone might want.
Liberal Quakers tend to frame their internal theological diversity as a jolly potluck: "our diversity is our strength." But at Meeting yesterday I experienced it as a crisis. Whether God exists or not makes a huge difference to our ability to be a community of hope. #Quaker #theology
November 10, 2025 at 10:32 AM
Reposted by Jeffrey Dean
COULD NOT AGREE MORE

Also, use sources in a way other than 'I don't like this and I'm going to rip it apart.' Citation is praxis. Cite what you love, give it credit, treat it with respect. We are all part of a long tradition.
My fellow trans people who write theory and articles, I am going to say this with love, but also bluntly. You need to cite your sources properly and in your theory books include a works cited/bibliography. It doesn't "make it less accessible for the average reader"-
November 10, 2025 at 11:37 AM
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The blazing cowardice of the centre-right:

“Men go through life telling themselves a moment must come when they will show what they're made of. And the moment comes, and they do show. And they spend the rest of their days explaining that was neither the moment nor the true self.”

Shirley Hazzard
no matter what the circumstances, democrats are always saving their energy for a mythical future situation where they will do something good
November 10, 2025 at 9:17 AM
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Yesterday too bad to describe.
November 10, 2025 at 9:15 AM
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Some excellent work from our friends at the National Archives at Kew - improved archival catalogues help everyone!
November 10, 2025 at 9:38 AM
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Love this so much.
Hoping this helps our colleagues across the industry
November 10, 2025 at 9:07 AM
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And a good time to remind ourselves that everything we receive in any form of media is the result of some editorial decision.
Once every 20 years or so, the director-general of the BBC is forced to resign for being insufficiently rightwing. Alastair Milne in 1987. Greg Dyke in 2004. Tim Davie in 2025. The great irony is that the BBC was in all cases profoundly biased towards established power. But just not biased enough …
November 10, 2025 at 9:37 AM
Reposted by Jeffrey Dean
Without wanting to stick my oar in too far:

It's possible to recognise that we have a higher standard of living now than in the past and *also* to believe that inequitable distribution is wrong and that widespread precarity for everyone but the very rich should be fought tooth and nail.
November 10, 2025 at 9:17 AM
Reposted by Jeffrey Dean
Kinder, Kirche, Küche.

Because "basic biology".

Welcome to the (nineteen) twenties.
Who had "biology is destiny, after all" on their feminist bingo card? The answer is "no one," because it's the complete antithesis of everything feminism stands for. And if that isn't obvious enough, just look at who's pushing it: every authoritarian fascist in the world, without exception.
As a cis woman I’m actually super stoked to uncouple the concept of fecundity from the concept of cis woman & given that feminism has been trying to do this exact thing for decades (centuries?) it’s baffling to see ‘feminists’ being like ‘no ACKTUALLY women ARE defined by their ability to reproduce’
November 10, 2025 at 9:28 AM
Reposted by Jeffrey Dean
The BBC feeling this today
November 10, 2025 at 8:56 AM