Taulby Edmondson
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taulby.bsky.social
Taulby Edmondson
@taulby.bsky.social
2.9K followers 1.9K following 2.5K posts
US South & Appalachia. Research: historical & cultural memory; race & white nationalism. Most recently writing on Gone with the Wind, plantation tourism, and campus racism. Horror enthusiast. Sports watcher. Dad.
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taulby.bsky.social
Lol shut up
While squeezing as much life out of your device as possible may save money in the short run, especially amid widespread fears about the strength of the consumer and job market, it might cost the economy in the long run especially when device hoarding occurs at the level of corporations.
November 26, 2025 at 7:27 PM
taulby.bsky.social
My Pixel is way overdue for an upgrade but...
NYT Headline: AI is Making a Lot of Big Promises, but It Can't Even Identify My Cat Blurb: "Google's Al, Gemini, is being added to its smart-home products. Our writer tested it for three weeks in her own home and was both creeped out and annoyed."
November 26, 2025 at 7:24 PM
taulby.bsky.social
Let's all remember what Grokipedia is really for: white nationalist propaganda.

bsky.app/profile/taul...
Give this on Musk's Wikipedia competitor, Grokipedia, a read. I tried it quickly myself: the entry for causes of the American Civil War lists slavery behind other supposed causes such as tariffs and states' rights. There is more whitewashing wrt slavery, the Holocaust, and Jan. 6 in the piece
November 19, 2025 at 7:36 PM
taulby.bsky.social
"We began the war for the Union alone; but we had not gone far into its darkness before a new element was added to the conflict, which filled the army and the nation with cheerful but intense religious enthusiasm. In lessons that could not be misunderstood, the Nation was taught that God had linked to our own, the destiny of an enslaved race- that their liberty and our Union were indeed "one and inseparable." It was this that made the soul of John Brown the marching companion of our soldiers, and made them sing as they went down to battle- In the beauty of the lilies Chris was born, across the sea, With a glory in his bosom which transfigures you and me; As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free; While God is marching on."
November 12, 2025 at 12:59 AM
taulby.bsky.social
This is how Wikipedia starts out its coverage of the origins of the Civil War. This is not found in Grokipedia. Instead, the centrality of slavery is discussed alongside other "debated" causes. There's even a section debating whether Lincoln was an authoritarian.
The origins of the war were rooted in the desire of the Southern states to preserve the institution of slavery.[15] Historians in the 21st century overwhelmingly agree on the centrality of slavery in the conflict—at least for the Southern states. They disagree on the North's reasons for refusing to allow the Southern states to secede.[16] The pseudo-historical Lost Cause ideology denies that slavery was the principal cause of the secession, a view disproven by historical evidence, notably some of the seceding states' own secession documents.[17] After leaving the Union, Mississippi issued a declaration stating, "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world."[18][19] The principal political battle leading to Southern secession was over whether slavery would expand into the Western territories destined to become states.
November 3, 2025 at 8:46 PM
taulby.bsky.social
Win probably line graph showing the Blue Jays dominating the game and the Dodgers coming from behind late in the game. Toronto had a 91% projected chance to win in the top of the 9th.
November 2, 2025 at 4:22 AM
taulby.bsky.social
My 16 year old boy, Trigger, survived a very close call (unrelated to his age) and is coming home.
My cat Trigger, a brown tabby, recovering at the vet.
November 2, 2025 at 1:22 AM
taulby.bsky.social
Rumi's braid that my wife put way too much time into figuring out.
November 1, 2025 at 12:59 AM
taulby.bsky.social
The kids were K-pop Demon Hunters characters for Halloween. My wife always puts way too much effort into this.
A 6 year old dressed as Rumi (K-pop Demon Hunters) for Halloween. A 6 year old dressed as Rumi (K-pop Demon Hunters) for Halloween. A 2 year old dressed as Abby (K-pop Demon Hunters) for Halloween.
November 1, 2025 at 12:57 AM
taulby.bsky.social
The more things change...
In the mid-1880s the number of immigrants to the United States from northern and western Europe declined sharply. At the same time, the number of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe greatly increased. The changing pattern of immigration concerned many Americans who believed the newcomers represented, in the language of the time, inferior “races” of Europeans. The new immigrants were overwhelmingly non-Protestant Christians—either Roman Catholic or Orthodox—or Jewish and thus not Christian at all, which disturbed many Protestant Americans. This cartoon makes an ironic commentary on the children of immigrants rejecting the arrival of new immigrants.
October 29, 2025 at 11:40 PM
taulby.bsky.social
It's The Man in the High Castle cosplay. Bovino is only missing the armband and the hat.
Actor Rufus Sewell depicting a high ranking Nazi apparatchik in the show The Man in the High Castle. He is wearing a long black double breasted coat with a Nazi arm band. Actor Rufus Sewell depicting a high ranking Nazi apparatchik in the show The Man in the High Castle. He is wearing a long black double breasted coat with a Nazi hat.
October 28, 2025 at 4:52 PM
taulby.bsky.social
Of course.
"It took Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party to deal with the first scourge of slavery. And now it appears that it is again up to the Republican Party to deal with the contemporary counterpart," he wrote. "The question is: Is the Republican Party up to it this time?"
October 25, 2025 at 5:31 PM
taulby.bsky.social
You won't believe it but the "reclusive billionaire" bankrolling Trump during the shutdown is a major racist. He helpfully wrote down his thoughts on Black people in his autobiography.
In a self-published 2015 autobiography, Mellon called social safety net programs "Slavery Redux," adding: "For delivering their votes in the Federal Elections, they are awarded with yet more and more freebies: food stamps, cell phones, WIC payments, Obamacare, and on, and on, and on. The largess is funded by the hardworking folks, fewer and fewer in number, who are too honest or too proud to allow themselves to sink into this morass." He said Reagan "understood that people did best for themselves when shackled with the least amount of governmental constraints." "Something had obviously gone dreadfully wrong with the Great Society and the Liberal onslaught. Poor people had become no less poor. Black people, in spite of heroic efforts by the 'Establishment' to right the wrongs of the past, became even more belligerent and unwilling to pitch in to improve their own situations," Mellon wrote, describing his view of America during Reagan's 1984 reelection campaign. He continued: "Drugs rose to the level of epidemic. Single parent families became more and more prevalent. The likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton pandered endlessly to fan the flames." Two decades later, too many Americans are still relying on the government for help, he wrote. Mellon slammed the educational system for becoming beholden to teachers' unions, and wrote that "Black Studies, Women's Studies, LGBT Studies, they have all cluttered Higher Education with a mishmash of meaningless tripe designed to brainwash gullible young adults into going along with the Dependency Syndrome.
October 25, 2025 at 5:29 PM
taulby.bsky.social
Felt since millions of Democratic voters didn't show for the election that "average voters don't care about Gaza" was mostly a talking point generated by pro-genocide Democrats. Now it's cope, and something that contributed to mass murder.
"Pretty explicit disapproval of unlimited military aid to Israel and a lot of Dem voters believe Israel is conducting a genocide in Gaza."
October 19, 2025 at 8:28 PM
taulby.bsky.social
I heard 4-5k attended between Roanoke and the town of Christiansburg in Virginia. That is a good turnout in deep deep red district 9 down there.
Map showing the 2024 presidential election results by congressional district in Virginia. District 9 in southwestern Virginia is so dark red that it's burgundy.
October 19, 2025 at 2:45 AM
taulby.bsky.social
Redrawn map of Illinois with all districts blue.
October 15, 2025 at 6:05 PM
taulby.bsky.social
I've been beating this drum for years now, but it's very true. These are the aspiring leaders of the Republican Party and the conservative movement that fuels it.
October 14, 2025 at 6:06 PM
taulby.bsky.social
Absolutely no doubt about this.
I would bet that there are hundreds of academics and policy experts willing to help - ones with specialized knowledge that the Democratic establishment doesn't even know that it needs: in regime transitions, security- sector reform and demobilization, rebuilding civil society, and so on.
October 12, 2025 at 9:08 PM
taulby.bsky.social
This is also important to acknowledge, because "we can't bc norms and institutions" is an excuse for inaction. If you're scared that reform will hurt judicial legitimacy, know that the GOP already did that--they packed it.
And by this I mean that it should adopt the same kind of rhetoric - the same denial of legitimacy - that conservatives employed for decades prior to wresting supermajority control. Second, the filibuster has to go. Not only so that we have a chance of implementing the structural reforms we desperately need, but also because the future of constitutional democracy in the United States depends on shifting power to the legislative branch. We know that returning to the status quo ante won't stop the next Trump. We also need to recognize that no half-baked reform of the filibuster will prevent another McConnell from destroying the legislative branch.
October 12, 2025 at 9:04 PM
taulby.bsky.social
This is why I think it's important to frame necessary but radical changes to the republic as directly in line with the spirit of the original framing. The framers' revolutionary project was to prevent a tyrant via a system of democracy. That project has now failed, but we should continue the work.
The Republic as we knew it is over. The fight now is whether the new one will be a fascistic, competitive authoritarian regime or a pluralist democracy that, we can hope, is better than what came before. Even if you think restoration is possible, it's a bad idea. The Constitution has failed. Or, more accurately, the Constitutional order built out of the New Deal, the Second Reconstruction, and the repudiation of the Nixon presidency has failed. This is not a prediction. It's not a "if we continue on our current course." The Constitution as designed by the founders, was supposed to prevent the current regime. Its original guardrails did not work. The ones added after the Civil War did not work. The de facto amendments created by the accretion of judicial decisions did not work. The post-Watergate reforms did not work.
October 12, 2025 at 8:56 PM
taulby.bsky.social
Send my regards to the WSJ editorial team, and go ahead and look up the meaning behind the picture.
Johnny Cash flipping the bird while performing at San Quentin. He told the photographer it was for the warden.
October 10, 2025 at 1:18 AM
taulby.bsky.social
"AI isn’t going to wake up, become superintelligent and turn you into paperclips — but rich people with AI investor psychosis are almost certainly going to make you much, much poorer.”
Image clip reading: “The most important thing about AI isn’t its technical capabilities or limitations,” Doctorow concludes. “The most important thing is the investor story and the ensuing mania that has teed up an economical catastrophe that will harm hundreds of millions or even billions of people. AI isn’t going to wake up, become superintelligent and turn you into paperclips — but rich people with AI investor psychosis are almost certainly going to make you much, much poorer.”
October 4, 2025 at 8:06 PM
taulby.bsky.social
Jefferson Davis (quoting former AG Caleb Cushing) in his own arguments about socialism and abolition. Can't help but notice it reads as classic "slippery slope" and "outside agitator" warnings of socialism:
In fact, the European Socialists, who, in wild radicalism,.. correspondents of the American abolitionists, maintain the same doc- trine as to all property, that the abolitionists do as to slave property. He who has property, they argue, is the robber of him who has not. "La propriété, c'est le vol," is the famous theme of the Socialist, Proudhon. And the same precise theories of attack at the North on the slave property of the South would, if carried out to their legitimate and necessary logical consequences, and will, if successful in this, their first stage of action, superinduce attacks on all property, North and South.
September 24, 2025 at 6:05 PM
taulby.bsky.social
And it dates to slavery, when pro-slavery forces equated the abolition movement with socialism, or redistributing slaveholders' property. Here's arch slavery defender George Fitzhugh in 1857:
September 24, 2025 at 5:55 PM
taulby.bsky.social
Sam Davis is a lesser-known Confederate figure sanctified by the Lost Cause movement, but worth thinking about him. There is definitely a piece to be written about Kirk and Davis.
Brief description of the story of the martyrdom of Sam Davis: "Since he bore those marks, the martyred Sam Davis-the South's Nathan Hale-served as the ultimate model of the common warrior. In the young Tennessean, hanged by Union soldiers as a spy in 1864, veterans in gray found an emblem of valor, honor, and sacrifice that contained all their images of the Confederate fighting man. His last words, vowing his loyalty to his comrades and his refusal to inform on them, were compared to those of Jesus: "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." Described as one of God's "own instruments" who, "touched by the hand divine,... rose from the gallows to the crown," Sam Davis became another Confederate Christ."
September 22, 2025 at 1:43 AM