From The Great New England Vampire Panic:
Though scholars today still struggle to explain the vampire panics, a key detail unites them: The public hysteria almost invariably occurred in the midst of savage tuberculosis outbreaks….
“People find themselves in dire situations, where there’s no recourse through regular channels,” [Rhode Island folklorist Michael Bell] explains. “The folk system offers an alternative, a choice.” Sometimes, superstitions represent the only hope, he says.
In response to a ‘Dear Neighbor’ letter from a local millionaire, I’m setting the record straight. As we approach our annual town meeting, he is using misinformation to pressure the town into action. My open letter challenges his claims and highlights the truth.
[Post updated on April 11, 2025] In January, I tried to track Trump’s executive actions, but a handy website beat me to it. But with a new authoritarian at the helm, banal summaries don’t cut it. So now I’ve set up a ChatGPT task to do the heavy lifting: provide a brief analysis of each week’s presidential orders from a radical left perspective. No blind trust, no propaganda—just a bullshit detector for the modern age.