Readings on gender, on higher education, and on everything else – with some sports at the end.

• “We’re Here, We’re Queer, We’re African.“
• Interlopers on Social Media: Feminism, Women of Color, and Oppression.
• On Twitter Feminism and Being Called Out.
• “Are transgender people only newsworthy when they are in prison, brutalized or dead?“
• On Jay-Z, Beyoncé, and Anna Mae.
• Online Harassment Isn’t Virtual For Women.
• Why Women aren’t Welcome on the Internet:

But no matter how hard we attempt to ignore it, this type of gendered harassment—and the sheer volume of it—has severe implications for women’s status on the Internet. Threats of rape, death, and stalking can overpower our emotional bandwidth, take up our time, and cost us money through legal fees, online protection services, and missed wages. I’ve spent countless hours over the past four years logging the online activity of one particularly committed cyberstalker, just in case. And as the Internet becomes increasingly central to the human experience, the ability of women to live and work freely online will be shaped, and too often limited, by the technology companies that host these threats, the constellation of local and federal law enforcement officers who investigate them, and the popular commentators who dismiss them—all arenas that remain dominated by men, many of whom have little personal understanding of what women face online every day.

• Dr. Seuss Explains Assessment, Metrics, Administrative Blight, and Pretty Much Every Aspect of Contemporary Education System.
• Thank God for Skype: How Graduate Students Built the MLA Subconference.
• Tenured Bosses and Disposable Teachers.
• Shared Governance, Tenure, and Academic Freedom are Worth the Trouble.
• Who’s the Boss?
• Big Bonuses for University Presidents.
• What’s the Point of Academic Publishing?
• Even PhDs with Full Funding Have Huge Amounts of Debt.
• How the Government Could Make College Free for Everyone:

Tuition at public colleges came to $62.6 billion in 2012, according to the latest government data. That’s less than what the government already spends to subsidize the cost of collegethrough grants, tax breaks, and work-study funds, which comes to about $69 billion. It spends another $107.4 billion on student loans.

That means that with the money it already spends to make college affordable, the government could instead subsidize public college tuition, thereby making it free for all students. This would not just mean anyone could attend a higher education institution without worrying about cost, but it could incentivize private ones to reduce their costs in order to compete with the free option.

• How Colorado Disrupted the Drug War.
• The Anxiety of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway.
• Republicans Just Won the Food Stamp War.
• In the Name of Love, on the mantra of “do what you love.”
• Empire Down, on the absence of class struggle in Age of Empires II.
• Why are the Poor and Minorities Less Likely to Vote?
• How Cops Became Soldiers.
• Executioners’ Testimony Casts Dark Shadow:

The Chaplain said, “I’ve had several of them where [I’m] watching their last breath go from their bodies and their eyes never unfix from mine. I mean actually lock together. And I can close my eyes now and see those eyes. My feelings and my emotions are extremely intense at that time. I’ve never … I’ve never really been able to describe it. And I guess in a way I’m kind of afraid to describe it. I’ve never really delved into that part of my feelings yet.”

One warden said, “You’ll never hear another sound like a mother wailing when she is watching her son be executed. There’s no other sound like it. It is just this horrendous wail. It’s definitely something you won’t ever forget.”

• League of Extraordinary Gentleman, on football’s head injuries and deep play.
• The Politics in Your Superbowl.
• The Epic Battle to Save the Most Offensive Team Name in America.