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Llanthony Priory, Vally of the Honddu, Wales, UK, from a 1905 photograph.
The priory was built around 1200 by Augustinian monks, but was closed at the Dissolution in the 16th century, and fell into a ruin; it was partly reused as a farm.
Process: Rembrandt Photogravure.
https://www.fromoldbooks.org/Cassell-TheBritishIsles/pages/v2s2-000-frontispiece-llanthony-priory/
#ruins #abbey #priory #llanthony #llanthonyPriory #Welsh #wales #vintagePhotograph #hills #cows #romanticRuin #fromOldBooks
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Llanthony Priory, Vally of the Honddu, Wales, UK, from a 1905 photograph.
The priory was built around 1200 by Augustinian monks, but was closed at the Dissolution in the 16th century, and fell into a ruin; it was partly reused as a farm.
Process: Rembrandt Photogravure.
https://www.fromoldbooks.org/Cassell-TheBritishIsles/pages/v2s2-000-frontispiece-llanthony-priory/
#ruins #abbey #priory #llanthony #llanthonyPriory #Welsh #wales #vintagePhotograph #hills #cows #romanticRuin #fromOldBooks
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Llanthony Priory, Vally of the Honddu, Wales, UK, from a 1905 photograph.
The priory was built around 1200 by Augustinian monks, but was closed at the Dissolution in the 16th century, and fell into a ruin; it was partly reused as a farm.
Process: Rembrandt Photogravure.
https://www.fromoldbooks.org/Cassell-TheBritishIsles/pages/v2s2-000-frontispiece-llanthony-priory/
#ruins #abbey #priory #llanthony #llanthonyPriory #Welsh #wales #vintagePhotograph #hills #cows #romanticRuin #fromOldBooks
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Llanthony Priory, Vally of the Honddu, Wales, UK, from a 1905 photograph.
The priory was built around 1200 by Augustinian monks, but was closed at the Dissolution in the 16th century, and fell into a ruin; it was partly reused as a farm.
Process: Rembrandt Photogravure.
https://www.fromoldbooks.org/Cassell-TheBritishIsles/pages/v2s2-000-frontispiece-llanthony-priory/
#ruins #abbey #priory #llanthony #llanthonyPriory #Welsh #wales #vintagePhotograph #hills #cows #romanticRuin #fromOldBooks
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Llanthony Priory, Vally of the Honddu, Wales, UK, from a 1905 photograph.
The priory was built around 1200 by Augustinian monks, but was closed at the Dissolution in the 16th century, and fell into a ruin; it was partly reused as a farm.
Process: Rembrandt Photogravure.
https://www.fromoldbooks.org/Cassell-TheBritishIsles/pages/v2s2-000-frontispiece-llanthony-priory/
#ruins #abbey #priory #llanthony #llanthonyPriory #Welsh #wales #vintagePhotograph #hills #cows #romanticRuin #fromOldBooks
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Always remember: Never compare yourself to others. Your gifts and your talents are like no one else's. You're unique with your own story to tell. No one can tell it better than you whether it's through art, a book, a game, or a song. Let nothing or no one discourage you. Keep pressing on.
https://youtu.be/Ck_NtgGFzkY?si=tAHv1SKFJpbEHv7A
#boost #music #songs #motivation #stories #Wednesday #wednesdaywisdom #positive #positivevibes #GamingCommunity #WritingCommunity #art #CassElliot #cass -
Avui, #DiaInternacionalDeLesDones vull retre homenatge a algunes de les dones que he conegut en els meus viatges.
A #Kafountine (#Senegal) les dones són les mariscadores. Cada matí, passen hores i hores al mar en aquesta posició per aconseguir mig omplir la cistella.
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Presented at Royal Sussex County Hospital on my (Brighton and Sussex Medical School) work with forest communities in #papuanewguinea co-planning & introducing health services into indigenous-led conservation collaborations: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11625-020-00805-x. The tool-kit we developed for combined clinical and rapid anthropological assessments with parallel treatment of urgent cases is available free for wider use ( https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/10/e041784) & I am always happy to chat with people who may find the methodologies we developed helpful in their own work.
Thanks go out to my amazing group of interdisciplinary co-investigators from institutions in the UK, PNG, & Czech Republic: Jackie Cassell, Gavin Colthart, Francesca Dem, James Fairhead, Michael Head, Dr Moses Laman, Hayley MacGregor, Vojtech Novotny, Mika Peck, Willie Pomuat, João Inácio, Steve Walker, & Alan J Stewart.
#epidemiology #planetaryhealth #remotemedicine #biodiversityconservation #globalhealth #primarycare #tropicalmedicine #rainforests #indigenoushealth #medicalanthropology
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The thread about Mackintosh of Borlum; one adventurer’s bungling attempts to take Edinburgh and Leith in the Jacobite rising of 1715
This thread was originally written and published in July 2019.
The year is 1715 and over in France, James Francis Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender, is plotting once again to try and regain the Stuart Crown, which would make him King James VIII of Scotland and III of England and Ireland.
James Francis Edward Stuart. The “Old Pretender”In London, Scottish noble and politician John Erskine, Earl of Mar, jumps the gun. He returns to Scotland from serving the Hanoverian government and raises the Jacobite standard at Braemar on September 6th. He was nicknamed “Bobbing John” for the frequency with which he would change sides.
John Erskine, Earl of MarDrawn to Mar’s rising is one William Mackintosh( the younger) of Borlum. The Mackintoshes of Borlum were minor Scottish landowners, relations of Lachlan Mor, 16th Chief of Clan Mackintosh.
William Mackintosh the Younger of Borlum, as a colonel in French service, c. 1707. From “Brigadier Mackintosh of Borlum, Jacobite Hero and Martyr”, A. M. Mackintosh, 1918Borlum was raised and educated in Aberdeen. Not much is known of this part of his life but he does seem to have been at (or hanging around) Oxford University and he did marry an English lady there. So at the very least he was important enough to be ingratiated into society. Sometime around 1688, Borlum found himself in the service of the French Army. As a Jacobite sympathiser it was logical that he may have left his adopted home to fight for its enemy because of the Glorious Revolution which ended the Stuart line that year.
King William II (III of England) accepting the Declaration of Rights in 1689We lose track of Borlum until around 1698 when he returned to Inverness-shire as a seemingly successful career soldier; Brigadier Borlum. With this he gets himself a “commission of fire and sword” from the Privy Council and a Commission of Supply from the Scottish Parliament; fundamentally he is to enforce the law, as he sees fit, on the behalf of the crown, and collect taxes on its behalf too. We pick up his trail again in 1714 when he is acting as an agent on behalf the Old Pretender, trying to persuade Clan Mackintosh and its forces to take the Jacobite side in any future rising. And when Mar raises the standard in Braemar the following year, the Mackintoshes were there front and centre.
A romantic Edwardian interpretation of the raising of the Jacobite standard at Braemar. From “Cassell’s History of England”, 1906However the rising was handicapped by its leader, Bobbing John, who was anything but a competent military strategist. The 1715 will become characterised by his indecisiveness and poor decision making. In October, Mar and the Mackintoshes, formed into a battalion of 13 companies, were at Perth, as is Borlum. Mar wants to encourage the Jacobites in the south of Scotland and north of England to rise and join the cause, so hits on the idea of sending a raid into the Lothians to capture Edinburgh. The eager and seemingly competent Borlum is put in charge of this mission.
The forces assigned to him were 2,500 men in 6 regiments; Strathmore’s, Mar’s (including the Farquharsons), Logie Drummond’s, Nairne’s, Lord Charles Murray’s and the Mackintosh’s. All except Strathmore’s Fifers were of the Gàidhealtachd – Gaelic-speaking highlanders.
Jacobites leaders of the 1715 deliberate which way to go. From British Battles on Land and Sea, by James GrantIt’s not clear what the precise orders or plans given to Borlum were. He may have just been given the gist of Mar’s idea and left to get on with it. But all along the East Neuk of Fife he had fishing boats rounded up and impounded as transport for a cross-Firth raid. The 11th and 12th of October were chosen for departure; you can imagine the prospect of crossing the Forth in small, open boats; a distance of some 18-20 miles from the East Neuk; in the dark, at the start of winter. Unsurprisingly, things didn’t start well. Strathmore’s regiment ended up marooned on the Isle of May. The Excisemen of Leith, patrolling in their cutter, picked up 40 of them men and arrested them. Other boats were driven back to Fife by the weather.
But somehow or another 1,500 men, including all of Borlum’s Mackintoshes, managed to make the Lothian coast. But they were scattered miles from Edinburgh and he now had to waste time rounding up his forces between Haddington and Tranent. On the morning of October 14th, Borlum took a roll call and then marched rapidly west for Edinburgh, striking out while the iron was hot (ish) but before any of the forces he left behind in Fife could catch up and join him. He was to have been reinforced by Haddingtonshire (East Lothian) Jacobites under George Seton, the 5th Earl of Winton, but the authorities had foreseen this and “invited” Seton to appear before them in Edinburgh. When he refused and called out his men, they arrived with Dragoons and thoroughly ransacked the family seat. He had to scatter, and ended up joining with other Jacobites later on in Kelso.
George Seton, 5th Earl of Winton.By now, Borlum’s situation was as follows; at least 1/3 of his men were missing, he was days behind schedule, his reinforcements were non-existent and his arrival was forewarned. But despite all this, our hero was not to be discouraged and pressed on with the mission and towards Edinburgh. In his task of capturing the city, he is to be assisted by Major Thomas Arthur, who had a month previously with his brother tried to take the castle by surprise for the Jacobites. This raid had been something of a farce, let down by a drunk or double-crossing carpenter who had arrived late with assault ladders which were 6 feet too short and by impetuous (and drunk) youths who talked too loud in a tavern and gave the game away.
The Arthurs’ assault on Edinburgh Castle is foiled by ladders that are too short. From a contemporary engraving in the collection of the NLS. CC-BY 4.0But there is a snag with Thomas Arthur’s assistance however as he happens to be stuck on the wrong side of the Forth, having been on one of the boats that turned back. So when Borlum arrives at Jock’s Lodge on the outskirts of Edinburgh, he does not have his inside man with him. This is doubly unfortunate as apparently the company of local volunteers holding the Bristo Port (the south gate to the city) were Jacobites to a man and were keeping the gates unlocked and their weapons trained the “wrong” way. Borlum could have walked right into the city, but of this intelligence he knew nothing.
Early 18th century military map of Edinburgh and Leith. Borlum approached Edinburgh from the east (right), arriving at Jock’s Lodge. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandEnter stage right one Alexander Malloch of Moultriehill. Moultriehill, or Multree’s Hill, is the higher ground to the north of the Old Town of Edinburgh, between the present day Picardy Place and St. Andrew Square. Malloch is a Jacobite and convinces Borlum that the town is “crowded with armed militia” and that reinforcements of regular government soldiers under John Campbell, Duke of Argyle, are expected imminently.
John Campbell, 2nd Duke of ArgyllSo instead of pressing on west into Edinburgh, which he believes on Malloch’s advice to be a trap, Borlum turns north instead for Leith. He walks into the undefended town without a shot being fired and takes the Tolbooth; the main civic building, which included jail facilities. Here he finds and liberates the 40-odd men (minus their officers) that had been captured by the Excisemen on the Isle of May.
Leith Tolbooth. From “The Story of Leith” by John Russell, 1887.Having freed his men, this called for a celebration and so Borlum’s forces took the Customs House too and liberate the quantities of wines and spirits located within. Devoid of any real plan, Borlum finds Cromwell’s 60-year old Citadel in better repair than anyone imagined and so holds up there behind the remains of its walls and bastions. The missing gates are barricaded shut, ships cannons are requisitioned as defensive firepower and supplies (inevitably including more drink) are gathered.
“The Ruins of the Cittadell” from John Naish’s survey and map of Leith of 1709. This shows just how complete the walls around the 1650s fortifications still were 60 years later. Crown Copyright, MPHH 1/32It seems that Malloch was right about Argyle’s reinforcements however; the general was indeed on his way and the next morning he arrives outside the Citadel with 2 squadrons of cavalry; 2 companies of The Earl of Forfar’s Foot; 300 volunteers of the Edinburgh Regiment; 650 other militia and for good measure; and the Edinburgh Town Guard, who had been most insistent on coming along.
John Kay’s caricature of Shon Dow (John Dubh or Black), an Edinburgh guardsman. Mainly elderly, Gaelic-speaking, ex-soldiers they either weren’t Jacobite sympathisers or were just up for a fight.Argyle too was surprised to find The Citadel to be quite such a sturdy defence, with Borlum well dug in behind its walls. This poses both sides a problem; Argyle has brought no artillery to attack the walls, but Borlum has little gunpowder. So Argyle draws his men up outside the Citadel‘s wals, well within the range of a musket shot, and challenges the Jacobites to surrender. Borlum in response laughs and taunts Argyle, but cannot fire upon his men. The sensible Argyle sees he has no reason to risk his forces and make an assault that will likely cost him heavily and so turns about for Edinburgh to summon his artillery. Borlum is also sensible – he realises that when Argyle returns with his fire support that he cannot hope to hold out and so under cover of darkness and at the low tide, his men sneak out of The Citadel, ford the Water of Leith and skirt round the north of the town along the beach. For some reason the 40 men freed from the Tolbooth are left behind (possibly because they are officer-less and can’t or won’t join one of regiments formed of the other clans). Abandoned in Leith, they make the best of a bad situation and occupy themselves with the remains of the Custom House.
Borlum’s Jacobites, probably down to 1,000-odd men by now, sneak along the coast as far as Musselburgh, at which point they encounter the militia of the Honest Toun and a brief and ineffective firefight ensues. Once again his presence has been given away, so they simply bypass Musselburgh and press on east. The encounter has made them alert to the prospect of chasing forces and when a horseman is spotted on the road somewhere near Prestonpans he is challenged by an advanced party of Borlum’s men. However the challenge is apparently issued in Gaelic and the horseman can’t understand the Highlanders (and neither they him) and so just to be sure be sure he is shot. Alas, the body is found to be Alexander Malloch of Moultrieshill, who had set out on his own initiative to find and help Borlum.
Shortly afterwards, more men are discovered on the road and just to be sure, they are given the shoot first, ask questions later treatment too. Alackady, those bodies are found to be Borlum’s own scouting party, heading back to report after checking the route ahead of the main column. Things really weren’t going well. Borlum’s flight from Leith ends at Seton House, home of the Earl of Winton. But he finds no warm welcome as the Laird had already departed and the government Dragoons have turned the place over.
Seton House by Francis Grose. CC-by-NC National Galleries ScotlandA brief attempt was made by Borlum to regroup at Seton house but Argyle has dispatched General Wightman (victor at Glenshiel in the 1719 Jacobite uprising) who is on his way. Finding the position indefensible, once more Borlum melts away into the night. He marches south for Kelso where he hopes to find the other Jacobites, but finds that the Earl of Winton and the Haddingtonshire Jacobites had fallen out with their Northumbrian “allies” and had retreated to Perth to join the main body of the Earl of Mar’s forces. And so Borlum joins up with the Northumbrians and seals his fate alongside the other Scottish Jacobites who enter England to support the rising there. Like most of his kin he is captured after surrendering to vastly superior forces at Preston. He and the other leaders are spirited south to London to stand trial for high treason.
The Jacobites surrendering to General Wills at Preston. © Harris Museum & Art GalleryBorlum is held at Newgate to await sentencing, but he and his compatriots manage to overcome and disarm the guards, knock through a wall and fourteen others escape into the maze that is 18th century London. Escaping with Borlum is the leader of the English Jacobites, Thomas Forster. There is a theory that the escape was all too convenient and that Forster was a turncoat; his surrender at Preston betrayed his cause and was connived with the Government
Thomas Forster, by John Taylor Wedgewood. CC-by-NC National Galleries ScotlandDespite the £500 bounty on his head, Borlum slips out of London. Apparently the mob romanticised him as some sort of noble Highland hero, and ballads were composed in his honour. Note the last line.
Mackintosh is a soldier brave,
And did most gallantly behave,
When into Northumberland he came
With gallant men of his own name.Then Mackintosh until Wills he came,
Saying “I have been a soldier in my time,
And ere a Scot of mine shall yield,
We’ll all lie dead upon the field.”Mackintosh is a gallant soldier,
Whit his musket over his shoulder,
“Every true man point his rapier,
But damn you, Forster, you are a traitor”Brigadier Mackintosh of Borlum makes it successfully to France and joins the other Jacobite exiles there. But ever true to the cause, he declines to stay on in the relative safety of France and returns instead to Scotland to take part in the even less successful rising of 1719. He is at the Battle of Glen Shiel when his old pursuer, the efficient General Wightman, snuffs out the rising by introducing the Highland army to mortar fire.
The Battle of Glenshiel in 1719.On the run yet again, Borlum heads for Caithness and hides out in the hills for a while. But he is soon apprehended and is taken to Edinburgh. Despite by now being an old man he is thrown into solitary confinement at the castle, where he lives out his days. How solitary his imprisonment actually was seems to be debatable as he is apparently engaging with Edinburgh society at this time. And so ends the tale of our unlucky adventurer; spends the last 25-odd years in captivity. Too important to let go and not important enough to be worth pardoning in exchange for loyalty. He departed this world aged 85 of decay* on the 11th January 1743 at the age of 80.
Old Parish register for the Canongate showing the record of the death of William Mackintosh of Borlum.* – decay was used to records deaths due to unknown causes, usually old age.
Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.
If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.Explore Threadinburgh by map:
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If you see this after your page is loaded completely, leafletJS files are missing.These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.
NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret -
“Indifference to Practically Everything But Rhyme”: the thread about William McGonagall’s elegy to Leith
“A classic example of his indifference to practically everything but rhyme“; the withering summary by an Edinburgh Evening News journalist in 2002 when recalling the work The Ancient Town of Leith by the poet and tragedian William McGonagall (or as he liked to style himself later in life; Sir William Topaz McGonagall, Knight of the White Elephant of Burmah). Sir William is a man most associated with the city of Dundee, but was born and would die in Edinburgh and is fondly remembered for his prolific output of universally awful poetry. In the words of Hugh McDiarmid:
Close up of the title of the printed poem, including McGonagall’s signature.McGonagall is in a very special category, and has it all to himself.
According to his biography by Norman Watson, McGonagall and his wife returned to Edinburgh via Leith in May 1895. Inspired by his new surroundings – and by his perpetual lack of money – he immediately got to work churning out locally-themed broadsides such as “Beautiful Edinburgh“, “New North Bridge Ceremonials” or “Lines In Praise of Professor Blackie“. These he attempted to hawk on the streets to make ends meet and to try and get himself invited into the parlours of polite (and hopefully, paying) society. By the time he penned The Ancient Town of Leith the McGonagalls were resident at 21 Lothian Street (demolished in 1912 to make way for an extension to the Royal Scottish Museum) and his health, finances and reputation were all in terminal decline.
Without further ado, let us take a few minutes to distract ourselves from modern life and enjoy this stellar example of “Sir” William’s absolute commitment to his craft:
THE ANCIENT TOWN OF LEITH
A New Poem
By Sir WILLIAM TOPAZ McGONAGALL
Knight of the White Elephant, Burmah
Leith Town Hall and Courthouse. 1829 engraving by J. Henshall after Thomas Hosmer Shepherd. From the Edinburgh and Scottish Collection of Edinburgh City Libraries.Ancient town of Leith, most wonderful to be seen,
With your many handsome buildings, and lovely links so
green,
And the first buildings I may mention are the Courthouse and
Town-Hall,
Also Trinity House, and the Sailors’ Home of Call.
Engraving from Leith Miscellany Vol. 1, The Edinburgh Dock, Leith. Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.Then as for Leith Fort, it was erected in 1779, which is really
grand,
And which is now the artillery headquarters in Bonnie Scot-
land;
And as for the Docks, they are magnificent to see,
They comprise five docks, two piers, 1,141 yards long
respectively.
Illustration of the “Chancelot Roller Flour Mill” in Leith, 1910And there’s steamboat communication with London and the
North of Scotland,
And the fares are really cheap and the accommodation most
grand;
Then there’s many public works in Leith, such as flour mills,
And chemical works, where medicines are made for curing
many ills.
Leith, 1881, by Telemaco Signorini. The Kirkgate Provision Store stood on the corner of the Kirkgate and St Anthony Street, now the location of the Lidl supermarket.Besides, there are sugar refineries and distilleries,
Also engineer works, saw-mills, rope-works, and breweries,
Where many of the inhabitants are daily employed,
And the wages they receive make their hearts feel overjoyed.
“Incident in the Siege of Leith“, engraving from British Battles on Land and Sea, Vol. I, by James Grant and published by Cassells in 1880In past times Leith shared the fortunes of Edinboro’,
Because if withstood nine months’ siege, which caused them
great sorrow;
They fought against the Protestants in 1559 and in ’60,
But they beat them back manfully and made them flee.
1892, landing fish for sale at Newhaven. Photograph by John McKean. Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.Then there’s Bailie Gibson’s fish shop, most elegant to be seen,
And the fish he sells there are, beautiful and clean;
And for himself, he is a very good man,
And to deny it there’s few people can.
Lady Fife’s House, or Hermitage House, photograph of a painting hanging in Leith LibraryThe suburban villas of Leith are elegant and grand,
With accommodation that might suit the greatest lady in the land;
And the air is pure and good for the people’s health,—
And health, I’m sure, is better by far than wealth.
“The First International Foursome”, a game of golf reputed to have taken place in 1682 on Leith Links between a pair of English Gentleman and a pair of Scots, one of whom was one James Stuart, Duke of York (later King James VII and II). 1919 Lithograph after Allan StewartThe Links of Leith are beautiful for golfers to play,
After they have finished the toils of the day;
It is good for their health to play at golf there,
On that very beautiful green, and breathe the pure air.
Martello Tower, Leith, Low Water by Robert Norie, 1830s. Edinburgh City MuseumsThe old town of Leith is situated at the junction of the River of
Leith,
Which springs from the land of heather and heath;
And no part in the Empire is growing so rapidly,
Which the inhabitants of Leith are right glad to see.
Photograph of a banner from 1920 which reads “Leith for Ever!” We protest Against Amalgamation. Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.And Leith in every way is in itself independent,
And has been too busy to attend to its own adornment;
But I venture to say and also mention
That the authorities to the town will pay more attention.
Catching up on the news at the Foot of the Walk, outside Woolies in Leith, July 1985. © The Scotsman Publications Ltd, via ScranAncient town of Leith, I must now conclude my muse,
And to write in praise of thee my pen does not refuse,
Because the inhabitants to me have been very kind,
And I’m sure more generous people would be hard to find.
Oil painting, “The Poet William McGonagall (1830–1902)” by William Bradley Lamond (1857–1924). Dundee Art Galleries and Museums Collection (Dundee City Council) via ArtUKThey are very affable in temper and void of pride,
And I hope God will always for them provide;
May He shower His blessings upon them by land and sea,
Because they have always been very kind to me.William McGonagall, “The Poet Laureate of the Silvery Tay” died penniless and largely forgotten at 5 South College Street in Edinburgh in 1902 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Greyfriars’ Kirkyard. A plaque marks the approximate spot, but was not erected until 1999. If you’d like to own this original, signed copy of this magnificent work then it is currently up for auction next week by Lyon & Turnbull: bidding start at only two-hundred and twenty of your hard-earned pounds!
McGonagall’s memorial in Greyfriars’ Kirkyard. CC-by-SA 2.0, Lisa via WikimediaNote to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.
If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.Explore Threadinburgh by map:
Travelers' Map is loading...
If you see this after your page is loaded completely, leafletJS files are missing.These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.
NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret -
Researcher’s Corner: The current state of female representation in library leadership in the U.S.
Here’s another piece of research that addresses something commonly held to be true, and in this case provides support for what we “know”: Women are underrepresented in library leadership positions. I’m pleased to be able to share with you statistical analysis by Daniel McGeeney. He uses a large sample size and discusses this trend across library types.
I think you will find the following post very interesting, and if you’d like to read more, see the following citation:
McGeeney, J. D. (2025). The Current State of Female Representation in Library Leadership: A Comprehensive Analysis of Over 13,000 Open U.S. Libraries by Library Type, Collection Size, and State. Journal of Library Administration, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2025.2518008
A preprint is available here: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/3jauw_v1
Women made up 82.5% of librarians as of 2023 according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (U.S. Census Bureau, 2024a), but they are underrepresented in leadership positions (McGeeney, 2025). This issue has received a lot of research attention, leading to extremely informative studies like “Leveling Up: Women Academic Librarians’ Career Progression in Management Positions” by Lorelei Rutledge (2020). Unequal pay, gendered expectations, and lack of mentorship are some of the underlying causes. Rutledge heard from female librarians who described instances when their male bosses excluded them from social events, when male employees were groomed for director positions, and when their decisions and errors were subjected to a higher level of scrutiny (2020). Women who try to overcome the stereotype of men as natural leaders often violate gender norms, which they may be penalized for (Heilman, Wallen, Fuchs, & Tamkins, 2004). This aligns with the experiences of women who reported being told to be friendlier, to smile more often, or to be less assertive (Rutledge, 2020).
Controlled psychological experiments show evidence of unequal standards in hiring practices. Player, de Moura, Leite, Abrams, & Tresh (2019) conducted a hiring simulation and found that participants placed more value on leadership potential than performance when evaluating male candidates. Women, on the other hand, were expected to demonstrate their competency rather than simply showing potential. This reluctance to view women as possessing leadership potential has been observed in other studies. In a large retrospective study of 29,809 management-track employees, women consistently received lower ratings for their leadership potential than men—even when they had received higher job performance ratings (Benson, Li, & Shue, 2024).
Goals and Methods
Other studies have measured the gender gap in library leadership, but they often rely on samples with limited size or representativeness. In my recent study (McGeeney, 2025), I set out to estimate the gender gap from a very large sample spanning all 50 states and library types. Using publicly available data on Library Technology Guides, I identified 13,891 library directors working at 13,870 distinct U.S. libraries that were still open at the time of analysis (Breeding, 2024). Each library director was assigned their most likely sex based on their first name. Specifically, I calculated the probability that each director’s name was assigned to male versus female at birth using (a) first name frequencies on birth certificates by age and sex, (b) survival rates by age and sex, and (c) job distributions by age and sex. The input data for this work included first name frequency files (U.S. Social Security Administration, n.d.-a), survival rates (U.S. Social Security Administration, n.d.-b), and U.S. Census data on employment (U.S. Census Bureau, 2024b).
Results
I found that women are underrepresented in leadership positions at four of the five library types (McGeeney, 2025). At academic libraries, women make up 76% of librarians but only 68% of directors. At school libraries, women make up 93% of librarians but only 82% of directors. At special libraries, women make up 70% of librarians but only 65% of directors. At government libraries, women make up 82% of librarians but only 68% of directors. The gender gap is the difference between these two values.
Library Type% of Library Directors that are Women% of Librarians that are WomenGender GapMale-to-Female Director ProbabilityAcademic67.7% (65.9%, 69.4%)75.9%-8.2%150.6%Public83.8% (83.0%, 84.5%)81.1%+2.7%83.3%School82.3% (79.7%, 84.7%)93.0%-10.7%285.5%Special64.5% (61.6%, 67.4%)70.1%-5.5%128.6%Government67.5% (58.3%, 75.8%)82.2%-14.7%221.8%As the table shows, women are slightly overrepresented in public library leadership by 2.7 percentage points, but this may not be true at larger libraries. The study reports that the female director percentage decreases exponentially with size (McGeeney, 2025). The smallest libraries in the sample have over 90% of director positions held by women. At the largest libraries, that figure is less than two-thirds. The exponential decay trend persists when restricting the analysis to public libraries only or academic libraries only.
The last column in the table converts the overall gender gap into a person-level metric. It answers the question: how much more likely is an individual male librarian than an individual female librarian to be director? In a school library, a male librarian’s chances of being director are almost three times that of a female librarian. In a public library (at the other end of the spectrum), an individual male librarian’s chances of being director are 83.3% that of a female librarian (McGeeney, 2025).
One way to dig deeper into these results is to ask, “who hires the library director?” For public libraries, local government typically appoints an external board (e.g., a board of trustees, advisory board, or oversight board), which has the primary responsibility of hiring a library director. On average, these boards are more male dominated than public libraries themselves (Jonason, Green, Kinard, Cruz-Solano, & Rathnavel, 2024). An even larger imbalance may exist in colleges and universities, which tend to have male-dominated upper leadership. For instance, a 2023 report found that only 32.8% of college and university presidents are female (Melidona, Cecil, Cassell, & Chessman, 2023). If female candidates for leadership roles are evaluated disproportionately by men, then this could contribute to their underrepresentation as directors (McGeeney, 2025).
My hope for this study is that it supports ongoing research into the patterns behind and causes of these gender gaps. To that end, there are many other areas to explore. Future research could dedicate more effort into investigating which Census datasets provide the best comparison, assessing trends over time, inspecting how well the Census industries map to library types, quantifying the uncertainty of Census-based estimates, and looking at geographic variation. It would also be interesting to develop methods for capturing non-binary genders, and I suggest one idea in the main paper. Libraries are unique in how female dominated the workforce is, but lessons in how to work toward gender parity extend to many other professions and industries. Paramount is the experiences of women, and studies like Rutledge’s (2020) and many others I cite in the article are critical contributions to the literature, which make the data and statistics I present meaningful.
References
Benson, A., Li, D., & Shue, K. (2024, April 19). “Potential” and the Gender Promotions Gap. SSRN. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4747175
Breeding, M. (2024). Retrieved December 2024, from Library Technology Guides: https://librarytechnology.org/
Heilman, M., Wallen, A., Fuchs, D., & Tamkins, M. (2004). Penalties for Success: Reactions to Women Who Succeed at Male Gender-Typed Tasks. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(3), 416-427. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.89.3.416
Jonason, A., Green, T., Kinard, P., Cruz-Solano, V., & Rathnavel, S. (2024). Out of Balance: A National Assessment of Women’s Representation on Local Appointed Boards. Retrieved December 2024, from https://hiringlibrarians.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/811d5-nationalappointmentsstudy.pdf
McGeeney, J. D. (2025). The Current State of Female Representation in Library Leadership: A Comprehensive Analysis of Over 13,000 Open U.S. Libraries by Library Type, Collection Size, and State. Journal of Library Administration, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2025.2518008
Melidona, D., Cecil, B., Cassell, A., & Chessman, H. (2023). The American College President: 2023 Edition. American Council on Education, Washington, D.C. Retrieved from https://www.acenet.edu/Documents/American-College-President-IX-2023.pdf
Player, A., de Moura, G., Leite, A., Abrams, D., & Tresh, F. (2019). Overlooked Leadership Potential: The Preference for Leadership Potential in Job Candidates Who Are Men vs. Women. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00755
Rutledge, L. (2020). Leveling Up: Women Academic Librarians’ Career Progression in Management Positions. College & Research Libraries, 81(7). https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.81.7.1143
U.S. Census Bureau. (2024a, January 26). Employed persons by detailed occupation, sex, race, and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity. Retrieved December 2024, from https://www.bls.gov/cps/data/aa2023/cpsaat11.htm
U.S. Census Bureau. (2024b, September 12). American Community Survey 1-Year Data (2005-2023). Retrieved December 2024, from https://www.census.gov/data/developers/data-sets/acs-1year.html
U.S. Social Security Administration. (n.d.-a). Popular Baby Names. Retrieved December 2024, from https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/limits.html
U.S. Social Security Administration. (n.d.-b). Actuarial Life Table. Retrieved December 2024, from https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
Daniel McGeeney is an unaffiliated independent researcher who spent nine years working in secondary education before becoming a statistician and social scientist.
#Librarian #librarians #libraries #libraryHiring #libraryJobs #libraryLeadership #womenInLibraries
-
Researcher’s Corner: The current state of female representation in library leadership in the U.S.
Here’s another piece of research that addresses something commonly held to be true, and in this case provides support for what we “know”: Women are underrepresented in library leadership positions. I’m pleased to be able to share with you statistical analysis by Daniel McGeeney. He uses a large sample size and discusses this trend across library types.
I think you will find the following post very interesting, and if you’d like to read more, see the following citation:
McGeeney, J. D. (2025). The Current State of Female Representation in Library Leadership: A Comprehensive Analysis of Over 13,000 Open U.S. Libraries by Library Type, Collection Size, and State. Journal of Library Administration, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2025.2518008
A preprint is available here: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/3jauw_v1
Women made up 82.5% of librarians as of 2023 according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (U.S. Census Bureau, 2024a), but they are underrepresented in leadership positions (McGeeney, 2025). This issue has received a lot of research attention, leading to extremely informative studies like “Leveling Up: Women Academic Librarians’ Career Progression in Management Positions” by Lorelei Rutledge (2020). Unequal pay, gendered expectations, and lack of mentorship are some of the underlying causes. Rutledge heard from female librarians who described instances when their male bosses excluded them from social events, when male employees were groomed for director positions, and when their decisions and errors were subjected to a higher level of scrutiny (2020). Women who try to overcome the stereotype of men as natural leaders often violate gender norms, which they may be penalized for (Heilman, Wallen, Fuchs, & Tamkins, 2004). This aligns with the experiences of women who reported being told to be friendlier, to smile more often, or to be less assertive (Rutledge, 2020).
Controlled psychological experiments show evidence of unequal standards in hiring practices. Player, de Moura, Leite, Abrams, & Tresh (2019) conducted a hiring simulation and found that participants placed more value on leadership potential than performance when evaluating male candidates. Women, on the other hand, were expected to demonstrate their competency rather than simply showing potential. This reluctance to view women as possessing leadership potential has been observed in other studies. In a large retrospective study of 29,809 management-track employees, women consistently received lower ratings for their leadership potential than men—even when they had received higher job performance ratings (Benson, Li, & Shue, 2024).
Goals and Methods
Other studies have measured the gender gap in library leadership, but they often rely on samples with limited size or representativeness. In my recent study (McGeeney, 2025), I set out to estimate the gender gap from a very large sample spanning all 50 states and library types. Using publicly available data on Library Technology Guides, I identified 13,891 library directors working at 13,870 distinct U.S. libraries that were still open at the time of analysis (Breeding, 2024). Each library director was assigned their most likely sex based on their first name. Specifically, I calculated the probability that each director’s name was assigned to male versus female at birth using (a) first name frequencies on birth certificates by age and sex, (b) survival rates by age and sex, and (c) job distributions by age and sex. The input data for this work included first name frequency files (U.S. Social Security Administration, n.d.-a), survival rates (U.S. Social Security Administration, n.d.-b), and U.S. Census data on employment (U.S. Census Bureau, 2024b).
Results
I found that women are underrepresented in leadership positions at four of the five library types (McGeeney, 2025). At academic libraries, women make up 76% of librarians but only 68% of directors. At school libraries, women make up 93% of librarians but only 82% of directors. At special libraries, women make up 70% of librarians but only 65% of directors. At government libraries, women make up 82% of librarians but only 68% of directors. The gender gap is the difference between these two values.
Library Type% of Library Directors that are Women% of Librarians that are WomenGender GapMale-to-Female Director ProbabilityAcademic67.7% (65.9%, 69.4%)75.9%-8.2%150.6%Public83.8% (83.0%, 84.5%)81.1%+2.7%83.3%School82.3% (79.7%, 84.7%)93.0%-10.7%285.5%Special64.5% (61.6%, 67.4%)70.1%-5.5%128.6%Government67.5% (58.3%, 75.8%)82.2%-14.7%221.8%As the table shows, women are slightly overrepresented in public library leadership by 2.7 percentage points, but this may not be true at larger libraries. The study reports that the female director percentage decreases exponentially with size (McGeeney, 2025). The smallest libraries in the sample have over 90% of director positions held by women. At the largest libraries, that figure is less than two-thirds. The exponential decay trend persists when restricting the analysis to public libraries only or academic libraries only.
The last column in the table converts the overall gender gap into a person-level metric. It answers the question: how much more likely is an individual male librarian than an individual female librarian to be director? In a school library, a male librarian’s chances of being director are almost three times that of a female librarian. In a public library (at the other end of the spectrum), an individual male librarian’s chances of being director are 83.3% that of a female librarian (McGeeney, 2025).
One way to dig deeper into these results is to ask, “who hires the library director?” For public libraries, local government typically appoints an external board (e.g., a board of trustees, advisory board, or oversight board), which has the primary responsibility of hiring a library director. On average, these boards are more male dominated than public libraries themselves (Jonason, Green, Kinard, Cruz-Solano, & Rathnavel, 2024). An even larger imbalance may exist in colleges and universities, which tend to have male-dominated upper leadership. For instance, a 2023 report found that only 32.8% of college and university presidents are female (Melidona, Cecil, Cassell, & Chessman, 2023). If female candidates for leadership roles are evaluated disproportionately by men, then this could contribute to their underrepresentation as directors (McGeeney, 2025).
My hope for this study is that it supports ongoing research into the patterns behind and causes of these gender gaps. To that end, there are many other areas to explore. Future research could dedicate more effort into investigating which Census datasets provide the best comparison, assessing trends over time, inspecting how well the Census industries map to library types, quantifying the uncertainty of Census-based estimates, and looking at geographic variation. It would also be interesting to develop methods for capturing non-binary genders, and I suggest one idea in the main paper. Libraries are unique in how female dominated the workforce is, but lessons in how to work toward gender parity extend to many other professions and industries. Paramount is the experiences of women, and studies like Rutledge’s (2020) and many others I cite in the article are critical contributions to the literature, which make the data and statistics I present meaningful.
References
Benson, A., Li, D., & Shue, K. (2024, April 19). “Potential” and the Gender Promotions Gap. SSRN. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4747175
Breeding, M. (2024). Retrieved December 2024, from Library Technology Guides: https://librarytechnology.org/
Heilman, M., Wallen, A., Fuchs, D., & Tamkins, M. (2004). Penalties for Success: Reactions to Women Who Succeed at Male Gender-Typed Tasks. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(3), 416-427. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.89.3.416
Jonason, A., Green, T., Kinard, P., Cruz-Solano, V., & Rathnavel, S. (2024). Out of Balance: A National Assessment of Women’s Representation on Local Appointed Boards. Retrieved December 2024, from https://hiringlibrarians.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/811d5-nationalappointmentsstudy.pdf
McGeeney, J. D. (2025). The Current State of Female Representation in Library Leadership: A Comprehensive Analysis of Over 13,000 Open U.S. Libraries by Library Type, Collection Size, and State. Journal of Library Administration, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2025.2518008
Melidona, D., Cecil, B., Cassell, A., & Chessman, H. (2023). The American College President: 2023 Edition. American Council on Education, Washington, D.C. Retrieved from https://www.acenet.edu/Documents/American-College-President-IX-2023.pdf
Player, A., de Moura, G., Leite, A., Abrams, D., & Tresh, F. (2019). Overlooked Leadership Potential: The Preference for Leadership Potential in Job Candidates Who Are Men vs. Women. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00755
Rutledge, L. (2020). Leveling Up: Women Academic Librarians’ Career Progression in Management Positions. College & Research Libraries, 81(7). https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.81.7.1143
U.S. Census Bureau. (2024a, January 26). Employed persons by detailed occupation, sex, race, and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity. Retrieved December 2024, from https://www.bls.gov/cps/data/aa2023/cpsaat11.htm
U.S. Census Bureau. (2024b, September 12). American Community Survey 1-Year Data (2005-2023). Retrieved December 2024, from https://www.census.gov/data/developers/data-sets/acs-1year.html
U.S. Social Security Administration. (n.d.-a). Popular Baby Names. Retrieved December 2024, from https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/limits.html
U.S. Social Security Administration. (n.d.-b). Actuarial Life Table. Retrieved December 2024, from https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
Daniel McGeeney is an unaffiliated independent researcher who spent nine years working in secondary education before becoming a statistician and social scientist.
#Librarian #librarians #libraries #libraryHiring #libraryJobs #libraryLeadership #womenInLibraries
-
Researcher’s Corner: The current state of female representation in library leadership in the U.S.
Here’s another piece of research that addresses something commonly held to be true, and in this case provides support for what we “know”: Women are underrepresented in library leadership positions. I’m pleased to be able to share with you statistical analysis by Daniel McGeeney. He uses a large sample size and discusses this trend across library types.
I think you will find the following post very interesting, and if you’d like to read more, see the following citation:
McGeeney, J. D. (2025). The Current State of Female Representation in Library Leadership: A Comprehensive Analysis of Over 13,000 Open U.S. Libraries by Library Type, Collection Size, and State. Journal of Library Administration, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2025.2518008
A preprint is available here: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/3jauw_v1
Women made up 82.5% of librarians as of 2023 according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (U.S. Census Bureau, 2024a), but they are underrepresented in leadership positions (McGeeney, 2025). This issue has received a lot of research attention, leading to extremely informative studies like “Leveling Up: Women Academic Librarians’ Career Progression in Management Positions” by Lorelei Rutledge (2020). Unequal pay, gendered expectations, and lack of mentorship are some of the underlying causes. Rutledge heard from female librarians who described instances when their male bosses excluded them from social events, when male employees were groomed for director positions, and when their decisions and errors were subjected to a higher level of scrutiny (2020). Women who try to overcome the stereotype of men as natural leaders often violate gender norms, which they may be penalized for (Heilman, Wallen, Fuchs, & Tamkins, 2004). This aligns with the experiences of women who reported being told to be friendlier, to smile more often, or to be less assertive (Rutledge, 2020).
Controlled psychological experiments show evidence of unequal standards in hiring practices. Player, de Moura, Leite, Abrams, & Tresh (2019) conducted a hiring simulation and found that participants placed more value on leadership potential than performance when evaluating male candidates. Women, on the other hand, were expected to demonstrate their competency rather than simply showing potential. This reluctance to view women as possessing leadership potential has been observed in other studies. In a large retrospective study of 29,809 management-track employees, women consistently received lower ratings for their leadership potential than men—even when they had received higher job performance ratings (Benson, Li, & Shue, 2024).
Goals and Methods
Other studies have measured the gender gap in library leadership, but they often rely on samples with limited size or representativeness. In my recent study (McGeeney, 2025), I set out to estimate the gender gap from a very large sample spanning all 50 states and library types. Using publicly available data on Library Technology Guides, I identified 13,891 library directors working at 13,870 distinct U.S. libraries that were still open at the time of analysis (Breeding, 2024). Each library director was assigned their most likely sex based on their first name. Specifically, I calculated the probability that each director’s name was assigned to male versus female at birth using (a) first name frequencies on birth certificates by age and sex, (b) survival rates by age and sex, and (c) job distributions by age and sex. The input data for this work included first name frequency files (U.S. Social Security Administration, n.d.-a), survival rates (U.S. Social Security Administration, n.d.-b), and U.S. Census data on employment (U.S. Census Bureau, 2024b).
Results
I found that women are underrepresented in leadership positions at four of the five library types (McGeeney, 2025). At academic libraries, women make up 76% of librarians but only 68% of directors. At school libraries, women make up 93% of librarians but only 82% of directors. At special libraries, women make up 70% of librarians but only 65% of directors. At government libraries, women make up 82% of librarians but only 68% of directors. The gender gap is the difference between these two values.
Library Type% of Library Directors that are Women% of Librarians that are WomenGender GapMale-to-Female Director ProbabilityAcademic67.7% (65.9%, 69.4%)75.9%-8.2%150.6%Public83.8% (83.0%, 84.5%)81.1%+2.7%83.3%School82.3% (79.7%, 84.7%)93.0%-10.7%285.5%Special64.5% (61.6%, 67.4%)70.1%-5.5%128.6%Government67.5% (58.3%, 75.8%)82.2%-14.7%221.8%As the table shows, women are slightly overrepresented in public library leadership by 2.7 percentage points, but this may not be true at larger libraries. The study reports that the female director percentage decreases exponentially with size (McGeeney, 2025). The smallest libraries in the sample have over 90% of director positions held by women. At the largest libraries, that figure is less than two-thirds. The exponential decay trend persists when restricting the analysis to public libraries only or academic libraries only.
The last column in the table converts the overall gender gap into a person-level metric. It answers the question: how much more likely is an individual male librarian than an individual female librarian to be director? In a school library, a male librarian’s chances of being director are almost three times that of a female librarian. In a public library (at the other end of the spectrum), an individual male librarian’s chances of being director are 83.3% that of a female librarian (McGeeney, 2025).
One way to dig deeper into these results is to ask, “who hires the library director?” For public libraries, local government typically appoints an external board (e.g., a board of trustees, advisory board, or oversight board), which has the primary responsibility of hiring a library director. On average, these boards are more male dominated than public libraries themselves (Jonason, Green, Kinard, Cruz-Solano, & Rathnavel, 2024). An even larger imbalance may exist in colleges and universities, which tend to have male-dominated upper leadership. For instance, a 2023 report found that only 32.8% of college and university presidents are female (Melidona, Cecil, Cassell, & Chessman, 2023). If female candidates for leadership roles are evaluated disproportionately by men, then this could contribute to their underrepresentation as directors (McGeeney, 2025).
My hope for this study is that it supports ongoing research into the patterns behind and causes of these gender gaps. To that end, there are many other areas to explore. Future research could dedicate more effort into investigating which Census datasets provide the best comparison, assessing trends over time, inspecting how well the Census industries map to library types, quantifying the uncertainty of Census-based estimates, and looking at geographic variation. It would also be interesting to develop methods for capturing non-binary genders, and I suggest one idea in the main paper. Libraries are unique in how female dominated the workforce is, but lessons in how to work toward gender parity extend to many other professions and industries. Paramount is the experiences of women, and studies like Rutledge’s (2020) and many others I cite in the article are critical contributions to the literature, which make the data and statistics I present meaningful.
References
Benson, A., Li, D., & Shue, K. (2024, April 19). “Potential” and the Gender Promotions Gap. SSRN. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4747175
Breeding, M. (2024). Retrieved December 2024, from Library Technology Guides: https://librarytechnology.org/
Heilman, M., Wallen, A., Fuchs, D., & Tamkins, M. (2004). Penalties for Success: Reactions to Women Who Succeed at Male Gender-Typed Tasks. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(3), 416-427. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.89.3.416
Jonason, A., Green, T., Kinard, P., Cruz-Solano, V., & Rathnavel, S. (2024). Out of Balance: A National Assessment of Women’s Representation on Local Appointed Boards. Retrieved December 2024, from https://hiringlibrarians.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/811d5-nationalappointmentsstudy.pdf
McGeeney, J. D. (2025). The Current State of Female Representation in Library Leadership: A Comprehensive Analysis of Over 13,000 Open U.S. Libraries by Library Type, Collection Size, and State. Journal of Library Administration, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2025.2518008
Melidona, D., Cecil, B., Cassell, A., & Chessman, H. (2023). The American College President: 2023 Edition. American Council on Education, Washington, D.C. Retrieved from https://www.acenet.edu/Documents/American-College-President-IX-2023.pdf
Player, A., de Moura, G., Leite, A., Abrams, D., & Tresh, F. (2019). Overlooked Leadership Potential: The Preference for Leadership Potential in Job Candidates Who Are Men vs. Women. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00755
Rutledge, L. (2020). Leveling Up: Women Academic Librarians’ Career Progression in Management Positions. College & Research Libraries, 81(7). https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.81.7.1143
U.S. Census Bureau. (2024a, January 26). Employed persons by detailed occupation, sex, race, and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity. Retrieved December 2024, from https://www.bls.gov/cps/data/aa2023/cpsaat11.htm
U.S. Census Bureau. (2024b, September 12). American Community Survey 1-Year Data (2005-2023). Retrieved December 2024, from https://www.census.gov/data/developers/data-sets/acs-1year.html
U.S. Social Security Administration. (n.d.-a). Popular Baby Names. Retrieved December 2024, from https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/limits.html
U.S. Social Security Administration. (n.d.-b). Actuarial Life Table. Retrieved December 2024, from https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
Daniel McGeeney is an unaffiliated independent researcher who spent nine years working in secondary education before becoming a statistician and social scientist.
#Librarian #librarians #libraries #libraryHiring #libraryJobs #libraryLeadership #womenInLibraries
-
Researcher’s Corner: The current state of female representation in library leadership in the U.S.
Here’s another piece of research that addresses something commonly held to be true, and in this case provides support for what we “know”: Women are underrepresented in library leadership positions. I’m pleased to be able to share with you statistical analysis by Daniel McGeeney. He uses a large sample size and discusses this trend across library types.
I think you will find the following post very interesting, and if you’d like to read more, see the following citation:
McGeeney, J. D. (2025). The Current State of Female Representation in Library Leadership: A Comprehensive Analysis of Over 13,000 Open U.S. Libraries by Library Type, Collection Size, and State. Journal of Library Administration, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2025.2518008
A preprint is available here: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/3jauw_v1
Women made up 82.5% of librarians as of 2023 according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (U.S. Census Bureau, 2024a), but they are underrepresented in leadership positions (McGeeney, 2025). This issue has received a lot of research attention, leading to extremely informative studies like “Leveling Up: Women Academic Librarians’ Career Progression in Management Positions” by Lorelei Rutledge (2020). Unequal pay, gendered expectations, and lack of mentorship are some of the underlying causes. Rutledge heard from female librarians who described instances when their male bosses excluded them from social events, when male employees were groomed for director positions, and when their decisions and errors were subjected to a higher level of scrutiny (2020). Women who try to overcome the stereotype of men as natural leaders often violate gender norms, which they may be penalized for (Heilman, Wallen, Fuchs, & Tamkins, 2004). This aligns with the experiences of women who reported being told to be friendlier, to smile more often, or to be less assertive (Rutledge, 2020).
Controlled psychological experiments show evidence of unequal standards in hiring practices. Player, de Moura, Leite, Abrams, & Tresh (2019) conducted a hiring simulation and found that participants placed more value on leadership potential than performance when evaluating male candidates. Women, on the other hand, were expected to demonstrate their competency rather than simply showing potential. This reluctance to view women as possessing leadership potential has been observed in other studies. In a large retrospective study of 29,809 management-track employees, women consistently received lower ratings for their leadership potential than men—even when they had received higher job performance ratings (Benson, Li, & Shue, 2024).
Goals and Methods
Other studies have measured the gender gap in library leadership, but they often rely on samples with limited size or representativeness. In my recent study (McGeeney, 2025), I set out to estimate the gender gap from a very large sample spanning all 50 states and library types. Using publicly available data on Library Technology Guides, I identified 13,891 library directors working at 13,870 distinct U.S. libraries that were still open at the time of analysis (Breeding, 2024). Each library director was assigned their most likely sex based on their first name. Specifically, I calculated the probability that each director’s name was assigned to male versus female at birth using (a) first name frequencies on birth certificates by age and sex, (b) survival rates by age and sex, and (c) job distributions by age and sex. The input data for this work included first name frequency files (U.S. Social Security Administration, n.d.-a), survival rates (U.S. Social Security Administration, n.d.-b), and U.S. Census data on employment (U.S. Census Bureau, 2024b).
Results
I found that women are underrepresented in leadership positions at four of the five library types (McGeeney, 2025). At academic libraries, women make up 76% of librarians but only 68% of directors. At school libraries, women make up 93% of librarians but only 82% of directors. At special libraries, women make up 70% of librarians but only 65% of directors. At government libraries, women make up 82% of librarians but only 68% of directors. The gender gap is the difference between these two values.
Library Type% of Library Directors that are Women% of Librarians that are WomenGender GapMale-to-Female Director ProbabilityAcademic67.7% (65.9%, 69.4%)75.9%-8.2%150.6%Public83.8% (83.0%, 84.5%)81.1%+2.7%83.3%School82.3% (79.7%, 84.7%)93.0%-10.7%285.5%Special64.5% (61.6%, 67.4%)70.1%-5.5%128.6%Government67.5% (58.3%, 75.8%)82.2%-14.7%221.8%As the table shows, women are slightly overrepresented in public library leadership by 2.7 percentage points, but this may not be true at larger libraries. The study reports that the female director percentage decreases exponentially with size (McGeeney, 2025). The smallest libraries in the sample have over 90% of director positions held by women. At the largest libraries, that figure is less than two-thirds. The exponential decay trend persists when restricting the analysis to public libraries only or academic libraries only.
The last column in the table converts the overall gender gap into a person-level metric. It answers the question: how much more likely is an individual male librarian than an individual female librarian to be director? In a school library, a male librarian’s chances of being director are almost three times that of a female librarian. In a public library (at the other end of the spectrum), an individual male librarian’s chances of being director are 83.3% that of a female librarian (McGeeney, 2025).
One way to dig deeper into these results is to ask, “who hires the library director?” For public libraries, local government typically appoints an external board (e.g., a board of trustees, advisory board, or oversight board), which has the primary responsibility of hiring a library director. On average, these boards are more male dominated than public libraries themselves (Jonason, Green, Kinard, Cruz-Solano, & Rathnavel, 2024). An even larger imbalance may exist in colleges and universities, which tend to have male-dominated upper leadership. For instance, a 2023 report found that only 32.8% of college and university presidents are female (Melidona, Cecil, Cassell, & Chessman, 2023). If female candidates for leadership roles are evaluated disproportionately by men, then this could contribute to their underrepresentation as directors (McGeeney, 2025).
My hope for this study is that it supports ongoing research into the patterns behind and causes of these gender gaps. To that end, there are many other areas to explore. Future research could dedicate more effort into investigating which Census datasets provide the best comparison, assessing trends over time, inspecting how well the Census industries map to library types, quantifying the uncertainty of Census-based estimates, and looking at geographic variation. It would also be interesting to develop methods for capturing non-binary genders, and I suggest one idea in the main paper. Libraries are unique in how female dominated the workforce is, but lessons in how to work toward gender parity extend to many other professions and industries. Paramount is the experiences of women, and studies like Rutledge’s (2020) and many others I cite in the article are critical contributions to the literature, which make the data and statistics I present meaningful.
References
Benson, A., Li, D., & Shue, K. (2024, April 19). “Potential” and the Gender Promotions Gap. SSRN. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4747175
Breeding, M. (2024). Retrieved December 2024, from Library Technology Guides: https://librarytechnology.org/
Heilman, M., Wallen, A., Fuchs, D., & Tamkins, M. (2004). Penalties for Success: Reactions to Women Who Succeed at Male Gender-Typed Tasks. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(3), 416-427. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.89.3.416
Jonason, A., Green, T., Kinard, P., Cruz-Solano, V., & Rathnavel, S. (2024). Out of Balance: A National Assessment of Women’s Representation on Local Appointed Boards. Retrieved December 2024, from https://hiringlibrarians.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/811d5-nationalappointmentsstudy.pdf
McGeeney, J. D. (2025). The Current State of Female Representation in Library Leadership: A Comprehensive Analysis of Over 13,000 Open U.S. Libraries by Library Type, Collection Size, and State. Journal of Library Administration, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2025.2518008
Melidona, D., Cecil, B., Cassell, A., & Chessman, H. (2023). The American College President: 2023 Edition. American Council on Education, Washington, D.C. Retrieved from https://www.acenet.edu/Documents/American-College-President-IX-2023.pdf
Player, A., de Moura, G., Leite, A., Abrams, D., & Tresh, F. (2019). Overlooked Leadership Potential: The Preference for Leadership Potential in Job Candidates Who Are Men vs. Women. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00755
Rutledge, L. (2020). Leveling Up: Women Academic Librarians’ Career Progression in Management Positions. College & Research Libraries, 81(7). https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.81.7.1143
U.S. Census Bureau. (2024a, January 26). Employed persons by detailed occupation, sex, race, and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity. Retrieved December 2024, from https://www.bls.gov/cps/data/aa2023/cpsaat11.htm
U.S. Census Bureau. (2024b, September 12). American Community Survey 1-Year Data (2005-2023). Retrieved December 2024, from https://www.census.gov/data/developers/data-sets/acs-1year.html
U.S. Social Security Administration. (n.d.-a). Popular Baby Names. Retrieved December 2024, from https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/limits.html
U.S. Social Security Administration. (n.d.-b). Actuarial Life Table. Retrieved December 2024, from https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
Daniel McGeeney is an unaffiliated independent researcher who spent nine years working in secondary education before becoming a statistician and social scientist.
#Librarian #librarians #libraries #libraryHiring #libraryJobs #libraryLeadership #womenInLibraries
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Researcher’s Corner: The current state of female representation in library leadership in the U.S.
Here’s another piece of research that addresses something commonly held to be true, and in this case provides support for what we “know”: Women are underrepresented in library leadership positions. I’m pleased to be able to share with you statistical analysis by Daniel McGeeney. He uses a large sample size and discusses this trend across library types.
I think you will find the following post very interesting, and if you’d like to read more, see the following citation:
McGeeney, J. D. (2025). The Current State of Female Representation in Library Leadership: A Comprehensive Analysis of Over 13,000 Open U.S. Libraries by Library Type, Collection Size, and State. Journal of Library Administration, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2025.2518008
A preprint is available here: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/3jauw_v1
Women made up 82.5% of librarians as of 2023 according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (U.S. Census Bureau, 2024a), but they are underrepresented in leadership positions (McGeeney, 2025). This issue has received a lot of research attention, leading to extremely informative studies like “Leveling Up: Women Academic Librarians’ Career Progression in Management Positions” by Lorelei Rutledge (2020). Unequal pay, gendered expectations, and lack of mentorship are some of the underlying causes. Rutledge heard from female librarians who described instances when their male bosses excluded them from social events, when male employees were groomed for director positions, and when their decisions and errors were subjected to a higher level of scrutiny (2020). Women who try to overcome the stereotype of men as natural leaders often violate gender norms, which they may be penalized for (Heilman, Wallen, Fuchs, & Tamkins, 2004). This aligns with the experiences of women who reported being told to be friendlier, to smile more often, or to be less assertive (Rutledge, 2020).
Controlled psychological experiments show evidence of unequal standards in hiring practices. Player, de Moura, Leite, Abrams, & Tresh (2019) conducted a hiring simulation and found that participants placed more value on leadership potential than performance when evaluating male candidates. Women, on the other hand, were expected to demonstrate their competency rather than simply showing potential. This reluctance to view women as possessing leadership potential has been observed in other studies. In a large retrospective study of 29,809 management-track employees, women consistently received lower ratings for their leadership potential than men—even when they had received higher job performance ratings (Benson, Li, & Shue, 2024).
Goals and Methods
Other studies have measured the gender gap in library leadership, but they often rely on samples with limited size or representativeness. In my recent study (McGeeney, 2025), I set out to estimate the gender gap from a very large sample spanning all 50 states and library types. Using publicly available data on Library Technology Guides, I identified 13,891 library directors working at 13,870 distinct U.S. libraries that were still open at the time of analysis (Breeding, 2024). Each library director was assigned their most likely sex based on their first name. Specifically, I calculated the probability that each director’s name was assigned to male versus female at birth using (a) first name frequencies on birth certificates by age and sex, (b) survival rates by age and sex, and (c) job distributions by age and sex. The input data for this work included first name frequency files (U.S. Social Security Administration, n.d.-a), survival rates (U.S. Social Security Administration, n.d.-b), and U.S. Census data on employment (U.S. Census Bureau, 2024b).
Results
I found that women are underrepresented in leadership positions at four of the five library types (McGeeney, 2025). At academic libraries, women make up 76% of librarians but only 68% of directors. At school libraries, women make up 93% of librarians but only 82% of directors. At special libraries, women make up 70% of librarians but only 65% of directors. At government libraries, women make up 82% of librarians but only 68% of directors. The gender gap is the difference between these two values.
Library Type% of Library Directors that are Women% of Librarians that are WomenGender GapMale-to-Female Director ProbabilityAcademic67.7% (65.9%, 69.4%)75.9%-8.2%150.6%Public83.8% (83.0%, 84.5%)81.1%+2.7%83.3%School82.3% (79.7%, 84.7%)93.0%-10.7%285.5%Special64.5% (61.6%, 67.4%)70.1%-5.5%128.6%Government67.5% (58.3%, 75.8%)82.2%-14.7%221.8%As the table shows, women are slightly overrepresented in public library leadership by 2.7 percentage points, but this may not be true at larger libraries. The study reports that the female director percentage decreases exponentially with size (McGeeney, 2025). The smallest libraries in the sample have over 90% of director positions held by women. At the largest libraries, that figure is less than two-thirds. The exponential decay trend persists when restricting the analysis to public libraries only or academic libraries only.
The last column in the table converts the overall gender gap into a person-level metric. It answers the question: how much more likely is an individual male librarian than an individual female librarian to be director? In a school library, a male librarian’s chances of being director are almost three times that of a female librarian. In a public library (at the other end of the spectrum), an individual male librarian’s chances of being director are 83.3% that of a female librarian (McGeeney, 2025).
One way to dig deeper into these results is to ask, “who hires the library director?” For public libraries, local government typically appoints an external board (e.g., a board of trustees, advisory board, or oversight board), which has the primary responsibility of hiring a library director. On average, these boards are more male dominated than public libraries themselves (Jonason, Green, Kinard, Cruz-Solano, & Rathnavel, 2024). An even larger imbalance may exist in colleges and universities, which tend to have male-dominated upper leadership. For instance, a 2023 report found that only 32.8% of college and university presidents are female (Melidona, Cecil, Cassell, & Chessman, 2023). If female candidates for leadership roles are evaluated disproportionately by men, then this could contribute to their underrepresentation as directors (McGeeney, 2025).
My hope for this study is that it supports ongoing research into the patterns behind and causes of these gender gaps. To that end, there are many other areas to explore. Future research could dedicate more effort into investigating which Census datasets provide the best comparison, assessing trends over time, inspecting how well the Census industries map to library types, quantifying the uncertainty of Census-based estimates, and looking at geographic variation. It would also be interesting to develop methods for capturing non-binary genders, and I suggest one idea in the main paper. Libraries are unique in how female dominated the workforce is, but lessons in how to work toward gender parity extend to many other professions and industries. Paramount is the experiences of women, and studies like Rutledge’s (2020) and many others I cite in the article are critical contributions to the literature, which make the data and statistics I present meaningful.
References
Benson, A., Li, D., & Shue, K. (2024, April 19). “Potential” and the Gender Promotions Gap. SSRN. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4747175
Breeding, M. (2024). Retrieved December 2024, from Library Technology Guides: https://librarytechnology.org/
Heilman, M., Wallen, A., Fuchs, D., & Tamkins, M. (2004). Penalties for Success: Reactions to Women Who Succeed at Male Gender-Typed Tasks. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(3), 416-427. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.89.3.416
Jonason, A., Green, T., Kinard, P., Cruz-Solano, V., & Rathnavel, S. (2024). Out of Balance: A National Assessment of Women’s Representation on Local Appointed Boards. Retrieved December 2024, from https://hiringlibrarians.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/811d5-nationalappointmentsstudy.pdf
McGeeney, J. D. (2025). The Current State of Female Representation in Library Leadership: A Comprehensive Analysis of Over 13,000 Open U.S. Libraries by Library Type, Collection Size, and State. Journal of Library Administration, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2025.2518008
Melidona, D., Cecil, B., Cassell, A., & Chessman, H. (2023). The American College President: 2023 Edition. American Council on Education, Washington, D.C. Retrieved from https://www.acenet.edu/Documents/American-College-President-IX-2023.pdf
Player, A., de Moura, G., Leite, A., Abrams, D., & Tresh, F. (2019). Overlooked Leadership Potential: The Preference for Leadership Potential in Job Candidates Who Are Men vs. Women. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00755
Rutledge, L. (2020). Leveling Up: Women Academic Librarians’ Career Progression in Management Positions. College & Research Libraries, 81(7). https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.81.7.1143
U.S. Census Bureau. (2024a, January 26). Employed persons by detailed occupation, sex, race, and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity. Retrieved December 2024, from https://www.bls.gov/cps/data/aa2023/cpsaat11.htm
U.S. Census Bureau. (2024b, September 12). American Community Survey 1-Year Data (2005-2023). Retrieved December 2024, from https://www.census.gov/data/developers/data-sets/acs-1year.html
U.S. Social Security Administration. (n.d.-a). Popular Baby Names. Retrieved December 2024, from https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/limits.html
U.S. Social Security Administration. (n.d.-b). Actuarial Life Table. Retrieved December 2024, from https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
Daniel McGeeney is an unaffiliated independent researcher who spent nine years working in secondary education before becoming a statistician and social scientist.
#Librarian #librarians #libraries #libraryHiring #libraryJobs #libraryLeadership #womenInLibraries
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Finally Friday Reads: TACO Tales
“The most transparent administration ever..” John Buss @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I’m hoping we’re entering a Golden Age of Journalism because the number of stories floating around out there today indicates that we need more investigative journalists than ever before. Because of that, I cannot seem to play the Wake Forest Commencement by Sixty Minutes‘ Scott Pelley enough. His first statement rang true throughout the world. “Our sacred Rule of Law is under attack.” The Speech was entitled “The Meaning of You.”
The path to self-discovery starts with finding what kind of person you are when times get dark. As I’ve said before, these times are very dark. Do you shy away from speaking out? Do you take fighting action on whatever level you can? Do you melt away? Do you just go along or cheer it? I’ve come back to this speech this week because the headlines today show how important the press can be in exposing the dark times and the dark ones and their actions to light. It is then up to us to do something about it and to get our elected officials on it.
The New Republic’s Parker Molloy briefly discusses the importance of the Pelley Speech and the evil MAGA’s response. “Scott Pelley Warns Graduates About the Threats to American Democracy. The “60 Minutes” correspondent never mentioned Trump by name, but his call to defend democratic institutions was apparently too much for the MAGA crowd to handle.”
Earlier this month, journalist Scott Pelley delivered what should have been a fairly standard commencement address at Wake Forest University. The 60 Minutes correspondent spoke about seeking truth, defending democracy, and the importance of courage in difficult times—the kind of boilerplate inspiration you’d expect from a veteran journalist addressing graduates.
But because we live in very normal times, the speech went viral over Memorial Day weekend and triggered a conservative meltdown that’s been fascinating to watch unfold.
The fury started when a pro-MAGA account clipped portions of Pelley’s speech and shared them on X, writing “Scott Pelley raged at Trump in angry, unhinged commencement address at Wake Forest.”
What did Pelley say that sent the right into such a tizzy? Well, he had the audacity to suggest that “our sacred rule of law is under attack. Journalism is under attack. Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack.” He warned of “insidious fear … reaching through our schools, our businesses, our homes, and into our private thoughts, the fear to speak in America.”
And perhaps most provocatively, Pelley criticized the administration’s attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, saying, “Diversity is now described as ‘illegal.’ Equity is to be shunned. Inclusion is a dirty word. This is an old playbook, my friends.” He also referenced “masked agents” who “abduct a college student who wrote an editorial in her college paper defending Palestinian rights and send her to a prison in Louisiana charged with nothing.”
Pelley’s speech comes as Trump is suing CBS for $20 billion over alleged “election interference” and CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon abruptly resigned, citing disagreements with the company amid the legal pressure.
What’s remarkable is how a fairly conventional call for civic engagement and democratic values could generate such hysteria. But then again, when you’re running an administration built on exactly the kind of authoritarian playbook Pelley described, I suppose any critique—no matter how measured—feels like an existential threat.
Reading the speech in full, it’s hard to see what’s so “unhinged” about urging graduates to be engaged citizens and defend democratic institutions. Unless, of course, you’re deeply invested in attacking those very institutions.
A complete transcript of the speech follows. Also, you may listen to and watch Paley’s address here. The headlines today may be bleak, but the important thing is that reporters and the people supporting the work investigate and can find unbelievable corruption, stark depravity, and many examples of bad human conduct, demeanor, and actions. Then expose it!
When I was born, and as I grew up and my family moved into the middle class, I was instilled with the importance of reading magazines and watching the news. My Grandfather on my mother’s side always sent me books for my birthday and Christmas. My Nana on my mother’s side sent my sister and me subscriptions to National Geographic and The Christian Science Monitor. We read the local newspapers and the Des Moines Register every morning and evening. When I asked my Dad while I was in high school if I could get a subscription to The Manchester Guardian and to Paris Match, he didn’t even hesitate. I can tell you my show and tell performance, as well as my reports from newspapers, were altogether different from my Council Bluffs and Omaha friends.
When I hit university, all the foreign students whom I continually sought out for all dorm meals originally thought I was from Canada. When my family travelled to Europe, I tried to blend in as much as possible and just observe. It is perhaps this that makes me blog today, even though the only journalism classes I took were in high school. I wrote for the school newspaper, an underground newspaper, and the junior high newspaper. I always assumed everyone was as news-hungry as I was growing up in some of the most boring and inane places on the planet. I couldn’t live with oatmeal after reading about Belgian waffles. Can you imagine what happened when I got my first bite of one?
Knowledge of news is important for good citizenship, it’s important for making decisions that impact your household, and it’s important just because things are moving faster than ever. So let me get down to my first suggested reads today.
One of the things I find most threatening these days is seeing my students, my university, and many places leave their brains behind and try to make things easy using AI. It may have a future, but presently, any good professor worth their salt can tell when someone uses it. You should get good at spotting it on the internet, and you will be annoyed when you’re making an important call about something or chatting with some company, and even when it’s given a name, you can tell by the idiosyncrasies and the lack of niceties of American English, this thing ain’t human.
I’ve noticed that the grammar check my University uses completely breaks down when dealing with nuances and colloquialisms. It seems to excel mostly at filling my writing with commas and catching typos. That’s okay by me and easy, but believe me, I can tell when a student overuses AI. We’re being trained at spotting it as well as teaching students how to use it correctly. However, someone who knows what they are doing from years of doing it can make a better decision about its use than those still on the learning curve.
I say this because I watched a news program where the new AI installed at the Social Security phone line repeatedly ignored the question they asked, then kept squawking “Can I help you with something else?” endlessly. This is the point where I hear my Nana’s voice telling little me, “Well, you can, but may you?” AI does not grok manners and polite conversations. It could be because human mutants like Elon Musk and his Dodge cluster have never quite figured that out either. Garbage in, garbage out. But, then maybe that’s what they want. Cease being polite and just be technically acceptable. Okay, it’s long but I’m getting there, I promise.
This phenomenon played out yesterday as one of RFK Jr.’s prodigal research adventures turned into something I wouldn’t even expect from an undergrad or, actually, even someone sitting in my high school or university composition class. He was, of course, a legacy student there because of his father. We also know he was the dorm’s drug dealer from my fellow Westside High School journalism classmate, Kurt Anderson. One thing Westside always turned out was students who knew how to write. That skill got me through all the rest of my degrees because, damn I could write a good paper. Evidently, RFK Jr. did not get that skill.
It’s rather interesting given the difficult times Harvard is facing in protecting its foreign students. Now granted, I helped many a colleague from distant lands to get their excellent research into prime American English form. Everyone always sent them to me before they were sent to a journal for publishing, which bought me a cheap pub. But, every one of them took me farther down the path of being a numbers and stats guru. Did you know kids in India start their calculus classes in like 5th grade? It was also easier for me to actually come up with a sweet hypothesis to test because I was taught to be both analytical and creative. That’s what a good public school can do for you. A good university exposes you to what’s possible and exposes you to all kinds of interesting thinkers. But, again, I guess RFK Jr. was too busy with drugs to take advantage of anything like that. That’s why he’s likely never going to be part of a blog community, a book club, or a group that goes to the Saturday Night Midnight movies.
Okay, I really am getting to the read now. At his advanced age, with his unlimited educational opportunities and his money, he cannot write a research paper. And yet, it showed up in the public sphere because he was trying to prove his very wrong hypotheses at any cost. He didn’t prove anything. He turned to all manner of things to argue his hypothesis. None of his antics were academically sound. At first, the White House’s dumbest Press Secretary announced there were “formatting” errors. But, how could that be when, after investigating sources, reporters found them either made up or seriously in error? The Make America Healthy Again report was just embarrassing.
MSNBC anchor Jen Psaki derided White House Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s defense of a “Make America Healthy Again” Commission report filled with errors and broken links.
NOTUS reported the paper, released under the administration of President Donald Trump and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., cited at least seven sources that do not appear to exist. The news publication contacted epidemiologist Katherine Keyes, who the MAHA report lists as the first author of a study it cited on adolescent anxiety, and discovered Keyes didn’t write the paper.
“The paper cited is not a real paper that I or my colleagues were involved with,” Keyes told NOTUS. “We’ve certainly done research on this topic, but did not publish a paper in JAMA Pediatrics on this topic with that co-author group, or with that title.”
NOTUS also reported two other studies pertaining to direct-to-consumer drug advertisements for ADHD medications and antidepressants for kids appear nowhere “to be found.” Reporters also could not validate another section claiming 25% to 40% of mild cases of asthma are overprescribed. Additionally, the author of a corticosteroids study’s the MAHA report cited to support its arguments denied writing the study.
NOTUS reporter Jasmine Wright was in the White House briefing room Thursday and asked Leavitt: “does the White House have confidence that the information coming from HHS can be trusted?”
“Yes, we have complete confidence in Secretary Kennedy and his team at HHS,” Leavitt responded. “I understand there were some formatting issues with the MAHA report that are being addressed.”
Psaki, a former White House press secretary herself, did not contain her scorn.
Well, the nation’s biggest and most disappointing media of record investigated and found some interesting things in the MAHA report. Let’s start with the Washington Post. “White House MAHA Report may have garbled science by using AI, experts say. The report, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was intended to address the reasons for the decline in Americans’ life expectancy.” Well, that’s typical of a lot of students. If they can’t do it, they pay someone who can. You can always tell this, though, because if you’ve seen any previous work, you recognize their voice and you know when something is different. AI is the most recent example of buying a paper online, but with a lower cost and perhaps a lower chance of getting caught because you won’t find a cheat paper by searching it verbatim with your student’s work. Believe me, the discussion on this in teacher lounges and faculty clubs is de rigueur these days. Evidently, RFK Jr. didn’t even know the most tell-tale of the signs.
Some of the citations that underpin the science in the White House’s sweeping “MAHA Report” appear to have been generated using artificial intelligence, resulting in numerous garbled scientific references and invented studies, AI experts said Thursday.
Of the 522 footnotes to scientific research in an initial version of the report sent to The Washington Post, at least 37 appear multiple times, according to a review of the report by The Post. Other citations include the wrong author, and several studies cited by the extensive health report do not exist at all, a fact first reported by the online news outlet NOTUS on Thursday morning.
Some references include “oaicite” attached to URLs — a definitive sign that the research was collected using artificial intelligence. The presence of “oaicite” is a marker indicating use of OpenAI, a U.S. artificial intelligence company.
A common hallmark of AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT, is unusually repetitive content that does not sound human or is inaccurate — as well as the tendency to “hallucinate” studies or answers that appear to make sense but are not real.
So, our Secretary of Health and Human Services is so bereft of research skills that he can’t even avoid the number one Rookie mistake. Does he have anyone around him who knew better and could catch this? I can tell you that a team of peers that checks every research paper headed to publication in an academically sound journal would never let this go through to print. If you’re the main author, you try to avoid any humiliating mistakes for serious journals.
AI technology can be used legitimately to quickly survey the research in a field. But Oren Etzioni, a professor emeritus at the University of Washington who studies AI, said he was shocked by the sloppiness in the MAHA Report.
“Frankly, that’s shoddy work,” he said. “We deserve better.”
“The MAHA Report: Making Our Children Healthy Again,” which addressed the root causes of America’s lagging health outcomes, was written by a commission of Cabinet officials and government scientific leaders. It was led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has a history of misstating science, and written in response to an executive order from President Donald Trump.
The New York Times published the first media review pointing out made-up sources. “White House Health Report Included Fake Citations, ‘A report on children’s health released by the Make America Healthy Again Commission referred to scientific papers that did not exist.” Now, I’m not a scientist, but I lived with a Yale-educated Doctorate in Microbiology who published a lot of things on RNA transcription, ran a lab at a public university, and wound up with the NSF. I have no idea if he’s retired or if he went with the current purge of scientists. I read many of his works pre-publication, and he got published in all the big ones. I think the science journals are more nerve-wracking to write for than the Economics and Finance. Usually, it’s based on lab data rather than the Federal Reserve Beige Book or World Book data, which gets a pass even though the methodology and the model itself get the eagle eye. This report was a hot mess on all accounts.
The Trump administration released a report last week that it billed as a “clear, evidence-based foundation” for action on a range of children’s health issues.
But the report, from the presidential Make America Healthy Again Commission, cited studies that did not exist. These included fictitious studies on direct-to-consumer drug advertising, mental illness and medications prescribed for children with asthma.
“It makes me concerned about the rigor of the report, if these really basic citation practices aren’t being followed,” said Katherine Keyes, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University who was listed as the author of a paper on mental health and substance use among adolescents. Dr. Keyes has not written any paper by the title the report cited, nor does one seem to exist by any author.
The news outlet NOTUS first reported the presence of false citations, and The New York Times identified additional faulty references. By midafternoon on Thursday, the White House had uploaded a new copy of the report with corrections.
Dr. Ivan Oransky — who teaches medical journalism at New York University and is a co-founder of Retraction Watch, a website that tracks retractions of scientific research — said the errors in the report were characteristic of the use of generative artificial intelligence, which has led to similar issues in legal filings and more.
Dr. Oransky said that while he did not know whether the government had used A.I. in producing the report or the citations, “we’ve seen this particular movie before, and it’s unfortunately much more common in scientific literature than people would like or than really it should be.”
Asked at a news conference on Thursday whether the report had relied on A.I., the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, deferred to the Department of Health and Human Services. Emily Hilliard, a spokeswoman for the department, did not answer a question about the source of the fabricated references and downplayed them as “minor citation and formatting errors.” She said that “the substance of the MAHA report remains the same — a historic and transformative assessment by the federal government to understand the chronic-disease epidemic afflicting our nation’s children.”
The false references do not necessarily mean the underlying facts in the report are incorrect. But they indicate a lack of rigorous review and verification of the report and its bibliography before it was released, Dr. Oransky said.
“Scientific publishing is supposed to be about verification,” he said, adding: “There’s supposed to be a set of eyes, actually several sets of eyes. And so what that tells us is that there was no good set of eyes on this
So, after finding out about all of that, this should make you feel really at ease.
The Trump administration has quietly spread Palantir’s technology through U.S. agencies, paving the way to easily compile data on Americans. The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since President Trump took office. nyti.ms/4dJfR0o
— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) 2025-05-30T16:16:57.733Z
I think we can start making the Big Brother is watching you references now. This is the subheading, which is startling IMHO. “The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work with the government, spreading the company’s technology — which could easily merge data on Americans — throughout agencies.” Getting your passport ready yet?
In March, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to share data across agencies, raising questions over whether he might compile a master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power.
Mr. Trump has not publicly talked about the effort since. But behind the scenes, officials have quietly put technological building blocks into place to enable his plan. In particular, they have turned to one company: Palantir, the data analysis and technology firm.
The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work across the federal government in recent months. The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since Mr. Trump took office, according to public records, including additional funds from existing contracts as well as new contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. (This does not include a $795 million contract that the Department of Defense awarded the company last week, which has not been spent.)
Representatives of Palantir are also speaking to at least two other agencies — the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service — about buying its technology, according to six government officials and Palantir employees with knowledge of the discussions.
The push has put a key Palantir product called Foundry into at least four federal agencies, including D.H.S. and the Health and Human Services Department. Widely adopting Foundry, which organizes and analyzes data, paves the way for Mr. Trump to easily merge information from different agencies, the government officials said.
Creating detailed portraits of Americans based on government data is not just a pipe dream. The Trump administration has already sought access to hundreds of data points on citizens and others through government databases, including their bank account numbers, the amount of their student debt, their medical claims and any disability status.
Mr. Trump could potentially use such information to advance his political agenda by policing immigrants and punishing critics, Democratic lawmakers and critics have said. Privacy advocates, student unions and labor rights organizations have filed lawsuits to block data access, questioning whether the government could weaponize people’s personal information.
So, while all this is going on, we’re beginning to hear some interesting information on Elon Musk as he exists stage right. This is from Forbes Magazine. “Lucky” Susan Dorn got this assignment. “Musk Used Heavy Drugs Including Ketamine And Ecstasy While He Became Close To Trump, Report Says. Elon Musk used a copious amount of drugs—and travelled with a pill box that appeared to contain Adderall—last year as he ramped up his donations to President Donald Trump, according to a New York Times report that comes on his last official day at the White House.” He’s the Wolf of Austin, I guess.
Key Facts
- Musk told confidants he was taking so much ketamine it affected his bladder, according to The Times, citing unnamed sources who said he also took ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms.
- The Times also reported it obtained a photo that showed a medication box Musk travelled with containing about 20 pills, including Adderall.
- The alleged drug use overlapped with his campaign activity last year on behalf of Trump—with an endorsement in July followed by $250 million to help elect him.
- The report comes as Musk is set to exit the White House Friday after announcing Wednesday his time leading the Department of Government Efficiency had come to an end.
- Neither Musk nor his lawyer responded to The Times’ request for comment, but Musk has said previously he was prescribed ketamine for depression.
The New York Times has more details. “On the Campaign Trail, Elon Musk Juggled Drugs and Family Drama. As Mr. Musk entered President Trump’s orbit, his private life grew increasingly tumultuous, and his drug use was more intense than previously known.” Of course, they sent two women after this story, too. Kirsten Grind and Megan Twohey were the assigned reporters.
As Elon Musk became one of Donald J. Trump’s closest allies last year, leading raucous rallies and donating about $275 million to help him win the presidency, he was also using drugs far more intensely than previously known, according topeople familiar with his activities.
Mr. Musk’s drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it.
It is unclear whether Mr. Musk, 53, was taking drugs when he became a fixture at the White House this year and was handed the power to slash the federal bureaucracy. But he has exhibited erratic behavior, insulting cabinet members, gesturing like a Nazi and garbling his answers in a staged interview.
At the same time, Mr. Musk’s family life has grown increasingly tumultuous as he has negotiated overlapping romantic relationships and private legal battles involving his growing brood of children, according to documents and interviews.
I’m not about to go to the Gossip Rag road, but there are rumors about Mush and Steven Miller’s wife if you’re interested. This is from the Independent. “Stephen Miller’s wife leaves the White House to work for Elon Musk ‘full time’, Kate Miller was working as an adviser for Elon Musk at the Department of Government Efficiency.” I should eat some lunch, and I really will not ruin it by going any deeper into these. BLECH.
So, we lose a clown and gain one. Seriously, none of these Trump men are strangers to make-up. This is from ABC News. “Trump taps former right-wing podcast host Paul Ingrassia for key watchdog post. Ingrassia would replace Hampton Dellinger, who opposed Trump’s mass firings.”
President Trump announced Thursday night that he was tapping Paul Ingrassia, a former far-right podcast host, to lead the Office of Special Counsel — an independent watchdog agency empowered to investigate federal employees and oversee complaints from whistleblowers.
The Trump administration has previously taken aim at the Office of Special Counsel, firing the head of the agency, Hampton Dellinger (a Biden appointee) in February. Dellinger expressed opposition to the Trump administration’s firing of federal employees under DOGE-led cuts, noting that many had been fired or laid off without notice or justification.
Dellinger challenged his firing in court and was briefly reinstated to the post until a federal appeals court allowed for his dismissal. Dellinger decided to drop the challenge.
ABC News exclusively reported in February about how Ingrassia, in his role as White House liaison to the Department of Justice, was pushing to hire candidates at the DOJ who exhibited what he called “exceptional loyalty” to Trump. His efforts at DOJ sparked clashes with Attorney General Pam Bondi’s top aide, Chad Mizelle, leading Ingrassia to complain directly to President Trump, sources told ABC News.
Ingrassia was pushed out of DOJ and reassigned as the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, where he was serving prior to Trump announcing his new role, according to a White House official familiar with the matter.
In a post on X, Ingrassia wrote in response to his nomination: “It’s the highest honor to have been nominated to lead the Office of Special Counsel under President Trump! As Special Counsel, my team and I will make every effort to restore competence and integrity to the Executive Branch — with priority on eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal workforce and revitalize the Rule of Law and Fairness in Hatch Act enforcement.”
For the Senate-confirmed five-year term, Ingrassia will likely face tough questions over his lengthy history of media appearances and posts on social media promoting Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election as well as his ties to far-right media figures.
He was previously spotted at a 2024 rally hosted by white nationalist Nick Fuentes and has publicly praised figures like Andrew Tate — who has faced criminal charges for alleged sexual assault (Tate denies all wrongdoing).
All the best people, folks, all the best. So, I know you just want to know the latest information on the American Soap Opera “As the Tarrifs and the TACO Turns.” This is from CNBC. “Trump accuses China of violating preliminary trade deal.” Dan Managan gets all the serious stories, you know.
President Donald Trump on Friday said that China has “totally violated its” preliminary trade agreement with the United States, and suggested he would take action in response.
“So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!” Trump wrote in a social media post that said China had reneged on a deal that paused retaliatory tariffs between that country and the U.S.
Stock futures fell Friday morning on the heels of Trump’s statement.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, in a CNBC interview Friday morning, echoed Trump’s allegation, saying “we’re very concerned with” China’s purported non-compliance with the temporary trade deal.
The “United States did exactly what it was supposed to do, and the Chinese are slow rolling their compliance,” said Greer.
He called that “completely unacceptable and has to be addressed.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in a Fox News interview on Thursday, said that trade talks with China “are a bit stalled.”
CNBC has requested comment from China’s embassy in Washington, D.C.
The U.S. and China on May 12 agreed to a 90-day suspension on most tariffs imposed on each other’s imports.
The agreement was reached after Trump slapped sky-high tariffs on imports from China into the U.S., and China retaliated in kind.
“Two weeks ago China was in grave economic danger!” Trump wrote in his post on Truth Social on Friday.
“The very high Tariffs I set made it virtually impossible for China to TRADE into the United States marketplace which is, by far, number one in the World,” Trump wrote. “We went, in effect, COLD TURKEY with China, and it was devastating for them. Many factories closed and there was, to put it mildly, “civil unrest.” I saw what was happening and didn’t like it, for them, not for us. I made a FAST DEAL with China in order to save them from what I thought was going to be a very bad situation, and I didn’t want to see that happen.”
“Because of this deal, everything quickly stabilized and China got back to business as usual. Everybody was happy! That is the good news!!!” the president wrote.
“The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US. So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!”
Trump posted his screed two days after he lashed out at CNBC reporter Megan Cassella at the White House when she asked about the term “TACO trade,” which refers to the phrase “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
The term, coined by a Financial Times columnist, suggests that stock pickers can make money by buying shares after markets fall on news of new tariffs imposed by Trump, knowing that he invariably will pause or reduce the tariffs, sending markets higher.
You had to know he had to have a bully story to cover up all the Court sha-la-la about his on-again, off-again tariffs. Wow, my Grammarly got really dash happy there! Actually, I did it but wondered if it would notice anything and it did. One missing comma. I evidently have a thing against commas.
So, at least it’s the weekend! Hope y’all have a great one! I say TACO, they say TACO!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
#FartusDeportUs #JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #DrugAddict #ElonMuskNAZI #kakistocracy #PalantirDataTheftSpecialists #ScottPelley #TACO #WhoAreYOU_ #WifeStealer
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Finally Friday Reads: TACO Tales
“The most transparent administration ever..” John Buss @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I’m hoping we’re entering a Golden Age of Journalism because the number of stories floating around out there today indicates that we need more investigative journalists than ever before. Because of that, I cannot seem to play the Wake Forest Commencement by Sixty Minutes‘ Scott Pelley enough. His first statement rang true throughout the world. “Our sacred Rule of Law is under attack.” The Speech was entitled “The Meaning of You.”
The path to self-discovery starts with finding what kind of person you are when times get dark. As I’ve said before, these times are very dark. Do you shy away from speaking out? Do you take fighting action on whatever level you can? Do you melt away? Do you just go along or cheer it? I’ve come back to this speech this week because the headlines today show how important the press can be in exposing the dark times and the dark ones and their actions to light. It is then up to us to do something about it and to get our elected officials on it.
The New Republic’s Parker Molloy briefly discusses the importance of the Pelley Speech and the evil MAGA’s response. “Scott Pelley Warns Graduates About the Threats to American Democracy. The “60 Minutes” correspondent never mentioned Trump by name, but his call to defend democratic institutions was apparently too much for the MAGA crowd to handle.”
Earlier this month, journalist Scott Pelley delivered what should have been a fairly standard commencement address at Wake Forest University. The 60 Minutes correspondent spoke about seeking truth, defending democracy, and the importance of courage in difficult times—the kind of boilerplate inspiration you’d expect from a veteran journalist addressing graduates.
But because we live in very normal times, the speech went viral over Memorial Day weekend and triggered a conservative meltdown that’s been fascinating to watch unfold.
The fury started when a pro-MAGA account clipped portions of Pelley’s speech and shared them on X, writing “Scott Pelley raged at Trump in angry, unhinged commencement address at Wake Forest.”
What did Pelley say that sent the right into such a tizzy? Well, he had the audacity to suggest that “our sacred rule of law is under attack. Journalism is under attack. Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack.” He warned of “insidious fear … reaching through our schools, our businesses, our homes, and into our private thoughts, the fear to speak in America.”
And perhaps most provocatively, Pelley criticized the administration’s attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, saying, “Diversity is now described as ‘illegal.’ Equity is to be shunned. Inclusion is a dirty word. This is an old playbook, my friends.” He also referenced “masked agents” who “abduct a college student who wrote an editorial in her college paper defending Palestinian rights and send her to a prison in Louisiana charged with nothing.”
Pelley’s speech comes as Trump is suing CBS for $20 billion over alleged “election interference” and CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon abruptly resigned, citing disagreements with the company amid the legal pressure.
What’s remarkable is how a fairly conventional call for civic engagement and democratic values could generate such hysteria. But then again, when you’re running an administration built on exactly the kind of authoritarian playbook Pelley described, I suppose any critique—no matter how measured—feels like an existential threat.
Reading the speech in full, it’s hard to see what’s so “unhinged” about urging graduates to be engaged citizens and defend democratic institutions. Unless, of course, you’re deeply invested in attacking those very institutions.
A complete transcript of the speech follows. Also, you may listen to and watch Paley’s address here. The headlines today may be bleak, but the important thing is that reporters and the people supporting the work investigate and can find unbelievable corruption, stark depravity, and many examples of bad human conduct, demeanor, and actions. Then expose it!
When I was born, and as I grew up and my family moved into the middle class, I was instilled with the importance of reading magazines and watching the news. My Grandfather on my mother’s side always sent me books for my birthday and Christmas. My Nana on my mother’s side sent my sister and me subscriptions to National Geographic and The Christian Science Monitor. We read the local newspapers and the Des Moines Register every morning and evening. When I asked my Dad while I was in high school if I could get a subscription to The Manchester Guardian and to Paris Match, he didn’t even hesitate. I can tell you my show and tell performance, as well as my reports from newspapers, were altogether different from my Council Bluffs and Omaha friends.
When I hit university, all the foreign students whom I continually sought out for all dorm meals originally thought I was from Canada. When my family travelled to Europe, I tried to blend in as much as possible and just observe. It is perhaps this that makes me blog today, even though the only journalism classes I took were in high school. I wrote for the school newspaper, an underground newspaper, and the junior high newspaper. I always assumed everyone was as news-hungry as I was growing up in some of the most boring and inane places on the planet. I couldn’t live with oatmeal after reading about Belgian waffles. Can you imagine what happened when I got my first bite of one?
Knowledge of news is important for good citizenship, it’s important for making decisions that impact your household, and it’s important just because things are moving faster than ever. So let me get down to my first suggested reads today.
One of the things I find most threatening these days is seeing my students, my university, and many places leave their brains behind and try to make things easy using AI. It may have a future, but presently, any good professor worth their salt can tell when someone uses it. You should get good at spotting it on the internet, and you will be annoyed when you’re making an important call about something or chatting with some company, and even when it’s given a name, you can tell by the idiosyncrasies and the lack of niceties of American English, this thing ain’t human.
I’ve noticed that the grammar check my University uses completely breaks down when dealing with nuances and colloquialisms. It seems to excel mostly at filling my writing with commas and catching typos. That’s okay by me and easy, but believe me, I can tell when a student overuses AI. We’re being trained at spotting it as well as teaching students how to use it correctly. However, someone who knows what they are doing from years of doing it can make a better decision about its use than those still on the learning curve.
I say this because I watched a news program where the new AI installed at the Social Security phone line repeatedly ignored the question they asked, then kept squawking “Can I help you with something else?” endlessly. This is the point where I hear my Nana’s voice telling little me, “Well, you can, but may you?” AI does not grok manners and polite conversations. It could be because human mutants like Elon Musk and his Dodge cluster have never quite figured that out either. Garbage in, garbage out. But, then maybe that’s what they want. Cease being polite and just be technically acceptable. Okay, it’s long but I’m getting there, I promise.
This phenomenon played out yesterday as one of RFK Jr.’s prodigal research adventures turned into something I wouldn’t even expect from an undergrad or, actually, even someone sitting in my high school or university composition class. He was, of course, a legacy student there because of his father. We also know he was the dorm’s drug dealer from my fellow Westside High School journalism classmate, Kurt Anderson. One thing Westside always turned out was students who knew how to write. That skill got me through all the rest of my degrees because, damn I could write a good paper. Evidently, RFK Jr. did not get that skill.
It’s rather interesting given the difficult times Harvard is facing in protecting its foreign students. Now granted, I helped many a colleague from distant lands to get their excellent research into prime American English form. Everyone always sent them to me before they were sent to a journal for publishing, which bought me a cheap pub. But, every one of them took me farther down the path of being a numbers and stats guru. Did you know kids in India start their calculus classes in like 5th grade? It was also easier for me to actually come up with a sweet hypothesis to test because I was taught to be both analytical and creative. That’s what a good public school can do for you. A good university exposes you to what’s possible and exposes you to all kinds of interesting thinkers. But, again, I guess RFK Jr. was too busy with drugs to take advantage of anything like that. That’s why he’s likely never going to be part of a blog community, a book club, or a group that goes to the Saturday Night Midnight movies.
Okay, I really am getting to the read now. At his advanced age, with his unlimited educational opportunities and his money, he cannot write a research paper. And yet, it showed up in the public sphere because he was trying to prove his very wrong hypotheses at any cost. He didn’t prove anything. He turned to all manner of things to argue his hypothesis. None of his antics were academically sound. At first, the White House’s dumbest Press Secretary announced there were “formatting” errors. But, how could that be when, after investigating sources, reporters found them either made up or seriously in error? The Make America Healthy Again report was just embarrassing.
MSNBC anchor Jen Psaki derided White House Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s defense of a “Make America Healthy Again” Commission report filled with errors and broken links.
NOTUS reported the paper, released under the administration of President Donald Trump and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., cited at least seven sources that do not appear to exist. The news publication contacted epidemiologist Katherine Keyes, who the MAHA report lists as the first author of a study it cited on adolescent anxiety, and discovered Keyes didn’t write the paper.
“The paper cited is not a real paper that I or my colleagues were involved with,” Keyes told NOTUS. “We’ve certainly done research on this topic, but did not publish a paper in JAMA Pediatrics on this topic with that co-author group, or with that title.”
NOTUS also reported two other studies pertaining to direct-to-consumer drug advertisements for ADHD medications and antidepressants for kids appear nowhere “to be found.” Reporters also could not validate another section claiming 25% to 40% of mild cases of asthma are overprescribed. Additionally, the author of a corticosteroids study’s the MAHA report cited to support its arguments denied writing the study.
NOTUS reporter Jasmine Wright was in the White House briefing room Thursday and asked Leavitt: “does the White House have confidence that the information coming from HHS can be trusted?”
“Yes, we have complete confidence in Secretary Kennedy and his team at HHS,” Leavitt responded. “I understand there were some formatting issues with the MAHA report that are being addressed.”
Psaki, a former White House press secretary herself, did not contain her scorn.
Well, the nation’s biggest and most disappointing media of record investigated and found some interesting things in the MAHA report. Let’s start with the Washington Post. “White House MAHA Report may have garbled science by using AI, experts say. The report, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was intended to address the reasons for the decline in Americans’ life expectancy.” Well, that’s typical of a lot of students. If they can’t do it, they pay someone who can. You can always tell this, though, because if you’ve seen any previous work, you recognize their voice and you know when something is different. AI is the most recent example of buying a paper online, but with a lower cost and perhaps a lower chance of getting caught because you won’t find a cheat paper by searching it verbatim with your student’s work. Believe me, the discussion on this in teacher lounges and faculty clubs is de rigueur these days. Evidently, RFK Jr. didn’t even know the most tell-tale of the signs.
Some of the citations that underpin the science in the White House’s sweeping “MAHA Report” appear to have been generated using artificial intelligence, resulting in numerous garbled scientific references and invented studies, AI experts said Thursday.
Of the 522 footnotes to scientific research in an initial version of the report sent to The Washington Post, at least 37 appear multiple times, according to a review of the report by The Post. Other citations include the wrong author, and several studies cited by the extensive health report do not exist at all, a fact first reported by the online news outlet NOTUS on Thursday morning.
Some references include “oaicite” attached to URLs — a definitive sign that the research was collected using artificial intelligence. The presence of “oaicite” is a marker indicating use of OpenAI, a U.S. artificial intelligence company.
A common hallmark of AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT, is unusually repetitive content that does not sound human or is inaccurate — as well as the tendency to “hallucinate” studies or answers that appear to make sense but are not real.
So, our Secretary of Health and Human Services is so bereft of research skills that he can’t even avoid the number one Rookie mistake. Does he have anyone around him who knew better and could catch this? I can tell you that a team of peers that checks every research paper headed to publication in an academically sound journal would never let this go through to print. If you’re the main author, you try to avoid any humiliating mistakes for serious journals.
AI technology can be used legitimately to quickly survey the research in a field. But Oren Etzioni, a professor emeritus at the University of Washington who studies AI, said he was shocked by the sloppiness in the MAHA Report.
“Frankly, that’s shoddy work,” he said. “We deserve better.”
“The MAHA Report: Making Our Children Healthy Again,” which addressed the root causes of America’s lagging health outcomes, was written by a commission of Cabinet officials and government scientific leaders. It was led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has a history of misstating science, and written in response to an executive order from President Donald Trump.
The New York Times published the first media review pointing out made-up sources. “White House Health Report Included Fake Citations, ‘A report on children’s health released by the Make America Healthy Again Commission referred to scientific papers that did not exist.” Now, I’m not a scientist, but I lived with a Yale-educated Doctorate in Microbiology who published a lot of things on RNA transcription, ran a lab at a public university, and wound up with the NSF. I have no idea if he’s retired or if he went with the current purge of scientists. I read many of his works pre-publication, and he got published in all the big ones. I think the science journals are more nerve-wracking to write for than the Economics and Finance. Usually, it’s based on lab data rather than the Federal Reserve Beige Book or World Book data, which gets a pass even though the methodology and the model itself get the eagle eye. This report was a hot mess on all accounts.
The Trump administration released a report last week that it billed as a “clear, evidence-based foundation” for action on a range of children’s health issues.
But the report, from the presidential Make America Healthy Again Commission, cited studies that did not exist. These included fictitious studies on direct-to-consumer drug advertising, mental illness and medications prescribed for children with asthma.
“It makes me concerned about the rigor of the report, if these really basic citation practices aren’t being followed,” said Katherine Keyes, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University who was listed as the author of a paper on mental health and substance use among adolescents. Dr. Keyes has not written any paper by the title the report cited, nor does one seem to exist by any author.
The news outlet NOTUS first reported the presence of false citations, and The New York Times identified additional faulty references. By midafternoon on Thursday, the White House had uploaded a new copy of the report with corrections.
Dr. Ivan Oransky — who teaches medical journalism at New York University and is a co-founder of Retraction Watch, a website that tracks retractions of scientific research — said the errors in the report were characteristic of the use of generative artificial intelligence, which has led to similar issues in legal filings and more.
Dr. Oransky said that while he did not know whether the government had used A.I. in producing the report or the citations, “we’ve seen this particular movie before, and it’s unfortunately much more common in scientific literature than people would like or than really it should be.”
Asked at a news conference on Thursday whether the report had relied on A.I., the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, deferred to the Department of Health and Human Services. Emily Hilliard, a spokeswoman for the department, did not answer a question about the source of the fabricated references and downplayed them as “minor citation and formatting errors.” She said that “the substance of the MAHA report remains the same — a historic and transformative assessment by the federal government to understand the chronic-disease epidemic afflicting our nation’s children.”
The false references do not necessarily mean the underlying facts in the report are incorrect. But they indicate a lack of rigorous review and verification of the report and its bibliography before it was released, Dr. Oransky said.
“Scientific publishing is supposed to be about verification,” he said, adding: “There’s supposed to be a set of eyes, actually several sets of eyes. And so what that tells us is that there was no good set of eyes on this
So, after finding out about all of that, this should make you feel really at ease.
The Trump administration has quietly spread Palantir’s technology through U.S. agencies, paving the way to easily compile data on Americans. The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since President Trump took office. nyti.ms/4dJfR0o
— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) 2025-05-30T16:16:57.733Z
I think we can start making the Big Brother is watching you references now. This is the subheading, which is startling IMHO. “The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work with the government, spreading the company’s technology — which could easily merge data on Americans — throughout agencies.” Getting your passport ready yet?
In March, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to share data across agencies, raising questions over whether he might compile a master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power.
Mr. Trump has not publicly talked about the effort since. But behind the scenes, officials have quietly put technological building blocks into place to enable his plan. In particular, they have turned to one company: Palantir, the data analysis and technology firm.
The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work across the federal government in recent months. The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since Mr. Trump took office, according to public records, including additional funds from existing contracts as well as new contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. (This does not include a $795 million contract that the Department of Defense awarded the company last week, which has not been spent.)
Representatives of Palantir are also speaking to at least two other agencies — the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service — about buying its technology, according to six government officials and Palantir employees with knowledge of the discussions.
The push has put a key Palantir product called Foundry into at least four federal agencies, including D.H.S. and the Health and Human Services Department. Widely adopting Foundry, which organizes and analyzes data, paves the way for Mr. Trump to easily merge information from different agencies, the government officials said.
Creating detailed portraits of Americans based on government data is not just a pipe dream. The Trump administration has already sought access to hundreds of data points on citizens and others through government databases, including their bank account numbers, the amount of their student debt, their medical claims and any disability status.
Mr. Trump could potentially use such information to advance his political agenda by policing immigrants and punishing critics, Democratic lawmakers and critics have said. Privacy advocates, student unions and labor rights organizations have filed lawsuits to block data access, questioning whether the government could weaponize people’s personal information.
So, while all this is going on, we’re beginning to hear some interesting information on Elon Musk as he exists stage right. This is from Forbes Magazine. “Lucky” Susan Dorn got this assignment. “Musk Used Heavy Drugs Including Ketamine And Ecstasy While He Became Close To Trump, Report Says. Elon Musk used a copious amount of drugs—and travelled with a pill box that appeared to contain Adderall—last year as he ramped up his donations to President Donald Trump, according to a New York Times report that comes on his last official day at the White House.” He’s the Wolf of Austin, I guess.
Key Facts
- Musk told confidants he was taking so much ketamine it affected his bladder, according to The Times, citing unnamed sources who said he also took ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms.
- The Times also reported it obtained a photo that showed a medication box Musk travelled with containing about 20 pills, including Adderall.
- The alleged drug use overlapped with his campaign activity last year on behalf of Trump—with an endorsement in July followed by $250 million to help elect him.
- The report comes as Musk is set to exit the White House Friday after announcing Wednesday his time leading the Department of Government Efficiency had come to an end.
- Neither Musk nor his lawyer responded to The Times’ request for comment, but Musk has said previously he was prescribed ketamine for depression.
The New York Times has more details. “On the Campaign Trail, Elon Musk Juggled Drugs and Family Drama. As Mr. Musk entered President Trump’s orbit, his private life grew increasingly tumultuous, and his drug use was more intense than previously known.” Of course, they sent two women after this story, too. Kirsten Grind and Megan Twohey were the assigned reporters.
As Elon Musk became one of Donald J. Trump’s closest allies last year, leading raucous rallies and donating about $275 million to help him win the presidency, he was also using drugs far more intensely than previously known, according topeople familiar with his activities.
Mr. Musk’s drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it.
It is unclear whether Mr. Musk, 53, was taking drugs when he became a fixture at the White House this year and was handed the power to slash the federal bureaucracy. But he has exhibited erratic behavior, insulting cabinet members, gesturing like a Nazi and garbling his answers in a staged interview.
At the same time, Mr. Musk’s family life has grown increasingly tumultuous as he has negotiated overlapping romantic relationships and private legal battles involving his growing brood of children, according to documents and interviews.
I’m not about to go to the Gossip Rag road, but there are rumors about Mush and Steven Miller’s wife if you’re interested. This is from the Independent. “Stephen Miller’s wife leaves the White House to work for Elon Musk ‘full time’, Kate Miller was working as an adviser for Elon Musk at the Department of Government Efficiency.” I should eat some lunch, and I really will not ruin it by going any deeper into these. BLECH.
So, we lose a clown and gain one. Seriously, none of these Trump men are strangers to make-up. This is from ABC News. “Trump taps former right-wing podcast host Paul Ingrassia for key watchdog post. Ingrassia would replace Hampton Dellinger, who opposed Trump’s mass firings.”
President Trump announced Thursday night that he was tapping Paul Ingrassia, a former far-right podcast host, to lead the Office of Special Counsel — an independent watchdog agency empowered to investigate federal employees and oversee complaints from whistleblowers.
The Trump administration has previously taken aim at the Office of Special Counsel, firing the head of the agency, Hampton Dellinger (a Biden appointee) in February. Dellinger expressed opposition to the Trump administration’s firing of federal employees under DOGE-led cuts, noting that many had been fired or laid off without notice or justification.
Dellinger challenged his firing in court and was briefly reinstated to the post until a federal appeals court allowed for his dismissal. Dellinger decided to drop the challenge.
ABC News exclusively reported in February about how Ingrassia, in his role as White House liaison to the Department of Justice, was pushing to hire candidates at the DOJ who exhibited what he called “exceptional loyalty” to Trump. His efforts at DOJ sparked clashes with Attorney General Pam Bondi’s top aide, Chad Mizelle, leading Ingrassia to complain directly to President Trump, sources told ABC News.
Ingrassia was pushed out of DOJ and reassigned as the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, where he was serving prior to Trump announcing his new role, according to a White House official familiar with the matter.
In a post on X, Ingrassia wrote in response to his nomination: “It’s the highest honor to have been nominated to lead the Office of Special Counsel under President Trump! As Special Counsel, my team and I will make every effort to restore competence and integrity to the Executive Branch — with priority on eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal workforce and revitalize the Rule of Law and Fairness in Hatch Act enforcement.”
For the Senate-confirmed five-year term, Ingrassia will likely face tough questions over his lengthy history of media appearances and posts on social media promoting Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election as well as his ties to far-right media figures.
He was previously spotted at a 2024 rally hosted by white nationalist Nick Fuentes and has publicly praised figures like Andrew Tate — who has faced criminal charges for alleged sexual assault (Tate denies all wrongdoing).
All the best people, folks, all the best. So, I know you just want to know the latest information on the American Soap Opera “As the Tarrifs and the TACO Turns.” This is from CNBC. “Trump accuses China of violating preliminary trade deal.” Dan Managan gets all the serious stories, you know.
President Donald Trump on Friday said that China has “totally violated its” preliminary trade agreement with the United States, and suggested he would take action in response.
“So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!” Trump wrote in a social media post that said China had reneged on a deal that paused retaliatory tariffs between that country and the U.S.
Stock futures fell Friday morning on the heels of Trump’s statement.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, in a CNBC interview Friday morning, echoed Trump’s allegation, saying “we’re very concerned with” China’s purported non-compliance with the temporary trade deal.
The “United States did exactly what it was supposed to do, and the Chinese are slow rolling their compliance,” said Greer.
He called that “completely unacceptable and has to be addressed.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in a Fox News interview on Thursday, said that trade talks with China “are a bit stalled.”
CNBC has requested comment from China’s embassy in Washington, D.C.
The U.S. and China on May 12 agreed to a 90-day suspension on most tariffs imposed on each other’s imports.
The agreement was reached after Trump slapped sky-high tariffs on imports from China into the U.S., and China retaliated in kind.
“Two weeks ago China was in grave economic danger!” Trump wrote in his post on Truth Social on Friday.
“The very high Tariffs I set made it virtually impossible for China to TRADE into the United States marketplace which is, by far, number one in the World,” Trump wrote. “We went, in effect, COLD TURKEY with China, and it was devastating for them. Many factories closed and there was, to put it mildly, “civil unrest.” I saw what was happening and didn’t like it, for them, not for us. I made a FAST DEAL with China in order to save them from what I thought was going to be a very bad situation, and I didn’t want to see that happen.”
“Because of this deal, everything quickly stabilized and China got back to business as usual. Everybody was happy! That is the good news!!!” the president wrote.
“The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US. So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!”
Trump posted his screed two days after he lashed out at CNBC reporter Megan Cassella at the White House when she asked about the term “TACO trade,” which refers to the phrase “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
The term, coined by a Financial Times columnist, suggests that stock pickers can make money by buying shares after markets fall on news of new tariffs imposed by Trump, knowing that he invariably will pause or reduce the tariffs, sending markets higher.
You had to know he had to have a bully story to cover up all the Court sha-la-la about his on-again, off-again tariffs. Wow, my Grammarly got really dash happy there! Actually, I did it but wondered if it would notice anything and it did. One missing comma. I evidently have a thing against commas.
So, at least it’s the weekend! Hope y’all have a great one! I say TACO, they say TACO!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
#FartusDeportUs #JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #DrugAddict #ElonMuskNAZI #kakistocracy #PalantirDataTheftSpecialists #ScottPelley #TACO #WhoAreYOU_ #WifeStealer
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Finally Friday Reads: TACO Tales
“The most transparent administration ever..” John Buss @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I’m hoping we’re entering a Golden Age of Journalism because the number of stories floating around out there today indicates that we need more investigative journalists than ever before. Because of that, I cannot seem to play the Wake Forest Commencement by Sixty Minutes‘ Scott Pelley enough. His first statement rang true throughout the world. “Our sacred Rule of Law is under attack.” The Speech was entitled “The Meaning of You.”
The path to self-discovery starts with finding what kind of person you are when times get dark. As I’ve said before, these times are very dark. Do you shy away from speaking out? Do you take fighting action on whatever level you can? Do you melt away? Do you just go along or cheer it? I’ve come back to this speech this week because the headlines today show how important the press can be in exposing the dark times and the dark ones and their actions to light. It is then up to us to do something about it and to get our elected officials on it.
The New Republic’s Parker Molloy briefly discusses the importance of the Pelley Speech and the evil MAGA’s response. “Scott Pelley Warns Graduates About the Threats to American Democracy. The “60 Minutes” correspondent never mentioned Trump by name, but his call to defend democratic institutions was apparently too much for the MAGA crowd to handle.”
Earlier this month, journalist Scott Pelley delivered what should have been a fairly standard commencement address at Wake Forest University. The 60 Minutes correspondent spoke about seeking truth, defending democracy, and the importance of courage in difficult times—the kind of boilerplate inspiration you’d expect from a veteran journalist addressing graduates.
But because we live in very normal times, the speech went viral over Memorial Day weekend and triggered a conservative meltdown that’s been fascinating to watch unfold.
The fury started when a pro-MAGA account clipped portions of Pelley’s speech and shared them on X, writing “Scott Pelley raged at Trump in angry, unhinged commencement address at Wake Forest.”
What did Pelley say that sent the right into such a tizzy? Well, he had the audacity to suggest that “our sacred rule of law is under attack. Journalism is under attack. Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack.” He warned of “insidious fear … reaching through our schools, our businesses, our homes, and into our private thoughts, the fear to speak in America.”
And perhaps most provocatively, Pelley criticized the administration’s attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, saying, “Diversity is now described as ‘illegal.’ Equity is to be shunned. Inclusion is a dirty word. This is an old playbook, my friends.” He also referenced “masked agents” who “abduct a college student who wrote an editorial in her college paper defending Palestinian rights and send her to a prison in Louisiana charged with nothing.”
Pelley’s speech comes as Trump is suing CBS for $20 billion over alleged “election interference” and CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon abruptly resigned, citing disagreements with the company amid the legal pressure.
What’s remarkable is how a fairly conventional call for civic engagement and democratic values could generate such hysteria. But then again, when you’re running an administration built on exactly the kind of authoritarian playbook Pelley described, I suppose any critique—no matter how measured—feels like an existential threat.
Reading the speech in full, it’s hard to see what’s so “unhinged” about urging graduates to be engaged citizens and defend democratic institutions. Unless, of course, you’re deeply invested in attacking those very institutions.
A complete transcript of the speech follows. Also, you may listen to and watch Paley’s address here. The headlines today may be bleak, but the important thing is that reporters and the people supporting the work investigate and can find unbelievable corruption, stark depravity, and many examples of bad human conduct, demeanor, and actions. Then expose it!
When I was born, and as I grew up and my family moved into the middle class, I was instilled with the importance of reading magazines and watching the news. My Grandfather on my mother’s side always sent me books for my birthday and Christmas. My Nana on my mother’s side sent my sister and me subscriptions to National Geographic and The Christian Science Monitor. We read the local newspapers and the Des Moines Register every morning and evening. When I asked my Dad while I was in high school if I could get a subscription to The Manchester Guardian and to Paris Match, he didn’t even hesitate. I can tell you my show and tell performance, as well as my reports from newspapers, were altogether different from my Council Bluffs and Omaha friends.
When I hit university, all the foreign students whom I continually sought out for all dorm meals originally thought I was from Canada. When my family travelled to Europe, I tried to blend in as much as possible and just observe. It is perhaps this that makes me blog today, even though the only journalism classes I took were in high school. I wrote for the school newspaper, an underground newspaper, and the junior high newspaper. I always assumed everyone was as news-hungry as I was growing up in some of the most boring and inane places on the planet. I couldn’t live with oatmeal after reading about Belgian waffles. Can you imagine what happened when I got my first bite of one?
Knowledge of news is important for good citizenship, it’s important for making decisions that impact your household, and it’s important just because things are moving faster than ever. So let me get down to my first suggested reads today.
One of the things I find most threatening these days is seeing my students, my university, and many places leave their brains behind and try to make things easy using AI. It may have a future, but presently, any good professor worth their salt can tell when someone uses it. You should get good at spotting it on the internet, and you will be annoyed when you’re making an important call about something or chatting with some company, and even when it’s given a name, you can tell by the idiosyncrasies and the lack of niceties of American English, this thing ain’t human.
I’ve noticed that the grammar check my University uses completely breaks down when dealing with nuances and colloquialisms. It seems to excel mostly at filling my writing with commas and catching typos. That’s okay by me and easy, but believe me, I can tell when a student overuses AI. We’re being trained at spotting it as well as teaching students how to use it correctly. However, someone who knows what they are doing from years of doing it can make a better decision about its use than those still on the learning curve.
I say this because I watched a news program where the new AI installed at the Social Security phone line repeatedly ignored the question they asked, then kept squawking “Can I help you with something else?” endlessly. This is the point where I hear my Nana’s voice telling little me, “Well, you can, but may you?” AI does not grok manners and polite conversations. It could be because human mutants like Elon Musk and his Dodge cluster have never quite figured that out either. Garbage in, garbage out. But, then maybe that’s what they want. Cease being polite and just be technically acceptable. Okay, it’s long but I’m getting there, I promise.
This phenomenon played out yesterday as one of RFK Jr.’s prodigal research adventures turned into something I wouldn’t even expect from an undergrad or, actually, even someone sitting in my high school or university composition class. He was, of course, a legacy student there because of his father. We also know he was the dorm’s drug dealer from my fellow Westside High School journalism classmate, Kurt Anderson. One thing Westside always turned out was students who knew how to write. That skill got me through all the rest of my degrees because, damn I could write a good paper. Evidently, RFK Jr. did not get that skill.
It’s rather interesting given the difficult times Harvard is facing in protecting its foreign students. Now granted, I helped many a colleague from distant lands to get their excellent research into prime American English form. Everyone always sent them to me before they were sent to a journal for publishing, which bought me a cheap pub. But, every one of them took me farther down the path of being a numbers and stats guru. Did you know kids in India start their calculus classes in like 5th grade? It was also easier for me to actually come up with a sweet hypothesis to test because I was taught to be both analytical and creative. That’s what a good public school can do for you. A good university exposes you to what’s possible and exposes you to all kinds of interesting thinkers. But, again, I guess RFK Jr. was too busy with drugs to take advantage of anything like that. That’s why he’s likely never going to be part of a blog community, a book club, or a group that goes to the Saturday Night Midnight movies.
Okay, I really am getting to the read now. At his advanced age, with his unlimited educational opportunities and his money, he cannot write a research paper. And yet, it showed up in the public sphere because he was trying to prove his very wrong hypotheses at any cost. He didn’t prove anything. He turned to all manner of things to argue his hypothesis. None of his antics were academically sound. At first, the White House’s dumbest Press Secretary announced there were “formatting” errors. But, how could that be when, after investigating sources, reporters found them either made up or seriously in error? The Make America Healthy Again report was just embarrassing.
MSNBC anchor Jen Psaki derided White House Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s defense of a “Make America Healthy Again” Commission report filled with errors and broken links.
NOTUS reported the paper, released under the administration of President Donald Trump and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., cited at least seven sources that do not appear to exist. The news publication contacted epidemiologist Katherine Keyes, who the MAHA report lists as the first author of a study it cited on adolescent anxiety, and discovered Keyes didn’t write the paper.
“The paper cited is not a real paper that I or my colleagues were involved with,” Keyes told NOTUS. “We’ve certainly done research on this topic, but did not publish a paper in JAMA Pediatrics on this topic with that co-author group, or with that title.”
NOTUS also reported two other studies pertaining to direct-to-consumer drug advertisements for ADHD medications and antidepressants for kids appear nowhere “to be found.” Reporters also could not validate another section claiming 25% to 40% of mild cases of asthma are overprescribed. Additionally, the author of a corticosteroids study’s the MAHA report cited to support its arguments denied writing the study.
NOTUS reporter Jasmine Wright was in the White House briefing room Thursday and asked Leavitt: “does the White House have confidence that the information coming from HHS can be trusted?”
“Yes, we have complete confidence in Secretary Kennedy and his team at HHS,” Leavitt responded. “I understand there were some formatting issues with the MAHA report that are being addressed.”
Psaki, a former White House press secretary herself, did not contain her scorn.
Well, the nation’s biggest and most disappointing media of record investigated and found some interesting things in the MAHA report. Let’s start with the Washington Post. “White House MAHA Report may have garbled science by using AI, experts say. The report, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was intended to address the reasons for the decline in Americans’ life expectancy.” Well, that’s typical of a lot of students. If they can’t do it, they pay someone who can. You can always tell this, though, because if you’ve seen any previous work, you recognize their voice and you know when something is different. AI is the most recent example of buying a paper online, but with a lower cost and perhaps a lower chance of getting caught because you won’t find a cheat paper by searching it verbatim with your student’s work. Believe me, the discussion on this in teacher lounges and faculty clubs is de rigueur these days. Evidently, RFK Jr. didn’t even know the most tell-tale of the signs.
Some of the citations that underpin the science in the White House’s sweeping “MAHA Report” appear to have been generated using artificial intelligence, resulting in numerous garbled scientific references and invented studies, AI experts said Thursday.
Of the 522 footnotes to scientific research in an initial version of the report sent to The Washington Post, at least 37 appear multiple times, according to a review of the report by The Post. Other citations include the wrong author, and several studies cited by the extensive health report do not exist at all, a fact first reported by the online news outlet NOTUS on Thursday morning.
Some references include “oaicite” attached to URLs — a definitive sign that the research was collected using artificial intelligence. The presence of “oaicite” is a marker indicating use of OpenAI, a U.S. artificial intelligence company.
A common hallmark of AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT, is unusually repetitive content that does not sound human or is inaccurate — as well as the tendency to “hallucinate” studies or answers that appear to make sense but are not real.
So, our Secretary of Health and Human Services is so bereft of research skills that he can’t even avoid the number one Rookie mistake. Does he have anyone around him who knew better and could catch this? I can tell you that a team of peers that checks every research paper headed to publication in an academically sound journal would never let this go through to print. If you’re the main author, you try to avoid any humiliating mistakes for serious journals.
AI technology can be used legitimately to quickly survey the research in a field. But Oren Etzioni, a professor emeritus at the University of Washington who studies AI, said he was shocked by the sloppiness in the MAHA Report.
“Frankly, that’s shoddy work,” he said. “We deserve better.”
“The MAHA Report: Making Our Children Healthy Again,” which addressed the root causes of America’s lagging health outcomes, was written by a commission of Cabinet officials and government scientific leaders. It was led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has a history of misstating science, and written in response to an executive order from President Donald Trump.
The New York Times published the first media review pointing out made-up sources. “White House Health Report Included Fake Citations, ‘A report on children’s health released by the Make America Healthy Again Commission referred to scientific papers that did not exist.” Now, I’m not a scientist, but I lived with a Yale-educated Doctorate in Microbiology who published a lot of things on RNA transcription, ran a lab at a public university, and wound up with the NSF. I have no idea if he’s retired or if he went with the current purge of scientists. I read many of his works pre-publication, and he got published in all the big ones. I think the science journals are more nerve-wracking to write for than the Economics and Finance. Usually, it’s based on lab data rather than the Federal Reserve Beige Book or World Book data, which gets a pass even though the methodology and the model itself get the eagle eye. This report was a hot mess on all accounts.
The Trump administration released a report last week that it billed as a “clear, evidence-based foundation” for action on a range of children’s health issues.
But the report, from the presidential Make America Healthy Again Commission, cited studies that did not exist. These included fictitious studies on direct-to-consumer drug advertising, mental illness and medications prescribed for children with asthma.
“It makes me concerned about the rigor of the report, if these really basic citation practices aren’t being followed,” said Katherine Keyes, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University who was listed as the author of a paper on mental health and substance use among adolescents. Dr. Keyes has not written any paper by the title the report cited, nor does one seem to exist by any author.
The news outlet NOTUS first reported the presence of false citations, and The New York Times identified additional faulty references. By midafternoon on Thursday, the White House had uploaded a new copy of the report with corrections.
Dr. Ivan Oransky — who teaches medical journalism at New York University and is a co-founder of Retraction Watch, a website that tracks retractions of scientific research — said the errors in the report were characteristic of the use of generative artificial intelligence, which has led to similar issues in legal filings and more.
Dr. Oransky said that while he did not know whether the government had used A.I. in producing the report or the citations, “we’ve seen this particular movie before, and it’s unfortunately much more common in scientific literature than people would like or than really it should be.”
Asked at a news conference on Thursday whether the report had relied on A.I., the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, deferred to the Department of Health and Human Services. Emily Hilliard, a spokeswoman for the department, did not answer a question about the source of the fabricated references and downplayed them as “minor citation and formatting errors.” She said that “the substance of the MAHA report remains the same — a historic and transformative assessment by the federal government to understand the chronic-disease epidemic afflicting our nation’s children.”
The false references do not necessarily mean the underlying facts in the report are incorrect. But they indicate a lack of rigorous review and verification of the report and its bibliography before it was released, Dr. Oransky said.
“Scientific publishing is supposed to be about verification,” he said, adding: “There’s supposed to be a set of eyes, actually several sets of eyes. And so what that tells us is that there was no good set of eyes on this
So, after finding out about all of that, this should make you feel really at ease.
The Trump administration has quietly spread Palantir’s technology through U.S. agencies, paving the way to easily compile data on Americans. The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since President Trump took office. nyti.ms/4dJfR0o
— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) 2025-05-30T16:16:57.733Z
I think we can start making the Big Brother is watching you references now. This is the subheading, which is startling IMHO. “The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work with the government, spreading the company’s technology — which could easily merge data on Americans — throughout agencies.” Getting your passport ready yet?
In March, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to share data across agencies, raising questions over whether he might compile a master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power.
Mr. Trump has not publicly talked about the effort since. But behind the scenes, officials have quietly put technological building blocks into place to enable his plan. In particular, they have turned to one company: Palantir, the data analysis and technology firm.
The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work across the federal government in recent months. The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since Mr. Trump took office, according to public records, including additional funds from existing contracts as well as new contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. (This does not include a $795 million contract that the Department of Defense awarded the company last week, which has not been spent.)
Representatives of Palantir are also speaking to at least two other agencies — the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service — about buying its technology, according to six government officials and Palantir employees with knowledge of the discussions.
The push has put a key Palantir product called Foundry into at least four federal agencies, including D.H.S. and the Health and Human Services Department. Widely adopting Foundry, which organizes and analyzes data, paves the way for Mr. Trump to easily merge information from different agencies, the government officials said.
Creating detailed portraits of Americans based on government data is not just a pipe dream. The Trump administration has already sought access to hundreds of data points on citizens and others through government databases, including their bank account numbers, the amount of their student debt, their medical claims and any disability status.
Mr. Trump could potentially use such information to advance his political agenda by policing immigrants and punishing critics, Democratic lawmakers and critics have said. Privacy advocates, student unions and labor rights organizations have filed lawsuits to block data access, questioning whether the government could weaponize people’s personal information.
So, while all this is going on, we’re beginning to hear some interesting information on Elon Musk as he exists stage right. This is from Forbes Magazine. “Lucky” Susan Dorn got this assignment. “Musk Used Heavy Drugs Including Ketamine And Ecstasy While He Became Close To Trump, Report Says. Elon Musk used a copious amount of drugs—and travelled with a pill box that appeared to contain Adderall—last year as he ramped up his donations to President Donald Trump, according to a New York Times report that comes on his last official day at the White House.” He’s the Wolf of Austin, I guess.
Key Facts
- Musk told confidants he was taking so much ketamine it affected his bladder, according to The Times, citing unnamed sources who said he also took ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms.
- The Times also reported it obtained a photo that showed a medication box Musk travelled with containing about 20 pills, including Adderall.
- The alleged drug use overlapped with his campaign activity last year on behalf of Trump—with an endorsement in July followed by $250 million to help elect him.
- The report comes as Musk is set to exit the White House Friday after announcing Wednesday his time leading the Department of Government Efficiency had come to an end.
- Neither Musk nor his lawyer responded to The Times’ request for comment, but Musk has said previously he was prescribed ketamine for depression.
The New York Times has more details. “On the Campaign Trail, Elon Musk Juggled Drugs and Family Drama. As Mr. Musk entered President Trump’s orbit, his private life grew increasingly tumultuous, and his drug use was more intense than previously known.” Of course, they sent two women after this story, too. Kirsten Grind and Megan Twohey were the assigned reporters.
As Elon Musk became one of Donald J. Trump’s closest allies last year, leading raucous rallies and donating about $275 million to help him win the presidency, he was also using drugs far more intensely than previously known, according topeople familiar with his activities.
Mr. Musk’s drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it.
It is unclear whether Mr. Musk, 53, was taking drugs when he became a fixture at the White House this year and was handed the power to slash the federal bureaucracy. But he has exhibited erratic behavior, insulting cabinet members, gesturing like a Nazi and garbling his answers in a staged interview.
At the same time, Mr. Musk’s family life has grown increasingly tumultuous as he has negotiated overlapping romantic relationships and private legal battles involving his growing brood of children, according to documents and interviews.
I’m not about to go to the Gossip Rag road, but there are rumors about Mush and Steven Miller’s wife if you’re interested. This is from the Independent. “Stephen Miller’s wife leaves the White House to work for Elon Musk ‘full time’, Kate Miller was working as an adviser for Elon Musk at the Department of Government Efficiency.” I should eat some lunch, and I really will not ruin it by going any deeper into these. BLECH.
So, we lose a clown and gain one. Seriously, none of these Trump men are strangers to make-up. This is from ABC News. “Trump taps former right-wing podcast host Paul Ingrassia for key watchdog post. Ingrassia would replace Hampton Dellinger, who opposed Trump’s mass firings.”
President Trump announced Thursday night that he was tapping Paul Ingrassia, a former far-right podcast host, to lead the Office of Special Counsel — an independent watchdog agency empowered to investigate federal employees and oversee complaints from whistleblowers.
The Trump administration has previously taken aim at the Office of Special Counsel, firing the head of the agency, Hampton Dellinger (a Biden appointee) in February. Dellinger expressed opposition to the Trump administration’s firing of federal employees under DOGE-led cuts, noting that many had been fired or laid off without notice or justification.
Dellinger challenged his firing in court and was briefly reinstated to the post until a federal appeals court allowed for his dismissal. Dellinger decided to drop the challenge.
ABC News exclusively reported in February about how Ingrassia, in his role as White House liaison to the Department of Justice, was pushing to hire candidates at the DOJ who exhibited what he called “exceptional loyalty” to Trump. His efforts at DOJ sparked clashes with Attorney General Pam Bondi’s top aide, Chad Mizelle, leading Ingrassia to complain directly to President Trump, sources told ABC News.
Ingrassia was pushed out of DOJ and reassigned as the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, where he was serving prior to Trump announcing his new role, according to a White House official familiar with the matter.
In a post on X, Ingrassia wrote in response to his nomination: “It’s the highest honor to have been nominated to lead the Office of Special Counsel under President Trump! As Special Counsel, my team and I will make every effort to restore competence and integrity to the Executive Branch — with priority on eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal workforce and revitalize the Rule of Law and Fairness in Hatch Act enforcement.”
For the Senate-confirmed five-year term, Ingrassia will likely face tough questions over his lengthy history of media appearances and posts on social media promoting Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election as well as his ties to far-right media figures.
He was previously spotted at a 2024 rally hosted by white nationalist Nick Fuentes and has publicly praised figures like Andrew Tate — who has faced criminal charges for alleged sexual assault (Tate denies all wrongdoing).
All the best people, folks, all the best. So, I know you just want to know the latest information on the American Soap Opera “As the Tarrifs and the TACO Turns.” This is from CNBC. “Trump accuses China of violating preliminary trade deal.” Dan Managan gets all the serious stories, you know.
President Donald Trump on Friday said that China has “totally violated its” preliminary trade agreement with the United States, and suggested he would take action in response.
“So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!” Trump wrote in a social media post that said China had reneged on a deal that paused retaliatory tariffs between that country and the U.S.
Stock futures fell Friday morning on the heels of Trump’s statement.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, in a CNBC interview Friday morning, echoed Trump’s allegation, saying “we’re very concerned with” China’s purported non-compliance with the temporary trade deal.
The “United States did exactly what it was supposed to do, and the Chinese are slow rolling their compliance,” said Greer.
He called that “completely unacceptable and has to be addressed.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in a Fox News interview on Thursday, said that trade talks with China “are a bit stalled.”
CNBC has requested comment from China’s embassy in Washington, D.C.
The U.S. and China on May 12 agreed to a 90-day suspension on most tariffs imposed on each other’s imports.
The agreement was reached after Trump slapped sky-high tariffs on imports from China into the U.S., and China retaliated in kind.
“Two weeks ago China was in grave economic danger!” Trump wrote in his post on Truth Social on Friday.
“The very high Tariffs I set made it virtually impossible for China to TRADE into the United States marketplace which is, by far, number one in the World,” Trump wrote. “We went, in effect, COLD TURKEY with China, and it was devastating for them. Many factories closed and there was, to put it mildly, “civil unrest.” I saw what was happening and didn’t like it, for them, not for us. I made a FAST DEAL with China in order to save them from what I thought was going to be a very bad situation, and I didn’t want to see that happen.”
“Because of this deal, everything quickly stabilized and China got back to business as usual. Everybody was happy! That is the good news!!!” the president wrote.
“The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US. So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!”
Trump posted his screed two days after he lashed out at CNBC reporter Megan Cassella at the White House when she asked about the term “TACO trade,” which refers to the phrase “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
The term, coined by a Financial Times columnist, suggests that stock pickers can make money by buying shares after markets fall on news of new tariffs imposed by Trump, knowing that he invariably will pause or reduce the tariffs, sending markets higher.
You had to know he had to have a bully story to cover up all the Court sha-la-la about his on-again, off-again tariffs. Wow, my Grammarly got really dash happy there! Actually, I did it but wondered if it would notice anything and it did. One missing comma. I evidently have a thing against commas.
So, at least it’s the weekend! Hope y’all have a great one! I say TACO, they say TACO!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
#FartusDeportUs #JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #DrugAddict #ElonMuskNAZI #kakistocracy #PalantirDataTheftSpecialists #ScottPelley #TACO #WhoAreYOU_ #WifeStealer
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Finally Friday Reads: TACO Tales
“The most transparent administration ever..” John Buss @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I’m hoping we’re entering a Golden Age of Journalism because the number of stories floating around out there today indicates that we need more investigative journalists than ever before. Because of that, I cannot seem to play the Wake Forest Commencement by Sixty Minutes‘ Scott Pelley enough. His first statement rang true throughout the world. “Our sacred Rule of Law is under attack.” The Speech was entitled “The Meaning of You.”
The path to self-discovery starts with finding what kind of person you are when times get dark. As I’ve said before, these times are very dark. Do you shy away from speaking out? Do you take fighting action on whatever level you can? Do you melt away? Do you just go along or cheer it? I’ve come back to this speech this week because the headlines today show how important the press can be in exposing the dark times and the dark ones and their actions to light. It is then up to us to do something about it and to get our elected officials on it.
The New Republic’s Parker Molloy briefly discusses the importance of the Pelley Speech and the evil MAGA’s response. “Scott Pelley Warns Graduates About the Threats to American Democracy. The “60 Minutes” correspondent never mentioned Trump by name, but his call to defend democratic institutions was apparently too much for the MAGA crowd to handle.”
Earlier this month, journalist Scott Pelley delivered what should have been a fairly standard commencement address at Wake Forest University. The 60 Minutes correspondent spoke about seeking truth, defending democracy, and the importance of courage in difficult times—the kind of boilerplate inspiration you’d expect from a veteran journalist addressing graduates.
But because we live in very normal times, the speech went viral over Memorial Day weekend and triggered a conservative meltdown that’s been fascinating to watch unfold.
The fury started when a pro-MAGA account clipped portions of Pelley’s speech and shared them on X, writing “Scott Pelley raged at Trump in angry, unhinged commencement address at Wake Forest.”
What did Pelley say that sent the right into such a tizzy? Well, he had the audacity to suggest that “our sacred rule of law is under attack. Journalism is under attack. Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack.” He warned of “insidious fear … reaching through our schools, our businesses, our homes, and into our private thoughts, the fear to speak in America.”
And perhaps most provocatively, Pelley criticized the administration’s attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, saying, “Diversity is now described as ‘illegal.’ Equity is to be shunned. Inclusion is a dirty word. This is an old playbook, my friends.” He also referenced “masked agents” who “abduct a college student who wrote an editorial in her college paper defending Palestinian rights and send her to a prison in Louisiana charged with nothing.”
Pelley’s speech comes as Trump is suing CBS for $20 billion over alleged “election interference” and CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon abruptly resigned, citing disagreements with the company amid the legal pressure.
What’s remarkable is how a fairly conventional call for civic engagement and democratic values could generate such hysteria. But then again, when you’re running an administration built on exactly the kind of authoritarian playbook Pelley described, I suppose any critique—no matter how measured—feels like an existential threat.
Reading the speech in full, it’s hard to see what’s so “unhinged” about urging graduates to be engaged citizens and defend democratic institutions. Unless, of course, you’re deeply invested in attacking those very institutions.
A complete transcript of the speech follows. Also, you may listen to and watch Paley’s address here. The headlines today may be bleak, but the important thing is that reporters and the people supporting the work investigate and can find unbelievable corruption, stark depravity, and many examples of bad human conduct, demeanor, and actions. Then expose it!
When I was born, and as I grew up and my family moved into the middle class, I was instilled with the importance of reading magazines and watching the news. My Grandfather on my mother’s side always sent me books for my birthday and Christmas. My Nana on my mother’s side sent my sister and me subscriptions to National Geographic and The Christian Science Monitor. We read the local newspapers and the Des Moines Register every morning and evening. When I asked my Dad while I was in high school if I could get a subscription to The Manchester Guardian and to Paris Match, he didn’t even hesitate. I can tell you my show and tell performance, as well as my reports from newspapers, were altogether different from my Council Bluffs and Omaha friends.
When I hit university, all the foreign students whom I continually sought out for all dorm meals originally thought I was from Canada. When my family travelled to Europe, I tried to blend in as much as possible and just observe. It is perhaps this that makes me blog today, even though the only journalism classes I took were in high school. I wrote for the school newspaper, an underground newspaper, and the junior high newspaper. I always assumed everyone was as news-hungry as I was growing up in some of the most boring and inane places on the planet. I couldn’t live with oatmeal after reading about Belgian waffles. Can you imagine what happened when I got my first bite of one?
Knowledge of news is important for good citizenship, it’s important for making decisions that impact your household, and it’s important just because things are moving faster than ever. So let me get down to my first suggested reads today.
One of the things I find most threatening these days is seeing my students, my university, and many places leave their brains behind and try to make things easy using AI. It may have a future, but presently, any good professor worth their salt can tell when someone uses it. You should get good at spotting it on the internet, and you will be annoyed when you’re making an important call about something or chatting with some company, and even when it’s given a name, you can tell by the idiosyncrasies and the lack of niceties of American English, this thing ain’t human.
I’ve noticed that the grammar check my University uses completely breaks down when dealing with nuances and colloquialisms. It seems to excel mostly at filling my writing with commas and catching typos. That’s okay by me and easy, but believe me, I can tell when a student overuses AI. We’re being trained at spotting it as well as teaching students how to use it correctly. However, someone who knows what they are doing from years of doing it can make a better decision about its use than those still on the learning curve.
I say this because I watched a news program where the new AI installed at the Social Security phone line repeatedly ignored the question they asked, then kept squawking “Can I help you with something else?” endlessly. This is the point where I hear my Nana’s voice telling little me, “Well, you can, but may you?” AI does not grok manners and polite conversations. It could be because human mutants like Elon Musk and his Dodge cluster have never quite figured that out either. Garbage in, garbage out. But, then maybe that’s what they want. Cease being polite and just be technically acceptable. Okay, it’s long but I’m getting there, I promise.
This phenomenon played out yesterday as one of RFK Jr.’s prodigal research adventures turned into something I wouldn’t even expect from an undergrad or, actually, even someone sitting in my high school or university composition class. He was, of course, a legacy student there because of his father. We also know he was the dorm’s drug dealer from my fellow Westside High School journalism classmate, Kurt Anderson. One thing Westside always turned out was students who knew how to write. That skill got me through all the rest of my degrees because, damn I could write a good paper. Evidently, RFK Jr. did not get that skill.
It’s rather interesting given the difficult times Harvard is facing in protecting its foreign students. Now granted, I helped many a colleague from distant lands to get their excellent research into prime American English form. Everyone always sent them to me before they were sent to a journal for publishing, which bought me a cheap pub. But, every one of them took me farther down the path of being a numbers and stats guru. Did you know kids in India start their calculus classes in like 5th grade? It was also easier for me to actually come up with a sweet hypothesis to test because I was taught to be both analytical and creative. That’s what a good public school can do for you. A good university exposes you to what’s possible and exposes you to all kinds of interesting thinkers. But, again, I guess RFK Jr. was too busy with drugs to take advantage of anything like that. That’s why he’s likely never going to be part of a blog community, a book club, or a group that goes to the Saturday Night Midnight movies.
Okay, I really am getting to the read now. At his advanced age, with his unlimited educational opportunities and his money, he cannot write a research paper. And yet, it showed up in the public sphere because he was trying to prove his very wrong hypotheses at any cost. He didn’t prove anything. He turned to all manner of things to argue his hypothesis. None of his antics were academically sound. At first, the White House’s dumbest Press Secretary announced there were “formatting” errors. But, how could that be when, after investigating sources, reporters found them either made up or seriously in error? The Make America Healthy Again report was just embarrassing.
MSNBC anchor Jen Psaki derided White House Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s defense of a “Make America Healthy Again” Commission report filled with errors and broken links.
NOTUS reported the paper, released under the administration of President Donald Trump and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., cited at least seven sources that do not appear to exist. The news publication contacted epidemiologist Katherine Keyes, who the MAHA report lists as the first author of a study it cited on adolescent anxiety, and discovered Keyes didn’t write the paper.
“The paper cited is not a real paper that I or my colleagues were involved with,” Keyes told NOTUS. “We’ve certainly done research on this topic, but did not publish a paper in JAMA Pediatrics on this topic with that co-author group, or with that title.”
NOTUS also reported two other studies pertaining to direct-to-consumer drug advertisements for ADHD medications and antidepressants for kids appear nowhere “to be found.” Reporters also could not validate another section claiming 25% to 40% of mild cases of asthma are overprescribed. Additionally, the author of a corticosteroids study’s the MAHA report cited to support its arguments denied writing the study.
NOTUS reporter Jasmine Wright was in the White House briefing room Thursday and asked Leavitt: “does the White House have confidence that the information coming from HHS can be trusted?”
“Yes, we have complete confidence in Secretary Kennedy and his team at HHS,” Leavitt responded. “I understand there were some formatting issues with the MAHA report that are being addressed.”
Psaki, a former White House press secretary herself, did not contain her scorn.
Well, the nation’s biggest and most disappointing media of record investigated and found some interesting things in the MAHA report. Let’s start with the Washington Post. “White House MAHA Report may have garbled science by using AI, experts say. The report, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was intended to address the reasons for the decline in Americans’ life expectancy.” Well, that’s typical of a lot of students. If they can’t do it, they pay someone who can. You can always tell this, though, because if you’ve seen any previous work, you recognize their voice and you know when something is different. AI is the most recent example of buying a paper online, but with a lower cost and perhaps a lower chance of getting caught because you won’t find a cheat paper by searching it verbatim with your student’s work. Believe me, the discussion on this in teacher lounges and faculty clubs is de rigueur these days. Evidently, RFK Jr. didn’t even know the most tell-tale of the signs.
Some of the citations that underpin the science in the White House’s sweeping “MAHA Report” appear to have been generated using artificial intelligence, resulting in numerous garbled scientific references and invented studies, AI experts said Thursday.
Of the 522 footnotes to scientific research in an initial version of the report sent to The Washington Post, at least 37 appear multiple times, according to a review of the report by The Post. Other citations include the wrong author, and several studies cited by the extensive health report do not exist at all, a fact first reported by the online news outlet NOTUS on Thursday morning.
Some references include “oaicite” attached to URLs — a definitive sign that the research was collected using artificial intelligence. The presence of “oaicite” is a marker indicating use of OpenAI, a U.S. artificial intelligence company.
A common hallmark of AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT, is unusually repetitive content that does not sound human or is inaccurate — as well as the tendency to “hallucinate” studies or answers that appear to make sense but are not real.
So, our Secretary of Health and Human Services is so bereft of research skills that he can’t even avoid the number one Rookie mistake. Does he have anyone around him who knew better and could catch this? I can tell you that a team of peers that checks every research paper headed to publication in an academically sound journal would never let this go through to print. If you’re the main author, you try to avoid any humiliating mistakes for serious journals.
AI technology can be used legitimately to quickly survey the research in a field. But Oren Etzioni, a professor emeritus at the University of Washington who studies AI, said he was shocked by the sloppiness in the MAHA Report.
“Frankly, that’s shoddy work,” he said. “We deserve better.”
“The MAHA Report: Making Our Children Healthy Again,” which addressed the root causes of America’s lagging health outcomes, was written by a commission of Cabinet officials and government scientific leaders. It was led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has a history of misstating science, and written in response to an executive order from President Donald Trump.
The New York Times published the first media review pointing out made-up sources. “White House Health Report Included Fake Citations, ‘A report on children’s health released by the Make America Healthy Again Commission referred to scientific papers that did not exist.” Now, I’m not a scientist, but I lived with a Yale-educated Doctorate in Microbiology who published a lot of things on RNA transcription, ran a lab at a public university, and wound up with the NSF. I have no idea if he’s retired or if he went with the current purge of scientists. I read many of his works pre-publication, and he got published in all the big ones. I think the science journals are more nerve-wracking to write for than the Economics and Finance. Usually, it’s based on lab data rather than the Federal Reserve Beige Book or World Book data, which gets a pass even though the methodology and the model itself get the eagle eye. This report was a hot mess on all accounts.
The Trump administration released a report last week that it billed as a “clear, evidence-based foundation” for action on a range of children’s health issues.
But the report, from the presidential Make America Healthy Again Commission, cited studies that did not exist. These included fictitious studies on direct-to-consumer drug advertising, mental illness and medications prescribed for children with asthma.
“It makes me concerned about the rigor of the report, if these really basic citation practices aren’t being followed,” said Katherine Keyes, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University who was listed as the author of a paper on mental health and substance use among adolescents. Dr. Keyes has not written any paper by the title the report cited, nor does one seem to exist by any author.
The news outlet NOTUS first reported the presence of false citations, and The New York Times identified additional faulty references. By midafternoon on Thursday, the White House had uploaded a new copy of the report with corrections.
Dr. Ivan Oransky — who teaches medical journalism at New York University and is a co-founder of Retraction Watch, a website that tracks retractions of scientific research — said the errors in the report were characteristic of the use of generative artificial intelligence, which has led to similar issues in legal filings and more.
Dr. Oransky said that while he did not know whether the government had used A.I. in producing the report or the citations, “we’ve seen this particular movie before, and it’s unfortunately much more common in scientific literature than people would like or than really it should be.”
Asked at a news conference on Thursday whether the report had relied on A.I., the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, deferred to the Department of Health and Human Services. Emily Hilliard, a spokeswoman for the department, did not answer a question about the source of the fabricated references and downplayed them as “minor citation and formatting errors.” She said that “the substance of the MAHA report remains the same — a historic and transformative assessment by the federal government to understand the chronic-disease epidemic afflicting our nation’s children.”
The false references do not necessarily mean the underlying facts in the report are incorrect. But they indicate a lack of rigorous review and verification of the report and its bibliography before it was released, Dr. Oransky said.
“Scientific publishing is supposed to be about verification,” he said, adding: “There’s supposed to be a set of eyes, actually several sets of eyes. And so what that tells us is that there was no good set of eyes on this
So, after finding out about all of that, this should make you feel really at ease.
The Trump administration has quietly spread Palantir’s technology through U.S. agencies, paving the way to easily compile data on Americans. The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since President Trump took office. nyti.ms/4dJfR0o
— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) 2025-05-30T16:16:57.733Z
I think we can start making the Big Brother is watching you references now. This is the subheading, which is startling IMHO. “The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work with the government, spreading the company’s technology — which could easily merge data on Americans — throughout agencies.” Getting your passport ready yet?
In March, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to share data across agencies, raising questions over whether he might compile a master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power.
Mr. Trump has not publicly talked about the effort since. But behind the scenes, officials have quietly put technological building blocks into place to enable his plan. In particular, they have turned to one company: Palantir, the data analysis and technology firm.
The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work across the federal government in recent months. The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since Mr. Trump took office, according to public records, including additional funds from existing contracts as well as new contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. (This does not include a $795 million contract that the Department of Defense awarded the company last week, which has not been spent.)
Representatives of Palantir are also speaking to at least two other agencies — the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service — about buying its technology, according to six government officials and Palantir employees with knowledge of the discussions.
The push has put a key Palantir product called Foundry into at least four federal agencies, including D.H.S. and the Health and Human Services Department. Widely adopting Foundry, which organizes and analyzes data, paves the way for Mr. Trump to easily merge information from different agencies, the government officials said.
Creating detailed portraits of Americans based on government data is not just a pipe dream. The Trump administration has already sought access to hundreds of data points on citizens and others through government databases, including their bank account numbers, the amount of their student debt, their medical claims and any disability status.
Mr. Trump could potentially use such information to advance his political agenda by policing immigrants and punishing critics, Democratic lawmakers and critics have said. Privacy advocates, student unions and labor rights organizations have filed lawsuits to block data access, questioning whether the government could weaponize people’s personal information.
So, while all this is going on, we’re beginning to hear some interesting information on Elon Musk as he exists stage right. This is from Forbes Magazine. “Lucky” Susan Dorn got this assignment. “Musk Used Heavy Drugs Including Ketamine And Ecstasy While He Became Close To Trump, Report Says. Elon Musk used a copious amount of drugs—and travelled with a pill box that appeared to contain Adderall—last year as he ramped up his donations to President Donald Trump, according to a New York Times report that comes on his last official day at the White House.” He’s the Wolf of Austin, I guess.
Key Facts
- Musk told confidants he was taking so much ketamine it affected his bladder, according to The Times, citing unnamed sources who said he also took ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms.
- The Times also reported it obtained a photo that showed a medication box Musk travelled with containing about 20 pills, including Adderall.
- The alleged drug use overlapped with his campaign activity last year on behalf of Trump—with an endorsement in July followed by $250 million to help elect him.
- The report comes as Musk is set to exit the White House Friday after announcing Wednesday his time leading the Department of Government Efficiency had come to an end.
- Neither Musk nor his lawyer responded to The Times’ request for comment, but Musk has said previously he was prescribed ketamine for depression.
The New York Times has more details. “On the Campaign Trail, Elon Musk Juggled Drugs and Family Drama. As Mr. Musk entered President Trump’s orbit, his private life grew increasingly tumultuous, and his drug use was more intense than previously known.” Of course, they sent two women after this story, too. Kirsten Grind and Megan Twohey were the assigned reporters.
As Elon Musk became one of Donald J. Trump’s closest allies last year, leading raucous rallies and donating about $275 million to help him win the presidency, he was also using drugs far more intensely than previously known, according topeople familiar with his activities.
Mr. Musk’s drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it.
It is unclear whether Mr. Musk, 53, was taking drugs when he became a fixture at the White House this year and was handed the power to slash the federal bureaucracy. But he has exhibited erratic behavior, insulting cabinet members, gesturing like a Nazi and garbling his answers in a staged interview.
At the same time, Mr. Musk’s family life has grown increasingly tumultuous as he has negotiated overlapping romantic relationships and private legal battles involving his growing brood of children, according to documents and interviews.
I’m not about to go to the Gossip Rag road, but there are rumors about Mush and Steven Miller’s wife if you’re interested. This is from the Independent. “Stephen Miller’s wife leaves the White House to work for Elon Musk ‘full time’, Kate Miller was working as an adviser for Elon Musk at the Department of Government Efficiency.” I should eat some lunch, and I really will not ruin it by going any deeper into these. BLECH.
So, we lose a clown and gain one. Seriously, none of these Trump men are strangers to make-up. This is from ABC News. “Trump taps former right-wing podcast host Paul Ingrassia for key watchdog post. Ingrassia would replace Hampton Dellinger, who opposed Trump’s mass firings.”
President Trump announced Thursday night that he was tapping Paul Ingrassia, a former far-right podcast host, to lead the Office of Special Counsel — an independent watchdog agency empowered to investigate federal employees and oversee complaints from whistleblowers.
The Trump administration has previously taken aim at the Office of Special Counsel, firing the head of the agency, Hampton Dellinger (a Biden appointee) in February. Dellinger expressed opposition to the Trump administration’s firing of federal employees under DOGE-led cuts, noting that many had been fired or laid off without notice or justification.
Dellinger challenged his firing in court and was briefly reinstated to the post until a federal appeals court allowed for his dismissal. Dellinger decided to drop the challenge.
ABC News exclusively reported in February about how Ingrassia, in his role as White House liaison to the Department of Justice, was pushing to hire candidates at the DOJ who exhibited what he called “exceptional loyalty” to Trump. His efforts at DOJ sparked clashes with Attorney General Pam Bondi’s top aide, Chad Mizelle, leading Ingrassia to complain directly to President Trump, sources told ABC News.
Ingrassia was pushed out of DOJ and reassigned as the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, where he was serving prior to Trump announcing his new role, according to a White House official familiar with the matter.
In a post on X, Ingrassia wrote in response to his nomination: “It’s the highest honor to have been nominated to lead the Office of Special Counsel under President Trump! As Special Counsel, my team and I will make every effort to restore competence and integrity to the Executive Branch — with priority on eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal workforce and revitalize the Rule of Law and Fairness in Hatch Act enforcement.”
For the Senate-confirmed five-year term, Ingrassia will likely face tough questions over his lengthy history of media appearances and posts on social media promoting Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election as well as his ties to far-right media figures.
He was previously spotted at a 2024 rally hosted by white nationalist Nick Fuentes and has publicly praised figures like Andrew Tate — who has faced criminal charges for alleged sexual assault (Tate denies all wrongdoing).
All the best people, folks, all the best. So, I know you just want to know the latest information on the American Soap Opera “As the Tarrifs and the TACO Turns.” This is from CNBC. “Trump accuses China of violating preliminary trade deal.” Dan Managan gets all the serious stories, you know.
President Donald Trump on Friday said that China has “totally violated its” preliminary trade agreement with the United States, and suggested he would take action in response.
“So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!” Trump wrote in a social media post that said China had reneged on a deal that paused retaliatory tariffs between that country and the U.S.
Stock futures fell Friday morning on the heels of Trump’s statement.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, in a CNBC interview Friday morning, echoed Trump’s allegation, saying “we’re very concerned with” China’s purported non-compliance with the temporary trade deal.
The “United States did exactly what it was supposed to do, and the Chinese are slow rolling their compliance,” said Greer.
He called that “completely unacceptable and has to be addressed.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in a Fox News interview on Thursday, said that trade talks with China “are a bit stalled.”
CNBC has requested comment from China’s embassy in Washington, D.C.
The U.S. and China on May 12 agreed to a 90-day suspension on most tariffs imposed on each other’s imports.
The agreement was reached after Trump slapped sky-high tariffs on imports from China into the U.S., and China retaliated in kind.
“Two weeks ago China was in grave economic danger!” Trump wrote in his post on Truth Social on Friday.
“The very high Tariffs I set made it virtually impossible for China to TRADE into the United States marketplace which is, by far, number one in the World,” Trump wrote. “We went, in effect, COLD TURKEY with China, and it was devastating for them. Many factories closed and there was, to put it mildly, “civil unrest.” I saw what was happening and didn’t like it, for them, not for us. I made a FAST DEAL with China in order to save them from what I thought was going to be a very bad situation, and I didn’t want to see that happen.”
“Because of this deal, everything quickly stabilized and China got back to business as usual. Everybody was happy! That is the good news!!!” the president wrote.
“The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US. So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!”
Trump posted his screed two days after he lashed out at CNBC reporter Megan Cassella at the White House when she asked about the term “TACO trade,” which refers to the phrase “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
The term, coined by a Financial Times columnist, suggests that stock pickers can make money by buying shares after markets fall on news of new tariffs imposed by Trump, knowing that he invariably will pause or reduce the tariffs, sending markets higher.
You had to know he had to have a bully story to cover up all the Court sha-la-la about his on-again, off-again tariffs. Wow, my Grammarly got really dash happy there! Actually, I did it but wondered if it would notice anything and it did. One missing comma. I evidently have a thing against commas.
So, at least it’s the weekend! Hope y’all have a great one! I say TACO, they say TACO!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
#FartusDeportUs #JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #DrugAddict #ElonMuskNAZI #kakistocracy #PalantirDataTheftSpecialists #ScottPelley #TACO #WhoAreYOU_ #WifeStealer
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Indian Peter’s Penny Post: the thread about Edinburgh first local postal service, house numbers and street directories
This thread is a write-up of a talk given for the Edinburgh World Heritage Trust in June 2023. It has been split across multiple sections for ease of reading.
This vacance is a heavy doom
The Rising of the Session, Robert Fergusson
On Indian Peter’s Coffee Room,
For a’ his china pigs are toom;
Nor do we see
In wine the sicker bisket’s soom
As light’s a flee.In this verse, the “lights” that Robert Fergusson refers to are the men of law of the Court of Session in 18th century Edinburgh, fleeing the city in the summer to their country houses, away from the stench of the Old Town. Indian Peter’s Coffee Room was a small establishment within the Parliament Hall itself, the outer house of the Court of Session, Scotland’s supreme civil court, it’s patrons being the men of the law who conducted their business there. The “china pigs” are the drinks vessels and are empty now the customers are gone, and the “sicker biskets soom” is the dipping of small, sweet biscuits into the wine.
Part 1. Indian Peter.
So who was “Indian Peter”? Before we can go any further in our story it is very important to understand some of his long and complex life history, as it is relevant to his character and his motivations in later life. Indian Peter was Peter Williamson, born 1730 in Aberdeenshire. He was the son of a farmer and as a boy was sent to live with an aunt in Aberdeen. Aged 13, while hanging around the quayside in that city, he was tricked aboard a ship under false pretences and imprisoned. Not long thereafter he was part of a cargo of 70 abducted boys and girls who were taken to North America on board the ship Planter to be sold as a slave labour. On arrival in the New World, the vessel was shipwrecked, and the children were abandoned to their fate. When it was clear that they had survived, their captors returned and took them for sale. Peter was sold for £16 to a Scots settler who had arrived in America by the same method he had. He was as fortunate as his circumstances could allow him and his new master treated him well and schooled him.
The master died when Peter was aged 17, leaving him his horse, saddle and £120. With little reason to return to Scotland, Williamson settled down to farm and marry. His wife’s family were planters of some means and he was given a good property to work by his father-in-law. His recent good fortune however took a turn for the worse in 1754 when the farm was raided and burnt to the ground by the native Lenape people: the Delaware Indians. His wife was absent at the time but Peter was taken captive and forced to carry off his best possessions as booty. He spent some time as a captive with the Delaware, acting as a porter. During this experience he claimed to have been tortured and to have seen other settlers tortured or killed, but also picked up some of their customs (which he would later adopt and which would personify him in Edinburgh).
“The Indian Threatens Peter Williamson”, from The Red True Story Book, 1895, an illustration by H. J. FordAfter 4 months of captivity, Williamson seized a night time opportunity and escaped under the cover of the noise and activity of wild hogs and managed to return to the planter community. Tragically he found that his wife had died two months previously. Motivated by loss or revenge, he joined a British regiment in the Seven Years War to fight against the French and their Indian allies, serving for 18 months before being captured and imprisoned for the third time in his life in 1756 at the Battle of Oswego.
The Battle of Fort Oswego, where a French, Canadian and Indian force overwhelmed British defenders. Photogravure by John Henry Walker, 1877, from Journal de MontréalWounded, he was sent to a camp in Quebec he was soon fortunate to be repatriated to Britain in a prisoner exchange and that same year landed a broken man in Plymouth. Paid off from the army due to injury with a paltry sum, he headed for “home” in Aberdeen but ran out of his funds in York. It was here he ingratiated himself with some gentlemen who published an account of his life’s adventure in a book called “French and Indian Cruelty”. The book was a success and with the money he made from it he was able to return to Aberdeen, intending to sell his book and settle down. However the Aberdeen magistrates, who he had accused of being complicit in his abduction as a boy (and that of hundreds of other children) had other ideas and had him arrested and his books impounded. To secure his release, he had to agree to sign a retraction of his story and accusations, to pay a fine of 10 shillings, and to have his books publicly burned by the town executioner.
Spurned by his home town, he headed south to Edinburgh where he ingratiated himself amongst some men of the law. Appalled by his tale, they agreed to help him sue the Magistrates of Aberdeen. Williamson was able to build up a convincing legal case, supported by many witnesses, and surprised everyone by winning. He was awarded £100 in damages and his expenses. The magistrates, represented by one Walter Scott (the father of Sir Walter Scott) appealed, and lost. Settling in Edinburgh with his award, he re-published his book and set himself up as a tavern keeper on the Parliament Square. A sign over the door of his establishment reputedly read “PETER WILLIAMSON, VINTNER FROM THE OTHER WORLD“. When business was slow, he would don the guise of a Delaware Indian which he had managed to procure and perform a “war dance” in the High Street. Thus he became an accepted eccentric in the city’s social scene as “Indian Peter“, “Peter Williamson of the Mohawk Nation” and the “King of the Indians“.
He moved his business into the Parliament Hall as a coffee house, with the men of the law being his primary clientèle. He was also popular amongst the literary men and as well as Fergusson his shop was patronised by James Boswell and Sir Walter Scott and he was a correspondent with Ben Franklin.
“The Parliament Close and Public Characters of Edinburgh, Fifty Years Since”, in the style of John Kay, 1849, the bustling legal heart of the city in Williamson’s timeIndian Peter was not content to just live the life of a coffee house keeper and local celebrity however, and showed an irrepressible entrepreneurial streak. During a visit to London, he bought a portable printing press, which he returned to Edinburgh. Unable to break the closed ranks of the city’s printers for training, he instead taught himself how to operate it and went into business as a printer, publisher and book seller. At times he also ran a small bank (offering to exchange bank notes for “ready money, books or coffee” and even ran a lottery offering two squirrels as the prize!
Transcription of one of Williamson’s bank notes, which was probably more of a joke and gimmick amongst his friends than a serious business propositionThe name “Ready Money Bank” was a jibe aimed at some of the Scottish banks, which at this time issued “option clause” notes, where your note, when presented for redemption, was at risk of being paid out not in cash but for a note of another bank.
Peter Williamson. A caricature by John Kay from 1791 called “Travells eldest son talks with a Cherokee chief” © Edinburgh City LibrariesBut it was in 1773 where Williamson’s two greatest contributions to the City are made; he establishes a Penny Post (only the second such service in the British Isles) and he began compiling and publishing street directories of the city and its principal residents. It is now that our story really begins. So why are these innovations of his so important? Firstly, they allowed anyone to send communications within the city, quickly, reliably and (relatively) cheaply and they told you to whom to send it and where! It is the beginning of a modern communication network within the city, a city which was just beginning to break free of the ancient confines of the Old Town and across the Nor’ Loch valley to the opportunities, space and clear air of the New Town. The Postal Museum states “in particular, the Edinburgh Penny Post [was] influential in establishing the pattern for the Provincial English Penny Posts that followed.“
Part 2. The Edinburgh Penny Post
Before the advent of the Edinburgh Penny Post, messages were carried around the city by your own servants or you could hire a Caddie (the town’s licensed class of porters and messengers) or pay a trustworthy child to run the errand. It was also the job of the Caddie to know everyone and everything, they acted as an informal news, communications and intelligence network.
An Edinburgh Caddie, by David Allan. Note the numbered badge of his trade, his licence to work, worn on the jacket breast. CC-by-NC National Galleries ScotlandThe first Penny Post was established in London by William Dockwra in 1680, but he quickly fell foul of the General Post Office (GPO) monopoly and the fact his service was thought to be carrying seditious letters, it was seized from him, his patent forfeit and was ordered to pay £2,000 compensation. But you can’t keep a good idea down, and in 1765 an act was passed (Postage Act 1765) permitting licensed Penny Posts in provincial towns and cities. Although Williamson established his post in 1773, it was not until 1776 that he was formally granted permission from the Postmaster General for his service. His network in the city operated from 9AM to 9PM each day and for an English penny (paid up front, or on delivery) you could send a letter or small packet within one English mile of the Mercat Cross, north, south, east or west, and to Leith. The service to the latter, the city’s port, operated 8 times a day in both directions, between 8AM and 7PM.
Williamson’s Penny Post stamps, for mail sent payment on delivery (left) or paid in advance (right). These stamps are thought to have been made by Williamson himself from his experience of his printing press.Four postmen were employed, who carried a hand bell to advertise their presence and wore a service cap with the name “Williamson’s Penny Post” painted or embroidered on it in silver and who were paid 4 shilling and 6 pence per week. The story goes that the caps were numbered 1, 4, 8 and 16 to make it appear as if the business was 4 times bigger than it really was. Knowing Williamson’s inventive abilities for self promotion, this does not seem that far fetched to be true. Of only one of the postmen do we have any sort of an insight, a highlander by the name of Donald Mackintosh who hailed from the vicinity of from near Blair Atholl and Killiecrankie. Mackintosh would have been in his thirties at this time and his task was described as a “his “useful though humble vocation”. He would later rise to prominence in his own right as an Episcopalian clergyman and a scholar of Scottish Gaelic.
Illustration by Will Nickless, 1962, purporting to show one of Williamson’s Penny Post men delivering a letter.It was not only the four postmen who collected letters, they could also be dropped off at a network of 18 “receiving houses” in the city and Leith, which were pre-existing shops that Williamson had convinced to act as post offices. His carriers would call at them on their rounds to collect any deposited letters for onward delivery. He listed these in the directory, making it relatively easy to plot them to a map. At this stage the New Town could be served by a single receiving house on St. Andrew Street, the Canongate and southern suburbs both each by a single house too. The 1775 directory had a slightly refined network, with the concentration in the centre of the High Street reduced, additional houses in each of the Canongate and Southside and an additional house in Leith.
Williamson’s network of receiving houses in 1773-74, as listed in his directory. The red triangle is the GPO on North Bridge. Overlaid on Kincaid’s plan of Edinburgh (1784) and Wood’s plan of Leith (1777), both reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandMuch of the business for the Penny Post came from the men of the law that Williamson was already ingratiated with – reflected in the concentration of receiving houses around the Parliament Square – as it was they who had a business need to communicate quickly and frequently across the city. They knew him well: he was both in their fold but an outsider in the city hierarchy; he had long overheard their intimate business discussions in his tavern and coffee house without making a nuisance of himself. He was therefore a man to be trusted with their secrets.
A letter sent by Williamson’s Penny Post, to Mr William Brodie at Mr Robert Donaldson’s, Writer to the Signet, New TownBut it was not just the city’s lawyers and merchants who found use for the Penny Post. It offered an important new opportunity to women, as for the first time they could begin to converse privately through writing, away from the prying eyes of the servants who up until that time would have been entrusted with carrying letters. One exceptional romance is recorded as taking place discretely though Williamson’s delivery network; that of Robert Burns and Agnes Maclehose, known either as his Nancy, or Clarinda. In all, this flourishing written courtship amounted to 88 letters, carried by the Penny Post, and what Sir Walter Scott described as “the most extraordinary mixture of sense and nonsense, and of love human and divine, that was ever exposed to the eye of the world“. Burns, bedridden at the time after injuring his leg, was lodgning near the St. Andrew Street receiving house in the New Town and Nancy was but a short distance from the branch on Chapel Street, just beyond the Potterrow. On some days the couple would exchange as many as two letters each, in both directions.
Mrs Agnes McLehose, c. 1840s, Artist unknown. CC-by-NC National Galleries ScotlandEven at this early stage, in a relatively small city, the correct addressing of mail was an issue for the Penny Post and Williamson had to print begging notices in his directories pleading for letters to be clearly and non-ambiguously addressed.
To The Public, a notice in Williamson’s directory asking for mail to be clearly addressedOne of Williamson’s receiving houses was the premises of John Wilson, a bookseller who had one of the shops in the colonnade in front of the Royal Exchange (now the City Chambers). Wilson also sold Williamson’s directories and happened to be his father-in-law. He is absent from the later versions of the list of Receiving Houses. This is with good reason; Williamson had separated for his wife – Jean Wilson – having accused her both of serial adultery and also of interfering with the Penny Post and misappropriating its profits. She had also cut him off from access to his children, including the eldest daughter who made a reasonable addition to the family income as a mantua maker (specialising in making ladies’ mantles) and with her father had set up a rival operation to try and run Peter out of business! But if the story so far has taught us anything, it is that when he was down, Peter Williamson was never out, and he would come back fighting. Once more he turned to his friends in the legal establishment and he built up an indestructible case against his wife. He cited nineteen different servants, doctors and lawyers as witnesses; she put up none in defence. She tried to get Williamson to pay for her legal defence, the court found that she had left him in forma pauperis (in the manner of a pauper; unable to pay) which further damaged her reputation. Williamson was granted divorce in his favour in March 1789 and regained control of his businesses and custody of his children. To recoup his losses from this case, he published a sensational account of his wife’s “crimes” against him, which having been proven in court he had no need to worry about being sued over.
In all, Williamson would run his Penny Post successfully for 19 years, it returning him on average a profit of £50 per annum (about £6,500 in 2023). However the reality was that he was ageing, and his energy for self promotion, fighting off the competition and keeping his postmen in check was waning. In 1790 Francis Freeling, the secretary to the Postmaster General, visited Edinburgh and observed the Penny Post in action. Suitably impressed, on his return to London he recommended to his superior that the GPO should take the service over and run it for itself. A younger Williamson may have tried to resist, but he sensibly acquiesced to authority and in 1793 the GPO took over the service. But true to form, he did not hand it over before overstating both his age and his financial dependence on the Post in a letter to the Postmaster General, ensuring he received a pension of £25 for life in return for relinquishing control.
A Victorian postman of the GPO in 1820, from the cover of the sheet music for a popular song “The Postman’s Knock”.We have also to beg your Lordships permission to authorise us to allow Mr. Williamson of Edinburgh £25 per annum, he having long had the profits of 1d. a letter on certain letters forwarded through his receiving house in Edinburgh, which he will lose by our having established a penny post there.
Passage from a letter from the Postmaster General to the Treasury, requesting Williamson’s pension, 17th July 1793The GPO quickly adapted the service to their own practices, cutting down both the number of receiving houses – from 18 to 9, the number of collections to 5 per day and the number of deliveries to 3; but at relatively fixed times of morning 98AM), early evening and late evening (7PM). They increased the number of postmen to 20 and by 1817 there were 30.
Part 3. Williamson’s Postal Directories
Williamson’s other great innovation in 1773-74 was the collation and publication of a postal directory for the city. (You can view this directory for yourself here, on the website of the National Library of Scotland.) He described it himself thusly:
An alphabetical list of the names and places of abode of the members of the college of justice; public and private gentlemen; merchants, and other eminent traders; mechanics and all persons in public business; where at one view you have a plain Direction, pointing out the Streets, Wynds, Closes, Lands and other Places of their Residence, in and about this Metropolis. Together with Separate Lists of the Magistrates, Court of Session and Court of Exchequer, the Constables of Edinburgh, Canongate and Leith, Carriers, etc.
Descriptive preface to Williamson’s first postal directoryThis was the first comprehensive directory of anyone who was anyone in the city, what they did and where they were based. Williamson also includes useful information such as the boundaries of parishes, the members of the town council, the constables, and lists of carriers, the days they depart and where they operated from and to, and of course a list of his own Penny Post receiving houses. He operated this as a vertically-integrated business; he gathered the contents, published and printed it on his own presses, used it to advertise his Penny Post system and sold it himself at his own bookshop.
An extract of the first 4 pages of entries under the letter A for Williamson’s first Postal Directory of Edinburgh, 1773-74. CC-by 4.0 National Library of ScotlandTo produce the publication, Williamson claimed to have visited every address in the city to compile details of the occupants and their professions. Many were suspicious of his motives and would not consent to give their details, which resulted in an incomplete listing that has a large appendix of late additions, which made it hard to use. A unique and cumbersome feature of the first directory was that within each letter of the alphabet, he sub-organised the contents by profession. While this makes it harder to find what you are looking for, it is a fascinating insight into the rigid social and professional hierarchies of the city at this time and perhaps the relative esteem with which Williamson himself held each class of profession. In all, the directory lists 3,914 individuals and 130 different occupations, some of which I have grouped together for convenience (e.g. shoemakers and clogmakers; barbers, wigmakers and hairdressers). The table below ranks professions with the the highest 15 and lowest 15 positions in the directory in the 1773-74 directory.
Rank“Highest 15” professionsRank“Lowest 15” professions1Advocates (barristers)15Baxters (bakers)2Clerks/ Writers to the Signet14Fleshers (butchers)3Lords’ and Advocates’ Clerks13Barbers, Wigmakers & Hairdressers4Writers (solicitors)12Candlemakers5Procurators (prosecutors)11Shoe & Clogmakers6Exchequer10Taylors & staymakers7Physicians9Weavers8Ministers8School masters, teachers, academics9Noblemen, Gentlemen, Ladies and Gentlewomen7Milliners & Mantua-makers10Bankers6Excisemen11Merchants5Stablers12Grocers4Engravers13Ship-masters3Bookbinders14Surgeons2Confectioners15Brewers1Room setters (letting agents) & boardersThe contents of this directory also allow us to easily total up the relative frequency of the different occupations amongst the entries and plot them as a chart (below). From this we can observe that a full quarter of the entries are for the Incorporated Trades (i.e. the officially recognised and established trade and craft associations of the city, such as bakers, butchers, goldsmiths, taylors, weavers etc.). A further fifth are the men of the law, and a tenth are the merchants. This is fully unsurprising for a city built upon the prosperity and power of these groups. We can see that the nobility, by volume, are a relatively small component, and while print, medicine and education are relatively small contributions, these are three industries that will flourish in Edinburgh in the next 100 years and that the city will become synonymous with.
There are no street numbers in any of Williamson’s Directories until 1784. Prior to this, locations are simple, relatively vague and purely descriptive such as “head of Baillie Fyfe’s Close” or “Grassmarket, south side“. The introduction of numbers at first was just for the New Town and small parts of the Southside of the city (Nicolson Street and Chapel Street), the exception being James’ Court, which at the time was an exclusive address.
Although he originally intended to produce only a single directory, in the end they were such a success that Williamson published them for 17 years. For his final directory, that for a two year period of 1790-92, he subcontracted the printing out to Campbell Denovan, but retained the rights to sell a certain volume of copies exclusively. From 1794 the Edinburgh directories would be published by Thomas Aitchison, and then again the Denovans in 1804 before the Post Office itself took over in 1805 (although the printing was still local in Edinburgh). These later directories conform very closely to the style and structure first set out by Williamson, a testament to his ability to bring a systematic and ordered approach to what was a very chaotic city.
Williamson exercised this latter talent in what is a remarkable document, known either as “Williamson’s Broadside” or “An Accurate View of All the Streets, Wynds, Squares, and Closes of the City of Edinburgh, Suburbs, and Canongate, on both sides of the High-street, from the Castle to Holyrood-house, agreeable to the names they are at present known by, together with those in the New Town and Leith.”. This large printed page was a comprehensive list of all the closes and streets of the city and Leith, and their relative order and position to each other and the principal landmarks. An invaluable reference then, it is even more so now for modern eyes interested in where the old streets and closes were located and what names were in use. Ever the man with an eye on business, the corners of the page advertise other products and services sold by Williamson such as his Penny Post, stamps for marking books and linen, printed funeral announcement cards, and a form of fortune-telling cards he printed.
Williamson’s Broadside, folded up. You can view the full sheet at the below link to the Book of the Old Edinburgh Club.You can view the full broadside for yourself in a chapter that starts on Page 261 of volume 22 (original series) of the Book of the Old Edinburgh Club, published in 1939, which is digitised online here.
With his Penny Posts in the hands of the GPO and his directories with Campbell Denovan, Peter Williamson retired with his pension and what was left of his profits from these businesses (he claimed his wife and father-in-law had robbed him of fully three quarters of the latter) and took up a tavern in the Lawnmarket. He died in January 1799, and was buried in “The full panoply of a Delaware chief” in the grave of Mr. J. Scott, some distance north-east of William Nicol, beneath a stone surmounted by an urn.
Part 4. Street Numbering and Re-Numbering
Street numbering in Edinburgh started in the early 1780s, Williamson’s directories first reflecting it in 1784. It progressed as the New Town itself expanded, and the practice slowly began to spread to other parts of the city. Streets with only one side were simply numbered in a series from one upwards. However at this time there was no agreed manner by which to number doors in streets with two sides (which was most of them!) Three principal methods existed and all were implemented and existed side-by-side with no consistent approach – indeed the New Town used all three!
- The first method used is that with which we are familiar today: one side of a street has even numbers and the other has odd numbers, and the numbers increase in series as you move along the street.
- The second method was a “there and back again” method, whereby numbering progressed in an increasing series of odd and even numbers from number 1, up one side of the street, to the end, and then back down the other side. This meant that the highest and lowest numbers of the street were opposite each other. Nicolson Street was one street that used this method of numbering.
- The third method was that of “northside / southside”. In this system, the street sides were named north and south (or east and west) and each side was numbered from 1 upwards in a continuous series. As a result, each number was duplicated, No. 1 North Side and No. 1 South Side were opposite each other, and without specifying which side of the street a letter was intended for or an advert was referring to one could easily end up with the wrong door.
By 1811 the system (if you could call it that) was in chaos, as not only was there no consistent methodology but demolitions, new buildings and subdivisions had caused numbering sequences to become haphazard and out of sequence. Something had to be done, and done it was. Despite a curious lack of historical record in either the City Archives or contemporary newspapers, on Whitsunday 1811 there was a wholesale and systematic renumbering of much of the City which had been numbered up to that point. The Caledonian Mercury contains one of the few examples evidencing this wholesale change:
Caledonian Mercury – Saturday 27 April 1811The new numbering system split the city into quadrants, using the east-west axis of the High Street and the north-south axis of the Bridges and St. Andrew Street (shown as the yellow line on the map below). Within each of these quadrants, streets with two sides would be numbered with odd doors on one side and evens on the other, and the number series would increase as you moved away from the axis (shown by the blue lines on the map below) – so in theory the numbers always increase as you move away from the centre point of the quadrants. The system placed the odd numbered doors on your right and the even numbered doors on your left as you walked along any street in the direction of increasing numbers.
The street re-numbering axes and directions of increasing numbers, overlaid on a map of Edinburgh by John Ainslie, 1804. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandThere were of course exceptions to the system. The Grassmarket ran in the “wrong” direction, retaining its former door numbering order which increased towards the axis. The Cowgate passes underneath the South Bridge axis, so one half of it (the western end) was inevitably not going to be able to conform. The east west axis – the “Royal Mile” of the Canongate, High Street, Lawn Market and Castle Hill – was numbered in two sequences. The first was the Canongate, uphill from the palace of Holyroodhouse to old burgh boundary with Edinburgh at the Netherbow. The High Street, Lawnmarket and Castle Hill were numbered into one continuous uphill sequence from the Netherbow. It is for this reason that to this day, the Lawnmarket street numbers start at 300 (evens) and 435 (odds), and there are no numbers 2 to 298 or 1 to 433 Lawnmarket. Similarly the numbering on the Castlehill starts at 348 (evens) and 525 (odds). Other oddities include Great King Street, where the evens are on your right instead of the odds, and South Bridge, which retained the old “there and back again” numbering and still does to this day (this is despite the North Bridge and Nicolson Street, its northern and southern extensions, being re-numbered)
The street numbering of the South Bridge, on Ainslie’s Town Plan of 1804. The map has been rotated by 90 degrees for clarity. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandThe First New Town of Edinburgh, that part planned out by James Craig and that existed prior to 1811, conforms almost perfectly to the rules of the 1811 numbering system. On the map below, the red arrows show the street numbers ascend in the correct directions. The squares of Charlotte and St. Andrew are ordered in a clockwise manner. The Northern or Second New Town, the section north of Queen Street Gardens was developed from 1800 onwards so conformed to the scheme too (with the exception of the already noted Great King Street). The “Moray Feu” extension of the New Town, shown in the blue arrows, was developed from 1822 and conformed with the 1811 scheme, with the anomaly of Great Stuart Street, which is interrupted by Ainslie Place, so you have to pass through the latter to get to the other side of the former.
Edinburgh map by Bartholomew, 1891. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandThe West End (green arrows on the map above) was feud from the estate of Walker of Coates from 1813 onwards and took its own, haphazard approach as it developed in a piecemeal manner. Queensferry Street is numbered in a “there and back again” nature; the numbers on some streets ascend in the right direction, but with the odds and evens on the wrong sides; Drumsheugh Gardens increases in an anti-clockwise manner, and towards the Dean Bridge; the street is Lynedoch Place on one side and Randolph Cliff on the other, each with its own numbering sequence. Princes Street in the First New Town posed an interesting test for the system. We think of it as being only a street built on one side, but there is of course a single block built on the south side at its eastern end. This was originally individual properties and prior to 1811 these were numbered in their own series as “Princes Street South Side”. The principal, northern side of the street did not need the geographic qualifier.
The east end of Prince’s Street as shown on Kincaid’s Town Plan of 1784. Note numbers 1-5 on the south side, and 1 upwards on the north. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandThe 1811 re-numbering decided to treat the street as if it had a single side, with numbers 1-9 allocated to the south side, and the northern side numbered from 10 upwards. This arrangement was broken in 1898 when the block to the south was demolished to make way for the North British Railway Hotel (now The Balmoral), which took the number 1; numbers 2 to 9 Princes Street have therefore never existed ever since.
East End of Princes Street, as shown on Kirkwood’s Town Plan of 1819. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandIn 1826 it was reported in the local press that a wholesale renumbering of the “suburbs” has been completed, that street names had now been painted on the corners and that a move was being made to begin painting up the names of the closes of the Old Town. The considered order of this new system was not to last however. By 1826, properties on Princes Street were plagued with subdivision of the original houses into commercial premises, requiring the Town Council to approve the use of A, B, C etc. to distinguish each new door from its original number. By 1856, the Cowgate was said to be in “a most hopeless state of darkness” and in 1869 the Lawnmarket was “greatly confused and unintelligible”. However a systematic approach was never taken again, and renumbering thereafter took place on a case-by-case basis, approved by a special council committee. Exceptions and curiosities still prevail however. Summerhall Place, for instance, was re-numbered as 5 to 13 Causewayside in 1935. However the uproar this provoked in its residents caused it to be renamed back to Summerhall Place, but with the numbers in the Causewayside sequence retained: to this day the latter street still starts its numbering of odd doors at number 15.
Part 5. Street Naming and Re-Naming
Street names, even those we are most familiar with, do not always remain the same forever and some change before they are even built. An early copy of James Craig’s original printed plan of the New Town from 1767 has the streets we know now as Princes, George and Queen referred to instead as simply the South, Principal and North; the names were yet to be decided.
Copy of James Craig’s 1767 New Town Plan © City of Edinburgh CouncilA later copy of the same year, which James Craig apparently took to London, had named these streets as St. Giles Street (after the patron saint of the City), George Street (for the King, George III) and Forth Street, an unofficial innovation of Craig’s own doing, probably on account of the views it commanded towards that body of water. The magistrates of the city were unhappy with Forth Street and the King – who was shown the copy during Craig’s visit to London – was displeased with St. Giles, as he associated that name with the London district of the same name which had a reputation as a slum, hardly befitting his glorious new capital of North Britain.
A poor quality facsimile of an engraving of 1767 of Craig’s New Town Plan, showing unfamiliar street names. Thank you to Rob Ralston for helping to source this grainy copy in an 1971 paper in an obscure journal.The King’s Scottish physician – Sir John Pringle – sent a letter expressing the displeasure and making some suggestions for improvement to Lord Provost Laurie, and a new copy was made, with George Street central, flanked by Queen Street to the north, and Prince’s Street to the south for George, Prince of Wales. With the cross-streets including Hanover and Frederick (the second son), the King approved and this new trend of naming streets in the city – to the glory of the reigning dynasty – was instituted. Prior to this, nearly all the street names in the city had been functional, describing the builder, owner or principal occupant(s). . An old saying amongst Edinburgh schoolboys – to help them remember – went; “The Queen and the Prince, the Rose and the Thistle, and King George in the Middle”.
You may have noticed in these earlier maps that illustrate Princes Street that some use the form “Prince’s Street” and that others use the more familiar “Princes”. So which is it? The simple answer is both, but never Princes’ Street! The table below gives the varieties used for Princes Street and George Street from the first royally approved plans of 1767 to 1831. The matter was finally settled in 1846 for Princes Street when the GPO street directories finally abandoned the original form of Prince’s Street. That Princes Street was named for two Princes is categorically not the case, it is not a plural, it is a possessive case, it is one where the apostrophe has been lost over time; it was for Prince George and Prince George alone, his brother Prince Frederick got Frederick Street.
MapmakerYearForm of Princes Street UsedForm of George Street UsedJames Craig1767Prince’s GeorgeJohn Andrews1771 Princes GeorgeAndrew Bell1773 Princes GeorgesJohn Ainslie1780Prince’s GeorgeAlexander Kincaid1784Prince’sGeorge’sDaniel Lizars1787Prince’s GeorgeT. Brown & J. Watson1793 PrincesGeorge’sThomas Aitchison1794Prince’s GeorgeJohn Ainslie1804 Princes GeorgesRobert Scott1805 Princes GeorgeGPO1807Prince’s GeorgeRobert Kirkwood1817 Princes GeorgeThomas Brown1818 Princes GeorgesRobert Kirkwood1819 Princes GeorgeRobert Kirkwood1821Prince’s GeorgeRobert Scott1822 Princes GeorgeJohn Wood1823 Princes GeorgeJames Knox1825Prince’s GeorgeJohn Wood1831 Princes GeorgeTable showing the spelling of Princes and George Street used from 1767 to 1831 on maps of the city.Another change in the planned New Town streetnames affected the Northern explansion around 1806; the streets planned with the Latin names of Caledonia Street, Hibernia Street and Anglia Street were Anglicised to Scotland, Dublin and London Streets respectively before any shovels were in the ground. At the same time, a planned Albion Row was merged with the start of Albany Street and took the latter name.
Ainslies’ town plan of 1804 showing planned Caledonia, Hibernia, Anglia Streets and Albion Row. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandAn opposite issue to renaming a street occurred in 1803, when Mrs Maxwell of Carriden (Mary Charlotte Bouverie) complained that her house was on a street with no name! She lived at the extreme west end of the First New Town, where the as-yet unnamed street to the west of Charlotte Square met Princes Street. A disagreement with the Moray Estate over land boundaries meant that the original planned street on the west side of Charlotte Square was never built, and what had been constructed had been given no name. This was resolved by Christening this portion Hope Street, after Charles Hope of Granton, Lord Advocate and the local MP (this is the explanation given by Stuart Harris. An explanation may be that it was for Admiral Sir George Hope of Carriden, a 2nd cousin of Lord Granton). The following year we find a Miss Blair in the Post Office directory for Hope Street.
Kincaid’s Town Plan (left) of 1784, showing the never built western side of Charlotte Square (then still planned as St. George’s Square) and Ainslie’s Town Plan (right) of 1804, showing the compromised updated designs for the west side of Charlotte Square, with the southwest portion now known as Hope Street. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandAn idiosyncrasy of some Edinburgh streets is where the road has one name, but the street addresses along it have another. This is normally the result of a planned or pre-existing street being built along in a piecemeal, protracted manner. A good example of this is London Road, a planned new roadway into the city from the east formed around 1819, but where development along it took around 80 years to complete. Individual street blocks of houses were named by their landowner or builder, after themselves, family connections, royalty, battles, topography, pre-existing local names and more, with opposite sides of the same road frequently having different addresses. In its 1.4 mile Length, there are 19 different street addresses, with London Road itself being the address for relatively few premises.
1944 OS Town Plan of London Road overlaid with the street addresses of the premises along it. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandAnother point in case is Leith Walk, a historic walking route between Edinburgh and its port that was only very gradually developed into a carriageway and built along. From the very top (the south or Edinburgh end) of “the Walk” – beginning at current Picardy Place, the facing “pairs” of places on opposite sides of the road went Union Place / Greenside Place; Antigua Street / Baxters Place; Gayfield Place & Haddington Place / Elm Row; Croall Place / Brunswick Place; Albert Place / Shrub Place; George Place / Crichton Place. At this point we reach the Leith and Edinburgh boundary at Pilrig Street.
The Leith end of Leith Walk, Pilrig Street north (down) towards the Foot of the Walk. From Old & New Edinburgh by James Grant.Continuing down into Leith, the historic addresses went Fyfe Place; Kings Place; Orchardfield / Heriot Buildings; Springfield; Ronaldson’s Buildings; Stead’s Place / Anderson Place; Allison’s Place; Whitfield’s Place / Macneill’s Place; Cassell’s Place / Queen’s Place. In 1933, the council street naming committee made a proposal to merge Leith Walk and Leith Street into a continuous numbering sequence and to remove all the older intermediate addresses. Options included calling the whole length simply “Leith Walk”; splitting it into a “Leith Walk South” and “Leith Walk North”; extending Leith Street north to London Road, with everything north of that being Leith Walk. This proposal was never taken forward, and it is only on the Leith half of Leith Walk (i.e. north of Pilrig Street) where the houses are named and numbered as Leith Walk. On the Edinburgh side, the traditional names remains to this day, even though the roadway itself is formally called Leith Walk.
Street renaming generally took place on a case-by-case basis, usually to remove a duplicate name. An exception was a wholesale renaming and de-duplication exercise undertaken in a systematic way between 1965-69 upon the introduction of Post Codes for sending mail. This caused an issue where the traditional use of the old post towns or burghs to disambiguate between streets in the formerly separate burghs of Edinburgh, Leith and Portobello was superseded by simply using “Edinburgh” and the post code. At least 56 streets were renamed in this period, with the general practice being that the Edinburgh name was kept and any duplicates in Leith or Portobello (or both!) were renamed. This resulted in 15 old Leith street names and 8 in Portobello being lost and changed. There were exceptions however, and 5 Edinburgh names were changed where they conflicted with Leith, 4 Leith names were changed where they conflicted with Portobello and 3 Portobello names were changed where they conflicted with Leith.
Amongst others, Edinburgh lost its Pitt Street (to Dundas Street), Duke Street (to Dublin Street), Chapel Lane (to Cathedral Lane), Mitchell Street (to Peffer Place). Leith lost its George Street (to North Fort Street), Queen Street (to Shore Place), Albany Street (to Portland Street), Bank Street (to Seaport Street). Portobello lost its Hope Street (to Rosefield Street), Ramsay Lane (to Beach Lane), Melville Street (to Bellfield Street), Pitt Street (to Pittville Street). The village of Newhaven lost its St. Andrew’s Square (to Fishmarket Square) to avoid confusion with St. Andrew Square in Edinburgh, and it lost its Parliament Square (to Great Michael Square) for the same reason. Across the city as a whole, multiple streets with “Church” or “Hope” in their name were also altered to avoid potential duplicates or ambiguity.
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Death by “surfeit of figs”: the thread about the King’s Botanist and a bungling attempt to capture Edinburgh Castle
Today’s 18th century historical thread starts with a chance photo of a gravestone in South Leith Kirkyard, taken because of the touching eulogy on it. Who was Isabella? And who was Colonel Lawson? I thought I would try my hand at finding out, not realising the remarkable yarn that would be spun from this search, largely because a few errors on the stone which made me dig deeper than I probably otherwise would have in trying to resolve them.
To the Memory of ISABELLA, Widow of Robert Cormack, Merchant of Leith and Only Daughter of Colonel Laswson Who fell in the Royal Cause at the Battle of Preston 1715…
She exchanged this Life for a better, August 1783, Aged 82.
Abraham Davellie Cormack Lawson [her son]I started my search with Isabella. Isabella Lawson (1700-1783) was the daughter of Janet Wilson and James Lawson of Cairnmuir. The Cairnmuirs were minor Borders gentry, their seat was Cairnmuir House – also known as Baddinsgill – near West Linton.
My eye had been caught at first by the eulogy. Someone else’s was caught by the phrase “Battle of Preston 1715” and whether “in the Royal Cause” meant they were on the side of the House of Stuart or that of Hanover; after all, both were Royal Causes. So I tried to find that out too out. I eventually found that our Lawson was in Colonel Preston’s Regiment of Foot later known as the 26th and better known as The Cameronians and that he was actually of the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. The Cameronians were an unusual regiment which could trace their descent directly from the Covenanting (Scottish Presbyterian) movement. They were formed by the Convention of Estates (a sister institution to the Scottish parliament) in 1689 to defend the Presbyterian settlement in the country as a result of the “Glorious Revolution” from Stuart attempts to impose Episcopalianism. As such they were explicitly anti-Jacobite and had proved loyal to the Houses of Orange and later Hanover. It was The Cameronians who, at the Battle of Dunkeld, had put down the Jacobite rebellion of 1689 and as such we can be sure that Lt. Col. Lawson fought on the side of the Hanoverians at Preston.
Cameronian soldiers in the uniform of 1713This is where we get to the errors on the gravestone. Firstly, and as far as I can verify, Lt. Col. Lawson did not die at Preston at all. The regimental history acknowledges he was in action at the battle and was badly wounded, but his death is actually recorded 3 years later in 1718. Whether that was from injuries which he had sustained we cannot be sure, and this may have been the case as The Cameronians took a lot of punishment. Secondly, Isabella Lawson was not his only daughter! She may be the only daughter of his wife Janet Wilson, but the Lt. Col. has at least 6 other children by another wife – Marion Reoch. The chronology of births is confusing as to which were by Marion and which by Janet. But I think we can forgive the errors here as the stone, by its own admission, was erected by Isabella’s son – Abraham Davellie Cormack (isn’t that a wonderful name?) – some 70 years after the facts and details may have gotten lost in family stories.
This is all interesting enough in its own right, but on digging around the family tree to try and resolve these questions it brings up Lt. Col. Lawson’s older brother; John Lawson of Cairnmuir, Esq. (1657-1704). It’s not John who is so interesting, it is his wife, Barbara Clerk (1679-1734). Barbara is the daughter of Sir John Clerk of Penicuik and her brother is Sir John Clerk of Penicuik (better known as “Baron Clerk” to differentiate him from his father). The Clerks are one of the most powerful and influential families in the early 18th c. Scottish establishment. Baron Clerk is the Whig’s Whig, a strong supporter of the Union of Scotland and England, a Commissioner for the Union of Parliaments, a Whig MP in the first parliament of Great Britain and later Baron of the Exchequer for Scotland.
Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, (Baron Clerk) by William AikmanBarbara’s first husband, John Lawson, was therefore a fitting match. From the correct class of Lowland gentry like herself, with the correct political leanings and a brother-in-law in the service of one the Government’s most loyal regiments. But when John dies in 1704, it is Barbara’s second husband where things begin to get really interesting. On the 21 February 1710, Barbara marries one William Arthur* , M.D. (* = no relation, as far as I can tell!) William was born in Elie in Fife in 1680, his father was Patrick Arthur of Ballone, a surgeon, apothecary and Commissioner of Supply for Fifeshire. The Commissioners of Supply were local bodies in Scotland responsible for certain aspects of civic administration. William’s mother is Margaret Sharp, a relative of the recently assassinated episcopalian Archbishop Sharp of St. Andrews. So, on paper, William also comes from the right sort of family for a union with a Clerk. In 1701 or therabouts, William travelled to Utrecht to study medicine under Herman Boerhaave, “the father of physiology“. This was about the best place he could of gone to study medicine in Europe at the time, so clearly the Arthur’s had high aspirations for their son and the means to pursue them.
Herman BoerhaaveWilliam returned to Scotland in 1707 as Dr. Arthur and began to practice medicine with his father in Fife. It is probably through chance that he treated Baron Clerk – who was on a hunting trip in Fife – and becomes acquainted with the latter’s widowed sister, Barbara. The match was obviously approved and as a result the aspiring Doctor finds himself ingratiated into one of the best-connected families in the land. This begins to pay dividends for his career and in 1713 he was licensed to practice medicine in Edinburgh by being invited to join the Royal College of Physicians. He was made fellow by 1714. Dr. Arthur finds himself rubbing shoulders with – and treating – the great and the good of Edinburgh society. All is going well in the Arthur-Clerk household and it’s about to get even better, albeit briefly.
Fountain Close in Edinburgh in 1853, little changed from Dr. Arthur’s day more than a century earlier when the Royal College of Physicians was based hereIn 1714 the ailing Queen Anne dies and in her place comes His Most Serene Highness George Louis, Archbannerbearer of the Holy Roman Empire and Prince-Elector, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg; King George I to you and me. One of the new King’s more unusual initial duties is to choose a Regius (Royal) Keeper for the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, as that was a direct household appointment of the Monarch, and became vacant at the point of Queen Anne’s death. The garden at this time located in the Nor’ Loch valley, where Waverley Station is today.
Edgar’s Town Plan of 1765, showing the Physick Garden – note the hed of the Nor’ Loch to the left of themap, to the left of the block designated “S” (which was the first pier under construction of the new North Bridge). Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of ScotlandThe incumbent keeper since 1676 is James Sutherland, re-appointed by Queen Anne in 1699 and holder of the Chair of Botany at the university. It would therefore seem sensible that the capable, experienced, renowned and well thought of Sutherland would be re-appointed. But no, it’s not what you know but who you know. For reasons that we can only assume to be Baron Clerk’s influence, William Arthur – whose knowledge of botany would have extended only to a physician’s herbs – finds himself not just the Regius Keeper of the Botanic Garden but also the King’s Botanist, by royal appointment.
A catalogue of the plant collection at the Physick Garden, published by James Sutherland © Royal Collection TrustTo paraphrase Bayley Balfour, biographer of the Regius Keepers, Dr. Arthur probably knew nothing about botany and certainly made little to no contribution to it or to the garden in his charge during his tenure. However he hardly had a chance to, as we are about to find out.
It is now 1715, and all is not well in the land and not everyone is that thrilled with the new king. Long story short, on 27th August that year John Erskine, Earl of Mar, took it upon himself to raise the Jacobite Standard for the exiled Pretender” James Francis Edward Stuart at Braemar and with 600 men called the Jacobite loyal to arms. Up until this point, Mar had been in the service of the Government and his nickname is “Bobbing John” on account of his reputation for dithering and it never being clear quite which side he is actually on at any given time.
Raising the Jacobite standard at Braemar. From “Cassell’s History of England”, 1906Mar’s forces swell to 20,000 and quickly take control of much of Scotland north of the Forth. Much of Bobbing John’s early success may have been at the hands of subordinates taking initiative. But sites are now set on Edinburgh and its Castle. Within the Castle are government arms enough for 10,000 men and £100,000 that was paid to Scotland upon the Union with England. This plan may have been the instigation of James Drummond (later 2nd Duke of Perth); a Stuart loyalist who had been with James II when he lost his chance of the crown in Ireland.
James Drummond, 2nd Duke of Perth, in 1700 by Sir John Baptiste de Medina. Note the slave boy in the painting, who wears a locked collar and a uniform jacket, denoting him as the property and servant of the Duke.Edinburgh Castle would be a tough nut to crack. It’s easiest to bypass it entirely and leave it isolated and relatively impotent up on its rock – but when you want what is in it that is not an option. It had been demonstrated that it could be reduced by siege and force as the English did in the Lang Seige of 1573, but the Jacobites had neither the men, resources, time or artillery for that.
“Scene from the Lang Siege” from the Hollinshead Chronicle. Edinburgh Castle on its rock is entirely surrounded by a besieging English army and its Scottish protestant allies.”No, the best and easiest way to take it was by sneak or subterfuge. Thomas Randolph had done this for Robert the Bruce. Alexander Leslie had done it for the Covenanters. Who was going to do it for King James VIII of Scotland and III of England? Step forward, for reasons known only to himself, Dr. William Arthur, Regius Keeper of the Botanic Garden and King’s Botanist.
What follows is my interpretation of events – I know others exist and you can read them elsewhere.
It is reputed that the Arthurs may have been Jacobites – after all his mother was a relative of an important episcopalian archbishop – but that may be hearsay. Whatever the reason he got involved, William at least had the perfect cover; he was married into an unimpeachable family, was in an intimate position in the depths of the pro-Hanoverian Scottish establishment and was a personal appointee of the King.
Dr. William has a brother, Major Thomas Arthur of the 3rd Regiment of Foot Guards (the Royal Scots to you and me). The brothers have a cousin (or he may be a younger brother), Lieutenant James Arthur in the Edinburgh Regiment of Foot (The King’s Own Scottish Borderers to you and me). The Arthurs got to work on a plan to take the castle by derring-do, in which the Doctor’s role seems to have been one of coordinator and fixer. Arms were to be assembled, 30 muskets with bayonets and a “great many” small arms. These were cached in the house in the Potterrow of Sir David Murray of Stanhope by his wife. Recruits were found within the Jacobite sympathisers in the city; from dispossessed Jacobite officers, lawyers, clerks, apprentices and “other youths of a class considerably above the mere vulgar“. We will come back to these latter young men later.
Lt. James promised 30 loyal, armed grenadiers from within the Edinburgh Regiment, they were just awaiting the word. Major Thomas sounds out potential sympathisers and collaborators within the castle itself. Eventually three men, a Sergeant and two Privates, are trustworthy enough to be bribed to assist. From the Duke of Perth are sent 50 loyal men of the Highlands, to be led by Alexander Drummond of Bahaldie – “a gentleman of great courage“. Drummond’s real name is Alexander Macgregor, and he is chieftain of Clan Gregor, whose name is forfeit. The last piece of the arrangements is Charles Forbes. On the face of things a down-on-his-luck local merchant, but apparently actually a Jacobite agent. Forbes is engaged to build foldable assault ladders and to have them ready for a surprise, night-time assault on the Castle walls. Things quickly begin to go wrong however; Major Thomas’ wife got word of her husband’s dealings out of him and she is able to forewarn Sir Adam Cockburn of Ormiston, the Lord Justice-Clerk and 2nd most powerful man in the Scottish legal system, of the threat. Ormiston, inexplicably, ignored the warning and so the Arthurs might still have been in with the element of surprise.
Adam Cockburn (1656-1735), Lord Ormiston. By William Aikman. Cc-by-SA National Galleries ScotlandBut remember those Jacobite youths of the “class considerably above the mere vulgar“?. Well they got bored with waiting around for the word and they went and got drunk in a tavern. While they were “powdering their perriwigs in preparation” they give the game loudly away to anyone with ears. Word was again sent to Adam Cockburn of Ormiston. This time he decided to do something about it and a messenger is sent to the Castle where, eventually, the deputy governor is roused. Sceptical, he gives instructions to double the guard and goes back to his bed. Yet again, the Arthurs might still be in luck. At 11 o’clock at night, on what was probably the 9th or 10th of September 1715, the raiding party assembled in the kirkyard of the West Kirk (now known as St. Cuthbert’s), below the sheer face of the Castle Rock.
The West Kirk in the 18th century, from Old & New Edinburgh by James GrantTheir target was the Castle on top of said rock, towering overhead. And up they went, picking their way in the dark of night up the treacherous paths scraped into the cliff face. Perhaps luck was on their side, as miraculously they made it to the top and the foot of the walls on schedule and without issue.
Edinburgh Castle towering above St. Cuthbert’s Graveyard. James Skene 1818, © Edinburgh City LibrariesAt the arranged time and place, they were able to make contact with the bribed Sergeant, on duty on the battlements above.But that is where the luck ran out and two problems now manifested themselves. Firstly, the Sergeant is due to be imminently relieved early as a result of the Governor changing the pattern of the guards on account of Ormiston’s warning. Secondly, Charles Forbes and his ladders are nowhere to be seen. The party have only a single rope ladder and grapnel among them. Pressed by time and circumstances, and the ever-more desperate Sergeant up above, the leader of the Highlanders – Drummond of Bahaldie – took control of matters. He threw up the rope ladder and convinces the Sergeant to make it fast and drop it back down; alas, it proves to be at least a fathom too short.
And then the Sergeant’s relief arrived and the game was up! Trying to save his own skin, he called out “enemy!” and fired his musket into the darkness. But the rope, which could only have been affixed to the walls by himself, gave his treachery away and he was quickly apprehended. An illustration made to celebrate the Hanoverians’ eventual victory in the 1715 rising describes the moment that the rumbled Jacobites fled in all directions.
“Attempt to Surprise Edinburgh Castle”, a scene from “Sheriffmuir 1715. March of the King’s Forces and cannon to Perth” by Terrason. CC-by-NC, National Galleries ScotlandOne of the Jacobite party, an old officer by the name of Maclean, fell on the rocks as he fled and was apprehended. The rest of the Highlanders under Drummond of Bahaldie – with Major Thomas Arthur in company – headed north to rejoin with Mar and apparently didn’t stop until they got to Kinross. Of the local contingent, three of the indiscreet youths scatter one way, finding what they thought were friends coming the other. Only it wasn’t friends but none other than the Town Guard, turned out on the initiative of Adam Ormiston. The others worked their way around the the north bank of the Nor’ Loch, through the area known then as the Barefoot’s Park. Here, they ran into a man heading the other way encumbered under a load of folding ladders… it was the delayed, incompetent or double-crossing Charles Forbes.
The Barefoot’s Park from the Castle in 1750 by Paul Sandby, with the corner of its walls on the left. The is looking north, with the partially drained swamp of the Nor’ Loch in the valley below. The Jacobites would have fled around this area. The line of walls is the Lang Dykes, an old roadway approximately on the line of Princes Street.Dr. William Arthur was not part of the raiding party, but eventually decided to go to the Castle Rock for himself at some point that night to find out what had become of the assault. He found only a discarded musket and the Town Guard and Castle Garrison in a state of frenetic activity. He fled to try to find some of the other conspirators, eventually crossing their path. On finding out that all was lost, he saddled his horse and fled south from the city with the others. William will later recount in a letter later, sent on his deathbed to the Earl of Mar, that he didn’t stop until he got to Polton in Midlothian and the house of a niece. Here he and a number of the gentlemen conspirators with him got provisions and fresh horses, before striking out over the Pentlands.
Back in Edinburgh, the luckless Sergeant was thrown in the brig, court-martialled, found guilty and duly hanged. The Deputy Governor of the Castle, who had gone back to bed, was relieved of his duties and imprisoned for a time. In the cold light of morning, William Arthur’s brother-in-law, Baron Clerk – accompanied by Adam Ormiston and others – came knocking at his door to enquire where he might be. The lady of the house, his sister Barbara, was none the wiser. William by this time has made it over the Pentlands to the house of his aunt’s wife. He has travelled faster than the news, so his relation has no cause to suspect him and again he is given refuge. He wrote off a quick letter to Barbara in Edinburgh and stayed long enough to receive an answer that informs him that his part in the conspiracy is known and he is a wanted man. He once again gets fresh horses and flees. Now, do you remember the Lawsons of Cairnsmuir from the gravestone, the Laird of which was his wife’s first husband? Well, as part of the settlement after his death she had come into possession of various parts of his estate. As husband of the mistress, William will be welcome there so long as he can ride faster than the news travels, so makes his way south and back across the Pentlands, and is able to acquire, supplies, money and – once again – fresh horses. And once again, he flees; so long as he keeps moving away from Edinburgh he might just be able to escape.
William would later claim to Mar that he fled into the Borders as he thought he might be “of service” to the cause there. Indeed, there was a failed attempt by a Jacobite party under Mackintosh of Borlum to organise rebellion in this area and he may have made contact with it. But whatever his intentions, Jacobite sympathisers in Teviotdale saw him smuggled over the border to somewhere in Northumberland – although from his letter it may have been that he didn’t actually know where we was! He now disappears for a while. The authorities back in Edinburgh claim that he and a cousin, William Barnes, had met up again with Mar to provide him with intelligence and had been present at the Battle of Preston in October 1715 where the Jacobites would surrender and the doomed rebellion would fail.
The Jacobites surrender to General Wills at Preston, © Harris Museum & Art Gallery, PrestonThis takes us full circle and back rather neatly to where we started, as who else was at Preston (on the victorious side) but that name on the gravestone, Lt. Col. James Lawson of Cairnsmuir; brother-in-law to William Arthur’s wife through her first marriage. The Jacobite Pretender, James Francis Edward Stuart, would land in Scotland at Peterhead all too late in December 1715, and would be back on his way to exile at the start of February the following year. In his wake would follow various other Jacobite gentlemen and officers; including William Arthur would next surface in Rome a few months later in 1716.
The Pretender and his companions flee Scotland in 1716, a scene from “Sheriffmuir 1715. March of the King’s Forces and cannon to Perth” by Terrason. CC-by-NC, National Galleries ScotlandHere, he set about writing a lengthy letter to the Earl of Mar – himself exiled in Paris – as to why he had failed in his task and why it wasn’t his fault. It is while drafting these excuses, that William consumed a “surfeit of figs”, caught dysentery and died as a result. Perhaps a slightly ironic way for a King’s Botanist to go out; but William was a botanist only in name and thanks only to the patronage of a King he had quickly betrayed. From his death bed, he passed his letter to a Jacobite agent, Dr. Roger Kenyon, who conveys it and news of Wiliam’s death to Mar in Paris. Arthur was clearly popular in Rome as sympathisers organised an elaborate funeral with special permission given by Filippo Gaultieri, Cardinal-Protector for Scotland, according him as a protestant the rare privilege of being buried within the walls of that city. This would become the Cimitero dei Protestant – Protestant Cemetery.
Filippo Gaultieri, Cardinal-Protector for ScotlandAnd that wasn’t even the end of the silliness of the Jacobites in their attempts to take Edinburgh, because they soon tried again! (And one again, Major Thomas Arthur was involved and once again the attempt failed due to incompetence). So if you liked this story, you’ll definitely like the The thread about Brigadier Mackintosh of Borlum; the Jacobite uprising of 1715 in Edinburgh and Leith; and the wacky tale of its military incompetence.
Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.
If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
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If you see this after your page is loaded completely, leafletJS files are missing.These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.
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Mediathektipps
Scoring-Betrug. Musik-Dokus, Krimiserie aus der Schweiz
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Scoring-Betrug. Musik-Dokus, Krimiserie aus der Schweiz
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“Arcadia” (verfügbar 1 Jahr)
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