Tim Watson

Tim Watson

@timwatson.bsky.social

English professor in Miami. British-American. London > Bishop's Stortford > Brighton > Brooklyn > Miami. Subtropical gardener. Florida Mangos: A Cultural History, forthcoming from U of Florida Press. Posts are my own and do not represent my employer.

2.9K followers2K following3.1K posts

Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

My hope is that FL senate isn't called as soon as polls close at 7pm and that I can go to sleep around midnight knowing I have a new congressperson in FL-27. In my 60s I can dream, right?

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Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

People are weird, or polls are weird, or people are weird when responding to polls (which I should stop looking at). 200 self-described Florida socialists were polled, and 10 of them are voting for Ashley Moody lol. Six hundred progressive voters and 35 of them are voting Moody.

Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

look, I don't understand a lot of the technical stuff here, but it seems likely in the next 6-12 months we're going to hear the word sysadmin a lot more often and it won't be good news — although there will be versions of the "Ondřej Surý saved the internet" story for us to find hope in

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Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

!!!!!

Taniel@taniel.bsky.social

Lula has been reelected president, Brazilian media has now called. An extraordinary comeback for the left-wing politician who trailed by 2 points in round 1 but managed to hold off Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president's son.

Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

Sara, 24 years old: "It’s simply the realisation of our dream. And it’s very strange that on the very streets where the police beat us, on the streets where we retreated countless times in the face of the gendarmerie, we are now standing here as the victors."

Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

Professor Froomkin's long-awaited guide to FL and Miami judicial elections, for which trustworthy information is hard to come by. FWIW, I endorse all of these recommendations (and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the guide, since I have already voted).

Michael Froomkin@mfroomkin.bsky.social

I've posted Part 2 of my 2025 voter guide, this time focusing on the Judicial elections and retention elections. www.discourse.net/2026/10/2026...

discourse.net2026 Midterm Elections Voter Guide (Part 2: Judicial Elections) – Discourse.netEarly voting has started, and election day is not far off, so here are some thoughts, in the second and shortest t of three (!) parts, on the upcoming election. But some of them are not long… Part 1: ...
Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

Dual Brazilian-US citizens in Miami Dade County could vote twice today on the Kendall campus of MDC: vote in the presidential run-off in Building R (the photo was taken yesterday when they were setting up), then walk to the west side of campus and vote in Florida/Miami elections in Building K.

Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

probably should not promote this given the heavy preponderance of Bolsonaro voters in South Florida, though — fingers crossed for a Lula resurgence

Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

Perhaps the most intriguing place I've seen an Angie Nixon for Senate yard sign so far: the Coral Gables house formerly owned by Alex Acosta, whose office negotiated the slap-on-the-wrist plea deal with Jeffrey Epstein in the 2000s. I would like this to be a sign of the times, please.

Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

For the FL early-vote tea-leaf readers out there, a caution not to extrapolate from the hyped-up numbers starting to slosh around on here — in 2022, GOP led early vote by only 6% but ultimately Narco Rubio won by 17%. Granted, Angie Nixon is much more compelling than Val Demings.

Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

in the last 5 days I have received 51 political fundraising texts from 51 separate phone numbers and if I did not have my phone on do not disturb I would be losing my mind at this point

Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

As always, @mfroomkin.bsky.social 's voter guide is convincing, informed, and eloquent. Part one of three!

Michael Froomkin@mfroomkin.bsky.social

Just posted Part 1 of my 2026 Voter Guide for South Florida. More to come. www.discourse.net/2026/10/2026...

discourse.net2026 Midterm Elections Voter Guide (Part 1: Federal & State-Wide) – Discourse.netEarly voting has started, and election day is not far off, so here are some thoughts, in the first of three (!) parts, on the upcoming election. But some of them are not long. Part 1: Federal and Stat...
Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

please home in on this

Merriam-Webster@merriam-webster.com

We acknowledge that no one has the bandwidth for this, but if it helps: -It’s ‘sleight of hand’ -It’s ‘bated breath’ -It’s ‘lo and behold’ -It's 'buck naked' -It’s ‘brass tacks’ -It’s ‘free rein’ -It’s ‘toe the line'

Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

"Failed promises, corruption, and the privileged lives of only a few." Every accusation is a confession. Also, less importantly, "discrete" from what?

Brian Finucane@bcfinucane.bsky.social

After all, the Bay of Pigs was a resounding success.

Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

I recently submitted a manuscript and explicitly requested no AI use in the peer review or production process. I asked nicely because I have a good working relationship with the editor.

Dan Sinykin@dan-sinnamon.bsky.social

gking.harvard.edu/files/peerle...

Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

And in response to this article Dan shared (which makes 5 recommendations, all of which involve more AI in peer review), I am prepared to accept the risk that peer reviews of my ms will miss things AI would have seen and recommended, that they may be more unpredictable, that they will be human.

Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

Florida Democrats have come in for a lot of justified criticism in recent years, but End The Corruption—the tagline of this ad—is the right message now.

Florida Democrats@fladems.bsky.social

The Republican Party of Florida went to court to get our Hope Florida ad pulled off the air. A judge said no. So we made another one.

Tim Watson reposted

Sonja Drimmer
@sonjadrimmer.bsky.social

This piece by student journalist Naishu Vempali made me pump my fist in solidarity. I hope when I’m back teaching at UMass next year they take a class with me, where they can expect nothing but top quality human-grade feedback, interaction, and attention. dailycollegian.com/2026/10/chat...

dailycollegian.comChatGPT is my new TA, and I’m scared“It feels as though everyone in charge of our education has already accepted that, at the pace we’re moving, we’re all going to have to use AI at some point in our careers. By tasking us with AI assig...
Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

Florida voters, this is an excellent explanation and analysis of Amendment 2. I'll be voting no. Miami voters: were you, like me, unaware that there is a commercial primate breeding operation, Worldwide Primates, located in the Redland?

Danny Rivero@danielrivero.bsky.social

Florida's Amendment 2 explained: A tax break for farmers that could squeeze rural counties @annaforflorida.bsky.social was the only one to vote against putting it on the ballot, but there are real concerns especially when you couple this with Am 3 on the ballot www.wlrn.org/government-p...

wlrn.orgFlorida's Amendment 2 explained: A tax break for farmers that could squeeze rural countiesThere are two property tax amendments before Florida voters in November. The lesser known one — Amendment 2 — is aimed at giving tax relief to the agricultural industry. The state has not studied how ...
Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

The day has finally arrived: only 18 short years since I published it, my first book has now sold a grand total of 500 copies (combined paperback and hardback)!!! Five hundred! Quick comparison: in the first 6 months of 2026, Dr. Seuss's Oh, the Places You'll Go sold 500,000 copies in the US.

Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

As the WLRN reporter points out, the substance of the leaked grand jury finding—that $10 million was "misappropriated as part of a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities"—is contained within the FL appeals court opinion, a public record, that ordered the grand jury report "expunged."

Danny Rivero@danielrivero.bsky.social

Republicans in Florida are threatening to jail media outlets that talk about the biggest scandal the GOP here has faced in years - the Hope Florida scandal. They argue a leaked grand jury report is "contraband" www.wlrn.org/government-p...

wlrn.orgBreaking: Republicans want Hope Florida story silenced and jail for anyone who talks about itThe Republican Party of Florida is threatening criminal prosecution of television stations, the Democratic Party and, by the terms of its own legal theory, anyone who repeats a Leon County grand jury'...
Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

This is just such a weird financial worldview (in addition to its disdain for the common good). When the mortgage company owned most of your house, *then* you were ok with paying property taxes? Now you own it outright somebody else should pay for schools, sewers, and cops?

Politico@politico.com

“I’m old. I’ve paid my home off,” said Ray Warner, a 72-year-old Akron resident. “Why would I pay property tax?” Across the country, homeowners are asking the same question and revolting against property taxes at a scale not seen in a half century.

politico.comDo You Really Own Your Home? A Tax Revolt Says No.The argument that property taxes make Americans renters in their own houses has fueled the biggest anti-tax uprising in half a century, and local governments are scrambling.
Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

I'm going a step further and—even though they won Eurovision in 1976—I disavow the Brotherhood of Man.

Nicholas Grossman@nicholasgrossman.bsky.social

I disavow the Muslim Brotherhood, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (they know why) and every musical artist or stage musical actor that has, at any point, sung the phrase "brotherhood of man."

Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

"Go back far enough in your family tree, and you are likely to find people who can be classified as peasants." I'm four generations removed from agricultural labourers whose place on the Essex/Suffolk border went back centuries (according to family genealogy). Only four generations but a world away.

Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

But I can't be nostalgic for a world in which my ancestors lived "an existence defined by grueling labor, frequent hardship and particular vulnerability to natural and economic disaster," as Scott says. There was a good reason why one of them upped and moved to the East End of London after all.

Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

Florida friends, don't rely on the NYT dates listed for early voting. In Miami and most other parts of the state, early in-person voting begins TOMORROW and runs 7am-7pm every day till the Sunday before election day.

Tim Watson
@timwatson.bsky.social

I know there's no point in unskewing polls, but it has to say *something* about the FL Senate race that of the folks who responded to this poll, *two-thirds* ID'ed as left/moderate left and >50% were under 50 years old (so the poll has extreme weighting to make it "representative" of FL electorate).