Taking a break from this app for a bit ✌️

Little dudes rock

Sort of wild how “slide show of your friend’s vacation” used to be held up as an example of boring activities that people hate but now it’s one of the most popular social media apps.

the first issue of the comics adaptation of Star Wars came out a couple months before the movie meaning the very first ever mention of The Force; the world’s introduction to its power was… Darth Vader getting a cup of coffee

One thing I take from the Psalmist is that it’s canonical to bully God a little. “They say you can’t do it, Lord. I don’t say that, but they say that. Will you let them talk about you like that, Lord, or are you gonna show up?”

I promise nothing complete; because any human thing supposed to be complete, must for that very reason infallibly be faulty.

Bill Watterson deserves a lot of credit for being a major communicator of the new science of dinosaurs that emerged in the 70s and 80s. His vibrant, naturalistic dinosaurs introduced the new paradigm to comics page addicted kids for years before Jurassic Park canonized it in the public imagination

"mainstream media is suppressing information that's only on social media" the information on social media:

Over the Rhine The Beths Beth Orton Tori Amos The Innocence Mission

Finished Walter Rauschenbusch's 'Theology for the Social Gospel' today -- definitely dated in some respects (not least his attitude toward Judaism), but many of the main arguments remain timely and persuasive

Just an annual reminder that as Lent approaches, I will not be taking a break from Bluesky. Rather, I shall post more to help you with your penance and mortification.

strange but true: you don't have to fight the 2028 primary on here yet if you don't want to

A giant loss: Robert Duvall is gone. An extraordinary artist who was fluent in every dialect of film acting, from ice-cold underplayer (The Godfather) to expert naturalist (Tender Mercies, The Apostle) to balls-to-the-wall maniac (Apocalypse Now). One of our all-timers. Plunge into that filmography.

I have no knowledge of/interest in GoT. Would it be stupid to watch Knight of the Seven Kingdoms?

I too enjoy the culture of the Scotts

And since Christians have persecuted Jews so viciously, we have a special responsibility to make amends, to repair the damage that the church has done. That begins by turning to the new Christian antisemites and shouting “No!” Ancient hatreds and ancient heresies have no place in the church today.

What's so amazing about Jim Henson as a puppeteer is that he could literally be explaining that Kermit is made out of felt and ping pong balls and yet Kermit still feels alive the whole time he's doing it

We're rewatching 'Aliens' and there's a scene where Bill Paxton's character tells the other space Marines to "Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen."

I can assure you that you do not in fact want that.

Put 'Goat' in the file of kids' movies that were better than they strictly needed to be

So much of our present crisis is coddled, ignorant, and short sighted people tearing down the institutions that protect them because they don’t understand that bad things can happen.

The commander in chief telling troops who they have to vote for is itself a presidency ending impeachable scandal.

For Valentine's Day we're watching the most romantic movie ever made

Good luck to everyone holding out for a presidential candidate who's more left-wing than AOC

Yes it’s Valentine’s Day. But it’s also the chosen birthday of Frederick Douglass who was born in 1818 on a plantation in Talbot County, Maryland. He escaped from slavery & rose to become the most eloquent and forceful voice for the abolition of slavery & for Black voting rights in the U.S.

We live in the ruins of a greater civilization.

I think Star Trek Into Darkness is Not Good, but I appreciate a lot that one of the ways that it’s Not Good is that at one point they call up Leonard Nimoy and they’re basically like “hey you were in some of these movies before, was a guy named Khan in any of them? What’s his deal?”

One issue here is crank convergence, and the escalation ladder of a competitive media environment. The other is that there's no social cost to beliefs anymore, being a 9/11 truther or an anti-vaxer or a Nazi doesn't actually *mean* as much as it used to, because identity has become so cheap.

hey cool man while you were deep in research or whatever you might want to catch up on some other stuff that has happened in the world in the past year

Since Presidents Day is coming up, I'll note that I just finished this and it was very good (not quite 'Lincoln at Gettysburg ' good though)

Rod Dreher isn't interesting as a thinker (he contradicts himself like five times in that interview), but he's certainly emblematic of a lot of conservatives who've convinced themselves they're the equivalent of Soviet dissidents because trans people and HR diversity webinars exist

Created in the Image of God: The Ethics of the One True Gospel nijaykgupta.substack.com/p/created-in...

Finally watched Thunderbolts - best MCU movie in a while. Sure, it was doing pretty by-the-numbers facing trauma/found family stuff, but it pulled it off well with strong performances and a minimal reliance on CGI slop

At no point in this reading this headline would I have correctly guessed what the next word would be.

come on

Looks like Nic Cage is really Nic Caging it up in this (complimentary) youtu.be/HgMbkitzhEM?...

Love a song where a guy just Names a Bunch of Places

There's gotta be a statute of limitations for how far into adulthood you're still allowed to talk about having been a "gifted kid"

Truly this is the era of evil dweebs

God this guy rules

Oh hey one of the most popular podcasters in the country referring to Jews as “occult Baal worshippers,” that’s clever.

entirely too much stuff going on where the only possible response is "man, what?"

The meaning of words is to be decided not by their use, usefulness, or history, but by their commercial benefit to the most powerful lobby groups. I have a recipe for almond milk in a cookbook from 1226. It has been used as a term in English for hundreds of years. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

God announcing true artificial intelligence: Remember that time I gave a monkey anxiety? I figured out a way to do that to sand. Concerned Angel: Hey, man. Are you okay?

Not sure I agree with all of this, but I do think it's pointing in the right general direction www.liberalcurrents.com/abolition-am...

Really good piece from Adam Kotsko: adamkotsko.substack.com/p/stockpilin...

This was one of the bosses' explicit goals in getting Trump elected - crush the strong Biden era labor market in order to discipline workers and make them submit to abuse and exploitation. That, not burrito taxi prices, was the actual economic stakes of the 2024 election

I will share this with my Bible and Misinformation class. It is an example of why teaching students what actual research involves is more important than ever, and needs to be coupled with explanation of how chatbots reaffirm the bizarre things users insist on.