Somehow, in a small way under Pope Francis and much more under Pope Leo, I’ve felt a change happening. The Church seems to be trying to talk to the secular world in a way they can understand and want to listen to. And the secular world seems to be listening www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

This should go without saying.

It is very easy to manipulate modern recommendation algorithms to boost certain kinds of content (see: Musk and X). It’s probably Not Good that the thoughts, worldviews, and behaviors of hundreds of millions of people are downstream of those biases, which can be set by a handful of people

I was there at the unveiling of the quilt in 1987 and it remains one of the most moving experiences of my life. This was about the LGBTQ community honoring and remembering its own because their government sure as hell wasn't doing it. A time of great devastation and enormous bravery.

Brewer's Blackbird #birds

May 29, 2026

Heather Cox Richardson (TDPR) @hcrichardson.bsky.social Senator Andy Kim @kim.senate.gov "I spoke today with New Jersey Senator Andy Kim who has been in the news lately after getting pepper-sprayed at Delaney Hall, a detention facility in New Jersey." Watch our full conversation on YouTube:

Yeah no. I used SNAP for several years up until early 2020 and my friends in the neighborhood still do. You have to carefully prove every person in your house. You have to reverify stacks of paperwork every couple of months. And you never, ever, EVER get a "check."

Miller lies. SNAP requires verification of household members' identities through birth certificates, school records or other documentary proof. It does not take just an applicant's word for it. Sheesh.

Absofreakinlutely Not.......

When they started to play “Pomp and Circumstance,” I started to cry even though I swore I wouldn’t. But by the time they started handing out diplomas, the sadness had already retreated. I am all right now. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

A very hungry juvenile Grey Heron hunting insects. 26th of May 2026. Nikon Z8. #birds #ukbirds #ukwildlife #wildlifephotography #naturephotography #nature #photography #herons #hunting #birdphotography

You’re not going to believe this — no one does — but I have never used AI to write. Not a query or to brainstorm or to outline or to draft. At most, I have struggled to turn off the “powered by AI” grammar suggestions in some app. But…this is extremely skewed thinking.

When I see an AI summary, I avert my eyes like I walked in on my grandmother changing clothes.

I do not think it is possible to do this. The world today is so different from the one I grew up in. If you add cell phones into a story that doesn't have them, there are so many "why didn't they--" questions that arise.

"Enrich dismissed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio's claim that "no one has died" from the shuttering of USAID as "flatly untrue", estimating that "at least 750,000 people have already died unnecessarily due to those cuts"."

Drop the “25”. A $0 Bill would be more appropriate!

Yesterday in a cabinet meeting, Trump casually threatened to "blow up" Oman, one of America's oldest allies in the region. Here's how that's reported in today's NYT (it's not). It's front page news around the world, however. NYT editors think you don't need to know this.

“The Pentagon’s latest set of Navy promotions, advancing more than 20 Navy captains to one-star admiral, included zero women, reinvigorating a debate about the barriers women face in their climb to the highest rungs of the military.” Not much of a debate. The barrier is obvious under Hegseth.

"Talarico is a vegan." "Paxton pardoned a pedophile." "Uh, well, Talarico says God is nonbinary or something?" "Paxton pardoned a pedophile." "Um, Talarico is, uh, low T?" "Paxton pardoned a pedophile." "Talarico is going to institute sharia law!" "Paxton pardoned a pedophile."

this is the way

Probably shouldn't have let a handful of weird business perverts unwind the cultural miracle of American research universities

E. Jean Carroll didn't just "accuse" Trump of sexual assault. She won a civil lawsuit against Trump for sexual assault. A jury found that Trump sexually assaulted her. She deserves for us to call it what it is.

A President ordering the Justice Department to criminally investigate a woman who won a sexual assault lawsuit against him makes Watergate look like an unpaid parking ticket.

It’s funny in small doses but yeah it’s a flashing red light in general. Polities only act like this when they’re stressed!

It’s interesting watching the people who absolutely love it when Trump calls female reporters “piggy” or “fucking bitches” clutch their pearls and cry because someone called Stephen Miller an ugly fuck.

THIS. Do I worry about the effects of social media on my 11-year-old? Obviously yes. Do I think she should be banned from it any more than young men falling into the manosphere on Reddit, middle-aged ladies being dragged into transphobia on Mumsnet, or pensioners radicalised by Facebook? 100% no.

Fuck anyone saying "if this were happening to any other community" when it comes to anti rights backslides and threats to community events. We are all of us facing escalating hate crimes and all of us have been for a long time.

Also MIT: We’re closing down the libraries and firing the librarians!

i was such an avid reader of stuff i did not even get CLOSE to understanding as a kid and all it did was make me read more, and ask more questions about the world. there's a concerted effort from almost every consolidated power on this planet to make people less curious!!!!

Hmm, I could say my alma merde, Franciscan University, but local opinion is pretty well divvied up as far as I can tell.

How playing Mad Libs prepared me for the Trump presidency: The President will celebrate the nation's 250TH ANNIVERSARY with a UFC CAGE MATCH on the former site of the WHITE HOUSE ROSE GARDEN and feature music by VANILLA ICE and ONE HALF OF MILLI VANILLI.

My girlfriend swears she won't eat farm-raised animals but is totally okay with grilling wild game. I think she just likes splitting hares. 🐰

A prairie warbler perched along side a gravel road in Chatham County yesterday. Definitely one of my favorite warblers. #birds

Posting the boilerplate and tip jar as usual, because the cost of everything gets higher by the day but our pay stays the same. This would be a great time to feed the tip jar! Thank you very much! www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

I felt exposed, humiliated, as if a real literature scholar would burst into my bedroom and taunt me for being a pathetic fake with only a bachelor’s degree and a terribly small library. And I missed my set of Charles Dickens. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

The teacher reamed out the whole class, banned laptops until the end of the year, and announced they’d all be turning in assignments handwritten on loose leaf from now on... marypezzulo.substack.com/p/my-most-el...

I remember reading about Van Gogh’s tragic life and horrible end, and looking back at those swirling, kinetic, brilliantly colorful paintings with a different eye. He was giving us a little piece of himself, which is what artists are supposed to do. marypezzulo.substack.com/p/only-peopl...

You will deconstruct and reconstruct your faith many times, and doubt is one step in the process. You can’t not do that. That is part of being a Christian. And it’s been this way from the beginning. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

Now, here’s your catechism lesson. God became man, so that Man might become God. Christ became a baby and then a child and a man, accepted a terrible death and rose from the dead, in order to draw all people to Himself. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

“You can plant the Kyoto red carrot, since you’re wearing red,” I said, “And he can plant the Bambino carrot. Just sprinkle these tiny seeds over the soil as if you’re salting your dinner!” The children each took pinches of seed, and salted the jet black potting soil. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

It’s not an important story. It’s just what I did this weekend. None of my stories are important. They’re just me. Life is a patchwork of thousands and thousands of unimportant adventures like this one. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

"Yesterday, federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement pepper-sprayed Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) along with demonstrators outside Delaney Hall, a 1,000-bed detention center in Newark, New Jersey." May 26, 2026 open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...

the government responsible for the eugenicist MAID program cannot and should not be trusted like this

& on that note let me name-drop @rbratten.bsky.social as someone to read on the American Catholic reception of Tolkien. (Various essays on her substack & in The Books That Made Us.)

yes, we can all agree that the Odyssey represents far-right values such as *checks notes* anyone who refuses hospitality to a traveler from a foreign land is a literal monster, especially if they refuse to host someone who is endangered while sailing far away from home in the Mediterranean sea.