The Berenike Buddha—a 2nd-c CE marble statue in Egypt—is the earliest Buddha image found west of Afghanistan. M. D. Usher suggests that early Buddhist communities may have been in Roman Egypt long before modern notions of “Western Buddhism.” Accessible Link

On Egypt’s Red Sea coast, archaeologists at Berenike uncovered a Roman-era Buddha statue inside a temple of Isis, providing evidence of thriving trade & cultural exchange between Rome and India. Pepper, gems, & ideas crossed deserts & seas here. History’s global hub 🌍🪷

Reminds me of one of my favorite artifacts, the Berenike Buddha from Egypt which was made locally (as opposed to the equally crazy one found in Sweden that was brought there)

The other day in my early Christian apocrypha class, we discussed possible connections between ancient Alexandrian Christianity and Buddhism. Next time I'll be looking forward to sharing the "Berenike Buddha" with my students... www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/b...

The Trump administration has fused a social-media worldview with authoritarian tendencies—and in this “clicktatorship,” Donald Moynihan argues, “judgment and decision making are hyper-responsive to what’s happening on the far-right internet.”

"Could it happen here?" www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

I smell Russia a long way in the Iran - U.S. deal. I guess Iran asked Russia for help to avoid a U.S. attack. Russia's interests were also at stake since Iran is an important arms supplier, and provide a safe route to the ocean. So Putin ask Trump to back off and offer a face saving deal.

President Business is destroying the economy, because he's very good at business and is very smart!

Every complaint I had against Chomsky concerned the same problem: the way he excused or dismissed atrocities committed by his team: ie regimes and forces opposed to Western hegemonic power. As his friend, Epstein was given the same pass. In other words, it's not an anomaly. It's the same story.

The technical term for this is "breaking a siege"

Other early medieval Scottish things people have claimed existed that I simply do not believe: Pictish matrilineality

ICE at the polls! Bannon is basically yelling “fire” in a crowded theater here. His objective is to cause chaos (and suppress votes on the left). And it’s already working. This threat works on multiple levels and doesn’t have to be “real” to serve its purpose. Let me explain & offer some advice.

🇬🇪 #Georgia: Georgian Public Broadcaster has been turned into a government propaganda tool. Critical employees have been fired and public interest programmes have been shut down. Censorship is heavy and editorial policy is biased towards the ruling party. Read IPI's interview here👇 buff.ly/JLmsPTj

Bessent selected option three: Endure righteous wrath.

“a wing of the party around 30-year-old Jordan Bardella styles Russia as a “threat” to France and Europe. By contrast, a more traditionalist camp aligns with the classic Kremlin position that NATO’s eastward expansion triggered the war. Each group has cast the other as being in the minority.”

❗️Putin is interested in humiliating Europeans, — Zelenskyy on Macron's initiative to resume dialogue with the Kremlin Commenting on Emmanuel Macron's actions to resume dialogue with the Russian dictator,

The thing with conspiracy theorising is it routinely involves leaping from reasonable premises and evidence to far fetched conclusions, through unchecked prejudices and assumptions and a monomaniacal worldview, in exactly this way.

can’t not hear and see:

Jacob Frey: "The continued presence of 2,000 federal agents in a city that only has 600 police officers is still not deescalation"

Speaking from personal experience, there are two major reasons my first eight books are inferior to my most recent seven: 1. During the first eight I had not yet learned, lived, written and read enough to find my flow. 2. During the most recent seven I have not been holding back on any weirdness.

Königs-Husaren-Regiment (1. Rheinisches) Nr. 7

"Rather than retreat and wait, the community’s response has been to create an ecosystem of care — members of the Somali community, alongside allies across community lines, are building the means necessary to protect and defend each other." truthout.org/articles/som...

Well, well, well...

Occupied Kherson "governor" Saldo: Ukrainians must be re-educated after territory is occupied. This is why we refuse to give up Donbas, or any other part of Ukraine. They want to eliminate Ukrainians as a people, and stamp out our culture and history. We will not surrender.🇺🇦

mood

This is one of the funniest things so far this week. And it's kind of perfect.

The interface of the Taiwan cross-database archival search website got a full revamp in the wake of the opening of the new National Archives -nice! Now if so could fix the zillion 國家寶藏基金會 results that have been coming up for years no matter the keyword that would be amazing 😅 across.archives.gov.tw

Donald Trump and his lawyers brought 62 court cases after the 2020 election He lost every single one of them The cases were so frivolous that ultimately several of his lawyers-Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and John Eastman-ultimately lost their licenses to practice law, largely because of their lies

Show me how you draw armour ⚔️🛡️

It's extraordinary how many Republicans are willing to lie in public, knowing they are very unlikely to be shamed, or even corrected, by their interlocutors. Presumably they expect that lying will not cost them politically, and may even help them. All this is incredibly damaging to the polity.

WHO IS THE ADMINISTRATOR OF DHS?????

Marimar Martinez, shot by federal agents in Chicago, testifying in Washington today:

SSPX has religious beliefs almost exactly the same as Opus Dei Team Leonard Leo MAGA Catholics in US. See Wapo article on TLM yesterday. But Rome does not excommunicate for heresy. It excommunicates or sanctions for disobedience - see Strickland & Vigano. www.foxnews.com/world/rogue-...

The essence of schism consists in rebelliously disobeying the commandments: and I say "rebelliously," since a schismatic both obstinately scorns the commandments of the Church, and refuses to submit to her judgment. thecatholicherald.com/article/sspx...

SSPX is this meme

SSPX has effectively excommunicated themselves because they didn’t get what they wanted from the Holy See.

A traditionalist Catholic society has announced plans to ordain new bishops without Vatican approval, a move that directly challenges Rome and tests how Pope Leo will respond to open defiance from a group long at odds with the Vatican. www.ncronline.org/vatican/trad...

It's Elmo's birthday

Even the headline here is a capitulation. Why use the softer framing when he literally said, verbatim, "we should take over the voting"?

The Rolling Stones. London, 1966. Photo by Gered Mankowitz.

"Right out of high school" In case you were wondering why they are trying to destroy colleges...

As for the vineyard, it is the framework that frames both eyes to protect them; as for the grape, it is the pupil of the eye of Horus; as for wine that is made, it is the tears of Horus. (OGC)

🇵🇱🇱🇹🇷🇺 The Commonwealth of Two Nations and the 1610 Moscow adventure live in the Russian mind forever, rent-free.

low effort oc

Abundance!

Grins

“Terror at a house of God.” “Our Beloved Church was desecrated by immigration agents who entered our property wearing masks and carrying weapons.” ktla.com/news/local-n...

"Onlookers cheered Saturday as Danish military veterans and their families marched. They began at a citadel site associated with the remembrance of Denmark’s armed forces, and walked to the U.S. Embassy. There, they stood in stoic silence, remembering the fallen..." www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/w...

Trump: "Not only wasn’t I friendly with Jeffrey Epstein but, based upon information that has just been released by the DOJ, Epstein and a SLEAZEBAG lying “author” named Michael Wolff, conspired in order to damage me and/or my Presidency ... I never went to the infested Epstein island but ..."