Multiple people of my faith community were murdered today, their church building set on fire, and first responders are now searching for the remains of unaccounted for individuals. And here’s the president bragging about the tackiness of his office.

Today has been heavy and this video provided much needed comic relief. The inexplicable zooming in and out, the calling a backpack a “popular knapsack,” the planting of weed on a baby doll, and him pointing a gun at himself — it’s unintentionally hilarious from start to end.

Mourning with my coreligionists and their community in Grand Blanc, Michigan this morning. This one hits close to home.

They're doing the thing to the 14th that they did to the 2nd. It's offensive in many ways of course but it's specifically offensive as a historian because they invent historical evidence for it. They are afraid to say "we want to create a different country so we're going to change the rules"

There is no argument against birthright citizenship other than “I am incredibly racist and don’t like it” It is clearly and simply spelled out in the 14th amendment - if you are born here, you are an American citizen.

Home.

Honored to receive (with @davidgolding.bsky.social) the Best Anthology Award from the John Whitmer Historical Association for Missionary Interests: Protestant and Mormon Missions in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (@cornellupress.bsky.social, 2024).

This very, very good boy woke me this morning at 4 am. Turns out my T1D daughter’s blood sugar levels were dangerously low and her CGM wasn’t transmitting those numbers to our phones. Don’t know if he sensed her low sugars or it was just a coincidence, but I’m very grateful right now.

Just drove by UVU on my way home.

Don't make me tap the sign...

This ad about how great Google Gemini is ends by telling us how Ted, the protagonist and a big James Blunt fan, “found something he didn’t even know he was looking for” at a James Blunt concert where James Blunt is playing not “High” by James Blunt but “She’s So High” by Tal Bachman.

Matt Prater has now made field goals during five presidential administrations

Let’s go, Buffalo!!

USTA to Broadcasters: DO NOT show Trump getting booed. Streisand effect:

Rather than reading the NPR produced infomercial for this cretin, perhaps consider how we can value the labor of humans. open.substack.com/pub/bibliora...

Renounce war and proclaim peace.

I just helped my 7th grader with his math homework that definitely feels more advanced than any math I ever remember learning ever. Not only did we figure it out; we got along while doing it.

Rafa turned 7 this weekend. His very favorite spot is curled up as close to me as possible. He’s the first pet I’ve ever had. I still don’t think I’m a dog person, but he’s a very good boy.

Let's give a shout out to the men & women who labor in the fields to put food on our tables. #WeFeedYou #LaborDay. Mandemosle un saludo a los hombres y mujeres que trabajan en el campo para poner comida en nuestras mesas. Thank you Ignacio Gomez for letting us use this art

Up the Albion! #BHAFC

𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐎𝐍 𝐒𝐓𝐔𝐍 𝐌𝐀𝐍 𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐘 😳

This isn't just a political claim, it's an empirical one. If "the problem is not guns" then we shouldn't see any correlation between gun ownership and oh wait platform.vox.com/wp-content/u...

Don’t threaten me with a good time

“The specific cuts [at University of Oregon] reflect a misunderstanding of the essential reasons for the existence of the university. Cuts in teaching & research should always be a last resort, after budgets for administration, athletics, & other nonacademic programs.” www.aaup.org/news/aaup-pr...

Remembering today when pro-GOP media erupted with outrage over Kamala Harris' warning that Trump had plans to militarize the national guard and deploy them on the streets of US cities. Indeed, he had such plans. And now he's implementing them.

I'm not reflexively anti-technology. I was always that guy at my uni who was eager to try out some new thing that might be a cool new way for students to learn. But those new things were just tools we could choose to use, they weren't the entire ocean in which we had no choice but to swim.

<whispers>: It was never actually about state’s rights.

“Higher ed should make us more fully human. And more fully human people are better. They’re better engineers. They’re better scientists. They’re better mothers. They’re better fathers.” Utah Valley University President Astrid Tuminez to Utah state legislators.

This is so wholesome.

I debated writing this. It can feel tempting, upon encountering yet another instance of this administration’s racism, to let it be. How many ways can you say the same thing over and over again? And yet we have to write it down, if for nothing else, so those who come after us know we were against it.

(I'm not saying this site has one-to-one replaced my Twitter feed -- nothing has -- but the version of Twitter I found useful and informative in 2018 has vanished and continuing to use it would be like trying to keep up with my friends on Friendster, if Friendster were also full of Nazis now.)

I remember very clearly that Mark Steyn had - maybe still has - a talking point about how conservatives are more healthy than liberals because they have hobbies and a whole life outside politics.

“Make America Great Again” relies on viewing the American past as “bad” and “how horrible our Country is” every bit as much as museums + university history classes do. They differ only in what counts as “bad” in the nation’s past and present.

Deeply grateful for this very generous review of Missionary Interests @readingreligion.bsky.social. “With its array of themes and consistently strong scholarship, Missionary Interests has succeeded in opening vital new perspectives for the study of Protestantism and LDS.”

Sunday dinner. 🌮

"...he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them." "...no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust...shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title...from any King, Prince, or foreign State."

My department at Princeton is hiring an assistant professor specializing in the study of early Christianity. First round materials are cover letter, cv, and writing sample. Letters will be requested for later stages. Deadline: September 30, 2025.

Trying to explain to students in a U.S. History class 20 years from *how* Americans elected this easily manipulated, illiterate buffoon not once, but twice, is going to be difficult.

Trump is a terrible negotiator. It’s the one thing he built his entire personality on and he’s just horrendous at every aspect of it.

“Putin would eat you for lunch.” Today, exactly that happened.

I’m *shocked,* I tell you. *Shocked.*

The first time I visited El Salvador almost 20 yrs ago to meet my wife’s family, I was shocked to see the military policing everything from gas stations to downtown malls. That’s what Trump sending in his goons to LA, DC, etc reminds me of most. And it did and does nothing to keep anyone safe.

Arrogant Yale scientist: “[I] do not collaborate [with historians] on my research on drug development or Parkinson’s disease or cancer, because frankly, they would have nothing to contribute.” *Undergrad* history/family history students at BYU: “Hold my root beer.” kslnewsradio.com/health/genea...

Turned on the Wrexham game with them down 3-1 in the 90th minute. Did not expect them to tie it up in adage time and win on PKs. #UpTheTown

I spent a week in DC last month. Far from being a crime-ridden and dangerous city, it mostly seemed dead. Unlike any other time I’ve visited. Comparatively few tourists and a general malaise seemed to hang over downtown. It was weird.

SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR MEMORIES, THEY'RE KILLING THE EARTH, ALSO WE'RE BUILDING NEW AI CENTERS feels absurdly farcical and dystopian while perfectly illustrating Stage 4 End-Stage Capitalism in all its dipshit horror.

When Century of Black Mormons launched several years ago, I never would have imagined that one of my own ancestors would be included in the database. But my colleague and distant relative, Jenny Pulsipher, began research our shared ancestors’ racial ancestry after coming across a 19c court case. 1/