if we actually get a senior political figure excommunication then just a heads up that every single medievalist on here, we’re gonna lose our entire shit

I've written before about how USAID was the first government agency killed by conspiracy theory. This confirms it. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-death-...

in published posts: many people do not realize that for a pun to be successful, it must work on two separate levels and not just be a thing that sounds like something else. this is very important in drafts folder:

Absolutely remarkable statement from Pope Leo today. One for the history books www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

Southern California folks! Artemis II will splash down off the coast of San Diego a little after 5pm PT tonight. There may be a sonic boom as the spacecraft enters Earth’s atmosphere. If you experience shaking, rattling windows, etc. you can report it here: earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/...

"Calm down. He won't be that bad." "He won't go after political opponents." "He won't try to overturn an election." "He won't start a stupid, costly war." "He won't purge the military." "He won't use nukes." <--- We're currently here.

I think the reason AI propagandists are so flustered by the fact that no real writer wants to use their idiotic tools is that they themselves don't enjoy writing. They see it as a boring arduous chore to be avoided, while real writers actually enjoy writing and actually care about the quality of it.

The thing about Colorado's conversion therapy ban is that it did not make it illegal for someone to tell their kid they should not be gay, or that they could not be gay, or any other number of horrific things that are still legal.

A federal judge has blocked Trump's executive order cutting funds for NPR and PBS, ruling "It is difficult to conceive of clearer evidence that a government action is targeted at viewpoints that the President does not like and seeks to squelch." READ: loom.ly/lWDBASI

An unaccounted for part of the economy is how much young people virulently hate AI, despite how aggressively it's being forced on them. They realize it's making their friends dumber and ruining the world and they want nothing to do with it. From the Penn student paper: www.thedp.com/article/2026...

I don't even know what to say about how bad this is. People have been denied due process by not being able to attend court hearings for fear of being kidnapped; other people HAVE been kidnapped for showing up to do the exact thing we say we want.

I had my first mammogram this week and I am kicking myself for neglecting to make it a singing mammogram. Ah well. Next time!

High points in Lent so far: Lotti, Crucifixus Pärt, The Deer's Cry Palestrina, Sicut Cervus Wesley, Wash me throughly Low points: Schubert/Proulx Deutsche Messe Webbe, Come Ye Disconsolate This coming Sunday being Palm Sunday, where the actual heck did Lent go

So, I love and indeed attend the operas of Wagner, a virulent antisemite gleefully appropriated as a cultural icon by Nazis. But I do this only because Wagner is not still around collecting royalties & donating them to antisemitic causes. If he were it’d be a very different story.

Bari stormed the scene claiming to have grand insights into the modern virality of social media, but it turns out she's just shitty at everything, including agitprop

The people of the Twin Cities Minnesota will be honored for risking their lives to protect their neighbors and immigrant community members from an unprecedented federal law enforcement operation, peacefully defending the human rights and values that serve as the foundation of our democracy. (2/3)

I had a joke about editors but they told me that, while they didn't doubt the value of my joke, it was more suitable for a specialist joke book.

Right wing men desire a world ruled by hierarchy and domination, and the way they treat women and girls is an extension of that principle. Left wing men desire a world ruled by equality and dignity, and the way they treat women and girls is an exception to that principle.

Here's my bottom line: Much of what they are doing is bad. Much of what they are doing is unpopular. Pushback is working. We are winning. Keep fighting. Be creative. Push for what you'd want. Allow for insiders and outsiders. Realize that change takes time. Reduce harm in the meantime.

there was also a Stanford study that found that a surge in AI slop by lazy people actually created significantly more work for others who had to decipher and correct it this "I'm being efficient" (but not really) vibes well with the American obsession with artifice and appearing productive

Incredible to read the sermon I heard on Sunday summed up so succinctly here...

I started Duolingo during lockdown, and while I’m still very much a monoglot, my score isn’t particularly impressive, and my progress could be fairly described as glacial, at least I’ve kept at it!

I know I should probably be more dignified and penitential, given that this musical offering is for Lent, but *bounce bounce bounce* IT'S GONNA BE SO SO SO SO GOOD!!! Come hear ECHO this Saturday at 7pm at St. Paul's Episcopal Catheral on 6th! youtube.com/shorts/Oxj3a...

San Diego friends! I'm singing on this rather splendid (and FREE!) Lenten offering at St. Paul's this Saturday at 7pm in service of prayer and reflection. Come bask in stunning music without the trappings of a traditional service or concert & depart in peace. Video/info: youtu.be/LiGk5WhYloA?...

Happy Kurt Weill's birthday!

“I want to tell you about the paintings—those flowers, Alfred—and all of the hearsay over what they supposedly represent, when the truth could not be more plain: They are basset hound dogs,” O’Keeffe wrote in a 1941 letter to her husband

San Diego friends! We're singing some (literally & figuratively!) stellar music on Saturday! Come bask in soul-healing sonic splendor if you're available! Discount code: InfiniteF&F (for $15 adv gen admission adult) Tix/info: www.sacraprofana.org/event-detail...

Thank goodness for my in-house music theorist. You might think this is the setup for a “said no one, ever” joke, but it really, really isn’t.

The story that Elon Musk committed voter fraud has gotten next to no coverage -- one of those things you can't make come up on a Google search. But I think it's time for Dems to go on offensive abt right wing coddling of this immigrant interfering in our elections. newrepublic.com/post/206857/...

DUDE. Anyone with a spare $6K-$50K to donate to oceanographic research gets to name a newly-discovered deep-sea creature! Annelids! Slugs! Sea stars! TUBE WORMS! PS Oooooo potential sea slug namers, I don't think Sluggy McSlugface is taken yet! scripps.ucsd.edu/giving/name-...

Why does my Starbucks login time out more quickly than my bank login?

interviewed Ramirez about her plans to dismantle DHS, abolish ICE, and put money towards housing and health care for communities ICE is terrorizing. www.publicnotice.co/p/delia-rami...

1. It was not an accident. 2. It was not a staffer. 3. While the president may have dementia his racism is not due to dementia. 4. He isn’t sorry. He means every racist thought he shares. 5. His base agrees with him. 6. He will do it again. 7. No one in power will hold him accountable.

Welp. It's been a very tough time on many levels, but on the bright side, I translated The Trashmen's Surfin' Bird into quasi-liturgical Latin (Avis undas equitat) and set it to an actual Byrd motet (Tui sunt caeli). So there is that. www.noteflight.com/music/titles...

Relive the excitement of Saturday's 14th Annual Capybara Long Bath Contest! Here's a video of the winning contestant, Prune from Nagasaki Bio Park, enjoying her winning long soak in the ofuro for 1 hour and 45 minutes. (The action starts around 29'05") #capybara #wintersports

We saw a ghost the other night, Tâf and I, out on the footpath. Well. She saw a ghost. I didn’t see anything. I felt them, though, knew they were there.

One of the reasons I am so insistent that everyone remember that only 22% of the US population voted for Trump is that the Christian Nationalists want the myth of a mandate in circulation. We need to reject it. They never had a mandate, and their coalition is shrinking.

My friend wrote this awesome piece on Wake Up, Dead Man! martycenter.org/sightings/wa...

One of the things that gets me about them people who are like “they are ending the constitution to distract from the Epstein files, don’t fall for it” is that nobody in power cares about little girls.

There's something to be said for someone who died as he lived: in denial of science and with unswerving devotion to con men who were happy to feed the self-serving fantasy of being a lone voice of reason in a mad world upon which he built his notoriety. Nothing positive, but definitely something.

This is true and I was the only one on set excited about it (and playing the song on my phone to blank stares)

Sign of the season #2,579: I saw the word hoodie and my brain read "hodie."

Absolutely nobody asked for this BUT English Anglican cathedrals that have burned down, fallen over, and sank into the swamp: a thread.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT

San Diego friends! Don't miss tonight's SACRA/PROFANA concert, a holiday-themed smorgasbord of sonic sumptuousness! Bonus: Me singing! Bonus bonus: I get to introduce Andrew Bearden's "Making the Darkness Bright," for which I wrote the lyrics! Tickets/info: www.sacraprofana.org/event-detail...

In the very serious world of church musicianship, we observed Advent 2 and by singing Gibbons's "This is the Record of John" and by hanging a printout of the appointed meme on the back of our music director's stand.

So yesterday's sequence hymn was People Look East, & after the gospel, our director of music accompanied the priest's walk to the pulpit with a sweet improvisation on that tune with extraverted flute stops that reminded me a little of the Pastoral Symphony in Messiah. So I dubbed it Pifa Look East.

OH MY GIDDY GOSH Andrew Bearden’s Missa Sacra Profana, whose “profana” text I wrote, made @kpbssandiego.bsky.social ‘s best-of music list for 2025!! *runs around flailing and screaming* Thank you so much for nominating us, Katina!! www.kpbs.org/news/arts-cu...

One of my family's holiday traditions is putting out a quartet of vintage ceramic angels who hold letters that spell out NOEL. The other half of this tradition is that someone rearranges them to spell LEON. My cousins & I discovered a few years ago that all of our families did this.