Pope Leo is said to have accepted Cardinal Dolan's resignation and to have picked his successor as New York archbishop. Will Dolan serve in retirement as spiritual advisor to Turning Point USA? In any event, his adherence to the GOP is far stronger than his adherence to the Catholic Church.

Happy first day of autumn. www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/its...

Cartoon by @davewhamond.bsky.social.

You don’t say. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

The Pope is exactly right. No society can survive when one man becomes a trillionaire while the vast majority struggle to just survive — trying to put food on the table, pay rent and afford health care. We can and must do better.

H/t @aleach.ca

This spring @pewresearch.org asked people if they were happy with how democracy is working in their country. In the US, just 37% were satisfied. Countries with higher #s: Sweden 75% India 74% Indonesia 66% Australia 61% Germany 61% Canada 60% Mexico 51% UK 48% www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

Well this is terrifying. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

😆😆😆

This is what happens when Catholics don't learn/read Catholic Social thought. Even the arch conservative usccb has a primer on it if Loyola Marymount management need a crash course : www.usccb.org/resources/Pr...

He’s an absolute narcissistic sociopath.

Cardinal Dolan is terrible. He’s little more than a far right culture warrior and always has been.

Professor of European Studies at Oxford says the clock is ticking. www.kyivpost.com/opinion/60302

My latest. "This plan looks less like streamlining and more like risk stacking: more data on more cards shown to more people, with unclear guardrails and unfunded administrative burdens. "...The citizenship marker project will likely be scuttled on the shores of logic, logistics or law."

I found this to be an excellent analysis from Ta-Nehisi Coates. www.vanityfair.com/news/story/c...

The remarkable decline of solar module prices 1975: $128.27 2024: $0.26 (Constant 2024 US $ per watt) ourworldindata.org/grapher/sola... 🧪

The UCP: solving problems that don’t exist just to dog whistle to the far right one unnecessary piece of legislation at a time. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

In tenure letters the last few years I've been forcibly struck by how much service the women I'm reviewing are doing compared to the men. (Actual evidence backs this anecdote up - see below.) link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Timeline cleanse: My senior dog & buddy, Bones (12yrs), having the best time at the off leash today.

160 faculty, staff, and students have been violated by UC Berkley in a futile effort to appease Trump. It will never be enough. www.reuters.com/world/us/uc-...

Hahahaha

Just finished blind peer reviewing an article. I get why academics often don’t want to do it and it can be a pain, but it’s an essential part of academic integrity and ensuring scholarly quality. We all want quick, quality reviews so we should likely also try to do them in return.

Reminder that my department is hiring in early Christianity. Our search last year was canceled in the hiring freeze but we're happy to be able to conduct the search this year at the assistant professor level. Deadline for applications is 9/30/2025.

I am absolutely in favour of gun restrictions. This has nothing to do with that. It is simply the senseless targeting of transgendered folks based on bigotry. What of the countless straight, white, cis men who have shot up schools and children? Orwellian evil. www.cnn.com/2025/09/04/p...

This special issue Religion in Extractive Zones is now complete with the publication of the editors' lead essay this week (Terra Rowe, Christiana Zenner, myself). All articles OPEN ACCESS w/no contributor publishing fees. Begin with our intro & lead essay. Enjoy & please share! www.mdpi.com/3370286

The second PAMBA meeting will be at UC Santa Barbara April 24-26 2025. Deadline for abstract and paper submissions is Feb 3. Keynote speakers: Dorit Bar-On Laura Danón Simon Fitzpatrick Mark Rowlands A small number of travel bursaries will be available for students. www.the-pamba.com/events

✊

"A new report by researchers at MIT found that a staggering 95 percent of attempts to incorporate generative AI into business so far are failing... As of July, the best AI products successfully completed just 30% of the real-world office tasks assigned to them, with most doing significantly worse."

Alberta announced today the COVID-19 vaccine this fall will cost us $100 per dose. So for my family of four, that'll be $400. Alternatively, we could spend $400 on an overnight trip to Golden or Fernie, B.C., get immunized for free, and make a little mountain vacation out of it.

One of the most damaging and harmful public religious figures of the 20th century. His legacy is hateful bigotry and politico-religious malformation. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Sabbatical means when the sun comes out you go for walks in your local provincial park.

One great thing about sabbatical is getting to books I’ve wanted to read for a while but haven’t had a chance…and to do it at home with friends.

Omg this is amazing. www.science.org/content/arti...

New on the desk.

Tonight the hamster got a significant upgrade in accommodations.

Another great biblical studies opening: The Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame invites applications for an open-ranked professorship in New Testament. facultypositions.nd.edu

This town is only slightly smaller than Ben Tre was in 1968, when the US military likewise reduced it to rubble. An anonymous US Army major famously told the reporter Peter Arnett that "it became necessary to destroy the town [in order] to save it"

To argue that Gazans could eat if Hamas simply released the remaining hostages and surrendered is to admit that Israel is using Gazans as hostages to achieve that end.

This is a great read, well worth considering. h/t @beamarovich.bsky.social maalvika.substack.com/p/compressio...

***Attention Historians*** Tenure-track job postings in History and History-adjacent fields for July 2025. A thread. 1/

RIP Ozzy

I just got tickets to see Daniel Lanois in October and I can’t wait. youtu.be/jz5DINAxWiQ?...

What a terrible person. This premier is an embarrassment. She’s without shame. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Deplorable. Despicable.

So researchers in computer science are now hiding AI prompts in their papers (using either white font to hide in the background or tiny font) so that AIs give positive reviews of their work in an attempt to bypass peer-review while getting more interactions. asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tec...

CNN: “Take a look at Trump's net approval rating on immigration… Bad to just downright terrible. The American people have turned against Trump on what was his best issue.”

Nation that’s an actual dumpster fire finds others’ tragedy personally inconvenient. www.cbc.ca/news/world/c...