The words: dark stones scattered at the boundaries of light. -Gustaf Sobin

Proverbs #poetry

"To be a Republican in 2025 represents a clear public confession that you either don't know the difference between good and evil and you're so morally empty that you can't be bothered to begin to try, or that you do know the difference, and you prefer evil." Great essay from @juliusgoat.bsky.social

a key thing about vought — and all of these guys — is that they have a totally top down and hierarchical vision of the world. they believe that the cultural changes they hate can be turned off by destroying the federal government because they can’t imagine that they emerged bottom-up in society

"And sometimes disconnecting from the alarms and sirens, from the noise of the news, and the outrage, and the vehemence, is a crucial step in attempting to connect with a quieter kind of insurrection."

"Death has taught me well and I have come to love the world, to love life—but I am devastated daily in ways minuscule and monumental by my own species, and so have come to contain a violent tug-of-war in which I long to be immersed in life, all while wanting nothing to do with it."

NCR Editorial: Pope Leo delivers breathtakingly bold salvo on wealth, elitism and poverty. It’s both risky and courageous, given current conditions in the church and society. #PopeLeo #Catholic #money #wealth #poverty www.ncronline.org/opinion/edit...

Wendell Berry

Rest in peace ... Tony Fitzpatrick, Lauded, Eclectic Chicago Artist, Dies at 66

Chicago priest Fr. Larry Dowling describes procession to ICE facility: “No one had the courage to speak directly to us. No one from Homeland Security could stand in the presence of the Monstrance holding the Blessed Sacrament. No wonder. Evil is repelled, recoils in the presence of Christ.”

October 18

Caminata a favor de la vida hoy en Brownsville. Siempre caminamos con la Virgen. This is the time to pray for and cultivate a resurrection of conscience in our communities, by helping expectant mothers who feel scared and alone, by feeding the hungry, by caring for our elderly,…

it can clarify one's own vision for a moment ... via @flakphoto.news

"This isn’t 'safety.' It’s state-sanctioned terror."

Via NCR Culture - Jelly Roll's #Vatican performance offers hope to those impacted by addiction. How has a man who's declared that he's nothing but a "broken down car on a side street" ended up shaking the hand of #PopeLeo? #JellyRoll #addiction #drugs www.ncronline.org/culture/jell...

On Flag Day

Urban Bandshell

As ICE terrorizes Chicago, today a respected journalist from Chicago’s iconic TV station WGN was arrested by armed men in masks. Just days ago, Pope Leo spoke to journalists telling them: “Doing the work of a journalist can never be considered a crime, but it is a right that must be protected.”

🔎🧊 12 IL Democrats demand probes by top federal government watchdogs into ICE & DHS activities in Chicago area. Thank you @jonathanjackson.house.gov @robinkelly.house.gov @ramirez.house.gov @chuygarcia.house.gov @quigley.house.gov @casten.house.gov #RepDannyDavis @schakowsky.house.gov

"The central focus of the gospel call is centered on the movement from otherness to oneness. Can we turn to one another, have conversations of depth and listen to learn?"

Have read enough of this to know I want more. So I'll put it here to remind me. Generosity from Garth Greenwell.

"We now have the people at the middle of the federal government or the people advising the power of the federal government saying that it's a problem that people wanted to stop Hitler from coming to power."

Showing us who they are.

"the monsters that they are"

WGN Staffer Detained By Border Patrol Agents In Lincoln Square, Neighbors Say

Thoughts on a poem by Wendell Berry ...

On Christian complicity and entanglement with the authoritarian state.

Reading poem # 2 from PARMENIDES IN MINNEAPOLIS open.substack.com/pub/henryghe...

We do terrazzo too.

Leaf on Limestone

The good news is everything is fragile. The better news is that it has always been so. The best news is that you can do what you know is right.

“Those readers who have been following along will recognise love as Gould’s basis for justice and hope.”

Very grateful that someone has finally written a Wikipedia entry for this book. It is brief, informative, and potentially elegant ... as opposed to the monstrosity I've had 'in progress' for years.

"Objectively, the threats are depraved, lunatic, anti-democratic, and possibly criminal. The calls by the president and the Attorney General ... are unprecedented, not only in the history of the United States but in the modern history of nearly every Western democracy."

Haven't read him yet ... but I did get through every minute of Tarr's Satantango. That counts for something, right?

"This U.S.-born pope went from the wealthiest nation in the world to the mountains of Peru. He knows the extremes he is writing to us about. He knows which side the Church is on—in fact, which side God is on."

"Last points out that any instability in Chicago has been caused by the administration’s surge of federal agents into the city, where they shot and killed Chicago resident Silverio Villegas González; raided and ransacked an apartment building, leaving residents ... bound outside for hours ..."

Masked agents snatching people at work, church, their child’s daycare. A return of family separations. States are lining up to run their own detention centers. Anti-immigrant animus is now being paired with unprecedented funding, manpower, and technology. We report from inside the American gulag.

Robert Rauschenberg’s New York: Pictures from the Real World

The Museum

In Memoriam: Patrick Jordan (1944-2025)

"The gospels present Jesus as one who sees those in need and reaches out to help, again and again, regardless of their worthiness. I have no idea if Lou Reed personally understood that notion beyond giving voice to a character in a song. Possibly not."

Insights about immigration enforcement that I’m not hearing anywhere else.