me, an idiot: these are not nuns. oh other kind of sisters. well I'm not reading it now.

my secret favorite student right now is the kid who only showed me their Listening Face when I explained about Pope Leo and baseball fandom controversies. love that kid. no idea what you’re learning in my class but you’re great. I’m not being sarcastic. I need signs of my futility. keeps me humble.

Servant of God Nicholas Black Elk was one of the survivors. The Diocese of Rapid City and the KoC, if they're serious about their promotion and support for the cause, should be *extremely* vocal about this.

They took photos of the mass grave even.

Everybody: give me your favorite video game beginnings and then say whether you think the game fulfilled its promise all the way through to the end.

Incredible headline.

Meanwhile…

The US president is writing executive orders like they’re papal bulls and I don’t like it.

This is bad, but also vital to remember: it’s an EO. It’s not a new law. It’s just instructions to his appointees. Who remain constrained by the Fed criminal code. And, to preempt the doomers: Those. Laws. Are. Holding. That’s why Trump’s losing it over Comey in EDVA.

screaming “this is not normal” when comey gets indicted but honestly i was just talking about janice taking *two* cupcakes from the work room. other people exist, janice

At the time we had a *competitive* financial aid system. Awarded anew every year. It was a nightmare. So that was my no. 1 stressor. I do think one of the less-systematic but prevalent problems is the simply people in charge of grad programs is 100% profs who were also raised by grad programs.

It’s hard to explain how bad you have to be acting to get all of these people on the same side.

I find it easier to be honest about my unsureness with students. You’re so smart, you’d probably enjoy it, I want to respect your passion, but let’s be very serious about what you want from this, because there are no jobs.

Disney+ I am still waiting for this

I keep waiting to hear back about this article I sent that could get me in at least low radar trouble with some of the American Catholic right. As I wait I keep hoping the place agrees to publish it and then hoping they don’t. Even low radar level trouble seems like it would be very annoying.

it turns out it is extraordinarily difficult to save the lives of millions without generating some soft power

NPR interviews @dovwaxman.bsky.social, Professor of Israel Studies at UCLA, on why he changed his position on the question of whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. (www.npr.org/2025/09/25/g...)

follow-up question: what is reality

I remember when they first got big there was a whole lot of gatekeeping discourse and on the one side there was a bunch of quasi- to full blown racism and misogyny and on the other side there was “shit rips tho”

I saw them with a group including a dude that had no idea what they were about and just came along with friends. He was totally floored. Loved them.

RIGHT??

Oh AND… the metal community has embraced them. Which I think is beautiful.

maybe! I have no data on other worlds apart from how I can imagine their possibility!

Getting really into Babymetal again. “Metal Forth” is a great album and I want to look up all their collaborating bands. Nothing is quite like a Japanese trio doing dance moves to absolutely shredding music. “With this rage inside of me 君に届け 君に届け Maybe now we can kill the enemy とても厳しい” etc.

Yeah. I think the “orthodox” Christian response is somehow even more mysterious: this is the best of all possible worlds, for God chose it, and all faith knows with certainty is that God chose the universal order that permits evil, and that the only solution to evil is God.

Yeah I said in a recent article “Perhaps God IS a monster. Or, if we know he isn’t, if faith tells us this, it’s not clear we know how” with respect to human freedom (in the article).

This reminds me that I’ve cornered my whole class into the “but if God made and runs everything, what the fuck is with the world” dilemma and I’m excited about Friday.

Daredevil update: She is cooler than him.

FINALLY. Maika (the girl) is more interesting with Zinn (the monster) around. This plot has gotten… extremely baroque. lol. It’s like an opera.

“The Bible is the book of the Promise, the Promise made by God to human beings, the efficacious revelation of God’s love and self-communication; simultaneously it reveals humankind to itself. … [H]istory [is] the slow, uncertain, and surprising fulfillment of the Promise.” G. Gutierrez

I dunno guys I think maybe telling women to suck it up and not take pain medication is weird. It’s weird.

Over the weekend, we wrote about how dozens of judges have found ICE's new detention policy — seeking to lock up millions of people facing deportation without a chance for bond — is illegal. Last night, four more judges added to the growing list: www.politico.com/news/2025/09...

Nobody can dunk on me like my mother can. And I respect that.

This is very helpful. Thanks so much for sharing.

When someone on the Internet tells me that Western tradition is dying, I (1) look up academic presses to see how many books on Augustine are being published this year, (2) go outside and throw a rock and see if it hits something Western tradition made. “Hm,” I think, wondering what death is again.

From Brill's Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (2012), in the entry for "Islām":

my only consolation is the hilarious photos all the European papers keep picking for today’s UN debacle speech thing

yes the president is dismantling the backbone of a functioning thriving society but on the other hand he has also made us the joke of the world, so that's cool. good speech today, sir. very deranged.

God dammit people on social media guessing about how Catholic bishops work.

"The Earring" (also known as "At the Mirror") 1893, by Dutch artist George Hendrik Breitner.

my shame is endless (Catholic) my shame is endless + what the fuck are we doing dude (American)

I take the even stronger position, as you probably have heard me say ad nauseam, that what is evil is always also stupid and the evil-er it is, the stupider in direct proportion.

Mostly no. My poems are terrible when ideas run the show too much. lol. I’ve borrowed some of Balthasar’s imagery and I can actively deal with theology fine enough I think, but it’s not a pattern of consciousness with the same priorities. I did write a Lonerganian poem in a fit of rage once lol

OH SHIT

I think, post-council, there was a tendency to hunt for which magisterial genius one was going operate beneath, but Anne & my generation has circled back to these guys to say “what if they’re very smart & so very helpful insofar as they facilitate answering particular, live questions?”