Living in 2025 is having a good, productive day only to suddenly find yourself in a panic because you realize it's been four hours since you checked the news and you don't know if we've invaded China or banned Claritin or if it's illegal to be from Massachusetts now or something

KG Hutchins’ A Song for the Horses has officially landed in Berkeley, California! @songsforhorses.com

Folks, you can't report the United States to its manager. There's no superhero coming to save us. We don't need one giant act of heroism. We need millions of small acts of solidarity. Help one person in your community for nothing in return. Then, do it again. And again. That's the revolution.

Excellent piece from @evandeneykel.bsky.social religiondispatches.org/charlie-kirk...

“Political violence” doesn’t just mean vigilantes shooting political candidates or activists (which, to be clear, I strongly oppose). ICE disappearing people is also political violence. Police shootings are also political violence. Bombings are political violence.

From 1997. Added a whole new dimension to my love of “metal.” (Also, speaking as a PNW native who was a teenager in the early ‘90s, I’ve always kind of hated grunge 🤫) kocaniorkestar.bandcamp.com/album/l-orie...

Until I realised they were misusing the term I got very excited about a rise in grindcore culture, but sadly this doesn’t mean that everybody in SF is listening Napalm Death

Here’s a bit of excitement for your Saturday morning: “What matters is that we were consenting adults filming porn in a private location [an active parish]But because we were in the Bible Belt and the building had mythical significance, it was deemed a crime.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Judith Butlerian jihad champions the universal struggle of all critical studies.

“Grandpa what did you do during the war?” “I fought Door Dash delivery people, and had to protect myself against sandwich attacks”

The prompt was something like “increase a band.”

Fascism is confusing because in the last week alone I have cheered on the behavior of Gavin Newsom, Hunter Biden, and a Vinyard Vines-coded guy

Washington Post: “Is fascism bad? The answer may surprise you” Teen Vogue: “Here are three fun tips you can use this summer to disable an armored personnel carrier”

A glutton of big boys? A circumference of big boys? A fellowship of big boys? Or, maybe simply a bob of big boys.

This looks cool. Humans, Dogs and Other Beings Myths, Stories, and History in the Land of Genghis Khan Baasanjav Terbish. Open Book Pub 2025 Open access: www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.116...

25. Canonicity is socially constructed.

The #1 way to explain America working properly is by saying “comedians can make fun of he President on TV.” A good way to explain fascism is “the President forces companies to fire those comedians as a condition of allowing them to conduct business.”

Spotted at the edge of the UC Berkeley campus. We are sliding into dark times.

May your day be filled with opportunities to verbosely employ these five categories:

I'm not going to repost any of the insane antisemitic conspiracy bullshit that grok is spewing today, but it highlights how absolutely essentially is that we not let LLMs become a form of epistemic grounding for our society.

It does not feel coincidental that we are hearing all about how we do not need the humanities, only STEM education, right as the greatest advances in STEM in AI research raise fundamentally humanist questions about personhood, ethics, self-identity, and alterity.

Cautious about Lutefisk and Surstromming, but, honestly, I’ll eat anything mentioned in this entire thread. (In high school my friend Angie called me a “food slut.”) Also, learned about cantaloupe and gravy from this thread. Yeah, I’d try it.

If the Supreme Court thinks universal injunctions are unconstitutional, to wait until *now* to say that, in this of all cases, with this of all presidents, is a devastating indictment of both its impartiality and its prudence.

Are there haters, cultured despisers, and folks who’ve been burned by religion(s) among our ranks? Sure. But I find genuine fascination a more common motive for getting into the field than axe-grinding contempt. And no matter, all are capable of using the tools of critical study to shed new light.

Uh, critics not caretakers. . But, really, if only it was so simple. Religious studies is such a broadly defined (maybe even poorly defined) field that it includes equally as many practitioners and proselytizers as contemptors and critics.

just saw a group of masked men stuffing masked ICE agents into an unmarked car, who were saying "we're ICE we're ICE!" but the abductors shouted to the crowd "no we're ICE!" no one knew who was ICE, so no one in the crowd said anything.

I am reposting this so that I can reference it again. . In other news, I am a lifelong Amtrak enthusiast, and I will be taking the train from northern CA to Portland Union Station (featured in the closing shot of the video) this coming Wednesday.

Growing up the son of a Conservative Baptist minister and attending a non-denom evangelical school, this is something I figured out when I was about 13: “pure textualism is incessantly malleable”

I was deported by the U.S. for reporting on the Columbia University student protests. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

Fantastic thread about worldbuilding, both online and offline, and how “distinct ideas of reality can share the same anchor.”

"I asked ChatGPT" "I asked Grok" Well, I asked the High Priest to consult the Urim and Thummim on his breastplate to divine the will of the Holy One but they stopped giving answers after King David’s reign so I had to go use actual research skills instead to get the answers I needed.

@rachelschine.bsky.social UC Berkeley has a physical copy! I might be able to scan it on Thursday, or else it will be after July 2.

What struck me about the No Kings march in San Francisco was the preponderance of national flags (mostly US, but many other stripes and shades, too.) I mean, no kings, but ardent nationalism is also pretty dang problematic. . I guess people just really need to rally around visual symbols.

In the context of this conversation, this seems to be a pretty disingenuous argument, but masquerading as a member of the culturally dominant religion is certainly not without precedent. Widely known historical examples include the Dönmeh, Marranos, and other Crypto Jews.

Rowdy Roddy Piper? (Although, it looks like he only lived in Portland for a handful of years, so maybe that doesn’t count.) m.youtube.com/watch?v=l_Pv...

Post a banger that’s not in English. In the age of the information superhighway, this one is not particularly obscure, but it’s a legit banger from my perspective: youtu.be/H6wl-EyhXl0

Jarring juxtaposition seen at a bus stop on Market Street in San Francisco- a poster commemorating Rev. Cecil Williams and Janice Mirikitani, “people’s prophets,” mere feet from a sidewalk billboard for some AI company that exhorts the viewer to “stop hiring humans.”

Just popped over to the bad place for a bit. Current discussion amongst the edgelord theobros is about “the lost virtue of Hatred.” How’s your Friday night?

"Groceries"? Okay, college boy.

As a high school civics teacher, I assure you Mr. Roberts, I had nothing to do with Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. 593 (2024). Notwithstanding, my students have a strong grasp of the concept of rule of law.

Kentucky pony shows and pink derbies filling up my Bluesky stream today. I’ll ad an equestrian themed lyric into the mix, “All the tired horses in the sun, how’my s’posed to get any ridin’ done?” youtu.be/qKCepuQ-W_k

Exchange with a high school student who came back immediately after leaving to go to the restroom: Him, “There was someone in there.” Me, “Well, go use one of the upstairs ones.” Him, “Oh, it’s okay. I was just going to look at myself.”

Yes, she is mythologizing a bit, pining for an invented past, but the replies are deeply, ironically oblivious and textbook examples of online disinhibition. If you’re so damn concerned about not wanting to talk to strangers while flying, start by not replying to a rando on a little messaging app.

Methinks the focus here is perhaps a bit narrow for an entire book.

Pause your usual Saturday morning cartoons for a minute and check out this clip from Kazakhstan. It’s a dancing gazelle figurine that gets activated by the musician’s playing. Anyone know of other examples or perhaps a categorical term for this type of device? youtu.be/kE0Vg5rNXBk?...

If you need a couple of minutes of respite today (I cued it to the drop): youtu.be/wP099U6D46s?...

An essay that I wrote in 2021 that explores crucifixion imagery in works by 20th century Jewish artists: jtak.scholasticahq.com/article/8877...

Anyone ever seen this “hexagramic” orientation of a six-pointed star on a Christian church? Spotted on a now defunct United Methodist church in Wilmington, North Carolina. The building had three different round windows with the same feature.