Non-theist Christian and elder in Community of Christ. I have Mormon roots and aspirations to do better with justice and peacemaking—especially in the digital sphere but also in Lexington, Kentucky, the U.S., and the world more broadly.
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- kudos:
I have made so many sneering comparisons between sports fandom and blind nationalism as someone who doesn’t really care about sports, but now that I’ve got a team (my kid’s) to be super invested in… yeah, I actually feel the comparison more, just with more self awareness.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'We watched 20 Trump rallies. His racist, anti-immigrant messaging is getting darker.'
- kudos:This is terrifying—but needs more attention. link to “We watched 20 Trump rallies. His racist, anti-immigrant messaging is getting darker.”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Twitter Barred Them. What Happened When Elon Musk Brought Them Back?'
- kudos:I don’t understand why anyone would stay on Twitter at this point, unless they’re staying for the nonsense. gift link link to “Twitter Barred Them. What Happened When Elon Musk Brought Them Back?”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Elon Musk's Robot Tricks Were Used on Soviets in the 1950s, Too'
- kudos:A good, informing read. link to “Elon Musk’s Robot Tricks Were Used on Soviets in the 1950s, Too”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Elon Musk Is Now Seizing Other People’s Twitter Accounts To Promote Donald Trump'
- kudos:Masnick is excellent at balancing “Musk has a right to do this” with “the hypocrisy is shameful.” link to “Elon Musk Is Now Seizing Other People’s Twitter Accounts To Promote Donald Trump”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Michigan Father Dies in Israeli Airstrike in Lebanon, Family Says'
- kudos:This article was a one-two punch for me. I hoped that the death of a Michigander might draw more attention to victims of the conflict, but his daughter’s comment that “The fact that he was an American citizen should not make his story more important than others” quickly called me to task. Gift Link link to “Michigan Father Dies in Israeli Airstrike in Lebanon, Family Says”
- kudos:
I appreciate Bible scholar Thomas Römer in an academic sense, but I also sometimes remember that I first discovered him through a French comics podcast where he showed up to say that he thought R. Crumb’s adaptation of Genesis could have been more imaginative, and that’s what really sold me on him.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'State Education Department Seeks Bids for 55,000 Classroom Bibles - Oklahoma Watch'
- kudos:This makes a bad story even worse. What a joke. link to “State Education Department Seeks Bids for 55,000 Classroom Bibles - Oklahoma Watch”
the incarnation and a relatable Jesus
- kudos:Several years ago, while I was sharing a Bible story with my daughter, she interjected with an urgent thought: “I hope that Jesus knows that I have a pig.” As I wrote in my journal at that time: She’s been big on showing people her stuffed piggy recently: the movers, the plumber, anyone we’re Facetiming with, it doesn’t matter. So, it makes sense that if she got the chance to see Jesus, she’d want to show Him her pig, too.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
- kudos:This book was repeatedly mentioned in Scott Branson’s Practical Anarchism, so I’ve wanted to read it for a while. It took me three tries, but I finally followed through and just finished the audiobook. It is a fascinating book for the way that it dares to imagine a way that society might be different than what we know now. Wikipedia says that the original subtitle was “An Ambiguous Utopia,” and that tracks with what I read, in that the book isn’t blindly naïve about the anarchist society that it lifts up.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Big Tech’s Promise Never To Block Access To Politically Embarrassing Content Apparently Only Applies To Democrats'
- kudos:Worth reading (and bookmarking). I’ve been hesitant to make the “no, actually, Big Tech is biased against liberals” argument, but this seems a compelling datum for that conclusion… link to “Big Tech’s Promise Never To Block Access To Politically Embarrassing Content Apparently Only Applies To Democrats”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Trump condemned for suggesting ‘one really violent day’ to combat crime'
- kudos:How is this guy a legitimate candidate? link to “Trump condemned for suggesting ‘one really violent day’ to combat crime”
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Dark Wire: The Incredible True Story of the Biggest Sting Operation Ever, by Joseph Cox
- kudos:This is the story of when the FBI ran an encrypted phone company marketed to criminals. Working with Australian Federal Police and European partners, they had a glimpse into gangsters’ and drug dealers’ conversations for years before they wrapped it up with a series of worldwide arrests. It’s a wild story that sounds like fiction but happens to be true. In fact, that’s Cory Doctorow’s blurb on the back—his recommendation on his blog is what got me to check this out.
Nephi's violence and Book of Mormon intertextuality
- kudos:A number of years ago, I read this blog post, which linked to this podcast episode about intertextuality between the New Testament and the Book of Mormon. The post and episode both focus on the work of Nick Frederick, a BYU professor who argues that: If we’re comfortable saying that the New Testament is an antecedent text for the Book of Mormon, for the King James English 19th century Book of Mormon, then that opens up some wonderful avenues of inquiry.
Nephi's violence as 'commandment anxiety'
- kudos:I have recently been (slowly) getting back into my exploration of what a modernized Book of Mormon might look like, which has meant spending some time in the opening chapter of the Book of Mormon and some commentaries on that chapter. One of the most interesting things about I Nephi 1 (by the original and Community of Christ chapter breaks—LDS editions split this into 1 Nephi 1-5) is that the reader is almost immediately forced to deal with a tension between our protagonist and narrator Nephi’s insistence that he is a good guy of whom God approves and Nephi’s willingness to murder a passed-out drunk to steal his clothes and con his way into taking control of some of his property.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Rep. Clay Higgins Posts, Then Deletes, Racist Comments About Haitians'
- kudos:Posting this as a bookmark. It’s mindboggling how overtly racist this is—and how much work the GOP will do to dismiss it as nothing. I want to be able to return back to this in the weeks and months to come, to remind myself and others just how bad things are. gift link link to “Rep. Clay Higgins Posts, Then Deletes, Racist Comments About Haitians”
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Glass Houses, by Madeline Ashby
- kudos:I put this book on hold at the library after Cory Doctorow recommended it on his blog. It became available at the same time as two other Doctorow-recommended books that I’m now trying to rush through before other holds take them away from me. This is a book about the great excesses of tech bros and the many tiny excesses of the people using their tech in slightly off ways. It’s about misogyny, both subtle and severe, and (in the background) how scary climate change, American politics, and the Internet of Things are.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Cards Against Humanity is suing SpaceX for trespassing on its ‘pristine’ property'
- kudos:What a wild story. link to “Cards Against Humanity is suing SpaceX for trespassing on its ‘pristine’ property”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Pluralistic: Thinking the unthinkable (19 Sep 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow'
- kudos:Compelling metaphor. link to “Pluralistic: Thinking the unthinkable (19 Sep 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow”
the foundational experience of losing temples
- kudos:It’s now been over six months since the transfer of the Kirtland Temple from Community of Christ to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and there’s still a lot to process for folks on the Community of Christ side of things. I remain committed to what I first said after hearing the news: that I have no interest in telling people how to feel about things, and that even if I did, I wouldn’t be on solid ground doing so.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for We Should Improve Society Somewhat, by Matt Bors
- kudos:Bors has some great political cartoons in this collection, but I also don’t like political cartoons in large doses, even if that doesn’t necessarily reflect on him!
James vs. the Trump-Vance ticket: An orphaned, remixed sermon
- kudos:After being ordained earlier this summer, I was added to my home congregation’s preaching rotation. Today was supposed to be the day that I gave my first sermon there, but once I started to make plans to attend a family funeral, I reached out to ask if someone could sub for me. Before getting the bad news, though, I’d already written most of the sermon, and so I figured I should post the text here so that I get some use out of it.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Haitian immigrants helped revive a struggling Ohio town. Then neo-Nazis turned up'
- kudos:Taking cues from neo-Nazis is a great look for the GOP ticket. link to “Haitian immigrants helped revive a struggling Ohio town. Then neo-Nazis turned up”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'A day in Elon Musk’s mind: 145 tweets with election conspiracies and emojis'
- kudos:24 hours on Elon’s Twitter feed is a great idea for a story, and I’m glad someone did it! link to “A day in Elon Musk’s mind: 145 tweets with election conspiracies and emojis”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'How Memphis became a battleground over Elon Musk’s xAI supercomputer'
- kudos:Who benefits from AI? Who doesn’t? link to “How Memphis became a battleground over Elon Musk’s xAI supercomputer”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Big publishers think libraries are the enemy'
- kudos:A good take by Molly White. I remember when I stopped thinking about ebooks in terms of screens (as opposed to paper) and started thinking about them in terms of DRM (as opposed to free use). DRM helps the already powerful at the expense of everything else, and I want to do more to push back against it. link to “Big publishers think libraries are the enemy”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'What Musk's Twitter takeover could tell us about a possible government appointment'
- kudos:I’m currently reading Extremely Hardcore and can’t wait to read Character Limit. The Twitter purchase alone ought to dismiss any serious ideas that Musk could do this kind of work. link to “What Musk’s Twitter takeover could tell us about a possible government appointment”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Father of Ohio boy, 11, tells Trump and Vance to stop using son’s death for ‘political gain’'
- kudos:Good for the dad, and shame on the politicians being this terrible. link to “Father of Ohio boy, 11, tells Trump and Vance to stop using son’s death for ‘political gain’”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Elon Musk Threatens to Impregnate Taylor Swift'
- kudos:Can something be shocking but not surprising? I’ve been thinking about this all day and still can’t believe it’s real. link to “Elon Musk Threatens to Impregnate Taylor Swift”
- kudos:
I wish that wearing an implicitly anti-surveillance EFF t-shirt through airport security this week had been a deliberate decision, but I just like wearing EFF shirts and it wound up being a happy coincidence.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Fayette County schools leaving X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter'
- kudos:Wish it were for more principled reasons, but I’ll take it. link to “Fayette County schools leaving X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'What If Trump Wins?'
- kudos:It is wild—and worrying—just how close this race is. link to “What If Trump Wins?”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on '750 | What’s Brewing | Wasatch Front | Part II'
- kudos:I’m bookmarking this episode for later because it does a better job than I’ve ever heard of talking about how messy and complex and difficult it can be to have Mormon roots in Community of Christ—and it doesn’t even get into some of the “outside Utah” vs. “in Utah” dynamics that I personally think get overlooked. link to “750 | What’s Brewing | Wasatch Front | Part II”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'People are paying 'Strava mules' to do their runs for them, but why?
- kudos:This is a take on digital labor and datafication that I can honestly say I never expected. link to “People are paying “Strava mules” to do their runs for them, but why?”
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia, by David Graeber
- kudos:It’s really hard to know how to rate this book! It is meandering to the point of tangential—Graeber confesses that it evolved out of an essay that didn’t stop growing, and I wonder if it would have been better if forced to be more concise. It also has some of the same issues that I saw in The Dawn of Everything (indeed, this could have been a section of that book), in that it’s working with data and history that are impossible to nail down for sure.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Second Circuit Says Libraries Disincentivize Authors To Write Books By Lending Them For Free'
- kudos:Deeply appreciate Masnick’s writeup. I don’t know the ins and outs of the law, and that’s given me some pause in being upset about the ruling. To see a lawyer find fault with so much gives me greater confidence in my own frustration. The most dangerous part, though, doesn’t require a law degree to understand. The logic of the findings poses a threat to all libraries, not just this one.