This was amazing.

Harry Truman freemasonry nukes

Mediterranean Lingua Franca - Wikipedia

“Lingua franca” never referred to French! It was the nickname of a widespread Mediterranean sailors’ contact language: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediter...

who there

I need to start posting like Chuck Grassley does about the History Channel, except with the underwhelming choices made at Classical WETA-FM.

Just occurred to me that the Prophet Muhammad's injunction against destroying fruit-bearing trees during war (and the exceptions he ordered) takes on new meaning in this context

Destroying an oasis' palm trees doesn't just take out the tree

It destroys the ecology that allows the oasis to exist

The names of the four Ninja Turtles’ girlfriends.

a map from 1918 showing the interurban network sprawling across Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio

One side obsession from my research into the 1920s is the extensive network of ELECTRIC trains that used to connect cities and towns across the central Midwest called the Interurban. We had this more than a hundred years ago. The things we had and the things we lost.

Have you heard them [redacted]? An unforgettably horrifying noise.

Pointy little shoes?

The funniest part of @postoctobrist.bsky.social’s hospital story is that Arabic is famously (1) not widely spoken by either Somali children or Afghans and (2) a pluricentric language for which finding serviceable oral interpreters is a doozy

Church closer to home

Mister Rogers' Neighborhood - Giving & Receiving: Eric Carle Visit Video | PBS KIDS Author and illustrator Eric Carle visits Mister Rogers.

“¡Estás absolutamente correcto, Señor Tigre!” has instantly entered our vocabulary pbskids.org/videos/watch...

Dreher's contract shows the Danube Institute pays him $8,750 a month, or $105,000 a year. The average Hungarian salary is roughly $17,480, according to Trading Economics.

A bunch of things suddenly make way more sense.

Saint Augustine with Hippo Sticker Not Saint Augustine of Hippo, Saint Augustine WITH hippo. Featuring this year's superstar Moo Deng. -3 inch gloss vinyl sticker -Great for...

www.artofmarza.com/product/sain...

In the Orthodox tradition even soldiers who fought in “just” wars were denied communion for years after they fought. People like Vance and the GOP who celebrate the death of others were denied communion for even longer.

Dorothy Berry, Professional Outlier

One of my parishioners got picked up by immigration, pray for Miguel. Good man, big part of the community, got 4 kids. Oldest wants to be a priest. His court appearance is on the 21st.

who else on here (@leahsargeant.bsky.social, log back in!) is insatiably taking in the Dave Malloy Octet film news!!

An unspoken divide among practicing Christians is how to understand the requirement to "witness" to your faith:

1) being a public and sincere example of the faith, or

2) trying to convert other people

I'm (1) and never (2), on principle. The difference between those two is huge.

Following another long silence, Joel summarized what we needed to do next. My description of our lifesaving work had been helpful, and we would need to develop “a very simple way to describe it to the secretary,” he told us. “To be clear, we’re not looking for a laundry list of everything you want to do, you’re going to have to cut things, it’s going to have to be draconian. You’re only going to get things that are priority number one, that is all we’re going to be able to do, so don’t even send up the things that are priorities number two, three, or four.” At that point, Nida jumped in. Out of the corner of my eye, I had noticed her picking nervously at her hands for most of the meeting, and I knew it was just a matter of time before my oft-impatient colleague spoke up. “Can I just clarify one thing?” she asked, not waiting for a response. “This group seems very focused on what GH does to respond to infectious diseases, but we haven’t spoken much about our other lifesaving work. Just as one example, we support lifesaving care to mothers for emergency inter- ventions like postpartum hemorrhaging and eclampsia, two of the leading causes of pregnancy-related deaths. You would also consider that kind of work to fit into our ‘priority number one,’ right?” Another brief silence followed as Joel watched the clock, and it was Paul Seong who broke it. “I’d say that’s more of a number two,” he said dismissively, looking to Joel and Ken for affirmation.

In Feb. 2025 when a USAID worker asked if their “lifesaving care” for “two of the leading causes of pregnancy-related deaths” would be considered a number one priority for programs to save, a Trump official responded “I’d say that’s more of a number two.”

www.thehandbasket.co/p/trump-usai...

“Some of the studies are testing new treatment regimens for drug- resistant tuberculosis,” I explained, hoping I could convey the very real danger in terms that would register with this audience. “Thousands of enrolled patients are at risk now that their lifesaving treatment is stopped. But that’s not the only danger. We only have limited options to treat drug- resistant TB. We’re using our antibiotics of last resort in these trials. Interrupting treatment midstream risks the development of new, even more drug-resistant strains that could be untreatable. For an airborne infectious disease, that is a serious national security risk.” Adam thought for a moment and then responded, noting that the political appointees at USAID were “not health people.” It would be hard, he surmised, for nonexperts to understand this issue. And so he suggested that we draft a simple, “Barney-style” set of slides to help the political leadership grasp the dangers, referring to the purple dinosaur of children’s television. He recommended that we use the term “Super TB” instead of “drug- resistant TB” to describe the mutations that can develop when treatment is interrupted, because it might be more likely to “catch their attention.”

A Trump guy who was part of the team dismantling USAID didn't think political appointees could grasp the concept of drug-resistant tuberculosis so he asked workers to explain it as "Super TB" in "Barney-style" slides.

www.thehandbasket.co/p/trump-usai...

Cool fact: racism is also blasphemy

Moscow plague riot of 1771 - Wikipedia

An outbreak of plague, which led to the Church barring access to a popular wonderworking icon for social-distancing reasons, resulted in the lynching of the archbishop of Moscow. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_...

(Do you guys know about the Plague Riots)

And you’re not even in DC!!

We’re an unusual parish for several reasons (+Tikhon’s cathedral, three full-time priests plus attached, lots of immigrant communities in the suburbs) but it was still incredibly striking.

Justice for Shophouse, which was ahead of its time.

<click> Hello, you’ve reached the Eastern Orthodox Church. We appreciate your interest in our community, but we are not accepting further applicants at this time. Please check back again in approximately 100 years. Thank you, and Slava Ukraini!

I know that after the midnight marathon, most Orthodox parishes don’t have the resources for Divine Liturgy the morning of Pascha — but ours, which is intended for young families, the elderly, etc., was PACKED, I’m talking 10-15 minutes of Communion from four chalices. After an all-time busy night.