There are roughly 2,000 ships stuck in the Persian Gulf with more than 20,000 seafarers on them, according to the International Maritime Organization. Most have been stuck on board more than a month, because fewer than 200 ships have managed to slip through the Strait of Hormuz. In normal times, 20% of the world’s oil flows through the narrow waterway to global markets, along with critical supplies of natural gas, fertilizer and other cargo shipments. It’s unclear when the vital shipping lane will get back to normal. Fresh vegetables and freshwater are running out on many ships, so the sailors are using social media and very-high-frequency marine radios to share survival tips and tactics. Some Chinese crew members have filmed themselves collecting condensate from air-conditioning units to shower and wash laundry. Others have taken to fishing over the side of their tankers, catching tuna, squid and largehead hairtail to cook.

WSJ has a piece on the merchant sailors stuck aboard ships inside Hormuz. There are 20,000 of them (many from less privileged nationalities), effectively held hostage and running out of food.

www.wsj.com/world/middle...

On the 58th anniversary of Dr. King's assassination, it's time to reckon with the media's troubling role in the civil rights struggle. (I pitched this to @nytimes.com who found it "fascinating..[but] the news is making deeper & certainly more historical pieces very hard." But they're the news.) A 🧵

Pope Leo XIV carried the cross across all fourteen stations for over an hour.

The prayers named children who had been “taken away and imprisoned during protests, deported by policies devoid of compassion, shipwrecked on desperate journeys of hope, killed in war zones, and wiped out in death camps.”

never forget when the Easter Bunny sent Teddy Roosevelt to the shadow realm

The Epstein Spectrum A moral exercise in a moral desert

“Some people in the Epstein files are monstrously gross. Some are moderately gross. Some are situationally, aspirationally, or cosmetically gross.” Josh Tyrangiel sifted through nearly 3.5 million pages to determine a taxonomy for those named in the files.

In 1978, they stopped buses — and helped launch a disability rights movement People in wheelchairs surrounded and barricaded two city buses over the course of two days, demanding wheelchair lifts and chanting, "We will ride."

People in wheelchairs surrounded and barricaded two city buses over the course of two days, demanding wheelchair lifts and chanting, "We will ride."

Meanwhile.

This historian dug up the hidden history of 'amateur' blackface in America In her new book, Darkology, historian Rhae Lynn Barnes writes about how blackface and minstrel shows became one of the most popular forms of entertainment in 19th- and 20th-century America.

Incredible @nprfreshair.bsky.social interview with historian Rhae Lynn Barnes about the history of amateur blackface — the part about blackface texts disappearing from libraries is particularly interesting

www.npr.org/2026/03/09/n...

‘I will not comply’: Tennessee librarian refuses to move LGBTQ+ books Rutherford County library director Luanne James’s stand against a vote to relocate more than 190 titles draws national support as the board weighs firing her.

Luanne James is a hero

be like Luanne 🩷

Sarah Mullally becomes first female Archbishop of Canterbury after 1400 years

Many congratulations to Archbishop Mullally and all my Anglican / Episcopalian peeps.

What a glorious, holy thing.

this is a huge deal!

“it was choices made by human beings, over many years, that gave us this atrocity.”

Always is.

Scientists captured female sperm whales on video working together during a birth to protect the calf Scientists have captured rare footage of a sperm whale giving birth, offering a window into the large mammals' behavior.

"The full delivery took about 30 minutes. For hours afterward, pairs of whales held the baby above the water until it was able to swim…What struck the researchers was how many mother, sister & daughter whales united to support the new calf, even ones that weren’t related." apnews.com/article/sper...

hello
what did i miss
tell me every thing

The religion nerds were all like "who is that sitting next to Kate Bowler" at the Duke game.

Alison Luchs, who has worked at the National Gallery of Art for 47 years, agreed to learn Gen Z slang and make videos because she wanted to raise interest in the museum’s art.

She never expected to slay. https://wapo.st/45BXc3S

One of the tasks of feminism is learning to take up space, state your needs, and advocate for yourself. Well and good.

One of the tasks of WHITE feminism is learn to punch up in public. If you can say your latte is fucked up loudly and proudly I promise you can say the same about the police.

I keep bringing Tiller up in conversations with the Trumpers who say about the ICE pastor that “no matter his beliefs you shouldn’t interrupt worship.” The organizations they fund and celebrate largely affirm his passing, even if indirectly. He was shot during the morning service.

I may have a stroke.

Someone said protests don’t belong in church and it took every ounce of self-censure within me not to say “Deborah you are literally a Protestant.”

A PROTESTant.

I assume they think Luther was nailing Bed, Bath, & Beyond coupons to the door.

I just saw someone on YouTube refer to fondue as Caucasian hot pot and I am dead lmao 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again.
#Pinks #ProudBlue

Black History Is for Everyone Jesse Hagopian interviews author Brian Jones about his new book Black History Is for Everyone.

Black History Is For Everyone

@jessehagopian.bsky.social interviews @brianjoneseducator.bsky.social for @rethinkingschools.bsky.social

It's hard not to feel like a crazy person when I've been shouting about this at the top of my lungs for 5 or 10 years (even back on the platform where I nominally had half a million followers) and ... nothing happens. (I know @chrislhayes.bsky.social knows, but I'm not sure why it never resonated.)

Predawn fire reduces parts of Mississippi's largest synagogue to charred ruins - Mississippi Today A fire heavily damaged Jackson’s only synagogue before dawn Saturday – the same house of worship that was firebombed by the Ku Klux Klan in 1967 because the rabbi had been an advocate for civil rights...

An arsonist hit a Mississippi synagogue Saturday. Seven Torahs were damaged or destroyed in the fire.

One Torah, from the Holocaust, was in a glass case and wasn't touched.

The same synagogue was bombed by the KKK in 1967.

mississippitoday.org/2026/01/10/f...

A *huge* vaccine victory. I've been writing on this for years; Australia has seen remarkable progress in cervical cancer prevention with the HPV vaccine. I love seeing science triumph like this.

a Western Michigan football player with his name written in Arabic on the back of his jersey

love when college football players get to wear non-Latin lettering on the back of their jerseys, here's Western Michigan defensive tackle Mustafi al-Garawi

Yvette Cooper: In Sudan and beyond, women are paying a devastating price As conflict rages around the world, the plight of women has been seen as peripheral and progress has stalled — but we must not look away, Britain’s foreign secretary writes.

COMMENTARY: Evidence of sexual violence in conflict is rising at the same time as international attention wanes. 

With more of the world at war than at any time since World War II, women are paying a devastating price.

Chicago pope sings

Brandy you're a fine girl
What a good wife you would be
But my life my love and my lady
Is the See

nothing like a saturday of labor day weekend newsdump, but no time like the present: I wrote a book, and it’s available for pre-purchase! linktr.ee/artbutmakeit...

Turns out the war on Christmas is real