Forgot about this app once Threads picked up steam. Anybody still hanging out here?

NEW REVIEW on the site today: @jryanlonas.bsky.social is reviewing the new book from Brian Miller, called Sanctifying Suburbia: How the Suburbs Became the Promised Land for American Evangelicals. Read the review here: buff.ly/ABar6BH

The Blues Brothers is a Wes Anderson movie:

— childhood wounds
— ironic, offbeat script and delivery
— long segments of pop music
— odd set pieces
— uncanny movements
— use of closeups
— tender moral core underneath comic violence and destruction.

I will not be taking questions at this time.

Spotted a cool protest poster

Peace Is a Protest Or: On Posting Instagram Stories of Flowers and Birds and Baking While the World Burns (or Is Being Burned)

open.substack.com/pub/jryanlon...

...thus a whole country can be organized toward some collective insanity because there is no space in individuals to *think*."

—Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss

"How much cruelty is occasioned simply because of the *noise* that is within us: the din is too great to realize exactly what we are doing to others, or what is being done to others in our name...

a woman with tears in her eyes and the words " do n't look shut your eyes at happens " ALT: a woman with tears in her eyes and the words " do n't look shut your eyes at happens "

Hope everyone gets this memo for the wannabe dictator's totalitarian cosplay birthday party...

Sometimes, loving your enemy starts with recognizing that they were never your friend.

Walter Brueggemann: In Memory Walter Brueggemann passed away peacefully on June 5, 2025, at the age of 92. He is survived by his wife, Tia, his sons, James and John, and their families. To read his online biography, click here.…

...the essential "otherness" of Christians in the world, and the non-negotiable aspect that justice and mercy play in the Christian life was formative for me and so many others. www.walterbrueggemann.com/2025/06/05/i...

Walter Brueggemann: In Memory Walter Brueggemann passed away peacefully on June 5, 2025, at the age of 92. He is survived by his wife, Tia, his sons, James and John, and their families. To read his online biography, click here.…

Grateful to God for the life and work of Walter Brueggemann. His faithful insistence on the whole-life nature of following Jesus...

In an era when all the news most people read is the headlines, headline writers have a great responsibility.

And the legacy media here in the U.S. is blowing it badly, often (looking at you @nytimes.com, @cnn.com, @usatoday.com, etc.)

Can't shake the feeling that what is going on in the U.S. these days is a dirty amalgam of what it would look like if the Confederacy won the Civil War and the Soviets won the cold war...which begs the question of whether "winning" a war (real or cultural) can ever lead to flourishing long term.

How they think Tolkien was somehow trying to write a parable about the dangers of empathy, diversity, environmentalism, patience, and diplomacy.

How they think the point is cruel fighting and authoritarianism, and cast themselves as its heroes.

They probably never read a word of it.

(4/4)

This is the most important chapter in the whole saga, I think.

And I continue to be amazed (though, given general understanding of facts and literacy in our culture today, perhaps I shouldn't be) at how many people on the political right claim to love these books.

(3/4)

It is bracing to remember how easy it is for comfortable people to fall in with ruffians out of greed and how much it costs to overthrow a kleptocracy (which is always the doorway to a more harrowing evil) and rebuild—even when people wake up.

(2/4)

We're wrapping up reading LOTR aloud as a family and just finished "The Scouring of the Shire" this week.

(1/4)

Percy’s Love in the Ruins: A Dystopia for Our Time Note: This piece was originally written in September 2016, in the run-up to that year’s U.S. national election. In hindsight, I could have been…a little more perceptive about the differ…

For reference: jryanlonas.com/2016/09/09/p...

It's really the ripe moment for someone to do a very toothy film adaptation of Walker Percy's satirical 1971 novel Love in the Ruins.

Who should direct?

Not great.

Passed a car parked on Main St. here in Chattanooga this morning with two bumper stickers:

1) Tr*mp/Vance 2024 "Take America Back"
2) a simple blue sticker reading "I ❤️ the Constitution"

My brother in Christ, you cannot have both.

WATCH: Van Hollen meeting with Vice President of El Salvador YouTube video by Senator Chris Van Hollen

The VP of El Salvador repeatedly told me "the ball is in your court" when it comes to bringing Abrego Garcia home — making clear Trump is violating a 9-0 SCOTUS ruling to “facilitate” his return.

I said this in my recent letter to Trump, and here's the video to back it up:

Are we to the part where three spirits visit him and he repents and makes reparations to everyone he's wronged, yet?

"The Lord is not Nemesis. He is free, acting toward His own ends, indifferent to the harsh symmetry of revenge."

—Marilynne Robinson, Reading Genesis

Nailing the definition of "theobro" with this: "oft-bearded Calvinist preachers and speakers known for their conservative beliefs, especially about the role of women in the church, and their criticism of other evangelicals whose faith is less strict."

a man wearing a suit and tie is standing in a field of yellow flowers ALT: a man wearing a suit and tie is standing in a field of yellow flowers

Waiting for all my "law and order" people to tell me when the President's lawbreaking bothers them...

Which laws matter? Which parts of the Constitution need following?

Or was this always just an excuse to gut government services for those in poverty and brutalize non-white citizens & immigrants?

Vanderbilt poll: Tennesseans largely against cuts to Social Security, health care | Chattanooga Times Free Press Tennesseans, regardless of political party affiliation, are against cuts to federal programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, according to a new statewide poll.

Tennesseans, regardless of political party affiliation, are against cuts to federal programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, according to a new statewide poll.

That is the real revolution, and the current administration is simply enacting these new realities with the full support of wealthy voters whose minds, hearts, and wallets Rush Limbaugh, Rupert Murdoch, Glenn Beck, Thomas Sowell, et al. captured long ago.

I understand how it happened conceptually, but it is still jarring.

Just as jarring as how my general political views (rule of law, national sovereignty, free speech/press/religion, fair taxation across income levels, civil rights for everyone) that were once center-right are now seen as leftist.