Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

P Messner

@reiseyatra.bsky.social

Read a bunch of good books this year, and I have more on the list before 2026 comes around. So, see y'all next year. A very early Guten Rutsch, which is literally "slide well" (into the new year).

November 13, 2025 at 12:36 AM

Reposted by P Messner

May-lee Chai (she/her)

@mayleechai.bsky.social

Meanwhile, “did women ruin the workplace?”

The New York Times
(Screenshot of headline:)
INTERESTING TIMES WITH ROSS DOUTHAT
Did Women Ruin the Workplace?

November 13, 2025 at 12:13 AM

P Messner

@reiseyatra.bsky.social

Cannot believe they stuck this fine yakshi in a corner of MANN below this weird guy 😭

An ivory statuette of a yakshi found in Pompeii and now in the museum at Naples.

November 11, 2025 at 1:45 PM

Reposted by P Messner

eileen chengyin chow

@chowleen.bsky.social

a new small post on 柏舟 ("Cypress Boat") from the Book of Songs (c 600 BCE).

My heart is not a mirror
To reflect what others will

My heart is not a stone
It cannot be rolled

My heart is not a mat
It cannot be folded away

我心匪鑑不可以茹
我心匪石不可轉也
我心匪席不可卷也

#everynightapoem chowleen.substack.com

My heart is not a stone.
How to say "I would prefer not to," from three millenia ago. - image is a film still of two stones, from Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

CHOWLEEN.SUBSTACK.COM

November 11, 2025 at 12:41 AM

Reposted by P Messner

Fishbourne Roman Palace

@romanpalace.bsky.social

This mosaic has seen things...
#MosaicMonday

A mosaic of the face of a man, adorned with foliage. Ge looks tired of life.

November 10, 2025 at 7:38 AM

P Messner

@reiseyatra.bsky.social

Dogs of Pompeii

#MosaicMonday

A floor mosaic showing a dog chained to the door of a house.

November 10, 2025 at 6:49 PM

Reposted by P Messner

Jesse Thorn

@jessethorn.bsky.social

The combo of walled-garden social media and AI replacing search means the death of the useful/open/free internet. Why would anyone create anything when it will just be summarized by AI and no one will ever see it? When social media deprecates outbound links, how will anyone find original content?

November 9, 2025 at 6:09 PM

Reposted by P Messner

Kate Messner

@katemessner.com

Loving today's news that the mysterious "fedora man" outside the Louvre heist was actually a 15-year-old museum visitor who dresses like a 1940s French detective all the time, just because. apnews.com/article/louv...

Fedora man unmasked: Meet the teen behind the Louvre mystery photo

Fifteen-year-old Pedro Elias Garzon Delvaux has become an internet sensation after an Associated Press photo captured him outside the Louvre on the day of a crown jewels heist.

apnews.com

November 9, 2025 at 12:16 PM

Reposted by P Messner

pony pony huckabuck

@spindlypete.bsky.social

i love making indian food and opening my container of asafoetida and remembering that all over the world wherever people have used it they've named it some version of "the devil's shit"

copying and pasting this table doesn't work right. it's a table on wikipedia showing different terms for this spice in different languages. there's all kinds of languages and all the translations are devils shit, devils poop, the poop of the devil, the stinking devil leavings, things like that

you can maybe read the chart with your screen reader here?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asafoetida

November 7, 2025 at 9:24 PM

P Messner

@reiseyatra.bsky.social

Saw this dhoti-wearing guy and his giraffe a couple of months ago at the museum in Chicago.

Mosaic Fragment with a Man Leading a Giraffe | (possibly) Syria, 5th CE

Mosaic Fragment with a Man Leading a Giraffe

5th century

Byzantine

Eastern Mediterranean, probably Syria

Stone in mortar

Gift of Mrs. Robert B. Mayer, 1993.345

This is one of only a few representations of a giraffe from the Early Byzantine period. Its accuracy suggests that the designers directly observed giraffes that were brought to Constantinople as gifts for the emperor, as described in 5th-century texts. The figure in this fragment wears a long fabric wrap with an intricate knot as well as a headdress, suggesting that he represents the "Indian" keeper who reportedly accompanied the animals from their place of origin. Viewers of this mosaic may have had a limited understanding of world geography, so we are not sure if they assumed that the pair had traveled from eastern Africa (south of Egypt) or the subcontinent of India.

November 5, 2025 at 11:08 PM

Reposted by P Messner

Mark Joseph Stern

@mjsdc.bsky.social

My take on today’s tariff arguments at the Supreme Court. Short version: LOL slate.com/news-and-pol...

Going into Supreme Court arguments over
President Donald Trump's tariffs on Wednesday, it was genuinely difficult to guess how the justices would rule. Within minutes, that suspense vanished. The hearing was a bloodbath for the Trump administration: Six justices lined up to bash the Justice Department's defense of the tariffs, barely disguising their annoyance with the government's barrage of blustery nonsense. At the halfway point, it would've saved everyone time had the court just huddled, announced its decision from the bench, and recessed early for lunch. Trump's signature trade policy-which he expected to raise trillions of dollars for him to use as he wished-looks dead on arrival at SCOTUS. We have spent ten months waiting to see if, and when, this court would set a limit on Trump's power. Perhaps we should've guessed that its extraordinary deference to this president could be outweighed only by its hatred of taxes.

November 5, 2025 at 8:52 PM

P Messner

@reiseyatra.bsky.social

They picked the perfect song, too ✌🏾
youtu.be/2uUmHTgT65I?...

Dhoom Machale Song | DHOOM, Esha Deol, John Abraham, Abhishek, Uday, Sunidhi Chauhan, Pritam, Sameer

YouTube video by YRF

youtu.be

November 5, 2025 at 5:47 PM

P Messner

@reiseyatra.bsky.social

Going to bed feeling lighter.

November 5, 2025 at 3:36 AM

P Messner

@reiseyatra.bsky.social

Sat on a random bench for a pause from cycling and saw manatees in the wild yesterday. Jekyll Island, GA rules.

November 4, 2025 at 1:08 PM

P Messner

@reiseyatra.bsky.social

The news is tough, but the flowers are pretty.

July 3, 2025 at 11:34 PM

Reposted by P Messner

Better Things Are Possible

@internethippo.bsky.social

Big fan of democracy but we'll have to admit it's an L of historic proportions to get subverted and destroyed not by some strategic genius but by possibly the dumbest man on earth

July 3, 2025 at 9:02 PM

Reposted by P Messner

Yardie Ball

@yardieball.bsky.social

A great tribute to Diogo Jota by @hersport.bsky.social .

July 3, 2025 at 12:07 PM

Reposted by P Messner

Anne Applebaum

@anneapplebaum.bsky.social

I had to read this twice to believe it...Meloni, who ran for office on an anti-immigration platform, has now announced plans to let in hundreds of thousands of immigrants, in order to deal with the Italian labor shortage
www.reuters.com/world/italy-...

Italy to issue half million non-EU work visas over next three years

The move is part of a strategy to expand legal immigration channels in response to labor shortages.

www.reuters.com

July 3, 2025 at 1:12 PM

P Messner

@reiseyatra.bsky.social

Really only here to say that I really love this little shrub that we got off some deeply discounted rack for half dead plants many years ago when we first landed in the USA.

July 3, 2025 at 12:08 PM

Reposted by P Messner

Tressie McMillan Cottom

@tressiemcphd.bsky.social

I’m going to be very honest and clear.

I am fully preparing myself to die under this new American regime. That’s not to say that it’s the end of the world. It isn’t. But I am almost 50 years old. It will take so long to do anything with this mess that this is the new normal for *me*.

July 2, 2025 at 2:18 PM

Reposted by P Messner

Shay Stewart-Bouley

@blackgirlinmaine.bsky.social

The folks' building cages to put people in are the spiritual descendants of the people who used to dress in their Sunday best to watch Black folks getting lynched. Same people who created lynching postcards. This evil has always been present.

July 2, 2025 at 11:09 PM