Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Margaret Renkl @margaretrenkl.bsky.social · 2d

We did this. Turns out we ALL know how to save a book festival. And we just have to keep saving them, and saving everything else, for as long as it takes. For every single minute it takes. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/o...

Opinion | What Ann Patchett Knows About Saving Book Festivals

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Margaret Renkl

Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · 7d

JUST IN: A U.S. citizen from Alabama who has been detained twice by ICE while working at a construction site, has filed a class action suit claiming ICE's broad warrantless arrest powers violate the constitution. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

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Reposted by Margaret Renkl

Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 11d

A shameful fact which tells its own story.

Kansas Reflector @kansasreflector.com · 11d

A majority of US children rely on Medicaid or CHIP, new study finds | via Nada Hassanein #ksleg

A majority of US children rely on Medicaid or CHIP, new study finds • Kansas Reflector

A majority of children in the United States rely on Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program at some point by their 18th birthday, and many experience periods of coverage loss, according to...

kansasreflector.com

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Margaret Renkl @margaretrenkl.bsky.social · 23d

We can help. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/o...

Opinion | How to Count Butterflies

www.nytimes.com

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Margaret Renkl @margaretrenkl.bsky.social · Sep 4

I wouldn’t call it ignorance so much as ecosystem-specific awareness. Purple martins in the western US don’t use the martin houses we have in the east.

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Margaret Renkl @margaretrenkl.bsky.social · Sep 1

A few words about purple martins—how to help them, how to help all migratory birds, how to help birds that don’t migrate—in this week’s essay. Gift link via @nytopinion: www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...

Opinion | One Way the Earthbound Can Take Flight

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Margaret Renkl

Roxane Gay @roxanegay.bsky.social · Aug 27

I put this on every single elected official that continues to offer thoughts and prayers while human beings bleed to death from gunshot wounds in churches, schools, concerts, night clubs, community parades, and the list goes on.

Sagebear @sagebear24.bsky.social · Aug 27

It’s Republicans that blocked the laws. Don’t put this on Democrats.

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Reposted by Margaret Renkl

Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · Aug 23

You can add up all the enjoyable pursuits of LLMs and the work productivity hacks and none of them, separately or together, will be more important than AI’s ecological costs or political disruption.

“We” is more important here.

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Reposted by Margaret Renkl

amy brown @amybrown.xyz · Aug 22

this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like

Why should I write better when a machine can do it for me?
Because actually no one can do it for you, because your voice is unique among all the people on earth. Siri never petted a horse's neck. Alexa has never been ghosted by the captain of the football team. But you have lived, your heart is beating, you have suffered, and you have something important to say. It's a human's job, to use words, and whatever job you give to a machine, that part of your brain goes dark. Maybe it's worth it when it comes to remembering phone numbers and directions, but when that part of your brain that uses words goes dark, that's a vast area that's very close to your soul. Don't let some internet platform convince you that what you have to say and create isn't worthwhile. Words are the echo of your soul. Honing that echo matters.

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Margaret Renkl @margaretrenkl.bsky.social · Aug 18

A few words about rain. And extravagant vines. And the undeserved protection of trees. Gift link via @nytopinion: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/o...

Opinion | Making Do in the Dog Days (and the Frog Days, Too)

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Margaret Renkl

Wendy Miller @burrowingowl.bsky.social · Aug 17

Once again, I am ded. 🪶

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Margaret Renkl @margaretrenkl.bsky.social · Aug 4

Really, though, if you absolutely had to, couldn’t you trim it down to one?

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Margaret Renkl @margaretrenkl.bsky.social · Aug 4

Sometimes you get lucky, even in a time when it’s hard to believe in luck anymore. I got lucky last week and saw Tyler Childers playing in the shadow of a giant T-Rex on the side of a highway. I was so happy on the way home I didn’t even think about my bitin’ list. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/o...

Opinion | The Heart-Lifting Magic of a Pop-up Concert

www.nytimes.com

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Margaret Renkl @margaretrenkl.bsky.social · Jul 26

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/o...

Opinion | For Once, Some Good News About a Fragile Ecosystem

www.nytimes.com

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Margaret Renkl @margaretrenkl.bsky.social · Jul 21

Finally. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/o...

Opinion | For Once, Some Good News About a Fragile Ecosystem

www.nytimes.com

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Margaret Renkl @margaretrenkl.bsky.social · Jul 15

How does anyone even know what they really think if they don’t struggle to put what they think into words?

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Margaret Renkl @margaretrenkl.bsky.social · Jul 11

“It’s a plague. It’s everywhere.” @kristenarnett.bsky.social speaks the truth. lithub.com/if-you-use-a...

If You Use AI in Your Writing YOU Are the Literary Asshole

Well, hello there! Welcome back! I think we all know what time it is: Am I the Literary Asshole O’Clock! That’s right, the world’s drunkest advice column that also would like to give you a book rec…

lithub.com

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Margaret Renkl @margaretrenkl.bsky.social · Jul 8

To linger in love over what we haven’t yet lost helps me remember to keep fighting for them.

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Margaret Renkl @margaretrenkl.bsky.social · Jul 8

♥️♥️♥️

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Margaret Renkl @margaretrenkl.bsky.social · Jul 8

What an incredibly kind thing to say!

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Margaret Renkl @margaretrenkl.bsky.social · Jul 7

The avian drama is off the charts this year. (Gift link via The New York Times Opinion Section.) www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/o...

Opinion | The Questions Started With the Wren

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Margaret Renkl

Canary Media Inc. @canarymedia.com · Jul 2

North Carolina senators are pushing a bill they say will save Duke Energy customers billions of dollars by letting the utility build new gas and nuclear plants.

A new analysis shows the opposite is true.

Bill to delay N.C. climate law would slow energy buildout as demand…

North Carolina’s governor faces pressure to veto legislation that would cause Duke Energy to build less of almost every form of energy, from solar to…

www.canarymedia.com

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Margaret Renkl @margaretrenkl.bsky.social · Jun 30

Just in case you aren’t disheartened enough by this horror show.

Tennessee Lookout @tennesseelookout.com · Jun 30

From @anitawadhwani.bsky.social: About 85,000 acres of backcountry in Tennessee could be opened for road construction, mining and logging under a Trump administration plan to remove protections from the most remote and untouched portions of U.S. national forests. #FederalFallout

85,000 acres of Tennessee's national forests open for logging under Trump administration plan • Tennessee Lookout

About 85,000 acres of backcountry in Tennessee could be opened for road construction, mining and logging under a Trump administration plan.

tennesseelookout.com

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Margaret Renkl @margaretrenkl.bsky.social · Jun 24

Look at those tiny saddlebags filled with pollen! The bees thank you, and I thank you.

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