Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Caroline Shea

Perry Bacon @perrybaconjr.bsky.social · 1d

Weiss very intentionally does not describe herself as a conservative or Republican and wraps her politics in terms like "free press." That makes more useful at advancing Trumpism than explicitly right-wing figures. newrepublic.com/article/2014...

MAGA Lite: What “Bari Weiss Conservatism” Is, and Why It’s Dangerous

The new CBS executive isn’t exactly MAGA. But her polite Trumpism will still help destroy America as we know it.

newrepublic.com

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Sean T. Collins @seantcollins.com · 2d

CHATGPT: I understand where you're coming from. You worked really hard to get here, and now it's time to enjoy the fruit of your labors.

ISILDUR: So I should keep it? Elrond says I shouldn't

CHATGPT: The ring is precious. Sometimes friends don't have your best interests at heart.

ISILDUR: true

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More Perfect Union @moreperfectunion.bsky.social · 1d

For the first time in history renewable energy sources are now generating more power than coal worldwide.

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Global renewable energy generation surpasses coal for first time

Record solar expansion and steady wind growth driving world’s shift away from fossil fuels in 2025, report finds

www.theguardian.com

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Susan Rinkunas @susanrinkunas.com · 1d

“Four months ago, in Skrmetti, the Court used purported medical uncertainty to give Tennessee more flexibility to discriminate. Today, Alito used purported medical uncertainty to give Colorado less flexibility to protect.”

Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.bsky.social · 1d

I've written my analysis of today's grim Supreme Court oral argument in the conversion therapy case:

As far as the Court's concerned, imaginary medical uncertainty gives states the authority to hurt queer kids, and takes away states' authority to protect them

ballsandstrikes.org/scotus/chile...

The Conservative Justices Don't Trust Any Science That Supports LGBTQ Kids

States that want to facilitate discrimination against LGBTQ people have the Court's blessing. States that want to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination do not.

ballsandstrikes.org

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Reposted by Caroline Shea

Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 1d

In 1999, Bill Clinton announced that “the last, best unprotected wild lands anywhere in our nation” would be shielded by a new rule that banned roads and drilling.

Today, these lands could soon see chainsaws and logging trucks amid a push by Trump to raze these ecosystems for timber.

Outcry as Trump plots the plunder of US forests: "You can almost hear the chainsaws"

Public comments suggest repealing the Clinton-era "roadless rule" is wildly unpopular.

www.motherjones.com

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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 1d

ONE WEEK! DC! Come to the launch party in Adams Morgan! @rvoronacote.bsky.social and me at Lost City Books and a few fun surprises, and a very spooky party www.eventbrite.com/e/happy-peop...

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Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 1d

Gonna be thinking about this lede for a minute.

(RNS) — Last month, the Rev. David Black stood in front of a Chicago-area U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and spread his arms wide. Adorned in all black and wearing a clerical collar, the pastor looked up at a group of masked, heavily armed ICE agents on the roof and began to pray.

“I invited them to repentance,” Black, a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), said in an interview. “I basically offered an altar call. I invited them to come and receive that salvation, and be part of the kingdom that is coming.”

But when Black began to lower his arms a few seconds later, the agents responded to his spiritual plea by firing pepper balls, or chemical agents that cause eye irritation and respiratory distress, video footage shows. One struck Black in the head, exploding into a puff of white pepper smoke and forcing him to his knees. Fellow demonstrators rushed to his aid, and as the pastor rubbed his face in pain, the agents continued to fire.

“We could hear them laughing,” Black said.

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Corey Farrenkopf @coreyfarrenkopf.bsky.social · 1d

You know what’s a great read?

@kristinaten.bsky.social’s Bunny Ears over in @nightmare-magazine.com!

Creepy summer camp vibes, body horror, and one of the best endings I’ve read in a while.

Don’t sleep on it :)

www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/bunn...

Bunny Ears - Nightmare Magazine

Hannah’s first impression of Colden Hills Music Camp is that, for a place with “hills” and “music” right in the name, it’s too flat and way, way too quiet, and the one thing she initially thinks must ...

www.nightmare-magazine.com

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Reposted by Caroline Shea

NY Times Pitchbot @nytpitchbot.bsky.social · 2d

We wanted to understand Democratic Socialists of America. So we talked to two old guys who voted for Trump. (Yes, this is literally the article.)

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ACLU @aclu.org · 6d

BREAKING: Our client Mario Guevara, an Emmy-winning journalist detained by ICE in retaliation for livestreaming law enforcement activity, will be deported tomorrow to El Salvador.

Mario and his family are being punished for his reporting. This cruelty is meant to stifle our free press.

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Caroline Shea @therealcshea.bsky.social · 9d

The Long Ago: A Medieval and Renaissance Reading List

+ some thoughts on medievalism and why we return to certain eras in fiction and scholarship again and again. Read here: www.patreon.com/posts/long-a...

Over the background of John William Waterhouse's The Lady of Shallot, white text reads: The Long Ago: A Medieval and Renaissance Reading List

We seem to return to certain periods of time as readers and writers again and again. Each time the story shifts. Richard III appears throughout history and literature in many guises, taking sometimes the role of a weak-willed villain, sometimes the maligned victim; Anne Boleyn, too, takes her turn as a scheming seductress and tragic heroine, depending on who’s narrating events. Both historians and HBO TV dramas delight in the violences and excesses of the Borgias. And the fall of Rome, of course, will probably never stop being retold, in any medium it can be.

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Reposted by Caroline Shea

Natasha Lennard @natashalennard.bsky.social · 11d

“Anti-fascism was one of the most unifying and electrifying banners to organize under during Trump’s first administration.” - important reflection from comrade Matthew Whitley on not dismissing the ways antifa IS real (but not what Trump says) @theintercept.com theintercept.com/2025/09/27/t...

What Liberals Get Wrong About Trump's Executive Order on Antifa

Liberals dismiss antifa as just an idea. That opens up the activists, researchers, and organizers to a real risk of persecution.

theintercept.com

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Caroline Shea @therealcshea.bsky.social · 9d

ICYMI:

Caroline Shea @therealcshea.bsky.social · 9d

The Long Ago: A Medieval and Renaissance Reading List

+ some thoughts on medievalism and why we return to certain eras in fiction and scholarship again and again. Read here: www.patreon.com/posts/long-a...

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Caroline Shea @therealcshea.bsky.social · 9d

The Long Ago: A Medieval and Renaissance Reading List

+ some thoughts on medievalism and why we return to certain eras in fiction and scholarship again and again. Read here: www.patreon.com/posts/long-a...

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Reposted by Caroline Shea

Jane Zwart (she/her) @janezwart.bsky.social · 14d

I'll stand by "I am tired of tidings," for the most part. But getting a message that @thedodgemag.bsky.social nominated "East of Eden" for the Best of the Net anthology, those were tidings that put some wind back in my sails. Thank you to the editors, especially @sambranopoet.bsky.social.

For a more accessible version, see https://cymbals-corn-mx5t.squarespace.com/janezwart1.

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Reposted by Caroline Shea

Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 15d

1. In a groundbreaking legal filing, transgender patients, represented by Women's Law Project, have filed a legal complaint against UPMC for capitulating to Trump and dropping trans care.

Federal funding threats do not override state law.

Subscribe to support our journalism.

Trans Patients File Groundbreaking Legal Complaint Against UPMC For Capitulation To Trump

UPMC bowed to Trump and abandoned its trans patients, advocates say. It may have violated state law.

www.erininthemorning.com

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Ben Niespodziany 📚🎪 @neonpajamas.bsky.social · 15d

two tiny poems up on HAD today! ❤️☠️

HAD @havehashad.com · 15d

🚨 new Benjamin Niespodziany day! two amazing new shorties!! 🚨

"The magician looks the other way when he removes his first foot.

The butcher cooks the bear meat he captured in his pasture.

The executioner refuses to remove his mask..."

https://www.havehashad.com/vr767

Two Poems by Benjamin Niespodziany

The Five Rings The magician looks the other way when he removes his first foot. The butcher cooks the bear meat he captured in his pasture. The executioner refuses to remove his mask. The blacksmith…

www.havehashad.com

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Reposted by Caroline Shea

Emily L. Hauser (she/her) ❌👑 @emilylhauser.bsky.social · 16d

The figures presented in an investigation by journalist Yuval Avraham, published by +972 & The Guardian, lead to the conclusion that "only about 17% of the dead were armed or identified as Hamas members."

🆓🔗 archive.is/1tN72

More and more evidence shows – most of the Gaza war deaths are civilians

Israel No Longer Bothers to Dispute the Gaza Health Ministry Figures, Which Show That the Number of Civilians Killed Since October 7 Is the Highest in Any War in the 21st Century

www.haaretz.com

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Caroline Shea @therealcshea.bsky.social · 15d

a Tuesday novel scrap before I force myself to get more work done: "How stupid, she thought, how human, to believe harm to others did not harm you, too."

“Here,” he said, pressing the ammonite into her hand.
It was beautiful. She didn’t want it. She still felt the sting of his open palm on Teo’s cheek. She wanted to throw the stone in Creon’s face, to refuse this gift and its small, baffling kindness, but she found her fingers closing around the fossil instead, clutching it so tightly the rough edge dug into her palm. His pain, she reminded herself, not yours. But she didn’t really believe that. It had never made sense to her, the way people drew borders around their bodies and marked that space a sovereign kingdom. The air in your lungs was the same wind whipping through the grass; the pale chalky grit you could scrape from the old clay pits the same pulp that made your bones. How stupid, she thought, how human, to believe harm to others did not harm you, too.
She unclenched her hand and realized the rough edge of the rock had nearly broken skin. She watched the crescent indent on her palm bloom blue, then black, then yellow-green. A few minutes later, as they made their way down to harbor, the bruise had faded, the blood drained away. Her skin was unmarked as if the small hurt had never been.

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Reposted by Caroline Shea

David Roberts @volts.wtf · 22d

NYT: gone. WaPo: gone. LA Times: gone. CBS: gone. CNN: gone. MSNBC: going.

Plus almost all local newspapers & local TV news stations.

Plus almost all of social media.

The information environment is utterly dominated by the right & everything else is downstream of that.

Will Bunch @willbunch.bsky.social · 22d

The Washington Post was the paper of my teen dreams -- whose courage helped convince me to chose a life in journalism. Monday's firing of the Post's moral beacon, Karen Attiah, proved that a newsroom I'd believed in is now dead to me

Why I finally ditched the Post www.inquirer.com/columnists/a...

The Washington Post has broken my heart | Will Bunch Newsletter

Plus, the best Democrat in America right now.

www.inquirer.com

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Caroline Shea @therealcshea.bsky.social · 23d

I talked to Dan Dwyer of the wonderful Johnnycake Books
about the store's history, his 35 years in rare bookselling, and what he wished more people knew about the world of rare books. Conversation linked here: www.patreon.com/posts/interv...

“It became immediately apparent there was an ordered universe about this with rules and protocols and genres. And I sort of globbed onto it. So one thing led to another […], [and] I started selling books.”

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Caroline Shea @therealcshea.bsky.social · 23d

I talked to Dan Dwyer of the wonderful Johnnycake Books
about the store's history, his 35 years in rare bookselling, and what he wished more people knew about the world of rare books. Conversation linked here: www.patreon.com/posts/interv...

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Caroline Shea @therealcshea.bsky.social · 29d

bonus: "The candle must not die, because then there is no story."

“If you looked out on a stormy night and you saw a traveler whose candle was guttering in the rain, what would you do?”
Longlight’s hand moved involuntarily: Shyira-Guarding-Seed. “You know that mine is a hard country. There is only one rule for that.”
“One rule everywhere,” Birch said gently, “but you remember it. When you had taken the traveler in, something would happen. She might sleep the night and barely speak a word. She might keep the household laughing all night with stories. She might be a thief or give birth to a perfect new soul. She might even be a wispel and show you the terror of death by morning. You don’t know what the visitor will be to you, or you to her. You only remember the rule. The candle must not die, because then there is no story.” (342-343)

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LOLGOP ❌👑❌ @thefarce.org · 29d

"I think Donald Trump can get away with it because he understands something very basic about the development of American military power over the last few decades, which is that the United States doesn't really have to win wars. We just go in and kill a lot of people."

Democracy Now! @democracynow.org · 29d

Author Viet Thanh Nguyen responds to Donald Trump's threat to invade Chicago using the imagery of Vietnam War film "Apocalypse Now" to evoke "the entire history of American troops ... cleansing the land [for] American conquest."

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Caroline Shea @therealcshea.bsky.social · Sep 8

ICYMI this morning!

Caroline Shea @therealcshea.bsky.social · Sep 8

I talked to @coyhall.bsky.social about the (delightfully) eerie The Owl Men of Shanidar, gendered dynamics in sci-fi, history as storytelling, and writing the premodern. Conversation linked here: www.patreon.com/posts/interv...

The cover of Coy Hall's The Owl Men of Shanidar. The figure of an owl, surrounded by a circular border of leaves, is centered on a black background. The style is reminiscent of the reliefs found on ancient pottery.

“I approach teaching history as storytelling, bringing in the details that vivify, focusing on the human element, bringing people to life. As a historian, fiction helped me realize what details make the past appear real in the mind of a reader or listener. […] I believe you can reflect the present through the warped lens of the past just as sci-fi reflects back on us from an imagined future.”
Text is on a tan, paper-like background and framed by several decorative icons in dark red.

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