Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. How Emojis Have Become a Language Within a Language in China (June 9) Ah, yes, many layers of memes in Chinese internet culture.

My husband knows all about this, and told me another example: In comment sections, people will say they are 盖楼 [gài lóu] (adding to a building), because a long thread of comments is like a tall building, and the OP is 楼主 [lóu zhǔ] (owner of the building). If people don't like OP, they will write 楼主傻逼 [lóu zhǔ shǎ bī], "OP is a dumbass", but a lot of internet platforms will censor 傻逼 [shǎ bī], so people will just write lzsb instead (write the first letters instead of the characters themselves). But then, some people have a keyboard which will autocorrect lzsb to 兰州烧饼 [lán zhōu shāo bǐng], which sounds like the name of some kind of flatbread from the city of Lanzhou. My husband tells me that he has met people who think there really is a special traditional food in Lanzhou called 兰州烧饼 [lán zhōu shāo bǐng], and he has to tell them it's not a real thing.

"But," he says, "this meme is from 20 years ago."

2. Meet Splash, a furry detective solving underwater mysteries (May 29) Wow, this otter is trained to search for human remains in the water.

3. Elephant Bananza || Donkey Kong Bananza (Original Soundtrack) (2025) My kids have been watching my husband play this Donkey Kong game, and they are all so into it. And now we also listen to the soundtrack all the time- apparently in the game, Donkey Kong can turn into different animals, like an elephant or a zebra, and there's a different song for each. My toddler is getting really good at hearing a song and identifying what animal Donkey Kong would turn into at that part of the game.

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. All Americans Need Pride Now (June 8) "At the moment, the focus of MAGA’s sexual oppression is on trans people. But what happens after they have been suppressed, and America still has problems? If you draw the conclusion that we’re still not pure enough, who do we go after next? Gays and lesbians, I suppose, and then women who have gotten abortions. And promiscuous women. And then straight men and women who don’t act masculine or feminine enough."

2. Jesus loves me, this I know, for Pete Hegseth tells me so (June 8) 

3. "Fascism"—New Federal Rule Would Require Federal Funding Recipients To Deny Trans People Exist (June 9) "If finalized, the rule would reach every hospital, university, school district, state government, nonprofit, and homeless shelter that receives federal funding, effectively requiring much of American institutional life to discriminate against transgender people as a condition of receiving federal money."

Also from Erin in the Morning: Mamdani's New Trans Direct Clinic Will Deny Care To Those Under 19 (June 9) "When Zohran Mamdani ran for mayor, he promised to fight back—showing up to protests outside NYU Langone, pledging $65 million for gender-affirming care, and vowing to use every lever of city power to protect trans New Yorkers from federal intimidation. Since taking office, those promises have largely gone unfulfilled: no enforcement action against the hospitals that shuttered their programs, no fines from the Commission on Human Rights despite complaints open for over a year, and no public accounting of the promised funding."

Cleveland Clinic Establishes Second “Detransition” Center in the Country After DOJ Settlement (June 10) "'Detransition services were always a part of gender affirming care,' Adkison continued. 'There continues to be no increased need, and it is a bigoted, sad performative farce the Clinic is choosing to promote.'"

Yes, exactly. If people want to detransition, for whatever reason, they should have access to medical care related to that. But, wouldn't that just be a normal part of a hospital's gender-affirming care/ hormones/ gender-related therapy? Making it into a separate thing only makes sense in the political fiction where trans-affirming doctors are out to get you and want to make you trans against your wishes, and the MAGAs who have common sense are heroically coming to save those victims and establish the opposite kind of clinic, where we help them get back to their correct gender. That's not how it works at all.

4. Judge blocks Trump’s sweeping freeze on immigration benefits for 39 countries (June 5) "The 135-page ruling, from U.S. District Judge John McConnell in Rhode Island, opens the door for hundreds of thousands of people with pending immigration-related applications to have these benefits unpaused. These immigrants were following the rules, McConnell wrote, but were nonetheless unlawfully targeted by the government because of where they came from."

5. Federal judge blocks Trump admin's effort to move 14 trans women to men's prisons (June 9) "Ultimately, Lamberth found that the mandatory transfer to men’s prisons 'was not a reasonable response' because 'it is fundamentally unreasonable for prison officials to respond to serious risks such as mental health deterioration, self-harm, and suicidality by intentionally creating those risks and offering to treat them after they predictably occur.'"

6. Scott Pelley on the Bari Weiss Era and His Last Days at ‘60 Minutes’ (June 7, via) " So, we work on all of these things. We get the piece approved by everyone. And about four hours after our deadline, Bari Weiss sends an email to my boss, Tanya Simon. Two of the things in the email include, can we make the protesters look more violent? Now, I’m paraphrasing. I don’t have the quote, but that’s what was communicated to me. And the other thing, Renee Good’s car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer."

7. White House response to hantavirus and Ebola contrasts with COVID criticisms (June 11) "'The administration is trying to look tough,' Gostin says. 'And that's just no way to deal with an infectious disease that really doesn't know borders. We need to use science and public health rather than political theater and overkill.'"

8. Trump’s Name Is Removed From Kennedy Center Facade (June 14, 1-minute video) Hooray!

9. A plan to get lifesaving food to hungry kids was working well — until it wasn't (June 13) "'This place used to be full,' he says, able to store about 4,000 boxes — enough to feed over 4,000 kids for several weeks of treatment. 'But since USAID left, since the start of the problem with Trump, UNICEF has become weaker,' he says, gesturing at the empty space."

10. Ms. Rachel meets children with parents in ICE custody (June 10, 1-minute video)

Ms. Rachel brings children’s letters from ICE custody to Capitol Hill, including those from Colorado Springs family (June 11) "Mothers of some of the over 3,500 children cycled through the facility told investigative publication ProPublica that children were so distraught they cut themselves or talked about suicide."

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. California judge bans Kars4Kids ads for hiding Orthodox Jewish agenda (May 16) Wow, I never knew that Kars 4 Kids uses the money to promote Orthodox Judaism.

Also from Hemant Mehta: Former "ex-gay" leader Alan Chambers charged with soliciting a minor (May 20)

And: The evangelical Christian hit “Testify to Love” just got a powerful pro-LGBTQ reboot (May 22) Avalon was a Christian band popular in the 90s. We're just finding out now that when one of the singers, Michael Passons, left the band in 2003, actually he was kicked out for being gay. Now here he is, 20-some years later, proud of who he is, singing Avalon's hit song "Testify to Love" as a gay man. I am so here for this.

EDIT: okay that video link no longer works, try this one: TY HERNDON + MICHAEL PASSONS || Testify To Love (feat. Melissa Greene)

"For as long as I shall live, I will testify to love / I'll be a witness in the silences when words are not enough."

See also, Christian drag queen Flamy Grant performing this song at Q Christian Fellowship Conference in 2024:

I was not prepared for @FlamyGrant to lead a “Testify To Love” singalong. And it was perfect. pic.twitter.com/5DybJGD5wP

— Matt Nightingale (@mattnightingale) January 13, 2024

2. Before WeChat, There Were Qiaopi Writers (May 20) "Unable to type or use a smartphone herself, the woman sat beside Jiang and dictated the letter sentence by sentence while he wrote each line down by hand."

3. The Rise and Fall of Misery Memoirs (April 11, via) 2-hour-5-minute video. It's about "misery memoirs" that turned out to be completely fabricated (about the Holocaust, drug addiction, satanic rituals, etc). It's about the McMartin preschool trial, where investigators pressured children into making up stories about satanic abuse and secret tunnels and all kinds of wild things. It's about what kinds of "trauma stories" sell, what audiences want to hear and feel. It's about how scammers make up stories that fit The Template, and how real survivors are pressured to present their stories in a certain way. 

One thing this makes me think of is the feminist slogan "believe the victim." The thinking goes, if you come across a story of someone being raped or abused, you should believe it, because only a tiny percent of rape accusations are false, because victims who come forward are often put through a traumatizing process of interrogation and victim-blaming, because there's nothing to gain from making up a story, and a victim would only put themself through that because they really want the truth to come out. 

But it has to be more nuanced than just "believe the victim." It depends on *where* you're encountering this traumatic story. If it's a friend telling you about something that happened to them, you should give them emotional support and try to help them connect with whatever resources they need (therapy, etc). Within that context, you should just believe them and help them. But if you're a journalist writing a story, you should *not* just "believe the victim." You should only publish a story if there's evidence. And if the victim has a large platform and is making this traumatic story into their whole identity, uhhhh, that is even more suspect.

4. On Grindslop (May 20) "What this reveals is that the wealthiest generation of human beings in the history of our species has become so frightened of being seen as a class so terrified of their position being legible that it has begun performing the lives of people who assemble iPhones in near-slavery conditions in Foxconn plants."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Justice Department announces nearly $1.8B fund to compensate Trump allies in a deal to drop IRS suit (May 19) Wait, what? What on earth? The government is just going to give the antichrist $1.776 billion (that's $1,776,000,000) to give to whatever criminals feel they have been mistreated by being prosecuted for their crimes? 

"'This is one of the single most corrupt acts in American history,' Donald Sherman, the president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said in a statement."

2. Colorado Supreme Court Rules Hospitals Must Not Comply With Trump, Must Continue Offering Trans Youth Care (May 19) "In Monday’s decision, the court rejected the hospital’s central defense: that it had not discriminated against transgender youth but had simply declined to offer one category of treatment. The justices found that distinction meaningless, noting that the hospital continued to provide the very same medications, puberty blockers and hormone therapy, to cisgender youth while denying them to transgender patients."

3. Trump administration to force foreigners in the U.S. to apply for a green card abroad (May 23) This is absurd. Plenty of immigrants come to the US for education, to work, etc, legally, and then end up building a whole life, maybe even marry a US citizen, and it makes sense for there to be a process for them to get a green card and eventually citizenship. This new policy says they have to uproot their whole life and go to their own country, for who knows how many years, in order to apply for a US green card.

4. US senator says he was pepper-sprayed by federal agents during protest at ICE facility (May 26) "'Some of [the people detained] have been detained more than eight to 12 months,' Ana Paola Pazmiño from Resistencia en Accion New Jersey, a migrant rights organization, claimed, adding: 'The horrible conditions that they’re living in inside are terrible.'"

5. Tennessee judge dismisses federal human smuggling charges against Kilmar Abrego García (May 23) "Abrego Garcia's lawyers argued that the government's criminal case was retaliation because of the embarrassment it caused the Trump administration. After he won his deportation case, he became a sort galvanizing force for critics of the president's hard-line immigration policy. His lawyers asked the court to dismiss the charges under a vindictive prosecution claim." But I think this still isn't over.

6. More people are going hungry now than at the height of the pandemic (May 27) "The New York Fed survey from February found that nationwide, 10% of families reported missing meals for lack of food and nearly 16% relied on food donations."

7. Trump DOJ mass-deletes info on Jan. 6 riot cases, including violent assaults on cops (May 26) "A review by NPR found that the deleted material included information about some of the most serious assaults on law enforcement that occurred that day. NPR maintains the most complete database and visual archive of the Jan. 6 prosecutions."

8. SPLC seeks dismissal of charges, citing Trump admin's "vindictive motive to punish the SPLC" (May 27) 

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Graham Platner is an Embarrassing Liar (November 13) "They don’t care. They don’t think they’ll ever face consequences–not for the imperialism, the violence, the racism, the misogyny, and no, not even the Nazi tattoo because they know there will always be another white man in those Reddit comments explaining that it’s not a big deal and we just don’t understand what it’s like to be in the military."

2. The developing world needs more roads (November 11) "This problem shows up most clearly in the differences in land allocated to road networks: 27 percent of Manhattan is dedicated to roads, as is 24 percent of London. These cities are typical for their income group. ... For the average city in Africa, Asia, or Latin America, only 16 percent is reserved for streets. Just 12 percent of Dhaka, 10 percent of Kolkata, 14 percent of Dakar, 13 percent of Addis Ababa, 12 percent of Nairobi, and 14 percent of Accra are dedicated to roads. Instead, lax building rules have allowed homes and workplaces to take over public spaces."

Also from Works in Progress: How market design can feed the poor (September 22) This is an article about a system that was set up to efficiently distribute food to food banks. Instead of just assigning them whatever, like the old system did, the food banks have a currency called "shares" and they can make their own choices and bid their shares on the available food, according to their own needs. 

3. Philosophical issues with transness are a symptom of dysphoria (November 15) "But in my experience, if your hormones are on point and you’re generally seen the way you want to be seen, then it’s not a big deal if you’re in some abstract philosophical sense your assigned sex at birth. You might prefer to be in some abstract philosophical sense the gender you identify as, but it doesn’t cause you persistent unhappiness."

4. The U.S. just produced its last penny after a more than 200-year run (November 12)

5. A 'breakthrough' drug to prevent HIV, an 'unprecedented' rollout (November 18) "Just two injections a year provide near-complete protection against an HIV infection."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Epstein survivors release MUST-WATCH new PSA as Congress prepares to vote on releasing the files (November 17)

2. Gregory Bovino is exactly who E.B. White — author of 'Charlotte's Web' — warned us about (November 17) "But, to use a book authored by E.B. White as your name is an offense to history. White was a leading voice for American democracy and freedom and against fascism and tyranny. Abusing his life’s work like this cannot stand without a response."

3. State Department Reverses Course, Says Trans Passports Will Be Valid Until They Expire (November 18) There has been a lot of back-and-forth about passports for trans people. The latest update is that, even though the Supreme Court says the government is allowed to stop trans people from getting passports with their correct gender marker, the good news is that passports which already have been issued will still be valid.

This whole thing is extremely stressful for trans people in the US (and it's still going on). Cis people should all be thinking about what we can do to support them.

4. Food stamps are back, but millions will soon lose benefits permanently (November 15) "The loss of SNAP 'was really stark during the shutdown,' said Dottie Rosenbaum, director of federal SNAP policy at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. 'But [the One Big Beautiful Bill Act] is the largest cut in the program’s history. That is also going to be really deeply felt.'"

5. What Counts as Political Violence? (September 26, via) "Ezra Klein did not write a high profile essay about how Villegas Gonzalez was doing democracy the right way by working hard and taking care of his kids."

Also from Noah Berlatsky: First-of-its-kind LGBTQIA+ hotline in Illinois offers support amid sweeping attacks (November 3) "One caller to Illinois Pride Connect, according to the caller description, was “a parent of a trans adolescent seeking information on the risks and benefits of applying for a passport to reflect her child’s gender identity.” The family had updated birth certificates and state ID but had not changed their passport or Social Security record, and was worried about trying to get through customs with inconsistent gender information."

And: Republicans Want Poor People to Suffer (November 4) "This is the Newsmax logic; if anyone anywhere is misusing federal funds, that offsets the benefits of 3 million children a month being lifted out of poverty. Stopping one evil welfare queen is worth starving any number of children."

6. U.S. deports dozens of migrants to Ukraine amid war (November 18)

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Oaths aren't about oaths, they're about performative speech acts (November 5) "How do we tell apart fancy official promises people are supposed to keep and fancy official promises people aren’t really supposed to keep?"

2. Playing Tag: Oversized Clothing Labels Aim to Curb Order Returns (November 7) "China’s online fashion retailers are implementing oversized, stiff, and brightly colored clothing tags in an effort to curb the industry’s notoriously high return rate."

Also from Sixth Tone: Minding Nemo: Vlogger Finds Fatal Flaws at China’s Aquariums (November 7) "Many exhibition spaces are still chaotic construction zones the day before the grand opening, with tanks filled with fresh saltwater just hours before the first batch of fish is introduced. These so-called “pioneer fish” — usually cheaper species — often die within a short time."

3. “I Won’t Change My Body to Fit Your Expectations”: Reflections From a Masculine Woman with PCOS (July 14, via) "It soon became very clear to me that my doctor at the time was hoping I’d “fix” what he thought was “wrong” with me. My masculine features were seen as a glaring issue to be solved. My doctor thought he had the solution and suggested I start estrogen to maintain my hormone levels."

4. OpenAI's new web browser has ChatGPT baked in. That's raising some privacy questions (November 7) 

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. “New York City has Fallen”: MAGA erupts after Mamdani’s victory (November 5, via) A roundup of quotes from right-wing people being really racist about Mamdani's victory. In particular I'd like to highlight what Matt Walsh said: "A third world communist just won in New York because New York is a third world city now." WTF? Remember this, in case anyone ever claims that these are people whose opinions should be respected.

2. Foreign aid from the United States saved millions of lives each year (September 29, via) "AIDS programs saved the largest number of lives: over 1.5 million per year. Between a quarter and half a million were saved by vaccines, tuberculosis, malaria, and humanitarian response each."

3. Supreme Court temporarily blocks full SNAP benefits even as they'd started to go out (November 7) "The Supreme Court's decision means states must, for now, revert back to the partial payments the Trump administration had earlier instructed them to distribute."

Trump admin order to 'immediately undo' full SNAP benefits leaves states scrambling (November 9) 

As millions of Americans struggle with SNAP lapses, food banks are swamped with demand (November 7) "'It's painful when someone comes in and we have to say, 'I just don't have anything for you today,' ' says the pantry's client advocate, Juliet Smith. 'We've never had to do that before. Never.'"

All this back-and-forth about SNAP during the government shutdown has made me realize something: I've always thought of SNAP as a "safety net," like just a temporary thing that people should use only a few times in their lifetime, when they happen to be going through a hard time. But now I'm finding out how *real* this is, how people really need it and rely on it- some states have something like 15-20% of their population on SNAP. 42 million Americans. This isn't just some "safety net" which a negligible amount of people will need to use every now and then- this is essential infrastructure. Is it supposed to be essential infrastructure? Well, yeah, we need to have it because that many people really do need it. 

People shouldn't be shamed or judged for getting SNAP benefits. It should be just as neutral a thing as going to the library, or expecting the government to maintain the roads. I grew up among Republicans, and the vibe I always got concerning people who get food stamps is "well, they shouldn't, they should take responsibility and get a job and then they wouldn't need government handouts"- and therefore it's justified to judge them and put all kinds of rules and requirements on them. But, wow, something is *wrong* with society if seriously 42 million Americans aren't able to get jobs that pay well enough that they can afford food. Food! Something is wrong with society, and the government has a responsibility to do something about that. Either by giving them the money for food, or transforming society (specifically the job market?) such that people who do a decent normal amount of work will have a good enough income that they can live on. Hard to say which option is "better." I mean, I know that people would say it's better if everyone can get a job and get a good enough income, and then the government doesn't have to give them SNAP- but I can also imagine a society where people view it like "yeah, the government gives food to people who need it, of course they do, of course our tax dollars go to that, that is a normal thing that a society should do, not something we would want to minimize."

(Caveat: The fact that 42 million people receive SNAP benefits is not the same thing as saying 42 million people are in the situation like the people you see interviewed in these news articles, where they really don't know where they're going to get food if they don't get SNAP this month. Perhaps some significant fraction of these 42 million people have their finances generally under control, and have emergency savings available, and it's very helpful that they get money from SNAP every month but it's not the end of the world if they didn't? ... I think regardless, they really are in need. "People who receive SNAP" and "people who literally can't feed their families without SNAP" might not be the *exact* same group of people, BUT still, they really are in need and I am seeing that this really should be viewed as essential infrastructure.)

4. Judge orders White House to use American Sign Language interpreters at briefings (November 5)

5. SCOTUS Rules Against Trans People's Passport Gender Markers In Shadow Docket Ruling (November 7) "The Government seeks to enforce a questionably legal new policy immediately, but it offers no evidence that it will suffer any harm if it is temporarily enjoined from doing so, while the plaintiffs will be subject to imminent, concrete injury if the policy goes into effect."

6. Trump has accused boat crews of being narco-terrorists. The truth, AP found, is more nuanced (November 8) "They were laborers, a fisherman, a motorcycle taxi driver. Two were low-level career criminals. One was a well-known local crime boss who contracted out his smuggling services to traffickers."

7. Senators take first step toward reopening the government after historic shutdown (November 9) This just in, apparently some of the Senate Dems have caved and there's an agreement to end the government shutdown. Not sure what to make of this yet.

Blogaround

I know I just published a blogaround 2 days ago, but more things keep happening.

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Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Crisis calls among Oklahoma LGBTQ+ youth drop after Ryan Walters quit his job as the state’s schools chief (October 30, via) "Before his exit, nearly two-thirds of Oklahoma callers, 64 percent, identified Walters as a source of distress, according to Rainbow Youth Project."

2. “The Dark Side”: Dick Cheney’s Legacy from Iraq Invasion to U.S. Torture Program (November 4)

3. How megachurches twist the Bible to defend billionaires and wealth inequality (October 21) "'He's not talking about financially poor people, he's talking about spiritually impoverished people,' said the pastor."

Yes, this whole article very much rings true. In my experience in white evangelicalism, the teaching is that it's not *bad* to be a rich person- it would only be bad if you end up putting your trust in your money rather than in God. It's all about your heart, your attitude.

4. AI Isn’t Always Helping Chinese Office Workers Either (November 5) "AI helps generate proposals efficiently, but these things reek of that unmistakable ‘AI smell.’ Finally, I end up reworking them so they read as if a real person had written them."

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Image source.

Links related to the antichrist:

1. White House releases list of donors for Trump’s multi-million-dollar ballroom (October 23) Here's the list- companies and private donors. They all should be ashamed of themselves. Boycott them if you can.

• Altria Group, Inc.
• Amazon
• Apple
• Booz Allen Hamilton
• Caterpillar, Inc.
• Coinbase
• Comcast Corporation
• J. Pepe and Emilia Fanjul
• Hard Rock International
• Google
• HP Inc.
• Lockheed Martin
• Meta Platforms
• Micron Technology
• Microsoft
• NextEra Energy, Inc.
• Palantir Technologies Inc.
• Ripple
• Reynolds American
• T-Mobile
• Tether America
• Union Pacific Railroad
• Adelson Family Foundation
• Stefan E. Brodie
• Betty Wold Johnson Foundation
• Charles and Marissa Cascarilla
• Edward and Shari Glazer
• Harold Hamm
• Benjamin Leon Jr.
• The Lutnick Family
• The Laura & Isaac Perlmutter Foundation
• Stephen A. Schwarzman
• Konstantin Sokolov
• Kelly Loeffler and Jeff Sprecher
• Paolo Tiramani
• Cameron Winklevoss
• Tyler Winklevoss

2. Could a Third Term Happen? (November 3) "The main reason to take it somewhat seriously is this: If Trump floated an idea like this and nobody pushed back, before long he’d be doing it."

3. No One Is Safe (November 3) "Seconds after the crash, agents abruptly stopped their vehicle and exited with weapons in hand pointing at Figueroa, a U.S citizen. Agents then forcibly opened her door and pulled her out of the vehicle by her legs without identifying themselves, presenting a warrant or informing her that she was under arrest. As bystanders yelled, “You hit her! We have it on video!” agents ignored the crowd and forced Figueroa into a red minivan and drove away."

4. USDA tells grocery stores: No special discounts for SNAP recipients (November 3) "The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) emailed grocery stores prohibiting them from offering discounts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients amid the government shutdown." 

I want to be like "Don't these people claim to be Christians? Aren't they worried about how they're gonna explain this to Jesus when he separates the sheep from the goats?" but, ah, it would be very naive to think that when these MAGAs talk about Christianity, it has any relation at all to the teachings and character of Jesus. Obviously we should all realize by now that it doesn't.

5. Some election results:

Mamdani wins New York City mayoral race, in a historic victory for progressives (November 5)

California voters OK new congressional lines, boosting Democrats ahead of midterms (November 4)

AP Race Call: Colorado voters OK income tax increase to fund free meals for public school students (November 5)

"A Stunning Rebuke Of Anti-Trans Politics"—Dems Win Elections Nationwide Despite Anti-Trans Ads (November 5) "For all the centrist consultants urging Democrats to “moderate” or sacrifice transgender people for political gain, the results suggest the opposite: conviction, not capitulation, is what wins."

Democrats didn’t just rebound. They dominated. (November 5)

6. More American Nazis in the news (November 3) "On Thursday night, the president of the Heritage Foundation — the MAGA right’s leading think tank — welcomed an open Nazi into his political coalition."

7. They’ve Won in Court, But ICE Is Still Detaining and Trying to Deport Them (September 22) "Lawyers and advocates nationwide say the practice of keeping people in detention after they win in court has become much more entrenched in recent months. 'ICE officers are no longer using their discretion, but just applying this blanket policy of, ‘We’re just not going to release you at all unless, basically, a court tells us that we have to,’' Benz says."

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Reading Halloween (1978) Through the Lens of Labor (October 30, via) "Parents, historically, have been the most recurring threat to babysitters in their capacity to exploit and prey on them, and yet with Michael on set, the threat of the predatory employer-parent gets completely displaced."

2. Scientists thought this fossil was a teen T. rex. Turns out it's a new tyrannosaur (October 30) 

3. Hundreds killed in Darfur hospital massacre, 'hero' doctors abducted (October 30)

4. Israel still blocking most Gaza aid as military carries out more attacks (November 1, via) "This is an average of 145 aid trucks per day, or just 24 percent of the 600 trucks that are meant to be entering Gaza daily as part of the deal, it added."

5. Too many rats? Birth control is one city's answer (November 1) "For all these reasons, Somerville is trying something else — an anti-fertility chemical that targets the mature eggs in female rats."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. America's immigration crackdown is disrupting the global remittance market (October 28) "What leads Yang to argue this is that immigrants in the United States send a jaw-dropping amount of money back home to their families. These remittances, as they're known, have dwarfed the size of official foreign aid that the U.S. spends on things like economic development, health, and humanitarian assistance."

2. America’s Assault On Real History Comes For The Staff Of The Charles Lindbergh House And Museum (September 3, via) "As of the end of August, it’s all gone."

3. Trump administration sets lowest-ever cap on refugee admissions to U.S. (October 30) "'It is egregious to exclude refugees who completed years of rigorous security checks and are currently stuck in dangerous and precarious situations,' said Sharif Aly, president of the International Refugee Assistance Project. He said that the number of those with confirmed travel plans to the U.S. is greater than the new refugee cap."

4. Trump Admin Attempts To Ban Trans Youth Care Nationwide With New Federal Rules (October 30) "Now the administration is escalating with a blitz of three new rules that could effectively end most transgender youth care nationwide if enacted—pressuring many medical institutions to drop trans patients from receiving the care they need out of fear of federal reprisal, and punishing those who do not comply."

5.  The Myth of the Woke Right: A Response to the New York Times (October 24) 36-minute video from Big Joel about how that felon never actually understood "free speech" to mean "free speech"; how the New York Times wrote an article about "The Woke Right" but that's not really a thing, and the people who use the term use it to mean all sorts of different things; and the difference between cancel culture and government censorship.

6. Food Stamps are Good, Actually (Here Comes the Science) (October 30) "In the meanwhile, I urge you all to reach out to your local community to help out, or to find help if you need it."

And: Trump administration faces Monday deadline on use of contingency funds for SNAP (November 3) "The situation leaves millions with uncertainty about how they will feed themselves. Benefits will be delayed in November regardless of the outcome of the court cases because many beneficiaries have their cards recharged early in the month and the process of loading cards can take a week or more in many states."

7. US carries out new strike in Caribbean, killing 3 alleged drug smugglers (November 2) "The U.S. military has now killed at least 64 people in the strikes."

8. They were promised a lifeline to 'graduate' from poverty. Then it was taken away (November 2) "But just as you are about to receive that support, it gets canceled."

Blogaround

1. After 3 Years of Lockdowns, a Chinese Border City Struggles to Rebuild (March 14) "After COVID hit, however, the city’s frontier location became a liability. With China wary of infections spreading across the border, Ruili faced a string of weekslong lockdowns. From early 2021, the border was sealed entirely, and surrounding neighborhoods were evacuated. Undocumented migrants from Myanmar were rounded up and forced to return home."

2. The Story of Lazarus and the Making of the New Testament (January 19) "It is possible that Jesus on one occasion told a story about a poor man called Lazarus, and on another day, by remarkable coincidence, he actually raised a man of the same name from the dead. But other interpretations offer themselves."

And another from the same blog: How the Churches Forgot the Amalekites (2022) "The last Christian who will seek to exterminate another nation on the pretense of killing Amalekites has not yet been born." This is a really important point. There are passages in the bible where God commands his people to commit genocide. In western culture in modern times, churches tend to just awkwardly skip over those passages. But throughout history, Christians have literally used those passages to justify genocide- and this continues to happen in some parts of the world. If we just don't talk about those passages, that's not good enough. We have to engage with them and answer them.

3. Belinda Carlisle - Heaven Is A Place On Earth (Official Music Video) I'm sure I've posted this before, but here it is again. This is actually my religion. Just like Jesus taught us to pray: "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

4. The Biblical Case for Affirmation (w/ Matthew Vines) (March 13) A 1-hour-45-minute podcast. I am and will always be a bible nerd, so I loved this. My position is different from Vines's, though, because I don't think we need to carefully study ancient Roman history in order to find out if we're allowed to treat queer people with basic human decency. (Or, in evangelical language, I reject the authority of Scripture.) But wow, I am so impressed by how much of a bible nerd he is. Like, chapter and verse.

5. A distinction without any meaning (March 19) "Biologists have managed to reprogram stem cells taken from a male mouse into female oocytes, then fertilized them with sperm from another male mouse, and produced healthy offspring — that is, they’ve made mice with two fathers. ... The creationists at Answers in Genesis are made somewhat uncomfortable about this, since it violates their fantasies about the rigidity of sex determination, and recruited their tame in-house crank with a Ph.D., Nathaniel Jeanson to write a rationalization for them."

Also from the same blog: Why would Tim White and UC Berkeley hoard old bones? (March 14) "It’s just the weirdest defense: our bookkeeping is so bad and ignorance is so great that we have no idea whose remains these are, therefore we ought to be allowed to keep them."

6. And here's another worship song I like: My Deliverer - Rich Mullins

7. Everyone’s asking if Joel made the right choice. But Joel didn’t make one choice. He made many. (March 15) [content note: spoilers for "The Last Of Us"]

8. Idaho hospital to stop labor and delivery services citing "political climate" and doctor shortages (March 18) "'The Idaho Legislature continues to introduce and pass bills that criminalize physicians for medical care nationally recognized as the standard of care. Consequences for Idaho Physicians providing the standard of care may include civil litigation and criminal prosecution, leading to jail time or fines,' Bonner General said in its news statement."

9. Minnesota Republican Unable To Stop Communist Governor From Giving Kids Food (March 15) "'I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that is hungry,' Drazkowski said, in front of other people who could see and hear him."

10. HPV and Purity Culture (March 17) "To these individuals I say, 'I am sorry. Your virginity is not and will never be more important than your physical health.'" AMEN TO THAT.

I also did not get the HPV vaccine... it was very new and controversial when I was a teenager... Thinking about it now, it strikes me as odd that the response wasn't "wow great news, a vaccine that prevents cervical cancer" but instead more like "this is a vaccine for sluts? eww how could a good parent let their daughter get that?"

11. There is a God, But I Do Not Believe In Him (March 14) "God would have us know that we must live as people who manage our lives without God. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us." Yeah this... this is very close to what I believe.

How does freerice.com work?

Freerice.com is a vocabulary/educational game which claims that "For each answer you get right, we donate 10 grains of rice through the World Food Programme to help end hunger."

It's worth playing; go ahead and give it a try. It starts out with really easy vocabulary:

and as you get them right, the difficulty increases:

For those of you who care, the correct answer was "binding."

and there are some other subjects too, besides vocabulary (though the other subjects don't seem to have as many levels of difficulty):

After playing for 10 minutes, I earned 1560 grains of rice.

So, is this legit? Are they really donating 10 grains of rice for each right answer?

Well, the short answer is no. No one is sitting there counting out 10 grains of rice as I click through the vocabulary questions. So the "You have now donated 1560 grains of rice" thing is not literally true.

Instead, Freerice donates the equivalent amount of money to the UN World Food Programme, which then uses it to buy rice and give it those who need it.

So even though it's not literally true, it is legit. Snopes confirms this.

What is the UN World Food Programme?

Check out their website. The World Food Programme is a huge organization that works in 73 countries to provide food for those who are without it- either because of some emergency situation (war, natural disasters) or in cases where there is ongoing need (providing school meals, providing food for those suffering from HIV/AIDS, etc).

Seriously, I recommend clicking around on their website. There's a lot of information there. This is important stuff to know- hunger affects 925 million of our brothers and sisters.

Where does the money come from? If Freerice has the money anyway, why do I have to play this game in order for them to donate?

The money comes from the companies who buy ad space on the website. They pay for pageviews and clicks- so no, Freerice does not have a pile of money just waiting. Freerice earns it from the advertisers as you click through the questions on the site.

Okay, so what difference am I making? How much rice is 1560 grains, anyway?

From some googling, I have determined that there are about 7000 grains of (uncooked) rice in a cup, and that it expands to maybe double or triple volume when cooked.

So my 1560 grains of rice translates into about 1/2 cup cooked.

According to this site, rice costs about $600 per metric ton (this is a much lower rate than what you pay for a 5-lb bag at the grocery store). Again, after some googling, I am finding that there are 15-50 grains of rice in 1 gram. We'll use 30 grains for the math here.

My 1560 grams of rice costs 3 cents.

I mean, when you get tons of people playing this free rice game, it adds up... but I'm really not making that much of a difference.

Does this mean I have a moral responsibility to spend all my free time playing free rice?

No one should go hungry. I can't imagine what that's like. Giving other people food is more important than whatever else I'm doing with my spare time, right? Eh, no, I don't think so.

As I just calculated, playing Freerice for 10 minutes donates 3 cents. So, that's $0.18/hour. What's minimum wage? Not that. If you want to help people, go get a real job and then donate from your salary. If your only goal is to get out there and change the world, then Freerice is a waste of time.

You should play Freerice if you like it. Personally I was entertained by it when I played- but not enough to come back and play every day. If it's a game you think is fun, hey, go for it. But if you think it's boring, then DUDE, don't play, and don't feel guilty about that. Donating a few cents is not worth sacrificing your spare time and doing something you hate.

I think this game is probably good for kids because it's educational. I could totally see this being used by middle school or high school teachers. The kids learn stuff (from a bunch of different subjects) and you have the added bonus of feeding the hungry. Freerice is a pretty good idea for this context.

So I'll leave my readers with this question: Anyone beat my 1560 grains of rice, playing JUST the English vocabulary game for 10 minutes?