Juli

Religious leaders' request to give Communion to detainees at Broadview facility is denied again Organizers said they followed Department of Homeland Security protocol and formally requested access more than one week ahead of the Mass. The request was denied, according to a statement from the vil...

“Organizers said they followed Department of Homeland Security protocol and formally requested access more than one week ahead of the Mass and emailed and hand-delivered a second letter on Thursday. The request was denied,” chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

Like you can move to Mars with weaker gravity that will likely make your bones brittle and no magnetosphere so you will have to live in tunnels to not be destroyed by radiation.

I'll stay on earth with gravity and radiation levels my body likes.

Dear Lord, thank you for the gift of a new day. May all that I do today be done with love and for your glory. #MorningPrayer

Whyyyyyyyy?!?! Forget about pockets - I just want enough fabric to be able to raise my hands over my head!

This is just to say

I have looked on
the works
that were in
the desert

and which
you were probably
thinking
would still stand

Forgive me
they were trunkless
so vast
and so old

I don't mind high waist pants, but as a woman with a long-torso, I deeply resent the fact that shirts are getting shorter. My midriff would like to stay warm, please!

I am usually in the camp of 'all reading is good' but in some very rare cases an absolute dunderhead will pick up a book and be like "the hobbits are a direct endorsement of fascist racial supremacy" and I don't think it's really helping them or anyone else, like maybe reading actually isn't for you

One way to make climate change seem like less of an issue...(bitterly j/k. Climate change absolutely still an issue)

RBMS 2026 CFP Collaboration

There is a spreadsheet available for seeking someone to collaborate with on a presentation! If you don't have an idea yet, maybe you'll be the right fit for a panel that is forming. docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

The 2026 RBMS Conference, "Advocacy" CFP is live! The conference will be in June in Milwaukee, and online.
Submit your proposals by December 12th! 📜 #SpecialCollections #Archives web.cvent.com/event/0F0104...

A photo of Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins and Ian Holm as Bilbo Baggins from Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

'The "uncle" who Frodo said got rich by adventuring with Dwarves is actually a distant cousin, he clarified on Monday.' - Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, The Shire Post

Instead of trying to green cars so much why don't we just invest in trains. city trains. under ground trains. above ground trains. trains between cities. trains between countries. TRAINS

THE PEOPLE CRAVE TRAINS

In ALA's recent RIF, ACRL lost Tory Ondrla, the amazing conference manager behind RBMS' conferences for so long. Add to this kudoboard to let Tory know how much we appreciate her.

Stay tuned for the sequel where the patriarch receives a Sox jersey

This is the face of a White Sox fan forced to smile in a photo for ecumenical reasons.

The thing about the relentless march of time is that you only get an ending (happy or otherwise) in fiction. Here in the real world no cause is ever lost forever even though we may not live to see it prevail. This is both hope and cautionary tale.

Perry: How can AI be used ethically when it’s been linked to suicide? "It’s not on us, on you and me, to use AI ethically or responsibly. It’s on the companies to build safe, reliable, ethical products," David M. Perry writes.

Here’s where it gets personal for me. When I was 9, I started experiencing suicidal ideation … disinterested in living, and at least some of the time contemplating death and how it might happen … It’s easy to imagine how I would have used programs like these chatbots.

40% of SNAP recipients are kids, 18% are elderly, 11% are disabled and of the rest, ~70% already have jobs. So unless your company’s hiring Junior Juice Box Interns, grandma and her walker, or knows how to fit more hours in a day, maybe cool it with the “just get a job” takes.

It turns out that in spite neoliberal capitalism having a lot of ethical, moral, and economic problems, postliberal capitalism is worse on all ends.

Not only is it going to be a hunger crisis, it's going to be a farm crisis. All those gallons of milk bought from dairy farmers, all the produce, all the on sale ground beef and packs of chicken that are paid for by SNAP are subsidies to farmers who don't qualify for commodities subsidies.

When I'm finally in charge, I'm going to require step stools be added to bathrooms. There are changing tables in many public restrooms, which is good but something you only need for a couple years (and I think I've only used once, ever), but kids need step stools at the sink for like 5+ years.

A gang of ducks close in on me as I sleep in my parents' garden in summer, 2018. (More on this in my book Ring The Hill.)

Probably the best photograph I’ve ever taken of some ducks.

There was a time when people who said things like this were offered therapy and relieved of their jobs, but no, not in 2025. In 2025 we let them burn down the world while helping to decide what happens to the rest of humanity BECAUSE WE'RE GOING TO SPACE, EVERYBODY.

In addition to the ten thousand other problems, where the fuck do these people live where you can start a garden on November 1st?

Since I’m seeing the comparisons again, your regular reminder that comparing Trump to Marie Antoinette is unkind. Marie Antoinette helped convince France to back the colonists during the Revolutionary War and was thus a significant positive for America.

ACTIONS YOU CAN TAKE re:the horror show demolition of the WH East Wing 🧵
(thx to bsky.app/profile/cali... )

SUMMARY: they rushed through demo during shutdown with zero permits, probably grift for Trump (ofc) but there are two major concerns (beyond obvious horror) & a few actions you can take:

1/n

So Northern Illinois University Library is looking for a metadata librarian/cataloger. $70k, and you'd be working primarily on the special collections that I helped to build while I worked there, along with some amazing Southeast Asian holdings. employment.niu.edu/postings/87516

Last semester, a student complimented me on my "vintage boots." Reader, I bought these (much beloved, so I do appreciate her taste) boots in grad school in 2005.

After clergy arrests, religious pushback to ICE expands in Chicago (RNS) — More than 210 mostly Chicago-area clergy, representing a range of liberal and conservative traditions, have signed a letter criticizing ICE titled ‘Jesus is Being Tear Gassed at Broadview.’

What's more 200+ Chicago-area clergy — Protestants, Catholics, and evangelicals — have signed a letter decrying ICE's efforts and voicing a willingness to put their "bodies on the line" for migrants, saying, "What Kristi Noem and her ICE agents are doing is immoral." religionnews.com/2025/10/21/a...

the symbolism of “Trump destroying the White House for a overpriced luxury vanity project, during a government shut down, days after a historically-large mass demonstration against his regime called “No Kings”’ would be rightly viewed as laying it on a little thick if it was in a work of fiction