David Gibson

“That’s because during the difficult parts of your life you started reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull so what did you expect?”

Footprints in the Sand, 2025 edition

Pope Leo tells hundreds of thousands of young Catholics to build a better world Hundreds of thousands of young people filled a vast field on the outskirts of Rome on Saturday to see Pope Leo, in the largest event yet of the new Catholic pontiff's tenure, as part of a special weekend aimed at energizing Catholic youth.

Hundreds of thousands of young people filled a vast field on the outskirts of Rome on Saturday to see Pope Leo, in the largest event yet of the new Catholic pontiff's tenure, as part of a special weekend aimed at energizing Catholic youth. For @reuters.com:

Fascist or Brutalist? 🤷‍♂️

Trump demands firing of BLS chief after soft jobs report The monthly jobs report showed just 73,000 jobs in July, with big reductions to May's and June's numbers

Heading directly into Orwell territory right now. www.politico.com/news/2025/08... Trump demands firing of BLS chief after soft jobs report - POLITICO

"Touch" is "about a man who receives the stigmata. Blood truly flows from his hands, his feet, and his side, and he wreaks miracles, though that doesn’t stop the unholy from taking advantage of him. The wounds of Christ are not a scam, in Leonard’s cosmos, but everything else is up for grabs."

Elmore Leonard’s Perfect Pitch How the author of “Rum Punch” and “Out of Sight” came into his style.

A wonderful Anthony Lane @newyorker.com appreciation of Elmore Leonard, the greatest Catholic writer since Evelyn Waugh (who knew, right?):

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

VIDEO: 'This is what death looks like'

Gazans scramble for airdropped aid in the central Zawayda area, as international pressure mounts on Israel to agree a ceasefire and allow the world to flood Gaza with food. "Hunger has driven people to turn on one another like this," says one Palestinian

Today in the casual media normalization of wildly illegal & authoritarian hostage taking

I hope you will join me and all Catholics in celebrating this important feast day...

Even New York’s Strict Gun Laws Couldn’t Prevent the Midtown Shooting New York City has some of the toughest gun laws in the nation. But Monday’s mass shooting showed their limits, security experts said.

Alternate Headline:

"Even the $5 billion NYC Spends on the NYPD Couldn't Prevent the Midtown Shooting.

NYC has the highest per capita level of policing in the US. But Monday’s mass shooting showed policing's limits, security experts said."

Why not go with that headline? Why not? WHY. NOT?

This is an accurate summary of the news

Yeah, we still use the term McCarthyism even though the scale and nature of his impact is a shadow of what is happening right now. It shows just how the US struggles to find appropriate reference points for what is happening now.

fun to sign back on at the end of the day and be hit with this insane take. diddy as an exemplar of “black cool?” this guy’s brain is soft serve. bsky.app/profile/mike...

"Trump just announced that CBS will also give him $20 million in airtime, through ads and programming. Ask not what you can do for censorship — ask what censorship can do for you!"

Great stuff --->

Summer of Our Discontent by Thomas Chatterton Williams review – the liberal who hates leftists In his caustic critique of identity politics, Williams ends up condemning every kind of collective action

what is great about this review is that the author is clearly sympathetic to the premise but can’t get past the basic fact that the author is a vacuous fool www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

I think it’s worth noting this piece generated the most unsubscribes I’ve seen in a while, and the newsletter version had the lowest open rate in many months. These horrors persist in part because too many people go to great pains to avoid them.

For Catholics trying understand the Epstein affair, imagine the clergy sex abuse scandal wrapped inside the Fourth Secret of Fatima.

Yet another reminder that there are acts of meaningful admirable courage happening every day under this presidency

Ask yourself what kinds of decisions you’d make in these cases

Years ago @nickkristof.bsky.social gave me a copy of this piece from the late William Safire, titled "The Ten Commandments of Columny." I have since misplaced it (and last I checked, Nick had as well).
Does anyone have a copy squirreled away? I've been unable to locate it anywhere online.

Yiiiiiikes

GARY OLDMAN as Cary Grant from ‘North By Northwest’ for a photo project whereby Actors pose for a role they always dreamed of playing but never will.

(It had to be self-deprecating, ironic, absurd, a bit twisted and kind of like a funny/bad dream take on the movie.)

Love it.

But silence from US government and Christian conservatives ...

Senate Approves Trump's Bid to Cancel Foreign Aid and Public Broadcast Funds The bill to claw back $9 billion in congressionally approved spending passed over the objections of Republicans who saic it abdicated the legislative branch's power of the purse.

Republican’s did this. Say that. “The Senate” falsely spreads the blame around. Also: nowhere in this story does it say that every single democrat VOTED NO.

.https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/us/politics/senate-vote-trump-bill-pbs-npr-foreign-aid.html

"It is a place of worship. It is a Catholic church known for its peaceful attitude, for being a peacemaker. These are people who are at the service of the population," he said. "There was no strategic objective, there were no jihadists in this church. There were families, there were civilians."

This was great fun -- great crowd, great venue, to talk popes real and fictional, from Pope Kiril to JP2, Jude Law to Bob Prevost, and why we can't get enough of it all. Life imitates art, and vice versa. Pope Culture/Pop Culture

‘The Living Vein of Compassion’ Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso reflects on the Church's prophetic role during an era of anti-immigrant scapegoating.

'The Living Vein of Compassion'

Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso reflects on the Church's prophetic role during an era of anti-immigrant scapegoating:
www.commonwealmagazine.org/living-vein-...

Trump to "Faith Office" group blaming Dems for a possible Depression "where you people, so rich, so beautiful, so nice to look at, will be totally busted. And let's see how long your wife stays with you."

American Christianity, AD 2025.

"You don't have a Mitt Romney in the midst, people who make it *so* hard."

"Evil" in Trump's theodicy is good things happening to bad people.

A clip of Refried’s song 🥹

Stranded at Sea, Would Their Marriage Survive?

I reviewed Sophie Elmhirst’s A Marriage at Sea for @nytimes.com and friends, let me tell you, this book is magnificent. What an absolute (and absolutely haunting) pleasure. 🌊https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/08/books/review/a-marriage-at-sea-sophie-elmhirst.html