Matthew J Kuiper

A doctrine rooted in actual experiential impunity. He has in fact gotten away with a mind boggling amount, so why not? As with spoiled children or bullies, no accountability or consequences means more insufferable behavior.

How odd… I was assured by oh so smart pundits that Harris lost because “price of eggs!”

I do all our family’s grocery shopping and this is just really noticeable. There’s no spinning away what every family at the store sees every week.

As Mich Territory govnr (before he went to work for Jackson), he tried to cut “fair” deals with Native Americans - while trying to clear them out to make room for Euro settlement(!) - & took a lay-scholarly if highly paternalistic interest in their way of life. He also later embraced abolition

Oh and he wanted to “grab Canada” in 1812. “Like flotsam… the life of Lewis Cass has been a recurring morality tale. Some of the debris found along the shore may be valuable, some may require polishing and repair, and some may simply be too damaged to keep. So it is with Cass…”

Here’s an effort at a balanced historical (histotital?) take on Cass, for whom a bunch of stuff in Michigan & elsewhere is still named. He was a slavery defender, helped implement Jackson’s diabolical Indian Removal policy, and seems overall to have driven by personal ambition more than principle 🗃️

Lewis Cass - Wikipedia

My goodness, this man, whose name is everywhere in Michigan (streets and towns, a county, and a river are all named for him, plus statues and so on) was pretty darn awful.

Reminds me of this encounter

Should’ve been Lazy butt __________ [pretty much any profession…]

11. Lazy butt [pretty much any profession/job/career]

The battle we face (and this includes the battles over AI) comes down to “education” as purely instrumentalist means of churning out cogs in the capitalist machine v. education as forming educated persons/citizens with a sense of themselves, their world, the past, and the common good.

Truth: dt hasn’t heard of and couldn’t be made to care any more for the Hindutva beleaguered majority narrative or the (“re-“)creation of a mythical Hindu Rashtra than he does about “Christianity” or bringing back a mythical “Christian America.” He acts from pure narcissistic transactionalism. End.

“…including definitely(!) no interviews with or speeches by said forbidden AI-generated avatar.”

AAR's Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion recognizes extraordinary contributions to the public understanding of religion. Send in your nominations by September 15, 2025: aarweb.org/award/martin...

Just when you think a human being isn’t capable of self-disrespecting and self-reducing themselves to the status of spineless tool any more, you hear about the latest activities of Mike Johnson.

…great, it’ll now have to be a standard element of one’s last will and testament to specify: “No AI avatars of me after my death.”

Deleted an earlier post about Acosta’s interview so as not to amplify the images any more.

But here’s the deal: You don’t help a good cause by using horrific methods. But we need to be ready for more of this insanity.

Also…

Starvation as a weapon of war is unacceptable and a genocidal crime wherever it happens, and whoever is the perpetrator.

Eyes on Sudan, starvation, disease in Darfur as the UAE backed RSF besieges el-Fashar

“Starvation has reached the most severe level on the United Nations-backed food security scale – ‘IPC Phase 5’, indicating full-blown famine – it said on Friday.”

Our cat’s not-very-efficient paw-dippin’ drinking technique

There’s some okay analysis here, but the assumption that the PM is in anyway looking to end the “war”, aka obliteration, starvation, genocide, is gullible, naive, credulous, whatever your fav adjective.

Oh and it’s a gift link

From Triumph in Iran to Starvation in Gaza: Netanyahu Squanders His Moment to Halt the War

Moment, opportunity, whatever whenever… He has never wanted or intended to end the war

but, but… I thought he was one of us! I thought he and Modi were bosom friends.

Cue the Hindutva freak out

Hundreds of Israeli ex-officials appeal to Trump to help end Gaza war - BBC News It comes amid reports that PM Netanyahu is pushing to expand Israel's military operations in Gaza.

A group of some 600 retired Israeli security officials, including former heads of intelligence agencies, have written to US President Donald Trump to pressure Israel to immediately end the war in Gaza.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Baylor University is Now Hiring for Associate to Full Professor, Tenure Track, Christian Theology, Department of Religion The Department of Religion seeks to fill a position at the rank of Associate to Full Professor in Christian Theology, to start August 1, 2026. We welcome applicants with expertise in any area of syste...

Baylor University is Now Hiring for Associate to Full Professor, Tenure Track, Christian Theology, Department of Religion #acrel #amrel #SBLAAR #AARSBL nabpr.org/baylor-tenur...

Failure to fully grapple with the lessons of post Civil War added to the systemic bias toward penalizing the lower tier actors and letting the plotters and planners slide.

(and she doesn’t like to be watched doing this - note how she checks to see if anyone’s watching in the middle of the clip. But… it’s so darn cute, hope it brings a few smiles out there)

Our cat’s not-very-efficient paw-dippin’ drinking technique