Pat Kahnke on Culture, Faith, and Politics - "I used to believe what Charlie Kirk believes. And that's why I need to speak out now." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 2:22 AM Sep 28 2025 - 73 comments [54 favorites]

Dear Mr. Borges, which translation should I read? [more inside]
posted by infinitewindow at 4:15 PM Sep 28 2025 - 23 comments [40 favorites]

Angela Collier on how the rise of pop science conspiracy is fueled by the audience. It's a long watch, but she breaks down how the audience responds to science content and how the media fuels bad faith arguments and the actors that capitalize on them.
posted by finalbroadcast at 7:46 PM Sep 30 2025 - 34 comments [35 favorites]

The transmission of knowledge ¡ª the most ancient function of the university ¡ª is breaking down in front of our eyes. Writers like Shakespeare, Milton and Jane Austen whose works have been handed on for centuries can no longer reach the next generation of readers. They are losing the ability to understand them. from The dawn of the post-literate society by James Marriott [Substack; ungated]
posted by chavenet at 12:02 AM Oct 2 2025 - 36 comments [31 favorites]

The Nine Billion Names of God is a short film by Dominique Filhol adapting the short story of the same name by Arthur C. Clarke. It¡¯s been adapted by others too, including as a short comic book by Michael L. Davis. There are many interpretations of the story out there, and I like this recent video about the story as cosmic horror by Quinn Howard. And if you want a deep dive on the ¡°philosophical problem of some difficulty¡± mentioned in the story, here¡¯s Prof. Fran O¡¯Rourke¡¯s The Triplex Via of Naming God.
posted by Kattullus at 2:05 AM Oct 2 2025 - 13 comments [30 favorites]

You don't have to swallow frogs - "[Ezra] Klein and [Ta-Nehisi] Coates show that if you don't know what your core beliefs are, you're going to get played." (via) [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 12:12 AM Oct 3 2025 - 97 comments [30 favorites]

Do Viruses Trigger Alzheimer's? "In the summer of 2024 several groups of scientists published a curious finding: people vaccinated against shingles were less likely to develop dementia than their unvaccinated peers. Two preprints came from the lab of Pascal Geldsetzer at Stanford University. Analysing medical records from Britain and Australia, the researchers concluded that around a fifth of dementia diagnoses could be averted through the original shingles vaccine, which contains live varicella-zoster virus. Two other studies, one by GSK, a pharmaceutical company, and another by a group of academics in Britain, also reported that a newer ¡°recombinant¡± vaccine, which is more effective at preventing shingles than the live version, appeared to confer even greater protection against dementia." ungated. [more inside]
posted by storybored at 4:43 PM Oct 1 2025 - 27 comments [29 favorites]

"Allowing yourself time to digest important stories is as vital as consuming them. Stuffing yourself like a news-glutton is as dangerous as stuffing fries in your face at the drive-thru." In "How I Put Boundaries on Pete Hegseth" Tia Levings* ( Substack | Archive ) reflects on how to stay informed but not let an intentional triggering strategy take over your nervous system, speaking from the point of view of a survivor of religious trauma. [more inside]
posted by warriorqueen at 9:48 AM Oct 3 2025 - 11 comments [28 favorites]

Early on the morning of October 1st, federal agents with Border Patrol, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives raided an entire apartment building at 7500 S. South Shore Drive, knocking down doors and dragging men, women and children from their apartments: My building is shaking. So, I'm like, 'What is that?' Then I look out the window, it's a Blackhawk helicopter," said witness Dr. Alii Muhammad. [more inside]
posted by oneirodynia at 7:21 AM Oct 2 2025 - 251 comments [27 favorites]

The Global Sumud Flotilla (Novara Media coverage; previously) is now in the final stretch of its journey towards Gaza, with Israeli interception expected within the next 24¨C48 hours. [more inside]
posted by flabdablet at 9:43 AM Sep 30 2025 - 60 comments [25 favorites]

" He is Mr. Cool, just the right fellow to have around to de fuse unwanted electronic bombs, deliver withering ka rate chops to plug©\uglies, and restore beautiful kidnapped heiresses to their anxious fa thers. His speech is cool, too, and he handles questions with an aloof, computer©\like precision."
'Only Victims: A Study of Show Business Blacklisting.' (PDF) by Dr. Robert Vaughn.
posted by clavdivs at 4:47 PM Oct 3 2025 - 5 comments [25 favorites]

Boston Mayor's Blowout Victory Jolts CEOs Seeking New Direction [ungated] - "Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is coasting to reelection after her main opponent quit the race, giving her a commanding mandate that's putting city business leaders on edge." [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 11:43 PM Oct 1 2025 - 7 comments [24 favorites]

"In my capacity as mayor, I am obligated to carry out the will of the people, and of course I will abide by whatever they decide this November." An epistolary horror story about ballot referenda and our conceptions of fairness: "Question 3" by Cliff (Pervocracy) (previously, previously), which reminds me of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" (1948). Content notes: politics, capital punishment. (Previously: four short scifi stories about voting and elections.)
posted by brainwane at 7:27 AM Sep 29 2025 - 12 comments [23 favorites]

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered hundreds of generals to Virginia next week to discuss grooming, standards and his ¡°warrior ethos¡± vision. [more inside]
posted by subdee at 9:39 AM Sep 29 2025 - 253 comments [23 favorites]

In today¡¯s world, we barely think about picking up a fork. It is part of a standard cutlery set, as essential as the plate itself. But not that long ago, this now-ordinary utensil was viewed with suspicion, derision and even moral outrage. It took centuries, royal marriages and a bit of cultural rebellion to get the fork from the kitchens of Constantinople (today¡¯s Istanbul) onto the dining tables of Europe. from The thousand-year story of how the fork crossed Europe, and onto your plate today [The Conversation]
posted by chavenet at 11:38 AM Oct 3 2025 - 32 comments [23 favorites]

Folk tales are historical documents. They have evolved over many centuries and have taken different turns in different cultural traditions. Far from expressing the unchanging operations of man¡¯s inner being, they suggest that mentalités themselves have changed. We can appreciate the distance between our mental world and that of our ancestors if we imagine lulling a child of our own to sleep with the primitive peasant version of ¡°Little Red Riding Hood.¡± from The Meaning of Mother Goose by Robert Darnton [NYRB; ungated]
posted by chavenet at 11:03 AM Sep 29 2025 - 11 comments [21 favorites]

"Oh So Near: The Cars¡¯ Deep (and Deeply Underrated) Influence on the Future of Music" by Steven Hyden at The Ringer.
posted by goatdog at 3:34 PM Oct 1 2025 - 27 comments [20 favorites]

Forgotten Languages is a strange website. Ostensibly a blog, the posts are written mostly in either cyphers or a constructed languages. The Above Top Secret community started discussing the site in 2013 as a possible vampyric cult, but things got weirder from there. The Crowhouse Community also had an interesting thread about it. To get to grips with this high weirdness, watch this 44 minute overview by a pseudonymous YouTuber which starts with a reference to it in a congressional hearing about UFOs. From there it gets into the lore of the site and theories about it, from it being a secret government program, to being linked to the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit. The Strange Minds blog has a good overview, with a guide to decyphering posts.
posted by Kattullus at 2:25 PM Oct 2 2025 - 3 comments [20 favorites]

Goodreads recs "Ten Years of Horror Hits," but Emily Hughes lists 400+ horror books in 2025. There's been translated work by Uketsu (x2), Mariana Enriquez, Irene Solà, Ave Barrera, Olga Ravn, Bora Chung, & Hache Pueyo; more novels by Ling Ling Huang, Chuck Tingle, Charles Stross, Michael Cisco, Bitter Karella, Andrew Joseph White, T. Kingfisher, Gretchen Felker-Martin, Natalia Theodoridou, & Ned Beauman; collections by Thomas Ha, Debbie Urbanski, Nadia Bulkin, Hailey Piper, Julia Elliott, John Langan, & Marie-Helene Bertino; anthologies on folk horror from the Asian diaspora, Afrofuturism, ancestral horror, the music of Neutral Milk Hotel, The Stand, WWII, scary story nostalgia, & by filmmakers; non-fiction on Scream & feminism; and comics by Anna Meyer, Mattie Lubchansky, Keezy Young, Michael Walsh, Antoine Revoy, & Mike Mignola.
posted by Wobbuffet at 9:18 PM Oct 2 2025 - 10 comments [20 favorites]

It would have been pretty keen.
posted by Turtles all the way down at 12:26 PM Sep 30 2025 - 55 comments [19 favorites]