iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Why didn't anyone tell me that my new glasses contract my face? "Liam, you look great! Have you lost weight?" "Sure did! Got a new pair of glasses and dropped two inches off my face, just like that!" My glasses are out here bending light, space, and time itself. 😭

130

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Mine are too, but it's because I ate my childhood 😔

010

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I don't know which is denser: "The Marx-Engels Reader", "The Making of the English Working Class", or me. But I do know that Ms. Anita Ward was getting her bell rung back in '79, and honestly, slay ma'am.

000

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

If anyone is wondering what the first semester of a PhD program looks like, it's dancing to disco divas in your bathrobe the day after melting your brain with Marx and EP Thompson.

100

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I'm delighted to announce that I've been invited to submit a paper for a conference next year. (Sure, every member of the organization was invited to submit via an email blast, but I was invited too, so it counts 💅🏻)

010

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I spent this summer going through a forgotten box at a uni archive. Insofar as the archivists knew, I was one of two researchers to ever request those materials that contained an untold story. But what to title it? Well, folx, it came to me in a dream last night! Feels like a right of passage.

020

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Thank you! I am not, though we're briefly staying in Dorchester while we settle into things. I'm at Boston College, representing American Studies in the History department :)

120

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Just moved to Boston on the 10th for my PhD program, and driving here is such an odd experience. Everyone is doing their best and seemingly rather patient as we all navigate this hellscape of roads, but woe-be-unto those at the helm of a green light! And that Columbia rotary scares me to pieces 😵‍💫

130

Reposted by Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈

MapQuest @mapquest.com · 27/08/2026

We're not changing the name of Lake Ontario. Name it whatever you want at your leisure: gulfof.mapquest.com/lakeontario (tag us so we can see your work 🙂)

982101622399

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Why are we collectively surprised that Graham's sister won the Republican primary for US Senate, when "why isn't Joe Biden on my ballot?" — the biggest news of Summer '24 — was one of the top Google searches on election day?

000

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Another coffee thought, data centers: the use of zoning laws and admins to circumvent the electorate is not only an egregious violation of public administration, but is likewise yet another use of zoning to enact the whims of the wealthy. Zoning was the successful frontier for encoding inequality.

010

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

There are very real ecological and sociological implications of data centers. The resources necessary, the pollution, the placement (and displacement), the burdens to infrastructure...the list goes on. Hating tech bros for shoving it down our throats is there too, though.

001

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

...we know that wine had to be watered down due to cultural preferences and ancient fermentation practices. We know there was a connotation for drinking undiluted wine, too. Perhaps 'oinops pontos' is actually derived from this practice? The undiluted strength and fury of the sea? #classics

000

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Random coffee thought: what if 'wine -dark sea' (οΐνοψς πόντος) is a reference to a concentration of the sea's fury? Casey was just washing a glass of red wine from last night, and the added water turns the dark red remnants to a shade of blue that definitely made me think of the ocean. Further...

100

Reposted by Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 18/08/2026

Ossoff on why he invoked Natalie Harp during his speech: "We're in wartime. The commander in chief has mired us in this geopolitical disaster. People have lost their lives ... and he retreats into this bubble of West Wing aides who are his security blanket to make him feel good about himself"

409159543940

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Hear me out: The Odyssey but with the Titanic soundtrack.

000

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Ha! While bees are shipped across America all the time, the new family was local and picked them up :)

110

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Rehomed the bee swarm we captured back in April. Sent them on to a young family that recently lost a hive — what could be better? I always wanted to be a beekeeper since I was a small child, and I got to be one here in the City of St. Louis. I didn't think rehoming them would be so emotional! 🐝🧳😭

391

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Net some colleagues at a bar/grill this evening, and I commented on how they must've put on the Millennial playlist for us. It was part of an early-2000s classics list.

static.klipy.com

Hide The Pain Harold Harold

ALT: Hide The Pain Harold Harold

000

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Republicans passed the 22nd Amendment, which limits Presidents to two terms (in observation of the Washington tradition, which was actually Washington's nod to Roman Dictator Cincinnatus, but I digress) in reaction to FDR's election to four-terms. Republicans cheating democracy isn't new.

001

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

I got new glasses in a new style and it elicited both a haphazard lip bit and, apparently, duck lips. Needless to say I felt cute, I love the new glasses, I'm definitely getting back to my pre-politics fitness, and I'm okay making silly faces as I relearn being comfortable in my own skin. #mcm

050

Reposted by Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈

fravery.bsky.social @fravery.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

by David Hockney

826574735

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

This happens in at least one of the Congressional chambers nearly every legislative session. The only way that this is even worthy of a headline at this point, is if the Senate likewise passes it and it actually goes into law. Please correct if wrong, but this is a USDA Grade A nothingburger.

010

Reposted by Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈

Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 11/07/2026

Suddenly, all the sanewashing of Trump and breathless coverage of Biden's age and Hillary's emails doesn't seem like it was a good idea.

551830328

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Fondly remembering the time that I helped a young man with something trivial and he thanked me, paused, and timidly wished me a Happy Father's Day. Happy Father's Day to those dads out there, both known and undetermined!

030

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

This is exactly why your local and state governments have Requests for Proposals, third-party studies, conflicts of interest, etc. The Trump Administration — and more broadly, the Republican party — are contemporary examples of why Public Administration and anti-cronyism measures exist.

020

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

It's such a hard lesson!! It's freeing in many ways, but it's certainly made room for even more second-guessing of oneself and one's arguments. At least I understand the feeling of not knowing anything at all, save for what amounts to bits of tat I've collected over the years.

000

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

I intend to return to politics after my doctorate so I have to exercise some restraint here on Al Gore's Internet, but I can flash a humble bicep for #Pride, right? 🏳️‍🌈

040

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Me, watching all of the cool fit gay guys posting their sexy and youthful 'Happy Pride' posts while I read Tebbits' Philosophy of Law in an old bath robe, all curmudgeon-like. Happy Pride!

020

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

I also had to chuckle at the 'fewer turns' — just have to make this sharp ~90° turn right over there!

010

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

I think it was my pretending that the kids from The Sound of Music had cockney accents, unfortunately 😂

020

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

"I realized that I'd never thought about British geography." -My husband, B.S. in Geography, to me, at showtunes Sunday, as he peruses a map of Britain and not the veritable cornucopia of showtunes.

120

Reposted by Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈

The Onion @theonion.com · 22/05/2026

ST. LOUIS—Apologizing to all customers who had received a defective product, pet food giant Fancy Feast issued a massive recall Friday for 1 million cans of food that cats just kind of stared at before wandering away.

373040373

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

We're halfway through this, the year of our lord 2026, where LLMs can generate entire music albums within minutes, and trying to use my godforsaken printer is still an infuriating and damaging experience. Make it make sense, Brother printer company.

030

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Pleased to announce that I was just awarded a year-long fellowship for the study of constitutional democracy. Alexa, you know what to play:

030

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Not bad for 33, eh? Happy birthday to me — I've finally hit a billion-ish seconds! Now to figure out what to do with the next billion. So far it includes antacids, preventative stretching, and the initial exchanges in the battle for my hairline. :D!

050

Reposted by Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈

Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Things suck. But, the second civil rights movement is going to be fought with a much larger porportion of the population in support of it, and with a citizenry that thinks nostalgically about the relative prosperity and strength of the United States during its era as a multicultural democracy.

342640556

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Next week is my 33rd birthday and all I want is for my country to calm the fuck down.

020

Reposted by Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈

George Wallace @mrgeorgewallace.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Just makin' it clear for your asses. Erasing the voices of black and brown people is not "agree to disagree" territory.

244084962

Reposted by Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈

David Roberts @volts.wtf · 29/04/2026

Men will say "honor us or else we'll engage in a bunch of stupid brutal violence" and then do the stupid brutal violence regardless.

202666228

Reposted by Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈

"Scream Man" Cam @malaiseforever.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

my favorite part of people telling us not to eat ultra processed foods is that it always stops there. no suggestions for how to make this a systemic change, no effort to limit availability of ultra processed foods. it's just "you know the food that's everywhere and affordable? stay away from it."

2112712438

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

That horrifying moment you tell the cat to stop messing with the blinds behind you, except that the cat is sitting next to you and also wondering what the hell that was.

media.tenor.com

a black cat is laying down on a bed and looking at the camera .

ALT: a black cat is laying down on a bed and looking at the camera .

020

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

A fun little fact about me: I had anemophobia — a fear of strong winds — as a child. It could be an absolutely cloudless day but if trees were whipping around, I'd be inconsolable if I had to go outside. So, anyway, I'm probably taking an edible and posting up in the basement today. GLHF y'all!

020

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

The absurdity of this Hot Rotisserie Chicken Act is beyond parody or satire. 100 of the most influential Americans working diligently to determine whether or not our poorest deserve to buy a hot chicken. Just insulting. Put the US Senate on SNAP for one month and see how quickly it's reformed.

030

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

A month or so into my tenure as Alderman, Ray invited me onto his radio show for an interview. An incredibly nice guy and gracious interviewer — he put you at ease. Hartmann certainly left an indelible mark on St. Louis. A tragic loss for our region, to say the least. STTL, Ray!

063

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

My pleasure! Listening to the Keen on America interview now, since I had to step away from your book for a moment. Appreciate your work!

020

Liam Z. Stephens 🏳️‍🌈 @bstingstl.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

I started Dr. Schrader's latest book 'Blue Power' this morning. The introduction alone should be required reading — for students who study Postwar America, policymakers at all levels of government, and citizens who give a damn about our modern political hellscape.

131