iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 13h

This is so funny because my guy Balthasar hates Prometheus. (Borrowed from Nietzsche!) So let’s call Elon Musk “Promethean.” Sure. Let’s go for it. It means, for Balthasar anyway, that he wants to take divinity for himself. And has Hegel energy.

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A Bean @thetoughestbean.bsky.social · 17h

Me, nodding: “werewolves are about public speaking”

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 18h

Also. "Blood libel" (the horrendous antisemitic rumor) is not "any blood draining thing."

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 19h

I've had a lot to learn in my new department role, being in charge of undergrad things, and by far the most time-consuming and frustrating has been learning and fixing the various Microsoft tools the university gives us. Spent 30 mins trying to figure out a calendar time zone problem. fml.

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Mark @markstacky.bsky.social · 20h

There was arguably a bit of republican (*small* r) sentiment involved at the time too. Ruthven, Carmilla, Dracula, all were aristocrats and literal parasites. The almost exception, Varney, was still a peer (who maybe allied with Cromwell - it's confusing). But he was kinda written for the masses.

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 20h

So much public Catholic punditry is "isn't it great and special to be Catholic?" and "isn't it great and special to be a REAL and GOOD Catholic (unlike SOME PEOPLE)?" Which is so dumb.

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Curiousboy 🏳️‍🌈 @boycuriousboy.bsky.social · 21h

Added to this is the fear of the outsider: in a Victorian society that emphasized blood and cultural purity, Dracula embodied the fear of the foreigner infiltrating society, and high society in particular, to corrupt it by "corrupting" its women.

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Curiousboy 🏳️‍🌈 @boycuriousboy.bsky.social · 21h

In fact, the anxiety surrounding Dracula stems primarily from the duality between the old and the modern: essentially, Victorian England viewed itself as the pinnacle of human civilization? the very model of modernity. Dracula, then, represents a threat from the past that imperils modernity.

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 21h

Monsters in literary studies are super interesting; those scholars argue that the monster is basically never "always" almost most anything. It's just whatever speaks to an anxiety in a place and time. Anxieties vary widely.

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Simon Knott @simonknott.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

St Francis reads a sermon to birds who flock to a tree to listen. A wallpainting at Wissington, Suffolk. Today's the 800th anniversary of the death of St Francis in 1226. The Wissington paintings are dated c1280, so it's just possible the artist was alive in the saint's lifetime.

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Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 02/10/2026

Scoop: At a secret meeting this summer, an aide to Stephen Miller laid out Trump administration's plan to make it easier for states to round up and institutionalize mentally ill homeless people — by pushing a drastic policy change that would weaken the rights of millions of disabled Americans.

nbcnews.com

How Trump’s homelessness crackdown became a sweeping retreat from disability rights

After issuing a memo making it easier to institutionalize homeless people, the Justice Department began abandoning cases protecting disabled people’s right to live in the community.

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

ALL my cardinals will be named Rosalia!!

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

How badly do I want to play Crusader Kings 3 again. Can I be the pope if I get the DLC that I don’t have. These are my questions.

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Joseph Flipper @vol3-cycling.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

All these high priests of AI are trying to make an alliance between tech and spiritual power…. Didn’t Auguste Comte try to get audience with Jesuit superior general? The Jesuits let him in because they thought he was somebody else, but then kicked him out…

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

It's also hilarious. Like, you have to have now idea about theology, theological traditions, or the pope to think this will work.

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

You can’t get loans if you don’t choose a career organized around earning money is… very, very stupid. And discriminatory? How does this guidance even stay in place without litigation? Real question; sarcastic responses not requested.

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Charles, OFM Cap. @frcharles.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

"Factus eram ipse mihi magna quaestio." ~ Augustine, Confessions 4.4.9

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

One of my absolute favorite essays by Hans Urs von Balthasar. Just does not really go where you'd guess, even if it ends up with a theme you could recognize the rest of his work.

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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I wrote about the Trump administration attempting to deport an anti-Zionist Hasidic Jew to Israel, and what it says about the conditions of Jewish identity imposed by the administration's "anti-antisemitism" campaign. religiondispatches.org/2026/10/01/t...

religiondispatches.org

Trump Admin Trying to Deport Anti-Zionist Hasidic Jew “Home” to Israel

The Trump administration is trying to deport Yehonatan Ovadia, a Satmar Hasidic religious teacher in Rockland County, New York. His alleged offense: taking part in a 2023 protest against an Israeli fl...

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Roger Parloff @rparloff.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Hearn's case presents "exceptional" circumstances. He "faces the unique possibility that the govt will revive this case—one that it has already announced to be meritless—based on political pressure brought by the President of the United States on his subordinate officers."

While all defendants deal with
some degree of uncertainty regarding the odds of re-prosecution after a case has been
dismissed, Mr. Hearn faces the unique possibility that the government will revive this case - one that it has already announced to be meritless - based on political pressure
brought by the President of the United States upon his subordinate officers.

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Muted the thread, as TX politics and trans rights are somewhere way above my pay grade. I just wanted to talk about Christianity. (cries theology tears)

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

If I were in charge of Communio (German edition), I'm not sure this is the theme I'd pick from Balthasar right this second, given -- well, Germany.Don't get me wrong, it's a fun theme! Very interesting! God knows I enjoy hating liberal theologians myself! But prudence is the queen of the virtues.

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Anthony Oliveira @meakoopa.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

oh sorry you don’t like STAR TREK?? just bc most of it is bad??? grow up

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I don’t understand this reduction of a candidate to one issue. A Democrat in a powerful position in Texas really matters! In lots of ways!

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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

abolish the death penalty

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Kevin J. Jones @kevinjjones.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Sheen’s impact is like that of Francis de Sales, whose reach was boosted by new technology like the printing press. De sales was canonized only 40 years after his death.

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I said two faces, first of all. And there are Christian trans people. They’re real Christians.

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BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

righteous among the nations

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

As I keep saying: in America, we’re seeing the two faces of Christianity simultaneously. The wrecked creature of cruel power; the dynamic structure of genuine compassion.

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

This thread is really great. Reposting partly to make a note to finish it.

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𝔻𝕒𝕟 🏈🍻💀 @danmynrd.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Bruce Wayne: Rockerfeller Republican. Think local, act local. Clark Kent: Old School Great Society Dem. you kids smoke your jazz cigarettes, but only at home. Diana Prince: Monarchist third wave feminism. Barry Allen: Nixonite, hardline anti-drugs, woke on interracial relationships (for barry allen)

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Finally put away a bunch of books. Had to make room for new books that make sense, research-wise: dawn of the Catholic 20th century type stuff. But also... an unreasonable amount of medieval stuff. Lots of it was free and apparently I can't resist a free book about the Middle Ages.

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Curiousboy 🏳️‍🌈 @boycuriousboy.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

That is why I have always said that the Antichrist of the Apocalypse is coming; the policies he promises will not be a progressive-"woke"-communist-secularist agenda, but a reactionary and fascist one, garnering the support of the most conservative, dogmatic Christians by subtly twisting the Gospel.

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Br. Gregory Morris, O.S.B @meinradmonk87.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Even so, it sounds like a hyper fixation rather than a possible resonace or topological reading. Don't get me wrong, we should read the signs of the times, but it's a constellation of things rather than a singular cosmic meteor.

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

It just seems to me that TD4 better fits a critique of AI, a description of state surveillance, and concern about an absolutized state. “The complete Antichrist, endowed with total power, as the No to Christ’s total powerlessness” (TD 4, 457).

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I know that all scholars kind of have intellectual frameworks that we don’t revise. (I’m always whining about historical science like it’s 1925.) But this seems to be genuinely unhelpful to address our present “modernity” and also seems like a thing you could write in 1997.

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Ah man. Such a bummer to read a long, meandering, but interesting essay on Balthasar’s apocalyptic thought and the modern world… whose primary example of “modernity” isn’t a concept recalibrated to our actual present but an unrevised “it’s gay licentiousness.” Which I don’t remember from Theo-Drama.

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

My favorite frivolous Vatican drama in the past decade was that one time Pope Francis wanted Cardinal Burke to go away because he’s annoying, so Francis put him in charge of the Knights of Malta, who don’t matter. It was HILARIOUS.

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Today I got to be a character in the parable of the Good Samaritan. One of the ones who passes by. Then I received the gift of turning around, seeing the true Good Samaritan — today, taking the shape of a bro wearing stupid sunglasses and huge headphones, showing me how I ought to be.

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Bobby Kogan @bbkogan.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Amazing stuff here

America.gov

Menu

Conversation with America
Response ready. Sources are available. Use “Skip to latest response” to read it.
Is it accurate to say that the Big Beautiful Bill on average made the poorest people in America even poorer and the richest people in America even richer, when looking at total household resources? One word answer only, please.

Yes

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

It's the Internet so I can't tell if they're serious.

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

(Bishop Barron voice) Friends, this exactly what godless communists like Pamela Isley want to do to us all.

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

This is extra funny because right now in comics Poison Ivy is mayor of Gotham and it’s going horribly. I’m imagining people with this argument voted for her. It’s very fun.

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Who do we want to win the baseball playoffs? I think my answer is “not the Dodgers.” But I kinda want the Brewers to win? Is that too hopeful? Have I betrayed Chicago? I don’t care if I’ve betrayed STL; Cardinals fans have been nothing but mean to me about baseball.

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Rodger Sherman @rodger.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Anime villains:

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

True, true. And also: Jesus doesn't make exceptions. (is arrested)

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